“The LEGO Group Releases Model of 007’s Aston Martin DB5” by S.M. O’Connor

The LEGO® Group announced the release of James Bond™ Aston Martin DB5 (Set #10262), a 1:8 scale model of Aston Martin DB5 driven by James Bond™ (Sean Connery) in Goldfinger (1964) on Wednesday, July 18, 2018. It is part of the LEGO® Creator™ Expert subtheme of the LEGO® Creator™ theme. The 1,290 piece set is for builders age sixteen and over. When assembled, the model measures 3” (10cm) high, 13” (34cm) long, and 4” (12cm) wide. Fans will recognize aftermarket gadgetry MI5 (Secret Intelligence Service) is supposed to have installed for the benefit of Agent 007: the ejector seat, revolving license plates, radar tracker, hidden telephone, bulletproof shield, front wing machine guns, and wheel mounted tire scythes (spellt “tyre scythes” in British English). This is part of the LEGO® Creator™ Expert Classic Cars series, which includes London Bus (Set #10258), Volkswagen Beetle (set #10252), Mini Cooper (Set #10242), and Volkswagen T1 Camper Van (Set #10220). The retail price is $149.99. This set will become available on Wednesday, August 1, 2018.

The B.B.C. reported the real-life car seen in Goldfinger was sold for £5,000 in 1970 and over £1,000,000 in 2006. The Associated Press reported the car sold at auction in 2013 for £2,600,000 ($4,100,000).

English novelist Ian Fleming (1908-1964), a former British Royal Navy intelligence officer, created the character James Bond. Fleming named the hero of Casino Royale, published in 1953, after the American ornithologist James Bond (1900-1989). President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) was a fan of the books. In 1961, Albert R. (“Cubby”) Broccoli (1909-1996), an Italian-American movie producer, and Herschel (“Harry”) Saltzman (1994-1915), a Jewish-Canadian stage producer, founded Danjaq, L.L.C. as a holding company and EON Productions as a production company to produce the James Bond films. In 1975, Saltzman had to sell his 50% ownership stake to United Artists (U.A.) due to financial setbacks in his other interests. Eleven years later, Cubby Broccoli purchased U.A.’s ownership stake in Danjaq, which gave him 100% ownership in the company. His stepson and protégé, Michael G. Wilson, and his daughter, Barbara Broccoli, now control the company. The Wilson/Broccoli family own and control EON Productions Limited and Danjaq, L.L.C. Danjaq is the American company that co-owns, with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (M.G.M.), the copyright in the existent James Bond films and controls the right to produce James Bond films in the future. EON Productions, a Danjaq affiliate, is the British production company that makes the James Bond films and together with Danjaq controls all James Bond merchandising throughout the world. Since 1962, EON has produced twenty-four films, but this does not include two James Bond films made outside the franchise: Casino Royale (1967) and Never Say Never Again (1983). Scottish actor Sir Sean Connery, Australian actor George Lazenby, English actor Sir Roger Moore (1927-2017), English actor Timothy Dalton, Irish actor Pierce Brosnan, and English actor Daniel Craig have played 007 in EON films.

Founded in 1913, Aston Martin is based in Gaydon, England. The company just built a factory in Saint Athan, Wales.

Figure 1 Credit: The LEGO® Group Caption: James Bond™ Aston Martin DB5 (Set #10262) is Silver Birch colored like the car of which it is a model.

Figure 2 Credit: The LEGO® Group Caption: The model has references to many of the gadgets MI-6 is supposed to have installed in James Bond’s Aston Martin in Q’s workshop.

To promote the set, The LEGO® Group has a sweepstakes in which one lucky person will win a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit 007 ELEMENTS, the new James Bond™ cinematic installation inside the summer of Gaislachkogl Mountain in Sölden, Switzerland. The all-expenses paid trip to Sölden includes flights and transfers, five-star accommodation, 007 ELEMENTS exhibit tickets, and two-day ski passes and private lessons. Go to https://shop.lego.com/en-US/Promotions. One must be a registered LEGO® V.I.P. Program member or register in the program to enter the contest.

Figure 3 Credit: The LEGO® Group Caption: The 1,295-piece set has a suitably impressive box considering most sets will likely be given as gifts.

Figure 4 The LEGO® Group Caption: The back of the box is a showcase for the aftermarket contraptions Q is supposed to have installed in 007’s Aston Martin.

Figure 5 Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: Here is a James Bond™ Aston Martin DB5 (Set #10262) on display in the front window of The LEGO Store at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, Illinois.

The Field Museum of Natural History in March, 2018

The Field Museum of Natural History’s entrance pavilions are at opposite ends of Stanley Field Hall, which has a north-south axis. The two porticos (porches) are each reached by two successive flights of stairs.

Both porticos of The Field Museum of Natural History are flanked by two small porches, which each have two caryatids (columns in the shape of maidens). On the facade, the wings are adorned with a colonnade of attached fluted Ionic columns. The building’s fluted Ionic columns have volutes (spiral-scroll-shaped crowns).

Each portico of The Field Museum is tetrastyle in antis with double-ranked fluted Ionic columns capped by volutes. An entablature crowned by a pediment rests atop the columns. The continuous frieze in each case is relatively plain. The wave-themed acroteria that crown the pediments are borrowed from the Palace of a Fine Arts, which housed The Field Museum until 1920 and now houses the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Field Museum of Natural History isn’t “just” a museum. Visitors can watch scientists at work through windows at the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice DNA Discovery Center’s Pritzker Laboratory.

Mrs. Charles (Laura) Schweppe, a daughter and co-heiress of John Graves Shedd, the former partner of Marshall Field I who succeeded him as president of Marshall Field & Company, and who, under the guidance of Stanley Field founded the Shedd Aquarium, donated an exhibit of 100 bronze sculptures by Malvina Hoffman to The Field Museum. They represent every race, nation, and tribe in the human family (more or less). On January 9, 1933, the first group, Unity of Man, went on display.

In addition to the four figures Henry Hering (1874-1949) made for the corners of Stanley Field Hall, he also made the twelve plaster round lion head shield escutcheons that line it. These are replicas of the marble round lion head shield escutcheon he made for the pediment of the facade of The Field Museum of Natural History.

Christmas at Chicago’s Union Station

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a POLAR EXPRESS display in the Great Hall of Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a closeup of the THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is the headlamp of THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Union Station Company rail car loaded with super-size gifts is part of THE POLAR EXPRESS mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Union Station in downtown Chicago has emblems of Amtrak, Metra, and historic railroad companies whose routes they now operate like Burlington.

Cinemas sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) Helped Design

This is the Pickwick Theatre Building, an Art Deco movie palace and office building erected in downtown Park Ridge, Illinois in 1928.

The architects were Roscoe Harold Zook and William F. McCaughey. Sculptor Alfonso Iannelli, who also worked on the Adler Planetarium, contributed to this building.

In recent years, the Vlahakis family, who’ve owned the building for 50 years, have been able to turn the building into a multiplex by adding smaller theaters around the original auditorium. The latest one, with a screen four times the size of the one in the auditorium, will open in time to screen INFINITY WARS in May, if all goes well.

The Catlow Movie Theater is a cinema that opened in downtown Barrington, Illinois in 1927. The Tudor Revival style of architecture is not confined to the facade of the cinema. As with the Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge, Illinois, sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) played a role in the design and decoration of The Catlow Movie Theater.