Roger Moore Makes An Escape In Belfast
Date: 01/10/2021 08:05
As the 25th James Bond film, No Time To Die, finally gets its release, the age-old question of who was the best James Bond comes around again. We may be a little biased here, but this clip of Roger Moore in Belfast in 1964 proves why he was chosen for the job as he dashes from a mini to a Rolls Royce while never looking anything other than suave.
Roger was in Belfast to open Cavendish's furniture store in Donegall Place. According to the TV Post of 13th February 1964, poor Roger became trapped in the store by adoring fans and only escaped two hours later when the mini we see here pulled up to hurry him away. But that was a trap! Kay Kennedy of the TV Post was in the car with him and reported:
"At a fearful place, we zoomed around the City Hall to Bedford Street where the car sped into the entrance of a funeral parlour!
The Saint (and I) had been kidnapped by students from Queen's University!"
After paying the ransom of a few autographs, we see Roger
finally make his escape from the mini to the official car waiting to take him
to the airport.
At this time, Moore was playing the role of Simon Templar in
the hit TV show The Saint. He stayed in this role until 1969 and became the new
James Bond in 1972.
But Northern Ireland has connections to more than one Bond. In the next clip, Tom Jones is interviewed about his theme song to the latest Bond film, Thunderball. This was in 1965, just as Tom’s career was really taking off. Was he the lost Welsh James Bond?
The other clips include, The Last Horse-Drawn Tram in Ireland and Dalriada and Harbour Rail Tours, both showing a train that features in The Great Train Robbery (1978), a film starring Roger Moore’s predecessor, Sean Connery. The Canberra Sets Sail is about the famous Canberra ocean liner, built in Harland & Wolff, and seen in Diamonds Are Forever (1971). Finally, we have a film of veteran pilot and inventor Ken Wallis, flying his invention, the autogyro at Newtownards Airshow. Wing Commander Wallis flew this machine in You Only Live Twice (1967). The stunts in this film are worthy of any Bond movie although in Autogyro Crash we see that things don't always go according to plan.
Delve into the world of the Digital Film Archive for many more clips showing the glamour of 1960s Belfast.