This was a fantastic deep dive into the literary James Bond! Very well done. I appreciate how you include 1950s Calypso. When people think of Bond they usually immediately picture him in the 1960s but most of Bond's literary adventures took place in the 1950s. That's why I've always appreciated the movies Dr No and From Russia with Love. They really captured the 1950s feel.
Excellent , I once owned a pre-war PPK and it was a great little auto. I bought it because I was a fan of the Bond books. Sadly I traded it many years ago .
Outstanding! I’ve been in love with this particular hunk of metal ever since I was a child and think it’s such an elegant design that if I were to ever use a pistol it would undoubtedly be this one. (Of course I’d want to try a .25 Beretta on a range just to finally have done so!) This is another beautifully done piece about the legendary ppk and it is good to point out that the literary character never took to it the way he had the Beretta. After this very little attention is paid to weapons usually in the continuation novels. In the Gardner tenure it started well with 007 looking for a ppk replacement and trying several choices before settling on what is certainly the last signature weapon of literary Bond, the ASP with Glaser ammunition.
I wish that James had been allowed to keep the 418 Beretta. If only as a backup. It's certainly no slouch. Perhaps best left as a deep concealment gun or weapon of last resort, but I've always found great appeal in the fact that he could use a less than ideal weapon to such great effect.
The Walther you featured in your video as the gun used by James Bond is a WW2 era production which has what is commonly referred to as a 'bull nose'. The one that would have probably been given to Bond is a 1960's production PPK-S which has a much smoother contour on the front of the slide. The gun given to Bond in the movie 'Dr. No' was actually not a PPK at all, but rather the longer barreled version known as the Walther PP. The gun Bond surrenders was not a Beretta 418 either, but rather a Beretta 1934 which funnily enough, shoots a larger caliber than the .32 ACP version Bond is given. To be fair though, the gun Bond uses was always meant to be the PPK, even if it is represented by a different gun at some points of the film. There is a scene in Dr. No when Bond is using a suppressed Browning 1910 instead, and the assassin is using a Colt 1911A1 when he is supposed to be using a S&W Revolver. I guess this means no specific gun can be said to be the definitive 'Bond gun', but imo the PPK-S is the best candidate.
Ian Fleming was no stranger to the weapons carried by secret agents. James Bond's weapon of choice was the .25 Bereta and his choice to conceal it was the chamois leather shoulder holster. Boothroyd wanted James Bond armed like Dirty Harry but Bond was an undercover agent who required a light-weight weapon to work in close and NOT a hand canon. Bond should have stuck to his gun.
@@christophercole7270 I never handled the .25 Beretta, but I used to own a .22 Series 70 of which I was very fond. It sported what was then the smallest marketed Red Dot sight, made by Ring Sights Defence Group. My personal best was 16 out of 20 on a playing card at 25 yards. I also had the privilege of knowing the late Geoffrey Boothroyd, who was, as you you imagine, a fund of amazing tales. Sitting in his study, I felt like Mole in Wind in the Willows, when he visited Badger. Happy days indeed.
.25 is a ridiculous caliber for a secret agent to use. It's what was typically known as a 'vest-pocket' gun because it's what people in the early 1900's would conceal in their vest when gambling or when going for a leisurely stroll in the odd hours of the night. A .25 can definitely be lethal, but it's primary intention was to stop and debilitate potential attackers, not take out targets. There are many cases of people surviving being shot multiple times with the .25 auto, and it simply wouldn't be reliable enough for any agent to use as his primary weapon. If CIA or MI6 did use these guns, it was in order to conceal them in something like a detachable sole of a shoe. This could be useful when avoiding detection in high-security areas, but that puts it in the same category as a pen gun. If we're being completely honest, .32 ACP is a bit anemic of a round as well, but it was the standard for police forces from the 20's to the 60's.
The Beretta .25 was what JB used because it is what Fleming himself carried as an intelligence officer nowhere near the front lines of WWII. The PPK in 7.65 would have been a better choice than the Smith in late 50’s European espionage because they were available to both the Soviet bloc as well as American and NATO operatives as war reparations. They had been carried by the Wehrmacht and SS around the globe during WWII thus would not immediately label the bearer a western operative as the .38 might. .380 PPK’s at the time would have been a giveaway as well since the vast majority of wartime PPK’s were chambered in 7.65mm.
