Spy Museum Goes Exquisitely Evil

“Where would James Bond be without the villains?  No one has ever done the villains,” said International Spy Museum Founder and Chairman Milton Malz Friday morning as the  the museum unveiled its newest exhibition dedicated to 50 years of the James Bond film series’ most memorable evildoers, from 1962’s DR. NO to the latest villain, SKYFALL’s Silva: “Exquisitely Evil: 50 Years of Bond Villains.”

“When we built this museum, the concept was, it would be real,” explained Malz.  “It wouldn’t be a Disney museum.  Sure James Bond is fiction.  But he’s become a standard in study of espionage.”

And so the newest exhibition not features the Bond franchises most dastardly devils, but also teaches about fact vs. fiction in the real life of a covert agent, including short, captivating videos in which members of the intelligence community comment on the Bond films and share their own “Bond Moments.”

110 movie and historical artifacts and more than a few villainous interactive experiences make up Exquisitely Evil.

Here’s the breakdown of each exhibit gallery:

Bond Begins: Explore the man behind Bond: Ian Fleming—and his Second World War intelligence work that inspired 007’s creation.

Cold War Power Plays: Meet Bond’s longest-lasting rival, Ernst Stavro Blofeld and uncover his nefarious schemes to set the superpowers against each other—plots which capitalized on real Cold War fears.

Earth Redesigned: Encounter villains who want to wipe out the human race in the late 1970s—a time when the public feared that nuclear weapons would end the world.

Murderous Monopolists of the Information Age: Discover two villains who plan to monopolize information age technology in order to obtain fabulous wealth and control the world.

Drugs and Thugs: Trace how the drug trade evolved on film, from 1973’s heroin dealer Dr. Kananga, to 1989’s bloodthirsty cocaine kingpin Frank Sanchez.

Cold War Castoffs: Meet villains who pursue power, money, and mad schemes of revenge amid the ideological wreckage and changing political landscape of the post-Cold War world.

New World Disorder: Witness a new generation of shadowy villains—burrowed into the highest circles of international power—who back terrorists and exploit environmental causes to mask their evil intentions.

Spies On Bond and My Bond Moment: See and hear from real spies as they make connections between the fictional world of Bond and the real world of espionage, and share their own Bond Moments—memories of their own challenging missions that could have been pulled from a 007 movie.

Weapons of Mass Disruption: See the different ways that cyberspace has become a battleground for the military, terrorists, and spies like SKYFALL’s Silva.

*****

Also present at the unveiling, Dame Stella Rimington, first female head of MI5 says ofJudy Dench’s “M” character: “They definietly modeled her on me.”  See more below: