21 AUGUST 2023
JBC rating: ****
James Bond Connections (4):
- Featuring Joseph Furst (Professor Doctor Metz in Diamonds Are Forever) as Dr Andros.
- Featuring George Pastell (Train conductor in From Russia with Love) as Prinos.
- Featuring Paul Stassino (Palazzi in Thunderball) as Alkis.
- Production Designer Syd Cain (From Russia with Love, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service & Live and Let Die).
Set in British ruled Cyprus in 1957, the UK produced colonial spy thriller The High Bright Sun follows Dirk Bogarde as Major McGuire, an English intelligence official wooing Susan Strasbourg’s American heroine Juno Kozani in the hope she will aid him in his fight against Greek rebels. Aside from numerous James Bond connections in the cast and crew credits, the film remains highly relevant for 007 fans due to its end of empire setting. Ian Fleming’s anxieties regarding the loss of the British empire feature strongly in his novels, reaching a crescendo with You Only Live Twice (1964). Indeed, the very creation of his famous secret agent can be viewed as a reaction to the UK’s loss of status in the real world, with espionage depicted as a way to reassert influence. Whilst Dr No (1962) shows the British operating in a relatively peaceful colony (ironically in the same year Jamaica gained independence), The High Bright Sun provides Bond fans with the chance to see British intelligence operating during a far more complicated end to British colonial rule.
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