Adrian Smith über «Bonditis»

Over a decade ago I met a seller at a small film event in London who had an intriguing packet of materials relating to a long-forgotten Swiss spy film. It contained, amongst other things, dozens of behind the scenes and publicity photos, a dubbing script, Front-of-House stills and a pressbook. I was the first person to ever show any interest so he sold me the lot for £10. He then invited me to visit his office at Pinewood Studios where he had plenty more. I was there like a shot and was able to explore the sets of Skyfall (Sam Mendes, 2012) at the same time, which seemed appropriate. He had originally found all of this material when he had been asked to empty out a storage unit in Soho. Thankfully for me, and for film history, he kept it instead of destroying it as requested, and now it was mine. This was how I began to suffer from ‘Bonditis,’ and my quest to become the holder of the world’s largest Bonditis archive began. I bought more posters from around the globe, I would talk about the film to anyone who would listen, I wrote magazine articles about it, I shared images on social media, and I even included the film in my PhD thesis.

And now, after so many years of unavailability, I am so happy that filmo.ch has given us a brand-new restoration. The world will hear of Frank Born again!

Dr Adrian Smith

Long version