Set Up:
In The Living Daylights, James Bond ventures off to Universal Exports, which can be found at the Malaysia Tourism Board HQ, next to Charing Cross underground station, opposite Trafalgar Square.
Can you get in?
The answer is yes, though you may want to check the listings on the government website for opening times. (They are closed on weekends).
Click on the image to buy the Physical London Bond Map
The History
According to Terence the chap at reception who I spoke to about the location and it’s history to Bond, the building was a Malaysian embassy before it turned into a venue to promote tourism. He also told me they did film a sequence in the Bond film on the fifth floor, but he could not tell me which, nor what film. He said it was an earlier film, perhaps earlier than The Living Daylights. I pulled the following information about the building itself from the website;
The Tourist Development Corporation of Malaysia (TDC) was established on 10 August 1972 as an agency under the former Ministry of Trade and Industry by an Act of Parliament.
With the inception of the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Tourism on 20 May 1987, TDC was moved to this new ministry; and became the Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board (MTPB) through the Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board Act 1992. Popularly known as Tourism Malaysia, its full focus is on promoting Malaysia domestically and internationally.
The Living Daylights (1987) EON Productions
The Living Daylights (1987) EON Productions
Universal Export Co
Ian Fleming located the British Secret Service in a tall, gaunt, gray, building near (or, from the fourth novel on, in) Regent’s Park. Its top floor was the ninth (US tenth) according to Moonraker; the eighth in other novels. The real Secret Service building from 1926-1967 was located in a ten-storey building near St James’s Park (cover Minimax Fire Extinguisher Company). Fleming simply changed the name of the cover, and switched the name of the Park for discretion.
Dr No (EON Productions 1962)
For the films
The name changed for the film to Universal Exports, which can be seen on a sign outside Moneypenny’s office in Dr No. The filming production showed that location to be the then-relatively new London Fire Brigade buildings located between the Lambeth and Vauxhall Bridges. These housed the London Fire and Civil Defence Authority and the London Fire Brigade. The shots in Dr No follow the Jamaica killing scenes of Strangways and his secretary Mary Trueblood.
From the Southbank you have an establishing shot of the Houses of Parliment, and then used the Queensborough House and Hampton House shot from over the river near Thames House as the establishing shot for Mi6.
Dr No (EON Productions 1962)
Dr No (EON Productions 1962)
Credits
According to this article by the Tidal Times, the building is now empty and has plans for refurbishment. Regents Park also featured in a deleted scene from Skyfall, I have covered that location in an earlier post here.
Further information sourced from the book James Bond London by Gary Giblin.
Closest Bond Location: National Gallery from Skyfall, covered in an earlier blog.
Closest Pint: Untested, please DM me on Instagram for recommendations.
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