Invisible Themepark

Author: Lee Wallender

  • Volcano Redoubt in You Only Live Twice (Film – 1967)

    The true face of the James Bond series, at least throughout the Sixties and Seventies, isn’t Sean Connery.  It’s a German-born set designer named Ken Adam.

    Born in Berlin in 1921, trained as an architect in London, Adam’s hand has influenced film style through movies such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Ipcress File, Goldfinger, Dr. Strangelove, and countless others.  But his greatest, or at least his most costly, achievement was the volcano redoubt in the 5th offering of the Bond series:  You Only Live Twice.

    From Fleming’s Pen to Pinewood

    In the movie version, James Bond infiltrates evil villain Blofeld’s secret hideaway located inside of a hollowed-out volcano in Japan.  Complete with a sliding door on top.

    You Only Live Twice Cover

    Published in 1964, Ian Fleming’s novel had nothing of the sort.  It wasn’t a volcano, and it wasn’t Blofeld’s.  It was a castle that belonged to a Doctor Shatterhand.  In the novel, Bond views the castle:

    …the soaring black-and-gold pile reared monstrously over him, and the diminishing curved roofs of the storeys were like vast bat-wings against the stars.

    Clearly, Adam and film director Lewis Gilbert had to come up with something that would better appeal to late-Sixties sensibilities.  Something bigger.  Something more contemporary.

    The Volcano Rises

    Even though exterior shots show a real volcano, Pinewood Studios, about 20 miles from London, became the location for building the interiors of Blofeld’s volcano.  Cost was projected at $1 million.

    The volcano could be seen from miles around the Pinewood studios.  It rose 120 feet and consisted of a movable helicopter platform, a working monorail system, a rocket launching complete with a full-scale rocket.

    It is estimated that 700 tons of structural steel and 200 miles of tubular steel were used.  But it wasn’t a permanent structure.  They also used a quarter million square yards of canvas and 200 tons of plaster.

    The Volcano’s Legacy

    The volcano set wasn’t by any means the first grandiose Bond set.  The Ft. Knox set in Goldfinger rivalled it–but it was certainly the biggest.  It opened the way for an era of large-volume sets such as Adam’s supertanker set in The Spy Who Loved Me.

    Short Video…

    See a short video about the volcano hideout from You Only Live Twice.

  • Hidden Doors and Rooms – New York Times Story

    There’s a good overview in an October 5, 2006 New York Times article about ordinary homeowners who add secret rooms and hidden entrances to their homes.

    Companies such as Niche Doors, the Hidden Door Company, Hide a Door, Secret Doorways and Decora Doors are all mentioned, with costs estimated at $800-$10,000 for hidden doors (not rooms).

    One of the doors, a motorized bookcase, can be opened either by using a remote control or by knocking in a particular rhythm. “One time I accidentally left the remote on the other side of the door and forgot the knock code,” Mr. Sullivan said.

    Turns out, Sullivan was about to get in by a “circuitious” route,  a mistake, he says, he won’t “make for a long time.”

  • See the Fake White House in Suburban Maryland: James J. Rowley Training Center

    James J. Rowley Training Facility Replica White House, Beltsville MD, 2009

    In an April 5, 1982 TIME magazine article, it was mentioned that a fake White House and Blair House (the little auxiliary house across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House) were going to be built in Beltsville, Maryland:

    Thomas Jefferson, the architect President, designed parts of the White House. Now with Ronald Reagan, the thespian President, there are plans to build a movie-set White House in the Maryland suburbs. The Secret Service plans to put up the mock White House (and a false-front Blair House, the nearby VIP guest quarters) so that its burgeoning presidential security force can properly learn the particulars of the presidential mansion. With 3,000 recruits being trained this year, maneuvers are difficult to conduct around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Explains Special Agent Mary Ann Gordon: “It’s better if you know the lay of the land.”

    The new project at the Secret Service’s training center in Beltsville, Md., may not be finished for years. Nor will a full-scale chimera come cheap. The Hollywood White House is budgeted at $381,000—just about as much as it cost to build the original 182 years ago.

    On a Google Map, the Secret Service training area is very clear.  But the White House part of it is not clear.  I have to guess that the photograph at the top is of the White House, due to the general shape of the building and the circular driveway.  If so, that’s a pretty unconvincing White House.

    Training Facility Overview, 2009

    2017 Update

    James J. Rowley Training Facility Beltsville MD 2017

    2017

    James J. Rowley Training Facility, Beltsville MD

    2017 View of Replica White House

    James J. Rowley Training Facility Replica White House, Beltsville MD 2017

  • Building the Matterhorn – Disneyland June 14, 1959

    Let’s say right off the bat that it’s not the “Matterhorn.”  Official term for it was “Matterhorn Bobsleds, because the included roller coaster was a big deal.  Such a big deal:  the first steel roller coaster in the world.

    But we’re less interested in the bobsleds than in the mountain itself–a 147-foot fake mountain rising out of long-disappeared Southern California orange groves.  The snow, according to John Hench in Designing Disney, is an “astonishingly realistic silvery-white blue-shadowed snow.”  The designers nudged the peak to make it a bit more lop-sided than the original, creating more of a shadow effect on the side of the Disney mountain.  The “real” Matterhorn is 14,700 feet, which makes the Disney version about 1/100th the size of the original.

    Before the Matterhorn

    The Matterhorn (let’s just call it that) began as a 20-foot mound of cast-off construction dirt.  Walt Disney eventually sculpted the mound to make it more attractive and called it Holiday Hill.  But still, his imagination couldn’t rest.  After a 1958 trip to Zermatt, Switzerland to observe the filming of the Disney movie Third Man on the Mountain, Disney came up with the idea of building a scale replica in Anaheim.

    Building the Matterhorn

    In 1959, the hill (since named Snow Hill) was bulldozed and work begun on the steel framework for the Matterhorn by WED (the Disney group), Arrow (the roller coaster builders), and American Bridge Company.  2,175 steel pieces were used–all different sizes.  Enough plywood for 27 homes and 500 tons of concrete were used, too.   Four waterfalls were created.  One waterfalls was 50 feet tall.

    Forced Perspective

    One way to “force” the illusion of height in any kind of structure is to use forced perspective; the Matterhorn was no exception.  Full-sized spruce trees were planted at the bottom of the Matterhorn, with trees decreasing in height farther up the mountain.  Towards the “treeline” (about 65 feet up, or halfway up the mountain), the smallest trees were planted: two-foot-tall pinion trees from Arizona.

    Skyway

    One advantage of the Matterhorn, in early years, was that it hid one of the Skyway’s support towers.  The Skyway actually ran through the Matterhorn, giving visitors a glimpse of the mountain’s inner steel skeleton.  In 1994, the Skyway ran its last car through, and the holes in the side of the Matterhorn were sealed off for good.

    Matterhorn Size Comparison

    The “real” Matterhorn in Switzerland is 14,700 feet tall; the “fake” Matterhorn in Disneyland is about 1/100th that size.

  • Martin Ocean Transport Plane Cutaway, 1936

    A great airplane cutaway from Fortune Magazine 1936 (Large Size Image):

    The revolutionary fact about the Martin is that more than half of its gross weight of 51,000 pounds is useful load, instead of about a third, which has hitherto been the limit.  In flying across an ocean useful load is the decisive factor, not only because vast quantities of fuel must be carried, but also because the requisite equipment is more elaborate than the equipment of land planes.  The Martin carries such things as an anchor and winch, lifeboat and belts, boat hook, bilge pump, and ropes, besides all the regular aeronautical equipment such as two radios, fire extinguishers, flares, and flying instruments.  In addition there is a galley complete with icebox, grill, sink, and dishes.

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