Venus in Technicolor
Sixty years ago, the first James Bond film, Dr. No” to the cinema. The props from the film set have enthusiastic fans and come under the hammer again and again. But of all people, Ursula Andress’s famous bikini became a slow seller.
“Underneath the mango tree me honey and I can watch for the moon.” A soft singing voice wafts across the sandy beach, while the suntanned sixties dream woman in a white bikini slowly rises out of the Caribbean Sea. She tosses her wet blond hair, examines the two snail shells she just dived for, and stands like foam-born Venus in Technicolor. “Underneath the mango tree me honey and me make boolooloop soon.”
Make boolooloop soon? Of course, someone like James Bond feels addressed right away. Here in Jamaica he will seduce the first Bond girl of his long career. In light blue casual clothes, he steps out of the thicket of plants at the edge of the beach, singing. Honey Ryder is surprised only briefly, then she asks, in a teasingly blonde naïveté, if he’s looking for mussels too. No, he would only look, replies the paragon of charmingly toxic masculinity.
Then one thing leads to another, both have to almost die and first blow up a villain and his island in order to be able to indulge in love at the end. Sean Connery (James) and Ursula Andress (Honey) became the dream couple of the year 1962. The film “Dr. No” was the start of the film series about the secret agent 007, whose identity invented by Ian Fleming is currently once again being adapted to the changed zeitgeist.
The devotional items from the cinema cosmos around James Bond end up under the hammer with great regularity. This also applies to the legendary bikini with the hunting knife on the belt. In February 2001 it turned up at auction at Christie’s in London and sold for around £42,000. In November 2020, when the bikini was to be auctioned off at an auction house in Los Angeles, no buyer was found. Perhaps $300,000 estimate was just too much money for a two-piece that, while it helped Swiss actress Ursula Andress to become world-famous, is just a two-piece with a slightly dated fit without the Andress. Not even the Regensburg motorway service station operator Alexander Ruscheinsky wanted to bid on it at the time. He also runs a “Bikini Art Museum” in Bad Rappenau, where you can see swimwear by Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot.
Burned lots
Bond’s gun sold for £120,000 at Sotheby’s in 2012. It wasn’t even the traditional Walther PPK service pistol that 007 carries from the first film (for which he has to give up his beloved Beretta), but a Walther LP 53. It’s only an air pistol and for someone with a license to kill, totally useless, but has such a stately barrel that she simply did better in the iconic photos – Sean Connery in a tuxedo, gun held up by his head or with his arms folded across his chest.
But back to Honey Ryder’s film costume. Auction lots that are overpriced and then returned unsold are considered “burned”. So it might be a while before the bikini from “Dr. No” goes public again. In any case, it is not to be found in the offer of “James Bond on Bond Street” at Sotheby’s (29 August to 8 September). The auction is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the first feature film in the successful series, directed by Terence Young.
But: In the auction of “extraordinary first editions of Fleming books, rare original film posters, photographs, watches, whiskey and more” there is also a small photo. It shows Ursula Andress caressing a snail shell in all her sunlit bikini splendor. The 12.7 x 10 centimeter slide was taken during filming on the set in Jamaica and probably served as a press photo for media reporting. According to the experts at the auction house, such color slides are particularly sensitive and therefore rare. It is being called up at an estimate of £800-1200, framed in a bespoke LED lightbox and can then be used as a night light for dreamers, for example. “Underneath the moonlit sky me honey and I can sit hand in hand / underneath the moonlit sky me honey and I can make fairyland.”