RIP: Ken Adam (007; STRANGELOVE; BARRY LYNDON)

[erik]

Hollywood has lost a legendary production designer. Ken Adam, who did the production design on many a James Bond film but is even better known for the cavernous War Room of director Stanley Kubrick's classic 1964 political black comedy DOCTOR STRANGELOVE, has passed away at the age of 95. More here:

www.usnews.com/news/entertainment/articles/2016-03-10/dr-strangelove-bond-production-designer-adam-dies-at-95

[egoodstein]

Just seeing this for some reason. . . He was a real talent/real visionary. Esp. several of the Bond films and Kubrick films would be much less interesting
without his vision/art. One of the greats from the era before computer wizardry dictated film design/'settings.'

[erik]

Yes, the Bond films did benefit considerably from Adam's artistic designs. But the War Room in DOCTOR STRANGELOVE was even better, because Kubrick had Adam designed it to be purely functional, almost like a gigantic bomb shelter, with that giant Big Board showing the positions of American bombers and their Soviet targets, and a big table that looked like a much larger version of a Vegas casino card table. Kubrick even got Adam to cover that table in green baize, even though no one would notice because the film was being shot in black-and-white.

Really a brilliant man Ken Adam was. I doubt we'll see the likes of him and his imagination again, because now it's virtually all CGI.