The Guns Of 007

The Definitive Pistol

In the novel Dr. No, Bond is nearly killed when his silenced Beretta 418 snags on the waistband of his pants. As a result, his boss “M” directs Q to issue 007 with a new weapon. Here’s his pitch, “Walther PPK, 7.65mm with a delivery like a brick through a plate-glass window. Takes a Brausch silencer, with little reduction in muzzle velocity. The American CIA swear by them.”

Hmmm … none of that seems real. However, it is some simply splendid wordsmithing. Thus began Bond’s love affair with the Walther PPK extending all the way to the present day.

Nowadays, the Internet brings losers like me together to dissect the most arcane minutiae about guns in movies. Movie makers are held to a lofty standard regarding production value and technical continuity. However, such was not always the case.

Where to begin? In the first Sean Connery Bond, Dr. No, 007 is supposed to be trading in his Beretta 418 for a PPK. However, the gun he hands over is actually a Beretta M1934 in 9mm Corto, and the weapon he receives is a long-barreled Walther PP. Before the film is complete, he has wielded the PP, a Browning M1910 and an M1911 .45, sometimes switching back and forth in the same scene. Apparently, the prop guys just threw a random gun at him and called it good. Subsequent films got the ordnance much better.

They used two Walther PP pistols in Dr. No, one of which sold at auction in 2020 for $256,000. By the second film, From Russia With Love, somebody had actually sourced a pair of PPKs. However, where the guns in the book were chambered in .32ACP, those in this film were .380s.

Legend holds when Connery was posing for the still imagery that was to become the iconic movie poster, nobody thought to bring along one of the PPKs as a prop. As a result, photographer David Hurn just substituted a Walther .177-caliber Luftpistole 53 he kept in his basement studio for killing rats. This is the reason the archetypal Bond movie poster had Fleming’s steely eyed covert operator wielding a spring-powered pellet gun. The airgun used on the poster, serial number 054159, sold at auction in 2010 for $437,000.

Bond went on to use dozens of weapons to include the ArmaLite AR-7, Walther P-38, Colt Police Positive, Savage 99F, Sterling submachine gun, Gyrojet rifle, AKS-74U, HK MP5K, AR-180 and an S&W Model 29 .44 magnum. He wielded fake laser weapons in Moonraker as well as a

speargun in Thunderball. Up until the 1997 Pierce Brosnan effort Tomorrow Never Dies, the trim little Walther PPK kept him company throughout. However, that film marked a sea change in Bond’s firepower. Tomorrow Never Dies dragged 007 into the modern age.