Ian Fleming: The Life of a Spy. Part 4 - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

It's likely that most people will have heard of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and if they haven't read the original novel, published in 1964, they will probably have seen Ken Hughes' 1968 musical film version (with songs by Richard and Robert Sherman), that has an inventive and amusing screenplay by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes (with additional dialogue by New York born screenwriter Richard Maibaum, who has been responsible for eight Bond screenplays) that starred a wholly implausible Dick Van Dyke as the potty inventor Caractacus Potts, with the younger Lionel Jeffries playing his grandfather proving that the world of the movies is a crazy old place.

Many of those who have read the novel, and seen the film, might also have enjoyed Jeremy Sams' stage adaptation (it opened at the London Palladium in 2002 and is still running), directed by ex-RSC artistic director, Adrian Nobel, that has wowed the critics and audiences alike.

Read the novel now and it soon becomes apparent that Fleming created, in the magical flying car, a kind of automotive James Bond (which is appropriate given Bond's love of cars) who, with the help of Caractacus Potts (undoubtedly 'Q') and Truly Scrumptious (a not untypical Bond girl) they go after big time baddies Joe the Monster, Man-Mountain Frank, and Soapy Sam, who are dead-ringers for Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Hugo Drax, and Auric Goldfinger.

Like the Bond novels Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a tough and simply (deceptively so) written piece of work that, again like the Bonds, and Fleming himself, has many literary and psychological layers.

To Be Continued...