“The era of silent movies effectively ended in 1927 with the advent of the ‘talkies’ – feature films with both synchronized recorded music and lip-synchronized singing and speech. Among the pioneers of this transformational art form was the Warner Brothers studio, whose co-founder Jack Warner rewarded himself with a Phantom. While some ‘silent’ stars like Mary Pickford – whose Phantom was famously fitted with a hidden compartment for carrying illicit alcohol in defiance of America’s Prohibition laws – never enjoyed the same success following the advent of synchronized sound, others including Greta Garbo and Fred Astaire effortlessly embraced the new order to become global icons – and, naturally, Phantom I owners.

“In the years that followed, Phantom would make numerous appearances on the silver screen. Its annus mirabilis was 1964, in which Phantom took leading roles in two of the year’s major movie releases.

• In Goldfinger, the film’s eponymous arch-villain uses his black-and-yellow 1937 Phantom III Sedanca de Ville to smuggle gold over the Furka Pass to his mountain lair, until he is finally thwarted by his nemesis, suave super-spy James Bond. This would be one of 12 appearances by Rolls-Royce motor cars in the long-running 007 franchise. In 2024, the marque commemorated the 60th anniversary of the film’s release with Phantom Goldfinger, a one-of-one Bespoke Phantom VIII, faithfully replicating the original’s distinctive finish and replete with innovative film-inspired details.
• The same year also saw the premiere of The Yellow Rolls-Royce, written by legendary British dramatist Terence Rattigan and starring a 1931 Phantom II, with Sedanca de Ville coachwork by Barker. A three-part anthology film, it charts the motor car’s adventures with three different owners – an English aristocrat, a Chicago gangster, and an American socialite – and their lives and loves in the years prior to, and including, the outbreak of the Second World War. The all-star cast featured Rex Harrison, Ingrid Bergman, Shirley MacLaine, Omar Sharif, George C Scott, Alain Delon and Jeanne Moreau; the soundtrack song Forget Domani won a Golden Globe and was later recorded by both Perry Como and Frank Sinatra. The latter would also own a Rolls-Royce.