thunderball

It’s sometimes overlooked and odd to think about that James Bond villains have to have a physical headquarters. They need a place to reside, meet and plot. Over the movies, we have seen them in all shapes and sizes, from a hollowed-out volcano lair, an abandoned satellite, an off-shore oil rig or a gold refinement factory.

In Thunderball (1965), we get to visit SPECTRE (Special Executor for Counterintelligence, terrorism, revenge, extortion) headquarters, of which Ernst Stavro Blofeld is its leader and Emilio Largo is number two in charge. What’s unique about Thunderball, however, is that we see the exact perspective of a villain leaving the public world (this time a city) and every step of their commute to their proverbial work desk. Here, Largo enters the Centre International D’Assistance aux Personnes Replacées (International Brotherhood for Assistance of Stateless Persons), goes to the back of the office and opens a secret door to the SPECTRE meeting room via buttons on a custom cigarette holder.