Operation Mincemeat takeaway: How is the spy thriller connected to James Bond?

What are the chances of a British espionage movie like Operation Mincemeat being connected with the most famous spy of all time, none other than the prolific James Bond? A hundred percent, it seems.

The recent spy thriller that Netflix released on the streaming platform has a certain connection to 007, which is sure to send all Bond fans into a frenzy.

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What is the James Bond connection to the Netflix spy movie Operation Mincemeat?

Operation Mincemeat was a super-secret and highly dangerous mission undertaken by British Intelligence in World War II to derail Hitler. The mission was the brainchild of none other than James Bond creator Ian Fleming. It was Fleming who, in an attempt to fool Axis forces into abandoning Sicily, hatched the plan which proved instrumental to the success of Britain in the war.

Following the plan, British forces planted falsified documents on a corpse and then strategically placed the body so that it would fall into enemy hands. The idea sounds like something from the pages of a spy novel, and Fleming later admitted that it was. He apparently blatantly stole the plan from a novel by Basil Thomson.

Ian Fleming appears as a character in the Netflix movie, and the role is played by folk rockstar Johnny Flynn. Having Fleming in the movie was apparently some kind of a tribute to the author. According to director John Madden:

"It enabled us... to put the frame around the story of this man who 10 years later was going to create the most famous body of work about espionage, of a certain kind, of course. He’s writing a story, hasn’t yet become a writer, but writing a story that we’re watching unfold, and therefore you’re understanding the act of writing and dramatization, because he doesn’t know how it ends."

In the Netflix drama, Fleming acts as the narrator of the story, sometimes even assisting intelligence officer Ewen Montagu, played by Colin Firth, and flight lieutenant Charles Cholmondeley, played by Matthew Macfadyen, in planning the highly sensitive operation that the British Intelligence decided to undertake.

It is indeed mind-blowing that a British officer who worked with British Intelligence would later go on to pen one of the world's best-selling spy novels ever and create a charismatic and talented spy, the fictitious James Bond.

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All about Operation Mincemeat

Operation Mincemeat is Netflix's recent espionage drama adapted from the bestselling book by Ben Macintyre and is based on a real-life incident during World War II. The film stars Colin Firth in the lead role of the hardened Ewen Montagu, an MI5 agent who headed the operation, which was a highly dangerous and sensitive mission aimed at misleading the Nazi troops.

Directed by John Madden, the film is a dramatization of the events of a covert operation undertaken by British Intelligence which proved empirical for Britain to win the second world war.

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Starring Colin Firth, Kelly Macdonald, and Penelope Wilton in the lead roles, Operation Mincemeat is now available on Netflix.