Mein Name ist Fleming. Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming (Dominic Cooper) is a disappointing playboy with a wealthy and well connected family. His brother is the shining star of his mother. He has a great love Muriel Wright (Annabelle Wallis), and a love affair with the married Ann O'Neill (Lara Pulver). His boss is Real Admiral John Godfrey (Samuel West), and assistant Second Officer Monday (Anna Chancellor).

Those who complain about the authenticity really miss the point of the series. His actual career is probably lost forever to time and state secrets. This is a marrying of Ian Fleming and James Bond. Quite frankly, I don't know why nobody has made feature movies about a semi-fictionalized Ian Fleming before. It's a great way to do a Bond movie while skirting the copyright. And you can use Fleming's name right up top maybe even 'The Man who would be Bond'.

This one does it as well as it can be done on TV. The action could be bigger. Dominic Cooper is a bratty playboy writer who turns into a brilliant intelligence officer struggling against the system. All the James Bond ideas are there intermingled with the real Ian Fleming. That's the charming part of this series.

"Fleming" this is unarguably a piece of fiction with a few bits of truth. "The Man Who Never Was" featured in this program is Non Fiction by author Ewen Montagu. "Fleming" is a brilliant mini-series with a stellar cast but please be advised that it is only very loosely based on his life story. How do we know this? Well here is the evidence for this statement. The last episode of the mini-series (which was probably the best one) features the true story of "The Man Who Never Was" a book famously written by The Hon. Ewen Montagu C.B.E. D.L. Q.C.) It is the true story about a dead man's body clothed in the uniform of a British senior officer with an attaché case handcuffed to it. In the attaché case were planted bogus secret documents outlining bogus plans for the 1944 Allied landings in Europe. This was left by a British submarine off the coast of Spain in a place where it was know it would be swept ashore and reported to a very active German spy network working in the area, based there to spy on the British naval dockyards at Gibraltar. The actress Lara Pulver who plays his then girlfriend is probably the most beautiful woman we have ever seen on the screen c 2014 and will probably look like she does in this film for ever.igw

A four-part mini-series about James Bond author Ian Fleming. Based on true events how his work during WW2 formed the basis for his later novels. Booze, beautiful women, money, casino's, secret missions, ... its all in this mini-series. In a sense it is truely his life during WW2, which resulted in the inspiration for his later Bond novels.

This mini-series also shows how the "30 Assault Unit" was Fleming's initiative, like the famous way in which the Germans were fooled in believing the Allied Forces would invade Greece instead of Sicily. This by using a dead body that was rigged with false intelligence.

It also shows the complex relationship that Fleming had with women, including his own mother. We also get an idea how Fleming came to know his later wife Ann O'Neill.

Excellent acting and stunning scenes make this mini-series a very attractive watch. It really gives the viewer an idea how high-society London was during the 1940's war years.

Overall, this show scores 7.5/10, thereby just making it an IMDb rating of 8 stars.

I find it fascinating that much of the criticism in other reviews is based on the idea that James Bond wasn't based on Fleming. A fictional character by its very nature has its roots in more than one place. I've no idea how Fleming's war exploits compare to the novels, but it's quite clear that James Bond's personal behaviors, tastes, preferences, and prejudices are based on Fleming's. His wife made direct reference to this in the series opening and these similarities are well documented in analysis of the novels. Fleming wasn't Bond, nor were any of the others that have been posited as his inspiration. Bond is an amalgam of many, and Fleming himself was certainly one of them.

This four part series is intended to set the stage for Fleming's post-war life as a novelist and chronicler of enviable male conquests of both the international and romantic sort. When not devising ways to bring England's enemies to their knees, Fleming was busy cavorting with women of the upper class, some of whom he loved, and one of whom killed herself for love.

Hard to look away. If the plots were not enough, the settings and cinematography are breathtaking, whether the scenes be underwater, in the Alps, in the war torn woods,or within exquisite mansions.

All around it would be hard to go wrong with this as it offers something for everyone.