1988 miniserie by Roger Young based on a Robert Ludlum novel, with Richard Chamberlain and Jaclyn Smith. Shot on location in Zurich, Switzerland.

A wounded man is found by a village doctor on beach in France. Taking care of the found, the doctor finds a microfilm under the man's skin. Under the microscope the microfilm shows a Swiss bank account number. Since the man has lost all memory of his life and identity, he decides to go to Switzerland and find out what he can about himself from the account number. We later learn that this man, played by Richard Chamberlain, is an American spy called Jason Bourne.

The Gemeinschaft Bank exteriors were apparently filmed on location in Zurich. The bank interiors, however, were most certainly not filmed in a Swiss bank. Lots of marbles, columns and 19th stained glass in a huge lobby remind of an American building, a church perhaps, or even a concert hall. We are still trying to identify which exact buildings were used for exteriors and inside shots. Swiss banks rarely have such large and impressive lobbies but it is always conforting to see that American film directors see them as more impressive than they really are. We think the bank lobby scenes were made either in a post office, train station, museum or city hall in Switzerland or Germany. The bank facade is clearly that of a Swiss post office with 'Gemeinschaft Bank' signs on top. We can even see a 'PTT' sign when Bourne exits the bank. The scenes with the banker was probably made in a studio.

The bank's name looks realistic enough but it does not sound totally right in German : The Society Bank, an innocuous mistake in a movie. The bank's letterhead gets it inverted again with BG on top, which would make Bank Gemeinschaft. We do have various Bankgesellschaft in Switzerland though. As for the bank's address at Bahnhofstrasse 11, although there is no such number on this street it is a very credible address for a bank. In the Swiss edition of the boardgame 'Monopoly', the Bahnhofstrasse is the most expensive piece of real estate in the whole country. In reality too, and banks in Zurich all try to have their head office in or around the mythical Bahnhofstrasse. The street name just means 'Train station street' and it starts at the Zurich main train station.

Jason Bourne, the 54-year-old Richard Chamberlain, enters the bank dressed as a businessman, having spent the night at the fictive Carillon du Lac hotel in Zurich. He looks like a typical client of a Swiss private bank and walks with self confidence towards the back of the giant bank lobby. An huissier comes to meet him and show him up to a private office. In the 2002 remake with Matt Damon, the entrance in the bank is very different, with a youngish, dishevelled, self-conscious Bourne who gets the cold shoulder from the lady huissier. Both scenes are rather realistic since bank huissiers (the person downstairs that meets clients and sends them to the correct person within the bank) are used to size clients up and assess which ones look interesting enough to be sent upstairs. They can be suave and obliging if you look good enough to them or downright rude if they think you look like a brochure collector or a time waster. Obviously the huissiers hold a lowly job at the bank and have no real power, but like many of the small hands working in the luxury industry, they like to cast the patrozining looks they get all day long on the occasional time waster.

The first huissier meets Bourne in the bank lobby. He looks like a concierge in a smart hotel and asks him 'How many zeros in your account number?' , then sends him to the fifth floor. A second huissier is standing behind a marble counter with three phones. He tries to assassinate Bourne in a most unswiss way later in the movie. Swiss bank huissiers usually work in teams so that one can accompany a client upstairs to meet with a banker while the others stay at the entrance to greet other clients.

Upstairs Bourne is met by yet another huissier, who asks him his account number to locate the banker in charge of his account as well as his safety deposit box. He asks Bourne to sign for his account. A this moment in the movie Bourne still can't remember his identity and he signs with his account number. This is a nice and realistic touch in the movie. Indeed, with a Swiss numbered account the client and the bank mutually agree on a fictive signature, usually the account number or its pseudonym. The idea is to minimize the number of people within the bank who know the client's identity. The huissiers, back-office workers, safe deposit vault huissiers do not need to know the identity of their clients to perform their tasks, and they are usually not told. The banker who meets Jason Bourne in the safe deposit, a Walter Apfel ("Walter Apple") is a very realistic Swiss banker.

Account #000-7-17-0-12-14-26-0
On the microfilm there is only one initial zero but when Bourne arrives at the bank he remembers the three initial zeros (we see it in full in the 2002 remake). Most Swiss banks have an internal categorization of clients according to the amount they have in the bank. These client categories sometimes have an official name such as 'Retail segment' or 'Private banking segment', but it is plausible that the number of initial zeros would tell what category a specific account is in. When Bourne tells the first huissier that his account has three zeroes, the huissier becomes white and later tells his colleague 'Three zeroes account on its way to the third floor'. 15 million dollars is a large sum in a Swiss bank, especially in the 1980s, and that would make Bourne an important client.

Client identification
Nowadays Swiss banks verify the identity of clients who come to visit their safe deposit boxes, so Jason Bourne showing up with no passport would get access to the bank's vault only if he is known personally to the banker, dispensing with the needs for further identification. However, most safe deposit box systems in Swiss banks use two- or three-keyed locks. This means the client needs to have his own key with him.

There are two ways a client of a Swiss bank could possibly show up at the bank and open his safe deposit box without having his key with him. Either the safe deposit box has a code lock and Bourne remembers the combination, or the bank offers the service to store the client key of its safe deposit boxes in a separate secure storage. The former is uncommon, but the latter is the common practice of Swiss banks today, since clients often lose their safe deposit box keys and a locksmith has to be called in with the bank manager and a Swiss notary. In such a case all Bourne would have to do would be to show up, be recognized by the Swiss banker, who will retrieve Bourne's client key, then go to the vault and open the box with both the banker and the client key, retrieve the metal box and give it to Bourne. In practice the clients does this himself but in a movie this is realistic enough.

The bank transfer
We like especially the part where the banker tells Bourne he cannot make a bank transfer for him unless he knows his identity. It is obviously in contradiction with what precedes about the safe deposit box, but in the 1980's one could very well imagine that the bank clerk who works in the safe deposit vault does not know the identity of his clients. The attitude of the banker “Your identity is safe with me Mr Bourne” is very realistic and fully matches the Swiss banker's ethos.

The surveillance cameras
The part that is extremely unrealistic in the bank scene is the camera filming the safe deposit vault consultation room where Bourne opens his box. We see the fifth floor usher watching the room where Bourne opens his safe deposit box, shocking enough, but even the huissier with the three phones and the gun downstairs in the bank's main hall looking at a security screen where he can see the inside of the clients' safe deposit boxes. There are never any security cameras in those areas in Swiss banks since they would be a blatant invasion of the client's privacy. No Swiss client would ever use such a facility if he knew there was a camera watching him when he opens his box. Even so more if the camera is in the bank's lobby where any bank client might look over the guard's shoulders and see the screen.

Connaisseurs of the Swiss banking industry of the 1980s will notice the two booklets next to the bank lobby huissier when he grabs his gun. They are doctored brochures from two large banks of that time. The props men just removed the names and addresses of the banks and replaced them with "Gemeinschaft Bank, Bahnhofstrasse 11, Zurich".

The Zurich exteriors were certainly filmed in Zurich although this is less certain for the the bank facade. This movie has a very authentic Zurich feel to it, mouch more than the 2002 remake, which looks rather fake as far as Zurich is concerned.