A view of A View to a Kill
Last year saw the 40th anniversary of everyone’s favourite James Bond film, A View to a Kill. It’s got everything - an aging Roger Moore replaced by stunt doubles for 90% of the film, a Bond girl whose shrieks of “Jaaames” reach frequencies only dogs can hear, and a Christmas-toy of a Q gadget that only serves to perv on people in the shower.
And yet, I absolutely love it.
Back when I was re-watching all the films and ranking them with Tom, A View to a Kill sat firmly in my top ten. Far better than all those much-hated entries such as Goldfinger, Goldeneye and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Despite its numerous problems, even its biggest critics must agree that it has a huge amount of charm. And nowhere is that more apparent than in my favourite section of the film where Bond- sorry, St. John Smythe, visits Zorin’s stables. Sir Rog is paired with Patrick McNee as his suffering chauffeur-in-disguise Sir Godfrey Tibbett, a duo that I honestly could have watched for the entirety of the film. It’s a chunky portion of running length - about 30 minutes of Bond and Tibbett investigating the grounds and meeting the likes of Scarpine, Dr. Karl Mortner, Mayday, Stacey Sutton and of course Max Zorin himself. There’s a couple of doddery action scenes along the way of course, but what stands out most is the backdrop to it all - Château de Chantilly.
Between the stables, garden party, grand Renaissance rooms and racetrack, Château de Chantilly provides a unique and beautiful setting in A View to a Kill. Back in July last year, a video popped up on my YouTube home page about an event called ‘Operation Pegasus’. It was a reunion and celebration of A View to a Kill’s 40th anniversary back at the château, with guests including Alison Doody who played Jenny Flex (of course you are) and director John Glen. I would have loved to go but sadly I’d sadly missed my chance with it taking place the month prior. As well as some Q&As and speeches, the vlog showed off some side-by-side recreations of the filming locations around the grounds, and that sparked my curiosity…where exactly is Château de Chantilly?
If you’ve read a previous blog post, you’ll know that whenever I travel I always do a cheeky search to check if there are any Bond film locations to visit nearby and photograph. The great news was that Chantilly is only about 25 minutes away from Paris, easily accessible by train from Gare du Nord. And there I was thinking it would be sat smack bang in the middle of nowhere, mon dieu! Immediately I wanted to start planning the trip - give it a couple weeks and I’d be there at the château, slurping on some Chantilly cream in the sun and doing my best eyebrow raise. Ahh, if only life were that simple. No, thanks to a combination of limited holiday from work and crazy expensive Eurostar prices that didn’t end up happening last year. As much as I wanted to do my own 40th anniversary trip, the stars weren’t aligning.
But then they did in May this year so that’s what this blog post is about, hooray.
We took this as an opportunity to spend a few days in Paris. I’d visited a couple of times before and though I mostly enjoyed myself, there was always an aspect of Paris that didn’t click with me. Famously there’s a whole syndrome named after it but between the bad weather, cheap hotels and lack of a plan, I felt like I hadn’t given Paris a fair shot. This was my third and final (ok maybe not) chance to truly love Paris and create some meaningful memories. And the fact this one had a whole day dedicated to visiting a Bond location gave it some pretty good odds.
We’d pre-booked a combo ticket which included entry into the château as well as a return SNCF train ticket to the nearest station, Chantilly-Gouvieux. It was a quick journey and I do love the double decker trains they have in France and much of Europe. From the train station I think there was a shuttle bus we could have taken straight to the grounds, but it was a sunny day and only a 30 minute walk so we decided to trek it on foot. It’s a lovely walk too, through some woods and then alongside the horse racetrack. As we reached the track, I saw a grandstand in the distance and wondered if I’d got my first glimpse of a location from the film. Sure enough, that’s the setting for Zorin and Gogol’s squabble, also featuring a cameo from Dolph Lundgren who was dating Grace Jones at the time. We didn’t go in it, but did manage to get a clearer photo later on in the day.
After a quick coffee and croissant break in town we carried on walking, and although we didn’t enter on the same road Bond and Tibbett did, the reveal of the château was just as impressive. We came down the road you see as Scarpine gestures Bond towards the Great Stables and with the château basking in the French sun, I stopped off in front of the moat for a pic before heading inside.
I’ll stick to the order we saw things rather than chronologically in the film so after heading through the gates and picking up our entry tickets, we walked up to the main entrance.
Foolishly I forgot to take a photo through where Bond meets Jenny Flex but you can see the other side of it in my photo. In the background you can see the balcony where Bond and Tibbett stand to watch Stacey Sutton arrive via helicopter.
The château itself holds a chapel and assortment of opulent rooms that served the Princes of Bourbon-Condé during the 18th Century. One of those princes being Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon - the guy who thought he’d be reincarnated as a horse, and so commissioned the Great Stables to be built. It was only a few moments after entering the château I spotted my first familiar location. Left of the reception hall, heading towards the chapel is where Bond and Jenny Flex continue their introduction up the beautifully curved stairway, featuring the less-beautiful innuendo “I’m an early riser myself”.
There’s also a mighty impressive art gallery within the château called Musée Condé. It’s one of those places where there are just so many portraits and paintings and sculptures and antiques that you quickly become numb to it all. Or at least I did, my ignorant mind was more focused on finding the entrance to the balcony where Bond and Tibbett stood…which I did! Of course it was shut off to actually walk out onto, but geographically it all lines up as to where the two look watching Stacey arrive. Wonderful artwork surrounded me and yet I was paying attention to a mesh-covered set of doors.
We worked our way back down to the ground floor and found an exit through the gift shop. I was in search of my usual postcard and/or magnet purchase to decorate our increasingly messy fridge with but I found something even better. From across the room I could see Sir Roger’s airbrushed face staring back at me. It was an issue #59 of Le Bond - the regular publication from the James Bond France Club - themed especially on A View to a Kill. I wasn’t sure whether there would be any reference to Bond at the Château so this was lovely to see. And of course I nabbed a copy. Now if only I’d paid more attention to French at school…
As we went to leave the gift shop, I realised we’d stumbled across another location from the film. The doorway leading outside, and the door to its right, feature as Zorin takes Stacey into his office to write a cheque. And later where Bond sneaks in to create a copy of it. I did a terrible job taking a photo of this area - mainly because I had to rush due to a bus-load of old folks pouring in through the door - but you can just about make out where it lines up.
It looked as though the sun might soon vanish behind some clouds so we moved outside to make the most of the weather. I walked around the building to get a more accurate angle of the bridge that Bond runs across as he races back from sleuthing with Tibbett. After finding the main gate locked, he zips around and jumps up to a retracting drawbridge. It’s definitely Roger Moore doing that by the way, how dare you think otherwise.
The grounds of the château are absolutely humongous and there was no way we would be able to see everything in just a few hours. Thankfully the Bond-related parts are close to the main building so we headed northwards to explore the flowerbeds and ponds. To get there you go down some stairs and I immediately recognised this spot from the film. With a gentle whip to the backside, Bond disrupts Tibbett as he’s washing the car and instructs him to get in touch with M about Zorin’s cheque. Poor Tibbett really does get the short end of the stick in this mission, and it’s only about to get worse for him…
Following the moat around the château, we reached a small bridge led into a quaint ornamental garden. It was immediately recognisable as the location for Zorin’s garden party, where Bond dons the most hideous sunglasses imaginable and snaps some mugshots on his ring camera. Oh, and then immediately drops himself in it by winding Zorin up with some fly fishing jokes. He’s not a very good secret agent is he?
Being the saddo I am, I even recognised the set of stairs used in a promotional photo, that’s right not even the film itself! So here I am sitting on my own and not arm-in-arm with Tanya Roberts and Grace Jones.
And here I am on the bridge, without any of the fancy garden party embellishments or champagne sadly.
It was at this point we were in dire need of a pick me up. After a long day travelling and walking around, it only seemed fair we guzzled down some delicious chantilly cream. And although this isn’t Bond related, I just have to share what we ate because it was magnifique. There’s a little set of cottages further out in the grounds, and one of them is Le Hameau restaurant. We sat outside with a couple of espresso and a mound of red berries, sorbet and cream dolloped on top. Suffice to say it hit the spot.
There was one more location to visit before heading back into Paris, and that was the Great Stables themselves. It truly is a remarkable building, certainly fit for a reincarnated horse prince. After entering, you first walk past some actual horses in their stalls chomping away on some straw or farting, or both at the same time. They all had signs in front telling you their name, breed and biography. I wish I could remember this handsome fellow’s name but let’s just pretend it was Pegasus.
Further into the stables there’s a surprisingly large and detailed museum covering the history of horses and their part in human history. It exits onto a courtyard where you then enter the grand dome. Today it’s the location for equestrian shows and performances but in A View to a Kill, it’s where the horse auction takes place that Scarpine takes Bond to.
And continuing through the archways, you eventually reach the far wing of the stables where Bond and Scarpine walk down, now featuring 100% less mannequins.
By this point it was reaching 6pm and we decided it was time to head back - dinner and a hefty carafe of red wine were calling. It had been an absolutely fantastic day exploring the château, and another bucket-list Bond location ticked off my list (hmm, I don’t actually have a list but I really should.) But wait, there was one more surprise in store as we trekked back to Chantilly-Gouvieux train station! We walked back a different route compared to before, this time via the highstreet for a change of scenery. And what a good decision that was since we passed by an innocent looking petrol station. A thought crossed my mind - could it be? Is this the very same spot Sir Godfrey Tibbett met his untimely end in the car wash? Surely not. I hadn’t done any research on this particular spot, but snapped a pic anyway and decided to research it on the train back. And sure enough, it’s the very same petrol station. Which makes sense I guess - it’s not as though the film crew needed something special and this is most likely the closest one to the château. But what luck, eh?
I won’t bore you with any more details from the rest of the trip, but we stayed for a further couple of days and had a wonderful time. Paris was redeemed, helped massively by this visit to Château de Chantilly…which isn’t Paris but we’ll ignore that. Now, I’m off to go watch A View to a Kill for the 29th time.
