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The Chess Game in the James Bond classic From Russia, With Love

Kronsteen Takes the Winning Move in the finale of the fictional Venice Chess Tournament (Kronsteen vs. McAdams).

In the movie, SPECTRE agent Kronsteen is played by Vladek Sheybal, who also appears (sticking to movies with Bond themes) in the James Bond spoof Casino Royale and the 1975 Sean-Connery-starring desert epic The Wind and the Lion. I'm always amused by the striking resemblance between the Kronsteen character and current Russian president Vladimir Putin - purely coincidence, I'm sure, as is the fact that Putin is an ex-KGB man and diehard chess aficionado.

The movie chess game is identical to that played by Boris Spassky and David Bronstein at the USSR Championship in Leningrad in 1960 (a detailed move-by-move analysis can be found here), and which is widely regarded as one of the most inspired, brilliant chess matches of all time. The real-life game involves a previously-unheard-of variation on the famous (some would say infamous) King's Gambit by Spassky, the most successful practitioner of the King's Gambit of all time - 16 wins and no defeats when using the KG, with victims including luminaries such as Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov. Here is the state of the board just a few moves prior to black's resignation - the movie board is identical, except that the two white pawns near the center (no longer crucial at this point, as white is about to play Nxe5+, capturing black's bishop and exposing a devastating discovered check) have been removed:

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	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H

Spassky-Bronstein, Leningrad 1960