Although Judi Dench’s M met her demise in Skyfall, her influence is still felt as Spectre gets underway in London. The official 007 Twitter account has released the photo above and tweeted the below marking the start of shooting on the 24th James Bond film at Pinewood on Monday. Nosing over the clapperboard in the photo is M’s porcelaine English Bulldog, which survived an explosion — and M herself — in Skyfall. Near the end of that film, Moneypenny presents the figurine to Daniel Craig’s superspy as an inheritance from his former boss. “Maybe it was her way of telling you to take a desk job?,” she posits. Bond answers: “Just the opposite.” While the title and main castmembers for Spectre were revealed in London last week, all that’s known of the plot is that a cryptic message from Bond’s past sends him on a trail to uncover a sinister organization while the new M (Ralph Fiennes) battles political forces to keep the secret service alive and 007 peels back the layers of deceit to reveal the terrible truth behind SPECTRE. Does the bulldog’s appearance suggest Dench’s M will loom large over Spectre? Or was it simply a nice nod to the actress in honor of her 80th birthday today?
Nancy Tartaglione
