La Vie secrète de Ian Fleming

Fiction grounded in fact best describes this film. While they got the basics right, most of it is fantasy. The film focuses on young Ian Fleming's life, from his time as a Reuters' co-respondent in Moscow in the early 1930's to his genuine wartime position as the Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence, Admiral Sir John Godfrey.

There are plenty of Bondian references, some easy to spot, and some apparent only to the true fanatic. Jason Connery does a good job on an entertaining and amusing film, but the ending is too melodramatic for my liking.

I found The Secret Life of Ian Fleming more entertaining than any James Bond film that I have ever seen, though I will readily admit that I am not a fan of the series or the genre. The obviously low-budget nature of the film contributed towards an emphasis on story (though obviously a somewhat exaggerated one), rather than on gimmickry and gadgetry. You felt that even though the story undoubtedly didn't happen as it appeared on screen, that it COULD have happened like that - the bounds of credibility weren't stretched too far. Jason Connery showed that although he doubtless got the part because of his name, he was quite capable of playing it well. Kristin Scott Thomas, in an early role, is as usual outstanding (not to mention breathtakingly lovely) - there is ample evidence of the skill that has made her the pre-eminent actress of her generation. Throw in a good supporting cast with the likes of Patricia Hodge, Joss Ackland (one again doing malevolence to a tee), David Warner and Colin Welland, and you have an entertaining hour and a half to pass the time with.

The impact of James Bond, 007, on 20th century popular culture is such that we deserve to know something of his creator. The details of the character and the situations into which he is thrust suggest that it would be beyond anyone's imagination to conjure up in a vacuum. Clearly Bond must have been based on a model, and this film leaves us in doubt that Fleming's own life forms at least part of the myth.

The film is of course a hokey collection of picaresque adventures that strain the credulity of the 90's viewer (unlike the 60's spectator who was only too ready to accept the then-novel portrayal of romance and derring-do of our nations' finest), but it is strangely satisfying in at least giving us some insight into the shadowy world of the spy and his typical background.

The choice of Jason Connery as the eponymous hero was certainly an exercise in the bleeding obvious, and transparently the casting decision of a cynical producer seeking a large audience of the curious; but Connery was arguably the perfect actor for the role. No doubt his looks owe more to the young Bond than the young Fleming, but he makes a plausible philandering wastrel from the British upper classes, the victim of a well-connected domineering mother struggling to find something useful for him to do that might engage his attention long enough for him to become respectable and self-sufficient. Unlike so many of that breed whose very existence repulses the less favoured, his larrikin spirit is engaging and sympathetic and we cannot help ourselves from wishing him well.

A good supporting cast, with Patricia Hodge as his mother and Kristin Scott-Thomas as Leda St Gabriel, the initially cool and eventually hot colleague and love interest help to suspend the disbelief - and there are OK performances by David Warner as his boss, presumably the model for 'M'; and Julian Firth's college chum Quincey leaves us in no doubt that he was the basis for the eccentric inventor 'Q' of the Bond films.

If there is a grain of truth in the events portrayed we have an insight into the genesis of the 007 phenomenon, and while we are spared the interminable periods of inactivity and boredom that probably are the lot of the average 'spy', we have a sense of the influences that make it possible for some to dare to take on the enemy alone.

If one was to watch this film just as one might watch a comedy or some other form of light entertainment, then the taut adrenaline fuelled excitement it prompts will have been lost.

That this film may contain false dramatization I know not, but one thing is certain, when fact or fiction in a film become so closely entwined with a result that causes the viewers heart to thump, their stomach to tighten and their eyes and minds to be so magnetized to the screen, then I feel nothing but praise can be heaped upon the geniuses who create and produce such works.

That I knew the film was based on fact made it all the more riveting for me to watch, to think that such people really do exist, people who's lives are drawn to acts of courage and reckless abandon, people who live for danger and revel in dicing with death. I also found that hearing the phrases and seeing the habits of Ian Fleming in the film made me smile as I recalled the James Bond films in which they were used.

When I saw this film it was not just the craft that went into it which impressed me, but more the thoughts it conjured up about those things happening in real life. I'm sure that as with times past, both the present and the future will produce characters which will become food for eagerly waiting writers, personally I can't get enough of them.