Château de Chantilly, France

Château de Chantilly is a historic castle located in the town of Chantilly, France (just north of Paris).

The Chantilly estate overlooks the Chantilly Racecourse for horse races and the Grandes Écuries (The Great Stables) which now contains the Living Museum of the Horse. According to legend, Louis Henri, Duc de Bourbon, Prince of Condé believed that he would be reincarnated as a horse after his death. In 1719, he asked the architect, Jean Aubert to build stables suitable to his rank. These 186m long stables are considered by some as the most beautiful in the world.

Château de Chantilly and the Great Stables were featured prominently in the Bond movie A View to a Kill (1985), as the estate of evil Max Zorin (played by Christopher Walken).

Max Zorin organises his annual horse sale here and Bond (Roger Moore), together with Sir Godfrey Tibbett (Patrick Macnee), a horse trainer, infiltrate the event. Bond poses as James St. John Smythe, a rich dilettante, pretending to be interested in buying a race horse. In fact, he and Tibbett try to find out how Zorin's horses manages to win races.

The scenes take up a long part of the first half of the movie and therefore the Château is well worth a visit. Dozens of film locations can still be seen in and around the castle and adjoining race track.

Locations
The scenes in Chantilly start at around 20 minutes into the film, with a nice opening shot of the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II driving through the entrance gate. Bond is greeted at the gate by Zorin's head of security, who points out the servant quarters and stables to Bond. The 'servant quarters' which are shown in the film were in fact once the guest houses for high ranked visitors.

Bond goes to the stables where a sale preview is going on. This scene is filmed in the actual stables at Chantilly. Bond walks through the Living Museum of the Horse (statues of horses, which are until this day in that same location, see photo). Then he arrives at the round room where the horses are shown, which also exists and is at the end of the hall with the statues of the horses.

The following scenes of Tibbett walking around on the 'parking lot' and stables are also all filmed on different locations of the estate, with exception of the interior shots of the stable (where the hidden elevator is).

The door and stairway where Jenny Flex is introduced are also on the estate, and the round staircase where Bond and Jenny Flex walk is inside, the so called 'Hall of Honour'.

Another interesting point is the balcony on which Bond and Tibbett have a talk away from the hidden microphones and see the helicopter with Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts) land

The hallway where Zorin and Stacey walk through to get to Zorin's office (and where Bond is stopped by May Day), can also be visited in the castle.

The walkway in the water on which Bond meets Stacey is still there, although not as lavishly decorated as in the film.

All the scenes with Tibbett and Bond exploring the underground factories of Zorin have been filmed at Pinewood Studios in the UK.

A nearby location worth a visit is the BP gas station / car wash (where Tibbett is killed while getting the Rolls-Royce cleaned) in the city of Chantilly. The gas station is still a BP and there even still is a real Car Wash machine exactly on the same spot as seen in the film.

There are many more locations which can be spotted, so when you plan on visiting the castle, take an iPad or laptop with the movie on it or print out some screenshots from the movie so you won't miss any!

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See also the photoalbum on our Facebook page for more images. all photos taken by Bond Lifestyle with a Minox DSC Silver spy camera during the EURO2010 Bond tour organized by Themepartypeople, August 2010. Thanks to Richard and Leslie Skillman (Themepartypeople), Luc Leclech (James Bond Club France), Minox.