Customer Reviews

Ken Adam Designs the Movies: James Bond and Beyond

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There's a lot to recommend in this book -- including Mr. Adam's work on such projects as the first (unmade) Star Trek film. His ability as a sketch artist is stunning, and lends real insight into his design principles. But this once again is a book kind of in the usual "behind the scenes" vein and not particularly illuminating as far as analysis and the artists's inspiration. Maybe Mr. Adam is a secretive guy and lets his art speak for itself.

This is an amazing volume of Ken Adam's sketches,paintings, and drawings done all for various motion pictures-both made and unmade over his career. Included are some previously unseen concept sketches for all seven of his James Bond outings and some really rarely seen sketches for the first pass at the first STAR TREK movie in 1977. He's got a free-flowing, angular style of working and the energy is all there and you see how this is translated into the film. Especially rare to see are his sketches for DR STRANGELOVE(A gatefold of "The Big Board!") and BARRY LYNDON, both Kubrick films, because Kubrick was notorious for often burning every prop,blueprint and such, or hiding them well, so no one could use them to copy from them. Lots of other good stuff too, like his early work on CURSE OF THE DEMON(1957).

A good book that's not only informative but its a slice of cinema history.

I am enjoying the book up to a point. I am a huge fan of his and of James Bond. It is interesting to see the drawings but I was also expecting to see the fantastic photos of the end results. They are few. The volcano set for "You Only Live Twice" deserves a fold out full color photo for example. It is the biggest set ever created in movie history!! I find the end result dull for a man who was never that because most of the drawings are B&W. Observe the sale price now being offered. Maybe including photos created legal problems?