Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang the forgotten Bond film?

Dry martinis, bikini-clad girls and post-war espionage seem oceans away from Me Ol’ Bamboo, Caractacus Potts and the child catcher. But if we peer past the Richard M. and Richard B. Sherman songs, and the perky choreography, can the case be made that Dick Van Dyke was 007?

Ian Fleming wrote his children’s story during a late sequence of Bond novels – On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1963), You Only Live Twice (1964), Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car (1965), The Man With the Golden Gun (1965) and Octopussy (1966) – before he died in 1966. Cubby Broccoli and Harry Sultzman purchased the rights to Fleming’s literary works in 1961 and set up Eon Productions to make the films. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was filmed in 1967 by the same Bond team from Eon at Pinewood Studies and released through United Artists. It was given the full Bond treatment: the director Ken Hughes had directed Casino Royal; the screenwriter Roald Dahl had written the script for You Only Live Twice; Ken Adams the designer of the car Chitty, was the designer of Dr No’s headquarters; Vic Armstorng was the stuntman for both Sean Connery and Dick Van Dyke; Richard Maibaum developed the script (after Dahl) as he was to do for a dozen Bond films.