About Bonds

Big Screen Caribbean

Less than 25 years after Thomas Edison and W.L. Dickson invented the Kinetophone -- the precursor to the movie projector -- producer/director Stuart Paton packed up his camera, crew and sunscreen and headed to the Bahamas, the ideal location to film underwater scenes for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. That was in 1916. When Pirates of the Caribbean, the live-action movie based on the Disney ride, premieres this June, it will be the latest in nearly a century's worth of celluloid, both good and bad, that showcases our favorite region.

Hollywood types pick the Caribbean for many reasons. Brilliant beaches, rugged mountains and lush forests provide texture and ambience, and warm, clear water makes shooting submerged scenes a much less daunting affair than it would be elsewhere. Foreign influences -- food, language and style -- add exotic elements to otherwise ordinary scenes.

The French flair of Martinique fit the playboy taste of Pierce Brosnan's billionaire character in the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair. The jungled shoreline of Belize was the nearly perfect escape for Allie Fox (Harrison Ford) and his family in The Mosquito Coast. Haiti's voodoo culture was a powerful and disturbing element in director Wes Craven's horror classic The Serpent and the Rainbow, which was shot there and in the Dominican Republic.

Most Caribbean-filmed movies include sequences on or under the water. Submerged shooting requires not only consistently good visibility and calm seas, but also plenty of support divers. Fortunately, the Caribbean offers all three. Perhaps the most famous aquatic image set to film was that of a tightly T-shirted Jacqueline Bisset wriggling free of a giant moray eel in The Deep, a scene shot in the British Virgin Islands. Divers today can visit the Rhone to see the spot where she made her famous escape. Most of the film's other diving shots were captured on Bermuda's many wrecks. Grand Cayman's waters provided the backdrop for Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman's scuba scenes in The Firm.

On top of the water, boats figure prominently in films made in the region. Jeff Bridges sailed Bermuda and the Windward Islands of Grenada for White Squall. In one of the worst sequels of all time, Speed 2: Cruise Control, Sandra Bullock shops around St. Martin and splashes through the Bahamas during a cruise vacation gone awry.

But with thousands of shooting locations and miles of ocean for filmmakers to use, three destinations -- the Bahamas, Jamaica and Puerto Rico -- have garnered the most on-screen attention.

THE BAHAMAS
Since the first 20,000 Leagues movie was filmed, the Bahamas has continued to be the filmmaker's favored destination for its clear waters and close proximity to the United States. The islands drew Disney for the 1954 remake of 20,000 Leagues, the better-known version that starred Kirk Douglas and James Mason.

Vacationers to the archipelago will recognize many sights from the large catalog of James Bond movies. New Providence Island scenes include a Junkanoo parade down Nassau's Bay Street; Love Beach, where 007 and one of his bikini-clad Bond Girls are ambushed; and a spot at the Atlantis Resort complex where the secret agent comes ashore. Nassau's British Colonial Hilton, used in Never Say Never Again, now offers Bond-themed getaway packages.

Bond movies have also spent a great deal of time in the turquoise waters surrounding the islands. In Thunderball, Sean Connery, who still owns a home in nearby Lyford Cay, searches the shallows off New Providence Island for a hijacked bomber. Divers today can visit the sunken plane where 007 dueled a tiger shark. Close is the Tears of Allah, a wreck downed for Never Say Never Again. If you visit these locations with Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas, you'll see his dive shop, which has also appeared on film: It was used as the set for 1996's Flipper, starring Paul Hogan.

You can follow in the footsteps of Hannibal Lecter on Bimini. It was here that the final scenes of Silence of the Lambs were filmed. Hannibal the Cannibal (Sir Anthony Hopkins) calls Clarice (Jodie Foster), telling her he's "having an old friend for dinner." He then starts off after his next victim, walking down King's Highway surrounded by nearly the entire population of Bimini, who were used as extras.

JAMAICA
If there's a place with the movie groove, it's Jamaica. Just ask Angela Bassett and Whoopi Goldberg. The two starred in How Stella Got Her Groove Back, filmed on Cornwall Beach and Montego Bay.

Movie producers come for the island's verdant hills, cool waterfalls and distinctive accents, which convey to audiences a genuine Caribbean feel. Lord of the Flies (1990) employed Port Antonio's jungles while Robin Williams' Club Paradise featured its beaches. Jamaica's woodlands stood in for those on Devil's Island, Guyana, in the Steve McQueen classic Papillon, and Tom Cruise's weak Cocktail made use of the lavish digs at the Sandals (now Beaches) Royal Plantation resort in Ocho Rios.

Jamaica also has a 007 legacy. In 1962's Dr. No, Connery follows clues around Dunns River Falls, the White River and the Reynolds Bauxite Pier. Eleven years later, Roger Moore tracks Kananga through Jamaica, which was dubbed San Monique, in Live and Let Die.

Bond fans can immerse themselves in a bit of super-spy history by vacationing at Goldeneye, the 17-acre retreat built by the late Ian Fleming, who wrote 14 of the Bond novels here. (The 1995 Bond film Goldeneye was named as a tribute to Fleming.) Hardcore 007 junkies can rent the three-bedroom house or any one of four villas on the property, which is cradled in tropical gardens on a high bluff in Oracabessa, east of Ocho Rios.

PUERTO RICO
The biggest star to appear on film is 1,000 feet wide -- no, not Marlon Brando -- but Puerto Rico's Arecibo radio telescope. The deep-space listening device made an appearance in Pierce Brosnan's first Bond flick, Goldeneye, and helped astronomer Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) probe the cosmos in Contact. You can visit the Arecibo Observatory, which is an interesting excursion, especially for kids.

Contact wasn't the first space-themed movie filmed on Puerto Rico. The island's go-go dancers are taken to Mars to help repopulate the dying planet in Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster, a 1965 ultra-camp cult film.

Puerto Rico itself has played a number of different movie roles. In the Martin Short yachtie comedy Captain Ron, the island was called St. Pomme de Terre, and it was dubbed San Marcos in Woody Allen's 1971 farce Bananas. Clint Eastwood's Heartbreak Ridge, a fictionalized account of America's invasion of Grenada, was shot on Puerto Rico's Vieques island.

From Spielberg's historically detailed Amistad to the "what-were-they-thinking?" schlock Weekend at Bernie's II, the Caribbean continues to attract large numbers of Hollywood productions. If you happen onto a set while you're in the region, you may even get to be an extra and meet the stars. Just remember to pass up a dinner invitation from Anthony Hopkins.

Posted online 03/25/04.

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