tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69421111957467100542024-02-28T12:27:14.920+00:00The Bondologist BlogA blog that covers all aspects of the inexact science of Bondology including the James Bond novels and films and beyond. On X (formerly Twitter): @DragonpolThe Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-72762748433656976652024-02-23T12:57:00.009+00:002024-02-28T12:26:43.793+00:00James Bond After Fleming: The Continuation 007 Novels with Mark Edlitz on the Spybrary Podcast (Episode 229)<p>I recently took part in a Spybrary podcast discussion on the James Bond continuation novels which was part of an interview with the Bond scholar Mark Edlitz whose third Bond book, <i>Bond After Fleming: The Continuation Novels</i> was released in December 2023. The podcast episode was guest presented by Matt Raubenheimer and also featured special guest Mark Edlitz, Bill Kanas and myself. Thanks go to them all for taking part in what was a good discussion and of course to the Spybrary founder and producer Shane Whaley. </p><p>You can listen to the discussion and interview wherever you get listen to your podcasts or directly at the following link on the Spybrary website:</p><p><a href="https://spybrary.com/james-bond-after-fleming/">James Bond After Fleming: The Continuation 007 Novels with Mark Edlitz : Spybrary - Spy Podcast</a></p><p>Alternatively you can listen to the episode on the Spybrary YouTube channel at the video link posted below:</p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TpYD13BVR4&t=2183s">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TpYD13BVR4&t=2183s</a><br /></p><p>You can also watch a video version of the Spybrary episode on YouTube at the following link: </p><p><a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=stANNwJoSWg&t=2766s&pp=ygUIU3B5YnJhcnk%3D">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=stANNwJoSWg&t=2766s&pp=ygUIU3B5YnJhcnk%3D</a></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYuu6PUGjlAaHSBzOEXRnCcXa93EZTdHC2oPKfCxrTPvgW90D6R2Won-vdpWPQ1XTVWOHUn61URSe28zih9KwWmh-lA6P7y7hOBSHhkh54_Dv9sf7oDTbdltTdmgSGJRmPmFHmQk0C-WO6hGpMzF3BLs1ihy5GngL2SL1xJaAWoCdYKdrIrnUc1_AW/s1079/Screenshot_20240228-122020.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="1079" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYuu6PUGjlAaHSBzOEXRnCcXa93EZTdHC2oPKfCxrTPvgW90D6R2Won-vdpWPQ1XTVWOHUn61URSe28zih9KwWmh-lA6P7y7hOBSHhkh54_Dv9sf7oDTbdltTdmgSGJRmPmFHmQk0C-WO6hGpMzF3BLs1ihy5GngL2SL1xJaAWoCdYKdrIrnUc1_AW/s320/Screenshot_20240228-122020.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>Apologies for having been away from updating the blog with new content for such a long while. I have blown the dust off my keyboard and I am back working on a new series of articles I plan to post here later this year. Watch this space for when they are published. </p><p>You can purchase Mark Edlitz's highly recommend new Bond book directly at the links below:</p><p><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/James-Bond-After-Fleming-Continuation/dp/B0CQ17R3XL/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3UAJ0JFOV1GUP&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.y2MCIvGfQIsZZ2YGkr5iLL-4g1cv-e9KkPrscSnl1rsk2_rtx-SOekKUG3QLtmJIxSuSvd2sWqGFMFQRD0MRulPE1qNNCw613D5hBXhg1Uhdci40dBh1a-RSxRv5LHhg.NTCAzDML66RWsSdwjErZXJZhprKMMeIZEpj8TcPS-Gc&dib_tag=se&keywords=mark+edlitz&qid=1708693095&sprefix=mark+edlitz%2Caps%2C86&sr=8-1">James Bond After Fleming: The Continuation Novels: Amazon.co.uk: Edlitz, Mark: 9798863381688: Books</a> (Amazon UK) </p><p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/James-Bond-After-Fleming-Continuation/dp/B0CQ17R3XL/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3HY4MBFABFF6S&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.RNDjoscboz47uYrzyWkbK5Of13onQ__AJbuu3O4egYIafwOWzCEj_PLZgzoS8ul5TTFYirmYc1eFozC-xVoV8RwY-Dru1OrJMeZSvKeh2sQy7clJzW_IUWq6pDGHKk6fSQwfnwue-gfW8ypMB4skgbfu6ddP2stDtUOfeO0hTGvleqadEMRBerIX789UNlgG.RlobT-TmOiCpAVzkQmM4y-3HiI-a2u3CGMwmJ5bhV1Q&dib_tag=se&keywords=MARK+EDLITZ&qid=1709123139&sprefix=mark+edlitz%2Caps%2C157&sr=8-1">James Bond After Fleming: The Continuation Novels: Edlitz, Mark: 9798863381688: Amazon.com: Books</a> (Amazon US)</p><p></p>The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-28255772290757513492019-06-23T20:32:00.011+01:002023-05-30T10:48:15.636+01:00John Gardner James Bond Continuation Novels Round Table Discussion on the Spybrary Podcast (Episode 79) <div style="text-align: justify;">First of all, apologies for having been away from updating the blog with new articles for so long. I've certainly not been idle in the intervening years since the last Guest Article (Hank Reineke on <i>Colonel Sun</i>) was published here back in March 2016. In fact, I've been busy researching and thinking up new ideas for articles and hopefully this research will bear fruit and new content will be on the way soon. </div>
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In the meantime, I thought that readers of this blog might be interested in a podcast on John Gardner's James Bond continuation novels that I recently took part in along with Alice Dyden (<a href="https://twitter.com/Huskyteer">@Huskyteer</a> on Twitter and writer at <a href="https://huskyteer.livejournal.com/">Huskyteer Live Journal</a>) and Edward Biddulph (<a href="https://twitter.com/bondmemes">@bondmemes</a> on Twitter, writer of the <a href="http://jamesbondmemes.blogspot.com/">James Bond Memes</a> and <a href="https://jamesbondfood.com/">James Bond Food</a> blogs). </div>
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I think that Alice did a great job of guest presenting a podcast for the very first time. Shane Whaley is of course the main presenter and creator of Spybrary, who edited the podcast. If you want to hear more, Alice also appears in the episode on Helen McInnes (Spybrary Episode 66) and one on John le Carré. Edward made a great contribution to the discussion too. The idea for the podcast episode on John Gardner came about after a tweet by Alice earlier this year was replied to by Shane who asked her to guest present a Spybrary episode on the author. </div>
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It was great fun to be a part of and I hope you enjoy our discussion. I got the much appreciated opportunity to share my passion for John Gardner's James Bond continuation novels. The episode just went "live" on the Spybrary podcast on Wednesday, 19 June 2019. </div>
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You can listen to the podcast (Spybrary Episode 79) and read the show notes at the link provided below or alternatively you can search for 'spybrary' wherever you source your podcasts: </div>
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<a href="https://spybrary.com/john-gardner-james-bond-author/"><b>https://spybrary.com/john-gardner-james-bond-author</b></a></div>
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I wish to thank to Alice, Edward and of course Shane for helping to put this episode together and making it such an enjoyable experience to be involved in. </div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><u>See also:</u></div>
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<a href="https://huskyteer.livejournal.com/642585.html">https://huskyteer.livejournal.com/642585.html</a></div>
The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-37767728467840865062016-03-22T12:48:00.003+00:002021-04-19T12:44:43.138+01:00Eleven Years Later: an Addendum to “The Dossier on Robert Markham” (first published in 007 Magazine, issue no. 47, October 2005, pp. 28-39)<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Guest Article by Hank Reineke</u></b></span><br /><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">In an August 1982 interview conducted
by Raymond Benson (for <i>Bondage</i>, the
magazine of the American James Bond Fan Club), author Kingsley Amis relates
that he met James Bond creator Ian Fleming on only “a couple” of
occasions. If we take Amis at his word
literally, this would mean there were at least two – and possibly only two –
genuine meetings between the two men. If
this was the case, at least one (and perhaps both) of these encounters have
been partly and properly documented. On
19 July 1964, Fleming’s wife Ann wrote to Evelyn Waugh that “Kingsley Amis came
to dinner.” Referencing Amis’ as-yet-unpublished
study <i>The James Bond Dossier</i>, the
cynical Ann – never an admirer of Amis, the sardonic but celebrated author of <i>Lucky Jim</i> (1954) - continued, “I suspect
he wrote of Ian to further his own sales, but it seemed a genuine
admiration.” Amis himself recalled an
earlier, mostly passing, moment with Ian Fleming at a party, with a second
meeting (“the other time”) having transpired when Fleming invited him to a
“nice, quite expensive” lunch. Amis had
earlier sent Fleming his typescript of <i>The
James Bond Dossier</i> to review prior to the book’s publication and this was,
apparently, the main topic of conversation at their luncheon discussion. I don’t think it’s entirely clear if this
luncheon is the same one Ann references in her letter of 19 July 1964. If it was Fleming would, of course, be dead
within a month’s time of that second and final get-together.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">In regards to Kingsley Amis’ role
in working on the typescript of Fleming’s final James Bond novel <i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i>: Well, there’s no doubt now that Amis did
receive a remittance for his time and effort for working on the final
typescript of that novel; Jon Gilbert, author of the masterful and
exhaustive <i>Ian Fleming: The Bibliography</i>
(2012) has revealed that on Christmas Eve 1964, Amis was issued a cheque for
his work (amongst several other readers) in helping proof-edit the weak
typescript of <i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i>.
It was also revealed that Fleming – due
to exhaustion and poor health - was prepared to sign-off on the manuscript and
leave it to others to shape into something publishable. Gilbert notes that 596 proof copies of <i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i> were
published; twenty-four of these copies were reserved for Fleming’s “literary
heirs,” one of who was – to no one’s surprise – Kingsley Amis. Gilbert also notes that it was most likely in
July/August of 1964 that Cape finally called in Amis (who had already turned in
his publication-ready draft of <i>The James
Bond Dossier</i> to the publisher), to help tidy up the Fleming typescript as
the author’s health had deteriorated so rapidly and unexpectedly. But all evidence suggests the changes made by
Amis and several others made privy to the typescript were all grammatical
and/or minor and cosmetic in nature; no one involved had dared change the
author’s intent or altered the storyline in any manner. No matter what the fanciful conspiracy-theorists
might suggest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i> was published, posthumously, by
Jonathan Cape in Britain on 1 April 1965.
As he had access to the typescript long before most others, Amis’
lengthy and not un-critical review of the final Fleming Bond novel (“M for
Murder”) was published the following day, 2 April 1965 in the <i>New Statesman</i>. As I mentioned in my lengthy essay on the
history of <i>Colonel Sun </i>in the October
2005 issue of <i>007 Magazine</i>, Amis had
been somewhat disingenuous in not revealing his small role in the editing of
the typescript that Fleming had left behind.
It hardly mattered though as his review was less than flattering in
nature. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Jonathan Cape was quick to
piggy-back pre-emptively on the publication of the decidedly weak tea, mostly
bare-bones first draft manuscript that was <i>The
Man with the Golden Gun</i>. Amis’ <i>The James Bond Dossier</i> followed quickly,
published by Cape in May of 1965, no doubt in part to burnish – and perhaps
salvage - the critical reputation and legacy of the late great Ian Fleming
whose hero had seemingly gone out on a low note. I’ve never come across a first-edition copy
of the <i>Dossier</i> that gives more than
“Copyright 1965” as the proper date of publication; but the earliest reviews of
the Amis book (all from the UK) date from the last month of May 1965. Amis’ preface to his book is dated “May,
1964” which, if true, means the book languished in pre-publication status for
nearly a year. This would not be too
surprising; it would have made perfect sense for Cape to hold back publication
of <i>The James Bond Dossier</i> in spring
of 1964. The penultimate Fleming Bond
novel, <i>You Only Live Twice</i>, a far
superior work to the subsequent <i>The Man
with the Golden Gun</i>, had only been published in March 1964 and was still
enjoying strong sales. Having the Amis
book arrive so soon after would have not been a sensible marketing move and
might have even proved detrimental to sales of <i>You Only Live Twice </i>at that particular time. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;">The lengthy delay in Amis turning
in his original typescript of </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The James
Bond Dossier</i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;"> in May of 1964 and the posthumous publication of </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The Man with the Golden Gun</i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;"> on 1 April
1965, allowed Amis to revisit the </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Dossier</i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;">. This left him free to weave in passing
references to the now most recent James Bond novel as well as properly mourn
and duly note Fleming’s passing in the book’s final chapter. Regardless, there’s still not a lot of
discussion or mention of </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The Man with the
Golden Gun </i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;">in the </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Dossier</i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;">; I’d
guess that most of the references to this disappointing final Fleming Bond were
added only to complete the circle and give his own study a more contemporary
sheen.</span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">As for the myth of Kingsley Amis’
lone Bond continuation novel <i>Colonel Sun</i>
having been conceived from Fleming’s notes?
In short, this is complete nonsense.
It was a totally original novel.
Amis has long maintained this was the case and I (nor anyone else) should
have any reason to doubt it. Despite Ann
Fleming’s misgivings of her late husband’s very personal creation having been
appropriated by another writer, it was clear from the beginning that Fleming’s
publisher, Jonathan Cape, was not going to let James Bond get buried along with
his creator. Amis famously ended <i>The James Bond</i> <i>Dossier</i> with the sentence that Ian Fleming left behind “no heirs.”
Perhaps not, but in their glowing review of his Dossier in the <i>Times Literary Supplement</i> (27 May 1965),
that newspaper’s book critic disagreed: “No heirs? Mr. Amis, his well-written, witty, expert
dossier concluded, may choose to reconsider and take action. Surely he is the man to conjure Lazarus from
the grave.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;">There’s little doubt that the
editorial staff of Jonathan Cape were in agreement. There was certainly any number of good
reasons to carry on the literary series.
Bookshelves were deluged with James Bond copycat series, and one has to
remember that Bondmania was at or near its zenith due to the successes of the
film franchise: </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Goldfinger</i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;"> was released in the UK in September 1964 and </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Thunderball </i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;">was due out in December 1965. So there was a lot of intellectual-property
to protect and a not inconsiderable profit to lose in the abandonment of James
Bond as a literary figure. Coming on the
heels of his well-received and thoughtful </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The
James Bond Dossier</i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;"> (for Fleming’s own publisher, mind you), Amis had also
won some favourable notices for his own recent maverick secret-agent novel </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The Anti-Death League</i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;"> (1966). Amis was,
without question, the most likely of candidates to carry on the series.</span></div>
</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">There’s no doubt that Jonathan
Cape was prepared to push on without Ian Fleming, who had passed away too soon at
the age of 56 on 12 August 1964. In April 1967, Amis told the <i>New York Times</i> that Gildrose had already
been thinking about the continuation project for some two years… so let’s say
since the spring of 1965 which, as it happens, neatly coincides with the time
of publication of both <i>The Man with the
Golden Gun</i> and <i>The James Bond Dossier</i>. The month following the publication of <i>The James Bond Dossier </i>(1965), Amis was
married (29 June 1965) and immediately following went off to a “small drinks party
at Jonathan Cape.” So discussion between Cape and Amis to (quietly) experiment
with writing a continuation Bond had been hashed over casually amongst the two
parties almost from the onset.
Negotiations likely turned more serious following the publication and favourable
critical notices of the<i> Dossier</i> in
the summer of 1965. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">By the summer of 1965 the plans
for James Bond’s return, for certain, were already in motion. On 12 August 1965
Amis had written to friends that he was to visit Greece in September 1965 as
“I’ve got a bit of a novel to write.” The Greek isles, of course, would later
become the primary setting of the first non-Fleming James Bond novel <i>Colonel Sun</i>. When the commissioning of <i>Colonel Sun</i> was belatedly announced by
official channels on April 24, 1967, Amis told <i>Newsweek</i> that he’d “been working almost full-time on the book for
about a year and I still haven’t finished it.” So that would date the beginning
of the actual writing of <i>Colonel Sun</i>
to the spring of 1966. This too would
make sense as Amis first had to complete work on <i>The Anti-Death League</i> (published August 1966 for Harcourt, Brace
& World, Inc.). It was only then
that he could immerse himself fully in the Bond project. In many respects <i>The Anti-Death League</i> was Amis’ dress-rehearsal for the Bond
assignment. Upon publication of <i>The Anti-Death League</i>, a critic from the
<i>Washington Post</i> immediately took note
of the transpiration: “The action is
unbelievable, built as it is around a deadpan Ian Flemingesque tangle of
mistaken identities, reversals of fortune, secret agents and lethal
weapons. It is incredible that Amis, a
student of Fleming’s work, thought he could caper about in cloak and dagger
without the hint of a smile, but that is what he tries to do.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Though Amis would write to Philip
Larkin on 21 May 1967 that his “Bond novel is finished,” this wasn’t
necessarily the case. On 28 September
1967, Amis wrote to Tom Maschler, a Senior Editor at Jonathan Cape, of his
concerns about some text as it appeared in the proof copies of <i>Colonel Sun</i>, so it was apparent he was
still involved in the book’s production at that late date. So if one includes the early research sortie
to Greece in September 1965 and follows the line through the process of final
proofing in September 1967, this would give us the two years that Amis is on
record of having stated he had worked on his James Bond novel. Kingsley Amis’ <i>Colonel Sun: a James Bond Adventure</i>, written under the pseudonym of
“Robert Markham,” was first published in the UK on 28 March 1968. Though not well-received by critics at the
time of its publication, <i>Colonel Sun</i> still
continues to stand - in this writer’s estimation anyway – as the finest of the James
Bond continuation novels.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">TBB Article No. 24</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px;">© Hank Reineke, 2016.</span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><b>Hank Reineke</b> is a lifelong fan and bibliophile of all things Ian Fleming and James Bond. He has contributed to <i>007</i> and <i>Cinema Retro</i> magazine, and remains a passionate fan and scholar of the earliest non-Fleming James Bond novels: <i>Colonel Sun</i> (1968) and John Pearson’s <i>James Bond: the Authorized Biography of 007 </i>(1973). He has written about folk, blues, and country music for publications such as the <i>Aquarian Arts Weekly, Soho Arts Weekly, Downtown, East Coast Rocker, Blues Revue, On The Tracks, ISIS</i>, and <i>The Bridge</i>. His first book, <i>Ramblin' Jack Elliott: The Never-Ending Highway</i> (Scarecrow, 2010), was awarded the Certificate of Merit by the ARSC (Association for Recorded Sound Collections) for “Best Research in Folk, Ethnic, and World Music” (2010). <i>Arlo Guthrie: The Warner/Reprise Years</i> (Scarecrow, 2012) was awarded the Certificate of Merit by the ARSC for “Best Research in Recorded Popular Music” (2013).</span><br />
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<b>The Bondologist Blog thanks Hank Reineke for this Guest Article.</b></div>
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The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-52323425665713292192015-11-16T18:05:00.002+00:002018-03-20T21:35:26.184+00:0010 Offensive Quotes from Ian Fleming’s James Bond Novels<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
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<b><u><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Guest Article by
Pete Swan</span></u></b></div>
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<b><u><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">With a new James Bond film, <i>Spectre</i> (2015), upon us<a href="file:///C:/Users/Brian/Downloads/10%20Offensive%20Quotes%20From%20The%20James%20Bond%20Novels%20Pete%20Swan%20TBB%20Guest%20Article%202015.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
and with Daniel Craig rumoured to be leaving the series before long,<a href="file:///C:/Users/Brian/Downloads/10%20Offensive%20Quotes%20From%20The%20James%20Bond%20Novels%20Pete%20Swan%20TBB%20Guest%20Article%202015.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
James Bond is taking centre stage of the world’s showbiz media once again. The
Bond film franchise has seen many changes over the last fifty odd years. For
example, James Bond no longer smokes; he no longer sits in Jacuzzis with bevies
of women all young enough to be his daughter. The last seven Bond films saw
Judi Dench play a female ‘M’, Bond’s boss at MI6.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Brian/Downloads/10%20Offensive%20Quotes%20From%20The%20James%20Bond%20Novels%20Pete%20Swan%20TBB%20Guest%20Article%202015.docx#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The character ‘Miss Moneypenny’ has also now been changed to the more dignified
‘Eve Moneypenny’ and is currently played by the black actress, Naomi Harris.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Brian/Downloads/10%20Offensive%20Quotes%20From%20The%20James%20Bond%20Novels%20Pete%20Swan%20TBB%20Guest%20Article%202015.docx#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[iv]</span></span></span></a> In another departure, a gay actor named Ben Whishaw now plays a much younger and
tech-savvy version of Q than did the old stalwart Desmond Llewelyn (who
appeared in 17 Bond films between 1963 and 1999) or his successor in the role
of Q, John Cleese. This year [2015] we even saw the black actor, Idris Elba, put
forward as a candidate to play the next James Bond.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Brian/Downloads/10%20Offensive%20Quotes%20From%20The%20James%20Bond%20Novels%20Pete%20Swan%20TBB%20Guest%20Article%202015.docx#_edn5" title="">[v]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Brian/Downloads/10%20Offensive%20Quotes%20From%20The%20James%20Bond%20Novels%20Pete%20Swan%20TBB%20Guest%20Article%202015.docx#_edn5" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">James Bond has been part of our popular
culture now for so long that we can trace back to his roots and use his
earliest narratives to ask ourselves how far we have really come as a society.
We would of course nowadays consider racism or homophobia distasteful in a
modern Bond film even if it came from the mouth of one of the villains and the
sexism in Bond films is now no worse than across the film industry as a whole.
Whatever you think of the newest Bond films, here are ten quotes from the
original James Bond novels, which were written by Ian Fleming between 1953 and his
death in 1964, that the current generation will (thankfully) never have to see
up on the silver screen. One should note </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 18.4px;">when reading these quotes,</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"> by way of mitigating circumstances, that Ian Fleming was born in 1908 and the times in which he was writing (the 1950s and early 1960s) were very different to our own, where political correctness is now very much the order of the day. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">1.<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><b> ‘Blithering Women’ - <i>Casino Royale </i>(1953)</b><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Context:</b>
Bond is racing to rescue his companion Vesper Lynd who has been kidnapped by
the novel’s villain, Le Chiffre. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Quote:</b> “These
blithering women who thought they could do a man’s work. Why the hell couldn’t
they stay at home and mind their pots and pans and stick to their frocks and
gossip and leave men’s work to the men.” (Page 97)<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">2.<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><b>‘How
to fight Negroes’ - <i>Live and Let Die </i>(1954)</b><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Context:</b>
Bond has been captured in Harlem, New York and is planning an escape from his
guard, Tee Hee Johnson. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Quote:</b> “He
stumbled again, trying to measure exactly the Negro’s position behind him. He
remembered Leiter’s injunction: ‘Shins, groin, stomach, throat. Hit ’em
anywhere else and you’ll just break your hand.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">‘Shut yo
mouf,’ said the negro, but he pulled Bond’s hand an inch or two down his back.”
(Page 72)<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">3.<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><b>‘All
women long to be raped...in a cave’ - From <i>Russia
with Love </i>(1957)</b><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Context:</b> Bond
has travelled to Turkey to meet a Soviet defector and is speaking to Darko
Kerim, the head of the British service’s station in Turkey. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Quote: </b>“My
father was the sort of man women can’t resist. All women want to be swept off
their feet. In their dreams they long to be slung over a man’s shoulder and
taken into a cave and raped. That was his way with them. My father was a great
fisherman and his fame was spread all over the Black Sea. He went after the
sword-fish. They are difficult to catch and hard to fight and he would always
outdo all others after these fish. Women like their men to be heroes.” (Page
129)<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">4.<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><b>‘Chigroes’
- <i>Dr. No </i>(1958)</b><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Context:</b>
Bond has travelled to Jamaica to investigate the disappearance of an MI6
employee and is speaking to Pleydell-Smith, the Colonial Secretary of the
island, over lunch. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Quote:</b> “’It’s
like this’. He began his antics with the pipe. ‘The Jamaican is a kindly lazy
man with the virtues and vices of a child. He lives on a very rich island but
he doesn’t get rich from it. He doesn’t know how to and he’s too lazy...” “Finally
there are the Chinese, solid, compact, discreet- the most powerful clique in
Jamaica. They’ve got the bakeries and the laundries and the best food stores.
They keep to themselves and keep their strain pure.’ Pleydell-Smith laughed.
‘Not that they don’t take the black girls when they want them. You can see the
result all over Kingston – Chigroes – Chinese Negroes and Negresses. The
Chigroes are a tough, forgotten race. They look down on the Negroes and the
Chinese look down on them. One day they may become a nuisance. They’ve got some
of the intelligence of the Chinese and most of the vices of the black man. The
police have a lot of trouble with them.’” (Page 51)<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">5.<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><b>‘Koreans
are lower than apes’ – <i>Goldfinger </i>(1959)</b><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Context:</b>
Bond has been captured by Goldfinger and his sidekick Oddjob and is plotting
his escape. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Quote:</b> “Bond
intended to stay alive on his own terms. Those terms included putting Oddjob
and any other Korean firmly in his place, which, in Bond’s estimation, was
rather lower than apes in the mammalian hierarchy.” (Page 175)<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">6.<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><b>‘Japanese
women; insipid slaves’ - '<i>Quantum of
Solace'</i> (1960)</b><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Context:</b>
Bond is at a dinner party and is making small talk with the host. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Quote: </b>“’It
would be fine to have a pretty girl always tucking you up and bringing you
drinks and hot meals and asking if you had everything you wanted. And they’re
always smiling and wanting to please. If I don’t marry an air hostess, there’ll
be nothing for it but marry a Japanese. They seem to have the right ideas too.’
Bond had no intention of marrying anyone. If he did, it would certainly not be
an insipid slave.” (Page 62)<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">7.<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">‘The girl who drove like a man’ - Thunderball
</span></i></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><b>(1961)</b><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Context:</b> Bond
is in the Bahamas and is following Domino Vitali, the girlfriend of the main
villain, SPECTRE No. 1, Emilio Largo. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Quote:</b> “Women
are often meticulous and safe drivers, but they are very seldom first-class. In
general Bond regarded them as a mild hazard and he always gave them plenty of
road and was ready for the unpredictable. Four women in a car he regarded as
the highest danger potential, and two women as nearly as lethal. Women together
cannot keep silent in a car, and when women talk they have to look into each
other’s faces. An exchange of words is not enough. They have to see the other
person’s expression, perhaps in order to read behind the other’s words or to analyse
the reaction to their own. So two women in the front seat of a car constantly distract
each other’s attention from the road ahead and four women are more than doubly
dangerous, for the driver has to hear, and see, not only what her companion is
saying but also, for women are like that, what the two behind are talking
about. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But this girl
drove like a man. She was entirely focused on the road ahead and on what was
going on in her driving mirror, an accessory rarely used by women except for
making up their faces. And, equally rare in a woman, she took a man’s pleasure
in the feel of her machine, in the timing of her gear changes, and the use of
her brakes.” (Page 100)<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">[<b>James Bond Film Link<i>:</i></b> Compare this with,
say, the scene where Roger Moore as Bond makes a series of sexist comments on
“women drivers” to Barbara Bach’s Major Anya Amasova (Agent XXX) in the tenth Bond
film <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i> (1977)]<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">8.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></i><!--[endif]--></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><b>‘Homosexuality; the stubborn disability’ - <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service </i>(1963)</b><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Context:</b>
Bond is being briefed about Hypnosis as it is suspected that the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld is
using it to brainwash women in his mountain layer in Switzerland. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Quote:</b> “Now, there is
plenty of medical evidence of the efficacy of hypnosis. There are
well-authenticated cases of the successful treatment by these means of such
stubborn disabilities as warts, certain types of asthma, bed-wetting,
stammering and even alcoholism, drug-taking , and homosexual tendencies” (Page
172) <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">9.<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><b>‘The
Japanese; a violent people without a violent language’ - <i>You Only live Twice </i>(1964)</b><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Context:</b>
Bond has been told that there are no swear words in Japanese by the head of the
Japanese secret service, Tiger Tanaka. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Quote:</b> “Well I’m...
I mean, well I’m astonished. A violent people without a violent language! I
must write a learned paper on this. No wonder you have nothing left but to
commit suicide when you fail an exam, or cut your girlfriend’s head off when
she annoys you.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Tiger laughed.
‘We generally push them under trams or trains.’ (Page 77)<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">10.<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><b>‘Gay
men can’t whistle’ - <i>The Man With The
Golden Gun </i>(1965)</b><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Context:</b> M
is reading a file about Francisco Scaramanga, a Cuban assassin suspected of
killing MI6 agents. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Quote:</b> “’I
have also noted, from a “profile” of this man in<i> Time</i> magazine, one fact which supports my thesis that Scaramanga
may be sexually abnormal. In listing his accomplishments, <i>Time</i> notes, but does not comment upon, the fact that this man
cannot whistle. Now it may only be myth, and it is certainly not medical
science, but there is a popular theory that a man who cannot whistle has
homosexual tendencies. (At this point, the reader may care to experiment and,
from his self-knowledge, help to prove or disprove this item of folklore! –
C.C.)’ (M. hadn’t whistled since he was a boy. Unconsciously his mouth pursed
and a clear note was emitted. He uttered an impatient “tchah!” and continued
with his reading.)’ (Page 27)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
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<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Brian/Downloads/10%20Offensive%20Quotes%20From%20The%20James%20Bond%20Novels%20Pete%20Swan%20TBB%20Guest%20Article%202015.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2379713<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Brian/Downloads/10%20Offensive%20Quotes%20From%20The%20James%20Bond%20Novels%20Pete%20Swan%20TBB%20Guest%20Article%202015.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34514701<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Brian/Downloads/10%20Offensive%20Quotes%20From%20The%20James%20Bond%20Novels%20Pete%20Swan%20TBB%20Guest%20Article%202015.docx#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
http://jamesbond.wikia.com/wiki/M_(Judi_Dench)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Brian/Downloads/10%20Offensive%20Quotes%20From%20The%20James%20Bond%20Novels%20Pete%20Swan%20TBB%20Guest%20Article%202015.docx#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0365140<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn5">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Brian/Downloads/10%20Offensive%20Quotes%20From%20The%20James%20Bond%20Novels%20Pete%20Swan%20TBB%20Guest%20Article%202015.docx#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/apr/09/why-idris-elba-shouldnt-give-up-on-playing-james-bond</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; text-align: start;">TBB Article No. 23.</b><br />
<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; text-align: start;">© Pete Swan, 2015. </b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Guest Author Pete Swan lives in
Bristol and studied War History and Propaganda at Swansea University. Pete's
interest in James Bond is an extension of his interest in popular culture and
the history of the Cold War. Most of his free time is spent in pubs and books. </b></span><br />
<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>A big "thank you" goes out to Pete Swan for this article! - The Bondologist Blog. </b></span></div>
</div>
</div>
The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-8883530276380994982015-08-01T20:48:00.010+01:002024-02-19T13:13:21.643+00:00The Madness of 'King Ernst' in Ian Fleming’s You Only Live Twice (1964)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">Ian Fleming’s <i>You
Only Live Twice </i>(1964) is certainly one of the author’s most
brilliantly bizarre and offbeat pieces of work from a James Bond <i>oeuvre</i> which
was by that stage already rich with originality (see the short
story 'Quantum of Solace' [1960] and the novel </span><i style="line-height: 15.95pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;">The Spy Who Loved Me</span></i><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> [1962]). The penultimate James
Bond novel incorporates travelogue, learned references to Japanese culture,
lists of deadly flora and fauna, a revenge tale, the beginnings of serial
killer fiction (a craze of the 1990s) and fine Gothic horror as well as being
the unfolding story of a dystopia on a Huxleyesque scale. It is a <i>Brave
New World</i> for Fleming in terms of writing territory and although it
might seem like it at times, it is not true that (unlike Aldous Huxley) Fleming
was on mescaline at the time of writing <i>You Only Live Twice</i>(!). At
the time of writing <i>You Only Live Twice</i> Fleming was sadly
literally dying from the admirable ailment of “having lived too much” (in
reality the Fleming family trait of a bad heart or “the iron crab” as Fleming
called it, was to blame) at the time he was writing this novel and so the
fascination with the theme of death and the general air of morbidity throughout
the proceedings really rings true from a man already painfully aware of his own
mortality. Somehow, Fleming sensed he was soon about to “shuffle off this
mortal coil” as Shakespeare so eloquently put it and so he must have sat down
at his golden typewriter at his house <i>Goldeneye</i> in Jamaica,
and forgetting the winter sun outside, drew inspiration from his impending
death. As it turned out, he was of course right – he sadly died in the early
hours of 12 August 1964 after having just the day before been made the Captain
of the Royal St. George’s Golf Club.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.95pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: 15.95pt; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/05/22/16/28FC3ABD00000578-3091038-image-m-112_1432310373421.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/05/22/16/28FC3ABD00000578-3091038-image-m-112_1432310373421.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.95pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;"> <i> You Only Live Twice </i>(1964): UK First Edition.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.95pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<div style="line-height: 15.95pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;">Although it
represents the final part of the Blofeld/SPECTRE Trilogy of James Bond novels
there is no typical Bondian world domination plot here (</span><i><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;">cf.</span></i><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;"> the film version) but instead a
private estate run by a veritable mad hatter called Dr Guntram Shatterhand who
of course turns out to be none other than Bond’s aforementioned arch-enemy and
the murderer of his bride Tracy Bond in <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service </i>(1963).
SPECTRE it seems has went the way of the Dodo, which is more realistic than how
the evil organisation (and its leader Blofeld) kept coming back film after film (excepting <i>Goldfinger</i> [1964])
between 1962 and 1971 in the Eon Productions Bond film series. The Ernst Stavro
Blofeld of <i>You Only Live Twice</i> is a different animal (a mad
dog meets an Englishman; Fleming was certainly very clever in his themes!) to
what went before and here he can be seen as a veritable mad king (called King
Ernst most likely) and a lunatic ready for the asylum. In English Criminal
Law there is in fact something called “the Henry VIII Syndrome” where the
defendant goes around lopping people’s heads off (just like Blofeld) as he
thinks he is King Henry VIII; it is therefore good grounds for a plea of
insanity with the inevitable result of hospitalisation in a mental hospital.
Henry VIII of course had two </span><span style="line-height: 15.95pt;">of his six wives beheaded, namely Ann Boleyn (by the sword) and Catherine Howard (by the axe). Blofeld also displays the madness that afflicted King George III for much of his reign (which lasted from 1760 to 1820). Blofeld shouts in
German much like the ranting and raving Adolf Hitler in the </span><i style="line-height: 15.95pt;">Führerbunker</i><span style="line-height: 15.95pt;"> near
the end of World War II when the war was all but lost and he seems equally as
much out of touch with reality. Evidence for this comparison consists of the
fact that we are for instance told of "that lunatic Hitler scream"
from Blofeld in the Garden of Death at one point in the novel. One reads of
Nazis escaping to Argentina and Spain at the war’s end but perhaps a few
escaped to Japan too? It may be that that was what Fleming was pointing at –
that there was a diverse Nazi evil being spread throughout other third
countries as a result of such real post-war Nazi SS resettlement organisations
as </span><i style="line-height: 15.95pt;">Odessa</i><span style="line-height: 15.95pt;"> or </span><i style="line-height: 15.95pt;">Spinne</i><span style="line-height: 15.95pt;">. For the very original idea of the Garden of Death it is possible that Fleming was inspired by the 1896 watercolour painting named 'The Garden of Death' by the Finnish symbolist painter Hugo Simberg (1873-1917):</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.95pt;">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://babylonbaroque.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/725px-hugo_simberg_garden_of_death.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://babylonbaroque.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/725px-hugo_simberg_garden_of_death.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.95pt;"> 'The Garden of Death' (1896) by Hugo Simberg.</div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;">
<br />
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">It is notable that Blofeld’s plan here is not to
hijack a Vulcan bomber and its deadly cargo of two nuclear bombs for a grand
ransom (<i>Thunderball</i> [1961]) or to use biological weapons against
the United Kingdom (<i>On Her Majesty's Secret Service</i>) but merely to induce the
notoriously suicide-prone native Japanese population to kill themselves in ever
more eccentric fashion in a “garden of delights” populated by highly poisonous
flora and fauna, piranha fish, scorpions, snakes and fumaroles. This garden is the locale where Blofeld
goes utterly insane and indeed it is a veritable anti-Eden where the Fall of
Man brought about by Adam and Eve’s quest for knowledge is all too evident. It
is as if the imaginative horrors of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale or a novel by
the Marquis de Sade have somehow come to life in the early 1960s with a little
early Swinging Sixties hocus-pocus thrown in for good measure. Blofeld does his
rounds of the garden in a full suit of armour as does his companion Bunt (with
the grotesque addition of a bee-keeper’s hat) and Fleming seems to be making
the point that Blofeld is trying to be a legitimate samurai warrior with all of
the code of honour that implies though we the reader see he is woefully
inadequate in this role and that he is a mere <i>gaijin</i>, common
criminal<i> </i>and definite bounder. The madman Blofeld is nothing more
than a mere shadow warrior playing at being a samurai warrior just like
children play at being James Bond. Blofeld and Bunt even plan to eventually
sell up from Japan and then take their ghastly “death show” on the road in
other locations around the world such is their ultimate cruelty, depravity and
deeply twisted inhumanity.</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: 15.95pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.95pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">In <i>You Only Live Twice</i> there is
no world domination master plan but in its stead there is just the mad king
Blofeld lopping off people's heads with a samurai sword, years before the
serial killer fiction craze of the 1990s (which has of course continued on
until the present day) that Blofeld's plan to maximise Japanese suicides in his
Garden of Death is akin to. In this sense Blofeld can be seen as a forerunner
to that other madman in a Castle of Death, the serial killer ex-actor David
Dragonpol in John Gardner’s James Bond continuation novel<i> Never
Send Flowers</i> (1993) who lived in the aptly-named Scholss Drache
(‘Drache’ being German for ‘Dragon’ as well as Sir Hugo Drax’s real name in
Fleming’s <i>Moonraker</i> [1955]) in the Rhineland, Germany. Indeed,
there are many interesting connections between both Bond novels, though the
Fleming purist might blanch at the idea of Gardner’s off-beat
creation Dragonpol being compared to Fleming’s infamous arch-villain Blofeld!
Like Dragonpol with his assassination targets of the good and the great, Blofeld
attracts the suicidal Japanese seemingly for his own sick enjoyment and also
for the delectation of his squat and grotesque consort Fraulien Irma Bunt. Bunt
has the type of wardress face often associated with a Nazi death camp guard and
as she is German and of the right age that could well have been her occupation.
Fleming may well have drawn inspiration for Irma Bunt from some notorious
female Nazi concentration camp guards like Ilse Koch (1906-1967), who
eventually committed suicide in prison or ‘The Bitch of Buchenwald’ or
Irma Grese (1923-1945), whom the Press called ‘The Beast of Belsen’ during her
1945 ‘Belsen Trial’ for war crimes and whom the inmates also dubbed ‘The Hyena
of Auschwitz.’ Grese was found guilty at the trial and executed by hanging in 1945. In any event,
Fleming’s contemporaneous readers would have been aware of the allusion to
female Nazi wardresses Irma Bunt represented. Bunt (as described by Fleming) also looks a tad like
the convicted serial killer Rosemary West.</span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/jamesbond/images/6/6e/Blofeld_-_YOLT_(George_Almond).png/revision/latest?cb=20120831143731" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/jamesbond/images/6/6e/Blofeld_-_YOLT_(George_Almond).png/revision/latest?cb=20120831143731" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> George Almond's painting of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in his Garden of Death in Fleming's </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><i>You Only Live Twice </i>(1964).</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;">Of course, Fleming’s
novel is as far away from the dire Roald Dahl-scripted 1967 film version as it
is possible to get. (Harold Jack Bloom also worked on the screenplay before Dahl was hired and he was credited with "additional story material" as Dahl used some of his ideas in his new script). As the producers Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli and Harry Saltzman and director Lewis Gilbert were unable to
find a castle built near the sea on their recce to Japan (it turned out that the Japanese did not build castles near the sea due to the tsunami risk) they decided to move
almost completely away from the Fleming source novel by literally throwing it in the
wastepaper bin and starting over again with a topical Cold War Space Race plot. Meanwhile, the Fleming
purist can only hope that <i>You Only Live Twice</i> will at some
point in the future be filmed as a new chapter in Bond villainy where evil is
seen to have had no other point than glorying in said evil itself. That seems a
good theme for a Bond film that could sit very well along with the Bond film
villains Karl Stromberg and Hugo Drax (of the films </span><i><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;">The Spy Who Loved Me</span></i><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;"> [1977] and <i>Moonraker </i>[1979] respectively)
who were not interested in money or extortion but rather in creating new worlds
in their own inherently evil image, just as it could be said Blofeld did
originally with his Garden of Death in Japan. Bunt makes the point in
conversation with Blofeld that the world has never seen the like of Blofeld’s
Garden of Death before and so too would have Stromberg and Drax had they been
interviewed about it following the success of their annihilator schemes. Ian
Fleming's other villainous creation Dr Julius No was of course also an influence
on the Bond film villains Stromberg and Drax and their nefarious schemes. Blofeld has
seemingly single-handedly turned the Godly garden and the Englishman’s dwelling
place of a summer day into a dark and grotesque “Disneyland of Death”. In
opposition to this perversion of the inherent sacredness of the garden is the
fact that the English county of Kent is known as "The Garden of
England" (<i>cf. </i>The Garden of Eden?) and this was of course on
the side of the angels and was a haunt of Ian Fleming's and was where the majority
of his third novel <i>Moonraker</i> was set. <i>Moonraker</i> featured
a duplicitous ex-Nazi called Sir Hugo Drax who is based in Kent near the White
Cliffs of Dover with his answer to Britain's defence, the “Moonraker” nuclear
rocket. The fact was surely not lost on Fleming that he chose this very
location given the Battle of Britain and the new British saviour weapon in the
arsenal called the the <i>Spitfire </i>aircraft (as well as defences
from ‘Operation Sealion’) that saved dear dependable old Blighty in her ‘Hour of Need’.
Blofeld selfishly wanted his Garden of Death to be a success just as
Stromberg’s wanted his own underwater civilisation at the expense of the rest
of the world or that Drax wanted to annihilate the Earth (in a Hiterian
Holocaust) and then populate it with a new Super Race of perfect physical
specimens of all races. </span><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;"> <i>You Only Live Twice</i> (1964): US First Edition.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;">One can quite easily
see (in the Blofeld of the </span><i><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;">You Only Live Twice </span></i><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt;">novel) the seeds of these truly
bizarre and barking-mad characters in some of the Bond villains of the Roger
Moore-era Bond films. In this sense, perhaps a bit of the <i>You Only Live
Twice</i> Blofeld has rubbed off on some of the cinematic Bond villains
that came in the years after Ian Fleming’s death where the screenwriters like
Roald Dahl, Tom Mankiewicz and Christopher Wood otherwise turned away from the
original Fleming Bond source material when it came to Bond villains and other
components. With all of this in mind, one also thinks of Richard Maibaum’s
original plot suggestion for <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i> film to have
real-world terrorists blow up the world’s oil fields with stolen nuclear
submarines and watch the world burn just for the sheer hell of it. That would
have been as close to the Blofeld of <i>You Only Live Twice</i> novel
as the Bond films would likely have ever gotten. It was sad indeed that
Maibaum’s vision for something “completely different” (as the <i>Monty
Python’s Flying Circus</i> gang would have put it) never made it onto the
screen. The producer Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli ruled out going ahead with
Maibaum’s script for <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i> out as being too
overtly political for the James Bond film series, although he did like the
idea. Of course sections of the recent <i>Skyfall</i> was based at
least in part on events near the end of <i>You Only Live Twice </i>where
Bond is shot in the head and loses his memory, and for the Fleming enthusiast
that was surely a great thing to behold. Indeed, the hotly anticipated
release of the twenty-fourth James Bond film <i>Spectre </i>in
October 2015 gives the Fleming purist renewed hope that the criminally
neglected novel <i>You Only Live Twice</i>, with its mad king Blofeld and
his equally mad Garden of Death will finally make the transition from the
printed page to the cinema screen.</span></div>
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<b><u>Dedicated to Sir Miles of AJB007 Forums, with thanks. </u></b><br />
<u><a href="http://www.ajb007.co.uk/">http://www.ajb007.co.uk</a></u><br />
<br /></div>
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<b>Liked this article? Then see the following related article on TBB: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Ian Fleming's "Thrilling" Inspiration for Roald Dahl's You Only Live Twice (1967) </b>- <a href="http://thebondologistblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/ian-flemings-thrilling-inspiration-for.html">http://thebondologistblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/ian-flemings-thrilling-inspiration-for.html</a><br />
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<b><u>TBB Article No. 22</u></b></div>
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<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: start;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2015. </b></div>
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The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-35521966016159190082014-03-24T12:03:00.010+00:002021-02-07T19:57:48.743+00:00Anthony Burgess on The Spy Who Loved Me (1977): Double Standards or was his screenplay for the film a parody with a point?<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
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<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large; text-align: justify;"><b><u>Part 1 of the 'Anthony Burgess and James Bond' Miniseries</u></b></span></div>
<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span> <span face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;">In his Preface to the Coronet Books editions of the original Ian Fleming James Bond novels written in 1987, Anthony Burgess (1917-1993), author of (most famously) the controversial dystopian novel</span><i><span class="apple-converted-space" face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;">A Clockwork Orange</span></i><span class="apple-converted-space" face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;">(1962), among other notable novels and non-fiction, gives an interesting introduction to and defence of the Fleming Bond novels entitled</span><span class="apple-converted-space" face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The James Bond Novels: An Introduction.</i><span class="apple-converted-space" face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;">Of particular interest in this introduction is the following passage:</span></div>
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<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;">“It is important, I think, to stress the point that, after the early films, whose budgets were too low to admit of too much extravagance, the James Bond whom Fleming created has only a nominal connection with the leering hero of the screen. This also goes for the titles: what has the film</span><span class="apple-converted-space" face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Octopussy</i><span class="apple-converted-space" face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;">to do with the brilliant short story in which Bond has a very marginal role? It is true that Fleming forbade the film adaptation of</span><span class="apple-converted-space" face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The Spy Who Loved Me</i><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;">, but that was no excuse for attaching the title to a very unflemingian [</span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">sic</i><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="text-align: justify;">] hotchpotch. It is time for aficionados of the films to get back to the books and admire their qualities as literature.”</span><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">(1)</b></div>
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<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">Burgess is making an entirely valid point here of course, but when his history with the film Bond is taken into account the contradiction between his words and his actions can be seen all too clearly, making his above comments, especially about the film of</span><span class="apple-converted-space" face=""calibri" , sans-serif"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The Spy Who Loved Me</i><span class="apple-converted-space" face=""calibri" , sans-serif"> </span><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">(1977) appear highly ironic indeed, but perhaps that was the point.</span><u1:p style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"></u1:p><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"> To the uninitiated, there is the strong suggestion here of some double standards on the part of Burgess here in this preface written some ten years after the release of </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The Spy Who Loved Me</i><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"> in the cinemas and some eleven years after his writing of a screenplay for the film. Although Burgess' screenplay was parodical in nature with the requisite elements of comic writing and clear ridicule of the direction the contemporary James Bond films were going in it is acknowledged that at least one of his ideas for the 1977 film (that of the huge submarine silo aboard Karl Stromberg's ship </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The Liparus</i><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"> near the end of the film) is recognised as having been taken from Burgess’s otherwise knowingly daft script. Indeed, Burgess had by the time he came to work on </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The Spy Who Loved Me</i><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"> in 1976 already scripted the film </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Moses the Lawgiver</i><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"> (1974) and after his involvement with Bond he would go on to script the films </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Jesus of Nazareth</i><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"> (1977) and </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">A.D. </i><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">(1985), so he was not merely an author turning his hand to writing a Bond screenplay as a novice; he did have past experience in the art of scripting a film.</span></div>
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<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><br /></span> <span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><br /></span> <span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">In Steven Jay Rubin’s magisterial</span><span class="apple-converted-space" face=""calibri" , sans-serif"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The James Bond Films</i><span class="apple-converted-space" face=""calibri" , sans-serif"> </span><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">(1981) he states that “The writing of</span><span class="apple-converted-space" face=""calibri" , sans-serif"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The Spy Who Loved Me</i><span class="apple-converted-space" face=""calibri" , sans-serif"> </span><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">was something of a nightmare. No less than twelve script writers had a crack at it and there were at least fifteen different drafts of the script on Broccoli’s desk at any one moment. It became a question of who could be the most innovative and yet stay within the bounds of credibility.</span></div>
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<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">On this new project, the writers were asked to work from scratch, bearing in mind a guideline from Broccoli who thought that “The Spy” in question should be a Russian agent who falls in love with Bond.”</span><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">(2)</b></div>
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<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">On the screenwriting of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Steven Jay Rubin further writes:<u1:p></u1:p></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">“[Anthony] Barwick left the [script writing] project and was followed in order by Derek Marlowe, Sterling Silliphant, John Landis and Anthony Burgess (the author of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>A Clockwork Orange</i>). Burgess developed the most outrageous of all the scripts, an undisguised parody of the world of James Bond.”</span><o:p></o:p><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">(3)</b></div>
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<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">Further to this, in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Kiss! Kiss! Bang! Bang!: The Unofficial James Bond Film Companion</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(2000), by Alan Barnes and Marcus Hearn it is confirmed that “the huge submarine silo seen in the finished film was reportedly Burgess’s inspiration.”<b>(4)</b></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">Burgess’s involvement with the script of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>in 1976 and his attendant send-up of the world of the cinematic James Bond greatly contradict what he would later write in his Coronet Books Bond novels Introduction in 1987. It is most odd indeed that Burgess would mark out a film that he wrote a draft screenplay verging on parody for and then later criticise the finished film as being “a very unflemingian [<i>sic</i>] hotchpotch.” If one were only to consider his 1987 comments, one would have assumed (quite wrongly as it turns out) that Burgess would have been the very man to put that right!<u1:p></u1:p></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">Of course, there is another side to this particular coin here, as is often the case when one digs deeper into the facts. The whole screenplay written by Burgess for<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>could alternatively (and probably more accurately) be read as a “piss-take” or overt parody of the direction that the Bond series was heading in the late 1970s rather than as a truly serious attempt at writing a 1970s James Bond film, with all that that entailed in terms of style and set-pieces. In ready support of this analysis of his outlandish screenplay for<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>is the fact that Burgess had earlier written a spy novel entitled<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Tremor of Intent: An Eschatological Spy Novel </i>(1966) which Burgess conceived as both a timely (the 1960s were, of course, the height of the Spy Craze in novels and films and on television) comedic reaction to the po-faced “seriousness” of the Len Deighton and John Le Carré spy novels and the more fantasy-laden James Bond novels of Ian Fleming and his then many imitators in print. Indeed the Ian Fleming James Bond novels have for a long time been considered as the dividing line in spy fiction between the more fantasy-laden thrillers and spy spoofs/take-offs and the more gritty and realistic spy thrillers by the likes of Len Deighton and John Le </span><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">Carré</span><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"> as well as the undisputed masters of the docu-thriller and the techno-thriller Frederick Forsyth and the late Tom Clancy respectively. </span><br />
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<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">Whatever the reason for Burgess’s parody of the James Bond films in his seemingly serious attempt to write a latter-day Bond film it is a point well settled by this present time that the decade of the 1970s was the most decadent in the history of the James Bond films, starting with the high-camp spoofing of a Bond film with <i>Diamonds Are Forever</i> (1971) and ending with the Space-Age spectacle of <i>Moonraker</i> (1979). Where the earlier 1960s Bonds had focused on character and plot the 1970s Bonds had focused on outlandish spectacle and excess at the cost of character, a move the Fleming purist fan Burgess obviously very much disapproved of for well-founded reasons and when his screenplay attempt is read in light of this fact it does make much more sense as a reaction against this direction. His outlandish parody of all that he saw the Bond films had become by the late 1970s could be easily read as a polemic against the increase in spectacle and stunts at the expense of the corpse of the James Bond character construct. Guy Hamilton himself, the director of <i>Goldfinger</i> (1964) and three other Bond films, even believed that the Bond films could never really ever be taken seriously again after the inclusion of the trick Aston Martin DB5 in <i>Goldfinger</i>. It was heavily-laden with gadgetry including front-firing machine guns hidden in the lights, a rear oil slick facility and rear thick black smoke projector and of course the infamous ejector seat for those troublesome passengers! </span><br />
<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><br /></span> <span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">No doubt Burgess would have been pleased (as any Fleming purist at the time no doubt was) that the Bond films returned to a back to basic more grounded in reality approach at the beginning of the 1980s with the release of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>For Your Eyes Only</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(1981) with Roger Moore arguably giving his best (and not coincidentally the most Flemingesque) performance as Bond much more in line with the Fleming originals as the film was closely based on two Fleming short stories and part of a Bond novel to boot. Whatever the real reason for his spoof Bond film screenplay for the then projected<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>film it is clear that an in-depth study of Burgess and the James Bond phenomenon would be a very worthy academic and intellectual exercise for a future more in-depth paper on the subject and the full content of Burgess’s screenplay. Until then the case of Anthony Burgess and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>is hereby closed pending further inquiry.<span class="apple-converted-space"> Therefore the case for the prosecution of Anthony Burgess for crimes against fidelity to Ian Fleming is not proved beyond reasonable doubt (the margin being 99.9%). <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><span class="apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span> <span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><u>Judgment deferred - to be continued in Part 2...</u></b></span></span><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><span class="apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span> <span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span><br />
<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><u>Endnotes</u></b></span></span><br />
<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span> <span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>(1)</b></span><span face="calibri, sans-serif"> </span></span></span><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">Anthony Burgess, ‘The James Bond Novels: An Introduction,’ Lugano, 1987 (Ian Fleming, <i>Live and Let Die</i>, Coronet Books, London, 1988), (no page numbers).</span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">(2)</span> </b><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">Steven Jay Rubin, </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The James Bond Films</i><span class="apple-converted-space" face=""calibri" , sans-serif"> </span><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">(Talisman Books, London, 1981), pp. 137-138.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>(3)</b></span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Ibid</i>, p. 139.</span><br />
<span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>(4)</b></span></span><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </b><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">Alan Barnes and Marcus Hearn, </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Kiss! Kiss! Bang! Bang!: The Unofficial James Bond Film Companion</i><span class="apple-converted-space" face=""calibri" , sans-serif"> </span><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif">(Batsford, London, 2000), p. 120.</span><br />
<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><br /></span> <span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><br /></span> <span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><b>This article is dedicated to the Memory of Greg Ferrell (SirHenryLeeChaChing on MI6 Community) (1961-2014) who sadly passed away in January 2014.</b></span><br />
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<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><br /></span> <span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><b><u>TBB Article No. 21</u></b></span><br />
<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif"><br /></span> <span face="sans-serif" style="color: #252525; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;"> </span><b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: start;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2014. </b></div>
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The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-13445358164285459392013-01-29T10:43:00.008+00:002024-02-05T16:45:09.469+00:00Kingsley Amis, Drax’s Gambit and the Reform of the Action Sequences in the James Bond Films<div class="MsoTitle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
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The late literary author and one-time (though <i>reluctant</i>, it has to be said) ‘Angry Young Man’ of the 1950s literary movement, Sir Kingsley Amis holds a deservedly much-esteemed position in the history of the James Bond phenomenon from the 1960s until his death in the mid-1990s and it could be argued (quite justifiably) that he is second only to James Bond’s creator Ian Fleming in terms of his contributions to the literary world of James Bond with critical works and a continuation novel to his credit. As well as being the author of such novels as <i>Lucky Jim</i> (1954), <i>Take A Girl Like You</i> (1961), <i>The Green Man</i> (1969), <i>Girl, 20</i> (1971) and <i>The Old Devils</i> (1986), (the latter title being the novel for which Amis deservedly won the Man Booker Prize in 1986) he was also (rather surprisingly for a literary author) a very great fan of genre fiction, and this was especially the case with his books on the James Bond phenomenon in the second half of the twentieth century. Amis wrote only the second book on the literary James Bond phenomenon (after O.F. Snelling’s 1964 book <i>Double O Seven: James Bond, A Report</i>): <i>The James Bond Dossier</i> (1965). He also penned the fun and rather light-hearted concordance <i>The Book of Bond or Every Man His Own 007</i> (1965) under the pen name of Lt.-Col. William (‘Bill’) Tanner. Amis also wrote the first commissioned James Bond continuation novel after the death of Ian Fleming in August 1964, namely that of <i>Colonel Sun</i> (1968) under the (Glidrose-approved) pseudonym of Robert Markham. Though the novel received mixed reviews from the critics, it sold relatively well and it remains one of the most successful post-Fleming evocations of the high old tone of the Ian Fleming originals, despite the best efforts of Messers Wood, Gardner, Benson, Faulks and Deaver in the years since then. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In Kingsley Amis’ excoriating review of John Gardner’s second James Bond continuation novel <i>For Special Services</i> (1982) published in the <i>Times Literary Supplement</i> on 17 September 1982, he makes the following very interesting point on the nature of the James Bond films when compared with their literary continuation counterparts:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I have suggested that <i>For Special Services</i> has little to do with the Bond films. In one sense this is its misfortune. Those films cover up any old implausibility or inconsistency by piling one outrage on another. You start to say to yourself. ‘But he wouldn’t –’ or ‘But they couldn’t –’ and before you can finish Bond is crossing the sunward side of the planet Mercury in a tropical suit or sinking a Soviet aircraft carrier with his teeth. Hardly a page in the book would not have gone the smoother for a diversion of this sort. Why, for instance, does the New York gang boss set his hoods on Bond when all he has to do is ask them nicely? Echo answers why. The reader is offered no relief from his bafflement.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“By a kind of tradition, however, perhaps started by Buchan and Dominick Medina in <i>The Three Hostages</i>, the main character-interest in this type of novel attaches to the villain. Mr Big, Hugo Drax, Dr No and their like are persons of some size and power. They are made to seem to exist in their own right, to have been operating since long before Bond crossed their paths, rather than to have been run up on the spot for him to practice on. But then to do anything like that the writer must be genuinely interested in his material.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">1</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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In his earlier review in the <i>New Statesman</i> of the film tie-in novelisation of the third Roger Moore James Bond film <i>The Spy Who Loved Me </i>(1977) by the screenwriter Christopher Wood entitled <i>James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me</i> (1977), Kingsley Amis made other interesting comments about what he saw as the inherent and intrinsic differences between the literary and the cinematic James Bond. It was a more mixed review than his polemical review of John Gardner’s <i>For Special Services </i>and indeed the whole contemporary James Bond continuation project as a whole. Amis wrote of the difficult task of writing a James Bond novel in the Fleming style in the vastly different conception of the character that was that of the filmic James Bond character of the late 1970s. This filmic image of James Bond had long ago overtaken the literary Bond character in the vast swathe of the public consciousness and in the public mind:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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“…Mr Wood has bravely tackled his formidable main task, that of turning a typical late Bond film, which is basically facetious, into a novel after Fleming, which must be basically serious. To this end he has, by my count, left out nine silly gadgets and sixteen silly cracks that were in the script.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What nobody could have cut out is the element of second-sight contingency planning (or negligence) that gets by in a film, indeed is very much part of the style of these films, but intrudes in a book. Your enemy has an explosive motorbike sidecar ready to launch at your car in case he’s forgotten to kill you for certain and in secret a few minutes before. In case that misses, he has already aloft a helicopter fitted with jets and cannon. Your car is submersible in case you meet such a helicopter while driving on a coast road. In case you submerge your car he has a submarine waiting. In case he has you have underwater rocket-launchers. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Later, in his supertanker, [the <i>Liparus</i>] which is really a giant submarine-trap, your enemy has a revolving gun-emplacement and four inch armoured shutters with machine-gun slits over his control-room in case the submarine crews he’s taken prisoner and forgotten to kill break out of the ‘brig’ and start trying to take over with spare weapons they find in the magazine, where there’s also enough stuff just lying around to build a bomb that’ll blast through the armour-plate. Second-sight sportsmanship?<o:p></o:p></div>
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And earlier…but forget it. You safely can.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">2</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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In his published letters, Amis revealed to his second wife Elizabeth Jane Howard that he’d “been to Pinewood Studios to be talked to about the new James Bond film, which they want me to write an article on. Don’t know that I will, but it was fun to go, meet Roger Moore etc.” This means that Amis visited the set of the then new James Bond film <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i> in September 1976, and although he never wrote a review of the film, he did instead go on to review the novelisation of the film by Christopher Wood by in the <i>New Statesman</i> just a week after a review of the film <i>The Spy Who Loved Me </i>by another reviewer had appeared in the official weekly Labour Party journal. It is surely no coincidence that Kingsley Amis' son Martin Amis was at this time no less than the Literary Editor of the <em>New Statesman </em>(a position that he held between 1977 and 1979)<em>, </em>and therefore he allowed Amis senior the literary licence in the left-wing journal to vent spleen on the modern-day conception of a James Bond film that bore little to no relation to the works of the late Ian Fleming - that of <em>The Spy Who Loved Me</em>. </div>
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There is much of interest (and indeed relevance) in what Kingsley Amis wrote about the nature of the contemporary James Bond films of the late 1970s in his two reviews quoted above. Indeed, all of his criticisms and observations are still true today, perhaps even more so. Amis was clearly no great fan of the James Bond films, (most especially those of the often light and dandy version of James Bond as played by Roger Moore) much preferring the original Ian Fleming James Bond novels and short stories to their outlandish cinematic counterparts. The reviews (and a letter to Philip Larkin on Gardner’s 1981 first Bond continuation novel <i>Licence Renewed</i>) also reveal that Amis, as the first James Bond continuation author, also heavily disapproved of the continuation novels by John Gardner; to the extent that he thought that they brought the memory of the original James Bond novels by Ian Fleming into disrepute! Kingsley Amis’ words about the almost psychic villainy in the James Bond films in always anticipating Bond’s next move was an aspect especially a part of the larger scale James Bond films directed by Lewis Gilbert (<i>You Only Live Twice</i>, <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i> and <i>Moonraker</i>) and some of the more modern Bond films like the action-film orientated Pierce Brosnan outings <i>Tomorrow Never Dies</i> (1997), <i>Die Another Day</i> (2002) and even Daniel Craig’s <i>Quantum of Solace</i> (2008). The new era ushered in by the Daniel Craig version of James Bond has put paid to most of these problems identified by Amis as being why the novels and their film counterparts are so very different from each other. The current-day Daniel Craig era is a “reboot” of the series, starting with <i>Casino Royale</i> (2006) and continuing with <i>Quantum of Solace</i> (2008) and <i>Skyfall </i>(2012) and as such, it has seen a return to the spirit of the Ian Fleming novels and a rejection of the old traditions of the popular (and sadly much more prominent, in the general public’s mind, at least) traditional James Bond of the Eon-produced films in the forty year period of the so-called “classic James Bond films” before the advent of the 2006 “reboot” of the series from 1962 to 2002. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Amis’ reference to the overly implausible, fantastic and outlandish elements of the James Bond films that had crept in over the years was especially true in the most decadent era of the James Bond films – that of the 1970s. These particular Bond films were by their very nature much more action, gadgetry, gimmickry and major logistical stunt orientated than either their Bond film predecessors in the 1960s or their successors in the 1980s. The 1970s was a more decadent era than many others, and this decadence certainly rubbed off on the James Bond films of the era, in that they were less focused on James Bond’s character, but instead much more on the action set pieces, amazing stunt work, explosions, mass gun battles and villainous lairs hidden in the most unexpected of places. Amis, in both the extracts from his book reviews quoted above was reacting against this new version of James Bond that he rightly felt had replaced that of the literary James Bond in much of the public imagination and consciousness. Amis, rather admirably, always remained a book Bond man rather than a film Bond man and this was his area of interest and indeed vast expertise. Amis contributed much to the literary side of the vast James Bond universe, including critical studies, a fun James Bond concordance, the first James Bond continuation novel, as well as general book reviews, articles, letters and interviews on the subject of the literary James Bond and his creator Ian Fleming. Amis even wrote the entry on Ian Fleming in the Dictionary of National Biography 1961-1970 and his last television interview was on a <i>Biography Channel</i> programme on Ian Fleming shortly before he died in October 1995. This shows the depth of Amis’ dedication to the world of the literary James Bond and his creator Ian Fleming. Amis’ contribution to the literary world of James Bond cannot be overemphasised, and, as such this article seeks to delve deeper than hitherto into Amis’ views on the James Bond films and how these tally with the original vision of Ian Fleming and the new and refreshing era of the Daniel Craig James Bond films released in the six years between 2006 and 2012. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Amis’ publicly stated dislike of the Roger Moore James Bond films has led to the rumour or suggestion that it was a combination of the fact that Amis’s <i>Colonel Sun</i> was accepted over Geoffrey Jenkins’ novel <i>Per Fine Ounce</i> (circa 1966) that Harry Saltzman refused to even countenance a film version of <i>Colonel Sun</i>, as he had been involved in supporting Jenkins’ bid to get Glidrose to publish his James Bond novel, the outline of which he had worked on with Ian Fleming in the early 1960s and which he indeed wrote up before Glidrose later refused to publish, as was their right under the terms of the contract drawn up to commission the novel in the first place. However, there is another interesting aspect to the story of the potential filming of <i>Colonel Sun</i> by EON Production, as is revealed in one of the late author’s letters to his second wife and fellow novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“…Meant to tell you that while I was at Pinewood I mentioned Col. Sun to the PR chap, saying quite innocently that I’d heard long ago that Sal[t]zman had more or less specifically rejected the idea of filming it. PR chap said well, you know Sal[t]zman has left the organisation now and, er, let’s say I’ve heard people mentioning Col Sun. So there may be something in store for us there.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">3</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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As it turned out, Amis’ <i>Colonel Sun</i>, like all of the numerous continuation novels by the likes of John Gardner, Raymond Benson <i>et al</i> remained and indeed still remain un-filmed well over forty years since its publication way back in March 1968. Another reason cited for the reluctance of EON to film <i>Colonel Sun</i>, one of the most authentic of the post-Fleming James Bond continuation novels (perhaps as it was the first and was written in the requisite period of the 1960s with its contemporary Cold War backdrop of the rivalry between the Soviet Union and Red China) was that the remaining producer Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli was put off by Amis’ publicly stated dislike of the James Bond films of Roger Moore. While Roger Moore captured the suave and sophisticated element of the James Bond character construct of the Eton drop-out of the original Ian Fleming novels, he played the character much more lightly than the likes of Sean Connery, Timothy Dalton or Daniel Craig. However, there were some elements of toughness that the lighter-touch James Bond actor Roger Moore brought to the role in his record-breaking seven James Bond films such as his fisticuffs with Saida’s minders, beating up of Scaramanga’s girlfriend, Miss Andrea Anders both of which featured in <i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i> (1974), knocking the muscle-bound henchman Sandor off a roof in <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i> (1977) and kicking a car containing Emile Leopold Locque off a cliff-edge to his death in <i>For Your Eyes Only</i> (1981). While the first two of these incidents were just plain nasty, and not having any precedent in the works of Ian Fleming, the killing of Locque is reminiscent of the Bond of the novel <i>Live and Let Die </i>(1954) kicking Mr Big’s henchman The Robber into a shark pit as revenge for the shark-mauling of his friend Felix Leiter. Locque’s brutal end was revenge on the part of Moore-Bond for the murder of his Italian ally Luigi Ferrara by Locque, hence this toughening up of Bond was justified. This dislike of the Bond films of the 1970s and the wrong direction that Amis felt that they were going in (away from their earlier fidelity to the works of Ian Fleming) is evidenced in his book reviews of <i>James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me</i> and <i>For Special Services</i>, the relevant extracts of which are quoted above. Evidently, this antagonism to the film version of James Bond must have alienated Cubby Broccoli and his production team. And so it came to pass that when Eon Productions ran out of original Fleming material there was always the James Bond character from which they had the rights to make new film adventures from – they did not have to resort to the sole continuation novel of Amis, or latterly those of Gardner or Benson. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Amis raises some very interesting and timelessly relevant points about the more traditional formula-driven James Bond films of yesteryear as well as pointing to the way the future direction of the action sequences and set pieces of the James Bond films should go in the future. What Amis wrote way back in 1977 and 1982 in the unexpected place of his reviews of two James Bond continuation novels is still as relevant to a reader in 2013 as it was at the time of original publication, if not even more so, given subsequent James Bond films that have been released in the years since 1977 and 1982 respectively. The Daniel Craig James Bond films have seemingly finally headed Amis’ advice on and criticism of the extravagant yet hollow, soulless and emotionally vapid James Bond films of the late 1970s (and of 1967, if one counts <i>You Only Live Twice</i>, where the rot rather set in, and “film Bond” began to replace “book Bond” in the public imagination, in this author’s view). There were of course such earlier films of the 1970s as <i>Diamonds Are Forever</i> (1971), <i>Live and Let Die</i> (1973) and <i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i> (1974), all directed by <i>Goldfinger</i> director Guy Hamilton, but the scale of these three Bond films all tended to be smaller and with tagged-on endings involving resurgent henchmen (Mr Wint and Mr Kidd, Tee Hee and Nick Nack) making a last ditch revenge attempt on Bond’s life after the death of the main villain that was their boss. Guy Hamilton used the same cinematic device in <i>Goldfinger</i> too, although there it was the main eponymous villain that made the revenge attack on Bond after he had foiled the Operation Grand Slam plan to irradiate all of the gold supply of Fort Knox. These three films had a smaller scale plot (especially true of the first two Roger Moore films, <i>Live and Let Die</i> and <i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i>) and being co-scripted by new writing talent Tom Mankiewicz they had a lighter, more comedic tone more in keeping with the general mood of the early 1970s where audiences depressed by the grim reality of the energy crises and the “three day week” wanted more escapist fare from their Bond films than had their predecessors in the 1960s that had starred Sean Connery and George Lazenby respectively. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In the aftermath of the break away of Harry Saltzman from the partnership with Cubby Broccoli and his selling of his half stake in the Bond films to the studio United Artists, Broccoli had the maxim of putting every budgetary penny spent up on the screen for the audience to marvel at had the adverse effect of reducing the James Bond character to a mere cipher. From<i> The Spy Who Loved Me </i>onwards, it seemed that the James Bond character was merely the catalyst for wild death-defying stunts and explosive set pieces. In all of this large-scale action and spectacle the character of James Bond was reduced to that of a fantasy figure onto which impressionable audiences could project their wildest dreams in an escapist adventure that lasted a little over two hours. The James Bond films of the 1970s offered this chance of escape in an increasingly dull world of international terrorism, strikes, three-day weeks, energy crises and IRA bombing campaigns. It must have been felt by the producer, directors and screenwriters that too much character development of James Bond would have gotten in the way of the general mood of Bond films being escapist fare – too much dwelling on Bond’s inner demons being not what audiences of that grim decade that was the 1970s would not have been looking for. Cubby Broccoli seemed to have the uncanny gift of being able to deliver up to the audience what they wanted at that particular time in history, even though this meant that the actual character development of the James Bond character was mostly put on the back burner in the 1970s. Spectacle, set pieces and giant sets were the order of the day in the James Bond films of the 1970s – character development very much took a back seat. Now, in this new blessed era of Daniel Craig, the Fleming purist may rejoice loudly at the direction taken by the action sequences and plotting of these new and superior James Bond films, following on from the earlier example of Roger Moore’s finest Bond film (from a Flemingesque point of view) <i>For Your Eyes Only</i> (1981) and the later Timothy Dalton films of the late 1980s, where there was once again a renewed attempt to bring the unexpurgated soul of the James Bond character construct, as originally envisaged by Ian Fleming faithfully to the big screen. Amis refers to the element of the suspension of disbelief in the James Bond films of the late 1970s thus:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Those films cover up any old implausibility or inconsistency by piling one outrage on another. You start to say to yourself. ‘But he wouldn’t –’ or ‘But they couldn’t ’ and before you can finish Bond is crossing the sunward side of the planet Mercury in a tropical suit or sinking a Soviet aircraft carrier with his teeth.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">4</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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It is safe to say that Kingsley Amis is being rather facetious himself here (a phrase he uses to describe the contemporary James Bond films of the late 1970s) and that he is rather engaging in some hyperbole, but when one considers the fact that the two James Bond films of the late 1970s, <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i> (1977) and <i>Moonraker</i> (1979) both had plots concerning the destruction of all life on Earth through nuclear weapons and poison gas respectively. It could be said that Amis’ seemingly exaggerated comments was not too far from the truth in his reviews. It was against this backdrop of the replacement of the James Bond novels with the James Bond films of the 1970s, that Amis wrote what amounted to two polemics against the Bond films. Ironically, Amis conversely felt that the continuation Bond novels themselves probably could have done with emulating them in order to be successful in the mind’s eye of the contemporary general James Bond fan of the late 1970s and early 1980s. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Another very interesting and indeed salient point that Amis makes in the extracts from the reviews quoted above is the fact that the James Bond films in the decadent era of the late 1970s all have the same approach to villainy in the form of the various henchmen and henchwomen that form the forces that act against the secret agent James Bond in the film versions:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“What nobody could have cut out is the element of second-sight contingency planning (or negligence) that gets by in a film, indeed is very much part of the style of these films, but intrudes in a book. Your enemy has an explosive motorbike sidecar ready to launch at your car in case he’s forgotten to kill you for certain and in secret a few minutes before. In case that misses, he has already aloft a helicopter fitted with jets and cannon. Your car is submersible in case you meet such a helicopter while driving on a coast road. In case you submerge your car he has a submarine waiting. In case he has you have underwater rocket-launchers. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Later, in his supertanker, [the <i>Liparus</i>] which is really a giant submarine-trap, your enemy has a revolving gun-emplacement and four inch armoured shutters with machine-gun slits over his control-room in case the submarine crews he’s taken prisoner and forgotten to kill break out of the ‘brig’ and start trying to take over with spare weapons they find in the magazine, where there’s also enough stuff just lying around to build a bomb that’ll blast through the armour-plate. Second-sight sportsmanship?”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">5</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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This criticism of <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i> concerning the battery of henchmen some of the more outlandish and megalomaniacal villains in the film series threw at James Bond could also be applied to previous James Bond films like <i>Goldfinger</i>, <i>Thunderball</i>, <i>You Only Live Twice</i>, <i>Diamonds Are Forever</i>, and <i>Live and Let Die</i>. What Amis cleverly calls “second-sight contingency planning” on the part of the filmic James Bond villains and their various minions is seen most clearly in the “greatest-hits package” of a James Bond film that is <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i>, a Bond film by numbers (although the correct winning combination) that is essentially a remake of <i>You Only Live Twice</i> (significantly also directed by Lewis Gilbert) with a fair measure of <i>Goldfinger </i>thrown in for good measure, and just to make sure all of the classic (and provably successful) Bond film ingredients needed for box-office success were present and correct. When James Bond (played by Roger Moore) visits Karl Stromberg in <i>Atlantis</i>, his gigantic steel spider-like underwater research laboratory off the coast of Sardinia, he goes under the guise of Robert Sterling, a marine biologist, in order to see how Stromberg lives out his rather reclusive and eccentric existence under the sea as the wealthy owner of the Stromberg shipping line or one of “the principal capitalist exploiters of the West” in the words of the doctrinaire Communist agent Major Anya Amasova of the KGB. Stromberg asks Jaws after seeing Mr Sterling (Bond) “Were they the two on the train?” to which the mute Jaws gives an affirmative nod. “James Bond and Major Amasova, a Russian agent. Let them get ashore, and then kill them.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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As Amis readily notes in the passage quoted above, James Bond, after having been granted an audience with Karl Stromberg in <i>Atlantis</i>, his underwater research laboratory in Sardinia, is pursued by a veritable litany of Stromberg’s henchmen in ever-increasing and elaborate death-dealing devices along a coastal road in Sardinia. These devices include in swift succession; a motorbike and missile-launched sidecar that attempts to blow Bond and Amasova to smithereens in their Lotus Esprit, a car full of gun firing thugs (including the 7 ft 2” indestructible steel-teethed hit man Jaws), a helicopter equipped with a contemporary Vietnam War (1965-1973) style machine-gun cannon (later seen in <i>A View to A Kill</i>, <i>Tomorrow Never Dies</i> and <i>Skyfall </i>also) that attempts on several occasions along the self-same coastal Sardinian road to riddle Bond’s Lotus Esprit with bullets and turn the pure white coat of the sports car to the crimson red of blood and mutilated and bloody bodies. The helicopter that was flown by Stromberg’s personal assistant and pilot Naomi forces Bond to drive his Lotus Esprit off the edge of a pier into the Sardinian sea. This heart-in-mouth sequence results in the revelation that the car has the ability to turn into a submarine submersible car, with fins and tail rudder to control its underwater course. From the sea, Bond uses the car’s controls to fire a missile upwards from the roof of the submerged car at the “uninvited guest” of the helicopter flown by Naomi, which explodes in a massive fireball above the surface of the sea. Bond had used a quick and death-defying manoeuvre to escape the sidecar-missile projectile, causing the rider to be thrown over a cliff-edge to his death when the motorbike sidecar missile hit the unintended target of a luxury Materassis Sardadream bed mattress lorry (“All those feathers and he still can’t fly” quips Moore-Bond). The car full of gun-toting thugs meets its end when Bond fires liquid cement from two jets hidden behind his car’s number plate to cover the car’s windscreen, causing it to crash headlong into a Sardinian citizen’s house. The gadgetry of the Lotus Esprit of course recalls that of Bond’s gadget-laden Aston Martin DB5 in the film <i>Goldfinger</i>, which many Bond aficionados consider to be the very best James Bond film. Tellingly, Jaws is the only walk-away survivor of the terror car carnage. Amis, in his haste forgets to even mention this car chase sequence from the film version of <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i>, but he can perhaps be forgiven for this over-sight as he makes very salient points, was not a Bond film admirer in any real sense, and probably was relying on his memories of the showing of the film in the cinema; beta-mix tapes, video cassettes and DVD/Blu-Ray copies that would allow of multiple viewing for strict accuracy, not then available to the general film-going public of 1977 (although the very first prototype video tape was created in 1956). This was a problem faced by many of the early commentators of the James Bond films, of course, from John Brosnan to Steven Jay Rubin to Raymond Benson. Amis does however remember the three underwater sledges fitted with small underwater torpedoes and missiles seen in the film when Bond’s car tries to investigate <i>Atlantis</i> as it exists under the ocean. There is also a Shark Hunter mini submersible that Major Amasova helps to destroy with an ink screen and two mines that blow the Shark Hunter up when the mines hit the seabed. (There is an apt little in-joke here on the reality of the incompetence of much of post-war British Intelligence (of, for instance, the Cambridge spy ring) as it then existed when Major Amasova admits that she knew about the car’s weaponry as she “stole the blueprints of this car two years ago.” (!)) Amis rather succinctly refers to this underwater scene by saying: <o:p></o:p></div>
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“Your car is submersible in case you meet such a helicopter while driving on a coast road. In case you submerge your car he has a submarine waiting. In case he has you have underwater rocket-launchers.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn6" name="_ednref6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">6</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Although it is notable that Amis was certainly no expert (or indeed fan) of the James Bond films, he had evidently seen enough of them and their variations in quality from film to film and to know that they were formula films very much set apart latterly from the original works by Ian Fleming that he had earlier studied in such depth in several books in the 1960s. Amis knew (arguably better than any other commentator of the time) the flaws of the Bond films in their presentation of small-scale minor henchman villainy and in the panorama of their action set-pieces as seen most especially in <i>The Spy Who Loved Me </i>with the<i> </i>scene along the Sardinian coast. It is clear that Amis made most revealing criticisms of many of the James Bond films of the late 1960s and late 1970s – that which he knowingly labels “the element of second-sight contingency planning (or negligence) that gets by in a film, indeed is very much part of the style of these films” whereby Bond’s sworn enemy always seems to have another madman’s surprise of a death-trap waiting to spring on him just “in case he’s forgotten to kill [him] for certain and in secret a few minutes before.” This is a <i>very astute </i>reading of the problems with the action sequences of the most popular (amongst the plebeian masses, not the true Bond aficionados) of the James Bond films, namely, <i>You Only Live Twice</i>, <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i> and <i>Moonraker</i>, all, rather tellingly, directed by Lewis Gilbert (and two of which were of course written by scriptwriter and novelist Christopher Wood). These Bond films appeal to the general mass of the general public worldwide simply because they are fun, light-hearted romps that move at break-neck pace; the exotic locales, megalomaniacal villains, lush and exotic girls, preposterous potentially Earth-shattering villainous plot conspiracies, fast action and gadget-laden cars, helicopters and <i>gondolas</i> and as such, comprise what Joe Public considers acceptable when they hear the name “James Bond” uttered or read it in print. In his review of John Gardner’s <i>For Special Services</i>, Amis makes another very interesting point concerning the nature of the villainy that Gardner has on display in his second Bond continuation novel, but which could, of course be equally applied to the villains and their various henchmen in the contemporaneous Bond films of the late 1970s:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I have suggested that <i>For Special Services</i> has little to do with the Bond films. In one sense this is its misfortune. Those films cover up any old implausibility or inconsistency by piling one outrage on another. You start to say to yourself. ‘But he wouldn’t –’ or ‘But they couldn’t –’ and before you can finish Bond is crossing the sunward side of the planet Mercury in a tropical suit or sinking a Soviet aircraft carrier with his teeth.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“By a kind of tradition, however, perhaps started by Buchan and Dominick Medina in <i>The Three Hostages</i>, the main character-interest in this type of novel attaches to the villain. Mr Big, Hugo Drax, Dr No and their like are persons of some size and power. They are made to seem to exist in their own right, to have been operating since long before Bond crossed their paths, rather than to have been run up on the spot for him to practice on. But then to do anything like that the writer must be genuinely interested in his material.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn7" name="_ednref7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">7</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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The same criticism could surely be attached to the highly influential (in the popular consciousness) three James Bond films directed by Lewis Gilbert between 1967 and 1979. These films were massive earners at the box-office when compared to some of the grittier or more experimental James Bond films that either followed or preceded them (thinking here of <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i>, <i>Live and Let Die</i> and <i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i> specifically). Lewis Gilbert was responsible (N.B. I make that sound rather like a criminal offence quite intentionally) for the three most outlandish James Bond films in the fifty years of the official Eon-produced series from 1962 to 2012 (excepting, of course Lee Tamahori’s <i>Die Another Day</i>, 2002) And although it is true that no Bond films have (as yet) featured Bond “crossing the sunward side of the planet Mercury in a tropical suit” [shades of Roger Moore’s much-maligned safari suit seen in <i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i>, <i>Moonraker </i>and <i>Octopussy</i>]”; this being an example of Amis’ exaggeration to make an otherwise salient point, the Lewis Gilbert Bond films certainly came close to this type of outlandish excess. [It is notable that, as a child, I first came across the word “outlandish” rather appropriately in a film review of <i>Moonraker</i> published in a newspaper – “one of the most outlandish entries in the series.”]<o:p></o:p></div>
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In Lewis Gilbert’s <i>You Only Live Twice</i> there were the excesses of a space rocket swallowing other space rockets, the “Little Nellie” gadget laden autogyro small helicopter, an underground volcanic lair that formed the military base of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, leader of SPECTRE In <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i> there is the “Wet Nellie”, the submersible Lotus Esprit gadget-laden car, <i>Atlantis</i>, the <i>Liparus</i> super tanker and submarine-swallowing storage container and a mass of spectacular stunts from skiing off a cliff and being saved by a Union Flag parachute to an escape from the sinking <i>Atlantis </i>marine research laboratory in an escape pod (shades of the later film version of <i>Casino Royale</i>, 2006, where there is a sinking piazza in Venice). In the even more excessive last Lewis Gilbert directed Bond film <i>Moonraker </i>(1979) there are the outlandish elements of Bond being pushed out of an aeroplane without a parachute that he then has to wrestle n mid-air from his protagonist, a spin in a centrifuge astronaut-trainer with a G-force that almost goes off the recorded scale of ordinary human endeavour, a space shuttle based programme of eugenics where the plot is to remove from the decadent Earth all of its human life and to repopulate it with a set of “perfect physical specimens” that will breed a new Master Race that will be reborn like a Phoenix arisen from the ashes of the old Earth. In order to “preserve the balance of nature”, Drax sees to it that animal life will remain unaffected by the lethal improvements made to an ancient civilisation’s orchid-sourced nerve poison. There is also a laser battle in space between the “Draxites” and the NASA-trained cavalry leader Colonel Scott’s space marines, which does look rather preposterous. Despite this, it is a climactic scene clearly influenced by similar cavalry-arrival scenes in <i>Thunderball</i>, <i>You Only Live Twice</i>, <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i>, <i>Diamonds Are Forever </i>and <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i>. Although the Bond films post-<i>Moonraker </i>were less excessive and more grounded in the gritty reality of the dirty trade that is espionage, late 2002 saw the release of <i>Die Another Day</i>, which critics and fans alike cited as being a return to the old-school excesses of Bond films of yesteryear such as <i>You Only Live Twice</i>, <i>The Spy Who Loved Me </i>and <i>Moonraker</i>. With a plot involving a laser satellite in space called<i> Icarus </i>(a seemingly benevolent "second sun") that was designed by the apparent English toff Sir Gustav Graves (in reality Colonel Tan-Sun Moon<span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><b>) </b></span></span>to destroy the very heavily mined border area (known as the 38<sup>th</sup> Parallel) between the Communist North Korean and the democratic South Korea, leaving the way clear for an invasion by the North Korean Army some fifty years after the Korean War of 1950-1953.</div>
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Although the film had a rather gritty start with James Bond being captured and tortured over the course of some fourteen months between 2001 and 2002 (during which time 11<sup>th</sup> September 2001 occurred and the “world changed”), when the film arrived at its main Icelandic location, it is noticeable how preposterous the plot becomes all of a sudden. There is the idea of the “second sun” that is the <i>Icarus</i> space laser satellite (recalling both <i>Diamonds are Forever</i> and <i>GoldenEye</i>), the Aston Martin Vanquish that becomes an invisible car at the touch of a button, the fight between two (ridiculously) heavily gadget-laden cars on the ice, the Ice Palace (inspired unacknowledged by John Gardner’s 1983 Bond continuation novel <i>Icebreaker</i>), the climactic fight on a plane with Graves in the role of an evil science-fiction inspired superhero with a <i>Robocop</i>-inspired <i>Icarus</i> satellite control suit, the preposterous CGI-inflected scene where Bond uses an open parachute and the windscreen from Graves’; super car to surf a tidal wave caused by the <i>Icarus </i>satellite being used to cut off a large section of a ice cliff edge. This scene recalls Amis’ mention of “Bond…crossing the sunward side of the planet Mercury in a tropical suit”. The ice cliff scene was clearly inspired by the exploding of the limestone cliff edge with drilled-down dynamite charges in the original <i>Moonraker</i> novel, of which <i>Die Another Day</i> is a very loose updated adaptation. Sir Gustav Graves is modelled on Sir Hugo Drax, the <i>Icarus</i> satellite is modelled on the Moonraker rocket, Blades gentleman’s club features, the face-changing device recalls Drax’s botched plastic surgery and the character of Miranda Frost was originally going to be called Gala Brand in line with the heroine of the <i>Moonraker </i>novel. With the advent of <i>Die Another Day</i>, that piece of hyperbole on the part of Amis does not seem quite so outlandish and exaggerated a suggestion after all. Amis also made reference to how easily the submarine crews being held prisoner in the ‘brig’ of the <i>Liparus</i> were set free and were able to raid the ship’s armoury. This is a staple of spy and adventure films, however and is not solely unique to the film <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i>. One is reminded of the "Space Seed" episode of <em>Star Trek: The Original Series</em> (of which the film<em> Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan</em> is a direct sequel) where Captain James T. Kirk (sometimes referred to as a portly James Bond) and the villainous Khan are fighting in an engineering room aboard the <i>USS Enterprise</i> and Kirk manages to gain the advantage by his unscrewing of an anti-matter containment control bulk head pin lock that just so happens to resemble a long wrench and Kirk uses this handy im-provised weapon to gain the advantage in his hand-to-hand battle with his opponent by repeatedly hitting Khan over the head with it until he is finally knocked unconscious.* One suspects that the same type of “second-sight sportsmanship” applies in the prisoner escape and breaching of the control room in <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i>, but as Amis says this fun Bondian romp can easily be forgotten about once it has been viewed, as it is rather hollow and soulless in nature. As a film, <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i>, with its "James Bond as a superman" automaton figure, is really just a light and sugary piece of pink candy floss to dissolve almost instantly on the tongue, leaving a sickly sweet aftertaste, in contrast to the Army Surplus hard-boiled sweet of the noirish Fleming original, and as Amis writes at the end of his review of Christopher Wood’s novelisation of the film, “…but forget it. You safely can.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn8" name="_ednref8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">8</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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However, despite these outlandish elements in certain of the James Bond films from <i>You Only Live Twice</i> to <i>Die Another Day</i>, Amis’ criticism of the Bond films in his two reviews of Bond continuation novels could be said to have rational support in the original works of Ian Fleming. An action set-piece that Fleming designed for his third James Bond novel <i>Moonraker</i> (1955), not of course to be confused with the outlandish 1979 film version of the same name, applies the type of counter-move to the excesses of the latter-day James Bond films that Amis was referring to in his two book reviews quoted above. A quote taken from this passage in <i>Moonraker</i> will easily make this salient point on the vast differences between many of the action set-pieces seen in the James Bond films and those as originally written by Fleming in his novels and short stories of the 1950s and 1960s. In the scene quoted below from <i>Moonraker</i>, James Bond, driving his old Bentley, is in pursuit of the villain Sir Hugo Drax’s Mercedes, with his ADC and dogsbody Willy Krebs as a passenger and WPC Gala Brand as his prisoner bundled up on the back seat. After Drax has blatantly forced a third party car called <i>Attaboy II</i> off the road in front of Bond’s Bentley, Bond sees this as a declaration of war from the patron of the British Moonraker nuclear deterrent rocket, Sir Hugo Drax:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“As [Bond] flashed by, noting the horrible graffiti of the black skid-marked [<i>sic</i>] across the tarmac, his mind recorded one final macabre touch. Somehow undamaged in the holocaust, the windhorn was still making contact and its ululations were going on up to the sky, stridently clearing imaginary roads for the passage of <i>Attaboy II</i> – ‘Pom-pim-pom-pam’ ‘Pom-pim-pom-pam…’<o:p></o:p></div>
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So a murder had taken place in front of his eyes. Or at any rate an attempted murder. So, whatever his motives, Sir Hugo Drax had declared war and didn’t mind Bond knowing it. This made a lot of things easier. It meant that Drax was a criminal and probably a maniac. Above all it meant certain danger for the Moonraker. That was enough for Bond. He reached under the dashboard and from its concealed holster drew out the long-barrelled .45 Colt Army Special and laid it on the seat beside him. The battle was now in the open and somehow the Mercedes must be stopped. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Using the road as if it was Donington, Bond rammed his foot down and kept it there. Gradually, with the needle twitching either side of the hundred mark he began to narrow the gap. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Drax took the left-hand fork at Charing and hissed up the long hill. Ahead, in the giant beam of his headlights, one of Bowaters’ huge eight-wheeled AEC Diesel carriers was just grinding into the first bend of the hairpin, labouring under the fourteen tons of newsprint it was taking on a night run to one of the East Kent newspapers. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Drax cursed under his breath as he saw the long carrier with the twenty gigantic rolls, each containing five miles of newsprint, roped to its platform. Right in the middle of the tricky S-bend at the top of the hill. <o:p></o:p></div>
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He looked in the driving mirror and saw the Bentley coming into the fork. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And then Drax had his idea. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“Krebs,” the word was a pistol shot. “Get out your knife.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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There was a sharp click and the stiletto was in Kreb’s hand. One didn’t dawdle when there was that note in the master’s voice. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“I am going to slow down behind this lorry. Take your shoes and socks off and climb out on the bonnet and when I come behind the lorry jump on to it. I shall be going at walking-pace. It will be safe. Cut the ropes that hold the rolls of paper. The left ones first. Then the right. I shall have pulled up level with the lorry and when you have cut the second lot jump into the car. Be careful you are not swept off with the paper. <i>Verstanden? Also. Hals und Beinbruch!</i>”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Drax dowsed his headlights and swept around the bend at eighty. The lorry was twenty yards ahead and Drax had to brake hard to avoid crashing hard into its tail. The Mercedes executed a dry skid until its radiator was almost underneath the platform of the carrier. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Drax changed down to second. “Now!” He held the car steady as a rock as Krebs, with bare feet, went over the windscreen and scrambled along the shining bonnet, his knife in his hand. <o:p></o:p></div>
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With a leap he was up and hacking at the left-hand ropes. Drax pulled away to the right and crawled up level with the rear wheels of the Diesel, the oily smoke from its exhaust in his eyes and nostrils. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Bond’s lights were just showing round the bend. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There was a series of huge thuds as the left-hand rolls poured off the back of the lorry into the road and went hurtling off into the darkness. And more thuds as the right-hand ropes parted. One roll burst as it landed and Drax heard a tearing rattle as the unwinding paper crashed back down the one-in-ten gradient. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Released of its load the lorry almost bounded forward and Drax had to accelerate a little to catch the flying figure of Krebs who landed half across Gala’s back and half in the front seat. Drax stamped his foot into the floor and sped off up the hill, ignoring a shout from the lorry-driver above the clatter of the Diesel pistons as he shot ahead. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As he hurtled round the next bend he saw the shaft of two headlights curve up into the sky above the tops of the trees until they were almost vertical. They wavered there for an instant and then the beams whirled away across the sky and went out. <o:p></o:p></div>
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A great barking laugh broke out of Drax as for a split second he took his eyes off the road and raised his face triumphantly towards the stars. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Chapter XXI<o:p></o:p></div>
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‘THE PERSUADER’<o:p></o:p></div>
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Krebs echoed the maniac laugh with a high giggle. “A master-stroke, <i>mein Kapitän</i>. You should have seen them charge off down the hill. The one that burst. <i>Wunderschön!</i> Like the lavatory paper of a giant. That one will have made a pretty parcel of him. He was just coming round the bend. And the second salvo was as good as the first. Did you see the driver’s face? <i>Zum Kotzen!</i> And the <i>Firma</i> Bowater! A fine paperchase they will have on their hands.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“You did well,” said Drax briefly, his mind elsewhere. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Suddenly he pulled into the side of the road with a scream of protest from the tyres. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“<i>Donnerwetter</i>,” he said angrily, as he started to turn the car. “But we can’t leave the man there. We must get him.” The car was already hissing back down the road. “Gun,” ordered Drax briefly.<o:p></o:p></div>
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They passed the lorry at the top of the hill. It was stopped and there was no sign of the driver. Probably telephoning to the company, thought Drax, slowing up as they went round the first bend. There were lights on in the two or three houses and a group of people were standing round one of the rolls of newsprint that lay amongst the ruins of their front gate. There were more rolls in the hedge on the right side of the road. On the left a telegraph pole leant drunkenly, snapped in the middle. Then at the next bend was the beginning of a great confusion of paper stretching away down the long hill, festooning the bridges and the road like the sweepings of some elephantine fancy-dress ball.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Bentley had nearly broken through the railings that fenced off the right of the bend from a steep bank. Amidst a puzzle of twisted iron stanchions it hung, nose down, with one wheel, still attached to the broken back axle, poised crookedly over its rump like a surrealist umbrella. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Drax pulled up and he and Krebs got out and stood quietly, listening. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There was no sound except the distant rumination of a car travelling fast on the Ashford road and the chirrup of a sleepless cricket. <o:p></o:p></div>
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With their guns out they walked cautiously over to the remains of the Bentley, their feet crunching the broken glass on the road. Deep furrows had been cut across the grass verge and there was a strong smell of petrol and burnt rubber in the air. The hot metal of the car ticked and cracked softly and the steam was still fountaining from the shattered radiator. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Bond was lying face downwards at the bottom of the bank twenty feet away from the car. Krebs turned him over. His face was covered with blood but he was breathing they searched him thoroughly and Drax pocketed the Beretta. Then they hauled him across the road and wedged him into the back seat of the Mercedes, half on top of Gala.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When she realised who it was she gave a cry of horror. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“<i>Halt’s Maul</i>,” snarled Drax. He got into the front seat and while he turned the car Krebs leant over from the front seat and busied himself with a long piece of flex. “Make a good job of it,” said Drax. “I don’t want any mistakes.” He had an afterthought. “And then go back to the wreck and get the number plates. Hurry. I will watch the road.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Krebs pulled the rug over the two inert bodies and jumped out of the car. Using his knife as a screwdriver he was soon back with the plates, and the big car started to move just as a group of the local residents appeared walking nervously down the hill shining their torches over the scene of devastation. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Krebs grinned happily to himself at the thought of the stupid English having to clean up all this mess. He settled himself back to enjoy the part of the drive he had always liked best, the spring woods full of bluebells and celandines on the way to Chilham.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn9" name="_ednref9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">9</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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This excerpt from Ian Fleming’s <i>Moonraker </i>novel (obviously the polar opposite of the eventual film version released in 1979) shows how Fleming described in beautiful prose an action set piece in one of his early James Bond novels. The extract quoted above ends with a beautiful piece of flowery prose, at odds somewhat with the violent scene of the newsprint rolls. There is <i>no</i> succession of motorbike and sidecar missiles, gun-toting thugs in cars, helicopters fitted with Gatling guns, or underwater sleds and Shark Hunter mini-submarines. What there <i>is</i> is a resourceful Sir Hugo Drax, using his wartime Nazi Werewolf and commando training to use the innocuous looking weaponry that is part of everyday life, such as ordering his lieutenant Willy Krebs to cut the ropes holding vast rolls of newsprint onto the back of a lorry to crush James Bond and his pursuing Bentley car in one of the few action sequences that appear in the more character-driven narrative of <i>Moonraker</i>. The contrast with the action sequences that Amis was referring to in the Bond films of the 1970s is clear for all to see in plain black and white. The arch-villain Sir Hugo Drax (in reality embittered Nazi Graf Hugo von der Drache) is resourceful and wily in his use of the surrounding environment to stop the pursuit of the armed James Bond in his Bentley. Fleming had his villains use the seemingly innocuous surrounding environment and all it had to offer from a hazardous point of view in an unprecedented manner. Rather than the use of a premeditated litany of henchmen going after Bond in his car as is seen in the Bond films of the late 1970s, we see in the newsprint scene the villain using an unpremeditated method to bring Bond and his pursuing Bentley car to a standstill. Fleming achieved this task by having Drax order Krebs onto the back of a lorry in order to cut the ropes holding the newsprint rolls on, all without the aid of motorbikes, cars, helicopters, sleds or Shark Hunter mini-submarines. The contrast between the simpler action sequences of the original Fleming James Bond novels and the more complex and outlandish ones of the later James Bond films is stark indeed, and there for all to see. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The Bond films solely produced by Albert R. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli (after the split from his more creative co-producer partner Harry Saltzman) were instead low on new creative ideas, and from <i>The Spy Who Loved Me </i>onwards it is true that the rot really started to set in as far as the often very derivative action sequences in the Bond films was concerned – they are full of what Amis so aptly labelled “second-sight contingency planning” and “second-sight sportsmanship” also, when it comes to the inevitable arrival of the cavalry in the three Lewis Gilbert films, <i>You Only Live Twice</i>, <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i> and <i>Moonraker </i>and in some of the other Bond films also, like <i>Goldfinger</i>, <i>Thunderball </i>and <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i>. Having said all that, it would be remiss of this author not to mention the fact that in the Fleming purist direction that the Bond films (mostly) took after the excesses of <i>The Spy Who Loved Me </i>and <i>Moonraker</i> it is possible to see the influence of the works of Ian Fleming on the action set pieces in the new decade of the 1980s until the modern-day with <i>Skyfall </i>in 2012. After the space-age antics of the film version of <i>Moonraker</i>, where the Bond producers had jumped on the whole science-fiction band wagon of films such as <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i>, <i>Close Encounters of the Third Kind</i>, <i>Star Wars</i>, <i>Alien</i>, <i>Star Trek: The Motion Picture</i> and TV series such as <i>UFO</i> and <i>Space 1999!</i>, it was felt by the producers, director and scriptwriters that in his new filmic adventure it was high time that James Bond was seen to come back down to Earth again and also back to Flemningian basics. As Amis wrote in his review of John Gardner’s <i>For Special Services</i> (1982):<o:p></o:p></div>
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“By a kind of tradition, however, perhaps started by Buchan and Dominick Medina in <i>The Three Hostages</i>, the main character-interest in this type of novel attaches to the villain. Mr Big, Hugo Drax, Dr No and their like are persons of some size and power. They are made to seem to exist in their own right, to have been operating since long before Bond crossed their paths, rather than to have been run up on the spot for him to practice on. But then to do anything like that the writer must be genuinely interested in his material.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn10" name="_ednref10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">10</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Amis here is referring to the second James Bond continuation novel by John Gardner, but he could just as well be referring to the James Bond films of the late 1970s, which was a time very close to when he wrote this particular review in the <i>Times Literary Supplement </i>in September 1982. As Amis notes, Ian Fleming put a great deal of interesting characterisation into his James Bond novels and short stories and this really helped to make his thrillers so intensely readable, as real well-drawn characters and the copious use of brand names often added a real sense of verisimilitude to an otherwise often outlandish (though less so than the films) villainous plot like bombing London with its own nuclear deterrent rocket, “toppling” American missiles into jungles, raiding Fort Knox to seize all of its gold, hijacking Vulcan bomber nuclear bombs to hold to ransom Britain and the United States and threatening Britain with biological warfare in order to get immunity for past crimes and the recognition of an aristocratic title. Fleming’s villains are well-drawn on the page, unlike those of some of the continuation novels that followed his untimely death at the age of just fifty-six in August 1964. Amis writes:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“They are made to seem to exist in their own right, to have been operating since long before Bond crossed their paths, rather than to have been run up on the spot for him to practice on.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn11" name="_ednref11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">11</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Amis’ carefully selected and succinct series of words here about Bond villains or their various henchmen “being run up on the spot” as target practice for James Bond’s deadly aim is surely very telling when also applied to the Sardinian coastal road sequence in <i>The Spy Who Loved Me </i>where a veritable litany of henchmen try to kill Bond and Amasova in their Lotus Esprit both on land and underwater. They appear to have been much more of the “run up on the spot” school of Bondian villainy described by Amis than the persons of “some size and power” of the original Fleming novels and the faithful Flemingesque Bond film villains who “seem to exist in their own right” before Bond comes along to threaten their interests and their diabolical plans. After the excesses of <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i> and <i>Moonraker</i> the James Bond films that followed these two “epic Bonds” seemed to follow the Guy Hamilton school of lower-key Bond films and villains and were more grounded, down-to-Earth Bond films as a result. After <i>Moonraker</i>, there was a renewed attempt to go way back to the original Fleming novels and short stories and to return to the true grit of the original James Bond character. Many of John Glen’s films of the 1980s tried to incorporate Fleming sequences, dialogue and characters. For example, the idea of newsprint rolls being used as weapons by Krebs in <i>Moonraker </i>is seemingly reused in <i>For Your Eyes Only</i> when Bond’s Greek ally Milos Columbo shoots through two ropes to set in motion a series of what resembles newsprint rolls containing raw opium (“an old smuggler’s trick, Kristatos knows them all”, so we’re told) into the path of oncoming armed assailants with the desired effect of knocking them over. In <i>For Your Eyes Only</i> Glen also uses one of the few ideas for an action set piece in a Bond film that actually comes from the pen of Ian Fleming: that of a keel-hauling sequence at the end of <i>Live and Let Die</i>, although the ship the <i>Secatur</i>, owned by Mr Big is blown up by a limpet mine just before the keel-hauling of Bond and Solitare is about to begin in earnest. In the film version of <i>For Your Eyes Only</i> Bond and Melina Havelock are not so fortunate as they are both hauled after Aris Kristatos’ boat until he thinks that “the sharks have them”, although this is of course not the case. In the all-round high-octane action film that is Pierce Brosnan’s second James Bond film <i>Tomorrow Never Dies</i> (1997), there is another use of rolls of newsprint as Bond ducks and dives between them as armed employees of the media mogul Elliot Carver fire at him and cause general chaos in the printing presses of the Carver Media Group Network (CMGN) owned <i>Tomorrow</i> newspaper (“Tomorrow’s news today”) that is published in Hamburg in Germany. Bond even gets to punch a red-jacketed assailant into the newspaper printing press machine, quipping, rather predictably, “They’ll print anything these days.” Clearly this sentiment also applies to the script for <i>Tomorrow Never Dies </i>itself, which had no real link back to anything Ian Fleming ever wrote, except for Paris Carver’s line “Tell me James, do you still sleep with a gun under your pillow?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Similarly, in the new era of grittier and more realistic James Bond films starring Daniel Craig as a close likeness to Ian Fleming’s original conception of James Bond, there are more Flemingesque action set pieces for audiences to be once again thrilled about. For example, in the film version of the very last Fleming novel to be filmed, his debut Bond novel <i>Casino Royale</i>, finally filmed as the first Daniel Craig Bond film <i>Casino Royale</i> (2006) there is the brutal torture of Bond’s genitals by a rope swung by a desperate Le Chiffre who wants the casino Texas Hold ’Em Poker winnings that he feels that Bond has cheated him out of. Before this, there was the ploy of placing a tied-up Vesper Lynd in the middle of the road, to be potentially run over by Bond’s latest Aston Martin car. This action scene is inspired both by a similar scene in the original <i>Casino Royale</i> novel where Bond’s pursuant Bentley is brought to a standstill by a series of three-way tacks thrown onto the road before his approaching car by the villain’s car (in a very early example of a gadget-laden car in the James Bond universe. Such a tack-laying device was later seen in Bond’s BMW remote-controlled Q-car in <i>Tomorrow Never Dies</i>). <o:p></o:p></div>
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It could also be argued, of course, that the scene in <i>Moonraker</i> with the newsprint rolls crashing into Bond’s Bentley is another scene in the same class of action sequence. In fact the scene with Vesper Lynd lying in the middle of the road is also very similar to the scene in the novel version of <i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i> (1965) where a blown-up and life-size doll of Bond’s secretary and MI6 field agent Mary Goodnight is placed across a railway track on Scaramanga’s train in order to fool the passenger and “security guard” James Bond into thinking that she is about to be cut in two by the passage of the train over her prostrated body. The intention of the dummy is to get Bond to blow his cover and to expose himself as a British agent who had joined up with Scaramanga’s outfit in order to bring it down from the inside (shades of the later 1989 Bond film <i>Licence to Kill</i> here). This scene, along with the similar ones in the novels of <i>Casino Royale</i> and <i>Moonraker</i> could all be said to be inspirations on the scene in the film version of <i>Casino Royale</i> where Vesper Lynd is placed tied-up in the middle of the road, causing Bond to brake and swerve to miss hitting her with his car to such an extent that his car goes into a world record amount of over-spins of the car body before it stops in a nearby field. <i>Quantum of Solace</i> (2008) sees a return to a more action-oriented Bond film like <i>Tomorrow Never Dies</i> again, although in this film there is a snappy-type of fast and flashy editing of the action sequences, not really seen before in the Bond films, although there were elements of this in <i>Die Another Day</i> (2002), the last Pierce Brosnan film. The latest James Bond film, <i>Skyfall</i> (2012) has seen a return to the Flemingesque back-to-basics style of the earlier, less flashy Bond films of old. Much of the latter part of the film takes place in the countryside of Scotland – the peat and the heather and the ancestral home <i>Skyfall Lodge</i> where the filmmakers tell us James Bond was born and bred until the age of eleven, when he was orphaned after his parents were killed in a climbing accident abroad. Some of this detail (but not the construct of <i>Skyfall Lodge</i> itself) comes from the obituary of James Bond that was reprinted from <i>The Times</i> in Ian Fleming’s penultimate Bond novel <i>You Only Live Twice</i> (1964). The final showdown between James Bond, his boss M and his old family groundsman Kincaid is a veritable SAS survivalist and booby-trap course where traps are set – such as the explosives from shotgun shells being placed under lifted floorboards and shotguns and knives are used, with one in the back for the villainous Raoul Silva, the mastermind behind the hi-tech plot to try to kill M and to discredit her Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) before the world stage. In true <i>Dr No</i> or even Amis’ <i>Colonel Sun</i> novel commando style Bond and his helpers Kincaid and M kills all of Silva’s army of men, and finally gets to throw a knife in Silva’s back (recalling the earlier knife in the back delivered by Milos Columbo against his old foe Aris Kristatos in the film version of <i>For Your Eyes Only</i> (1981). In <i>Skyfall</i>, there is even a great action set piece that recalls for this author at least the newsprint roll scene from the <i>Moonraker</i> novel where Bond pursues Silva into a London Underground access tunnel. Silva has started to climb up a ladder when James Bond arrives on the scene and fires a few shots at him. In response, Silva (dressed in the uniform of the Metropolitan police) detonates a bomb by remote control, which opens up a great fissure in the wall of the London tube. As a result of this, rather like Willy Krebs cutting the ropes holding the newsprint, a tube train comes crashing through the gaping hole Silva has created straight at the personage of James Bond, who has to literally run for his life. Despite it having taken almost sixty years since the publication of Ian Fleming’s <i>Moonraker</i> in 1955, it seems that finally the filmmakers have learnt the lesson of “Drax’s Gambit” and have had a villain use the innocuous looking surroundings of the environment where Bond is pursuing them through to deliver a convincing action sequence. This adds immeasurably to the relegation of the old action sequences of Bond films like <i>You Only Live Twice</i>, <i>The Spy Who Loved Me </i>and <i>Moonraker</i> to the distant past. While Bond fans should be glad that these films exist, they should be equally glad that these types of films and their action sequences will not be repeated for as long as Daniel Craig remains as the closest conception of Ian Fleming’s James Bond yet to be seen on the big screen. The success of <i>Skyfall</i> (2012), correctly hailed as one of the greatest James Bond films ever, has largely been down to a great script, great villain in Raoul Silva and a great radical director in Sam Mendes, who brought all of the best elements of the James Bond films together and added in a little lemon twist of his own to the martini recipe mix for success. Sam Mendes recently said in an interview with BBC film critic Mark Kermode that the James Bond films started life as thrillers and then, around about the time of <i>Moonraker </i>(1979) they became action adventure films, with a kind of travelogue element, as in <i>Moonraker</i> where Bond was the glue that bound Venice and Rio de Janeiro together as a film. Mendes said, “And Bond becomes the glue in a sense and he ceased being the story around that time and I felt one of the brilliant things that Daniel [Craig] did with <i>Casino Royale</i> was that he became the story again. He became the centre of the movie, by which I mean he had a journey, that was something that I was very conscious to try and do.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn12" name="_ednref12" style="mso-endnote-id: edn12;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">12</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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The renewed focus on the James Bond character and the stripped down, bared-back set of action sequences in <i>Skyfall </i>helps to show how a modern-day spy film with all of the trappings of modern life – lost pen drives full of confidential information and the hi-tech wizardry of Silva’s computer hacking plot can <i>still </i>be foiled in the twenty-first century by all of the true grit and determination of age-old commando-style ingenuity and resourcefulness packed into Her Majesty’s Secret Servant, Commander James Bond CMG RNVR. It is indeed amusing how things come around full circle in the world of James Bond, and that finally the Daniel Craig era has delivered the kind of Flemingesque touches and the kind of action set pieces that Kingsley Amis would have been rightly proud of. It is just a very real pity that the late great Sir Kingsley Amis or indeed Ian Fleming, the originator of it all, did not in fact live long enough to see these action sequence reforms in all of their glory up on the big screen. When substantial change and reform comes to an ongoing body of work, guided by many different creative talents and like the law of the land itself, authored by many different hands, whether the body of work is literary, cinematic, theatrical or otherwise, it often comes too late for those "dead hands" that originally initiated it. Sadly such is life, is it not?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-size: small;"></span>TBB Article No. 20</u></b></div><div class="MsoTitle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div class="MsoTitle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic;">© </span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">The Bondologist Blog, 2013</span></b></div><div class="MsoTitle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"></span>ENDNOTES<br />
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">1</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Kingsley Amis, ‘Double-low-tar-7: Licence to Underkill’: A Review of <i>For Special Services</i> (1982) by John Gardner, The Times Literary Supplement, 17 September 1982, (hereinafter “FSS Review”).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Kingsley Amis, ‘Shaken and Stirred’: A Review of <i>James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me </i>(1977) by Christopher Wood, The Times literary Supplement, 1 July 1977, (hereinafter “JB, TSWLM Review”).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">3</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Zachary Leader (ed.), <i>The Letters of Kingsley Amis</i> (Harper Collins, London, 2001), letter to Elizabeth Jane Howard, September 1976.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref4" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">4</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> FSS Review.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref5" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">5</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> JB, TSWLM Review.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref6" name="_edn6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">6</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref7" name="_edn7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">7</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> FSS Review.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref8" name="_edn8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">8</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> JB, TSWLM Review.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">* In "Space Seed" there are early shades of Dr. No crushing the ornament on the table in front of Bond and of Tee Hee twisting Bond's Walther PPK in Live and Let Die (1973) when Khan twists Captain Kirk's phaser with the strength of his bare hands! It is indeed interesting how influences in popular culture zip back and forth until the crack of doom!</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref9" name="_edn9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">9</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Ian Fleming, <i>Moonraker</i> (1955), (Pan Books Ltd., London, 1965), pp. 149-153. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref10" name="_edn10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">10</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> FSS Review.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref11" name="_edn11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">11</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref12" name="_edn12" style="mso-endnote-id: edn12;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">12</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Sam Mendes speaking to Mark Kermode in <i>Sam Mendes: Licence to Thrill – A Culture Show Special</i>, (Broadcast: BBC2, 24 October 2012).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-38039078491372883142012-11-15T01:30:00.003+00:002020-11-04T12:42:07.540+00:00Musings on the Literary James Bond and Religion <div class="writtenby">
The subject of the literary James Bond’s religion is a topic rarely touched upon, so here is a short addition to the available literature on the topic. It is my belief that James Bond was a Protestant of some denomination (probably Presbyterian) as he had a father who was Scottish, Andrew Bond, and his creator, Ian Fleming had a Scottish heritage and was brought up in the nonconformist religion. In John Pearson’s 1966 biography <span class="book"><em>The Life of Ian Fleming</em></span>, there is a very interesting letter Fleming wrote to a minister concerning comments he had made in a sermon about James Bond in 1961:</div>
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<i>“…it was now that [Fleming] gave the only sign of concern he ever made about the possible effect that James Bond was having on the world at large. In a letter to the Rev. Leslie Paxton, of the Great George Street Congregational Church, Liverpool, he revealed a side of himself few of his friends can have suspected:</i><br />
<i>I see from the public prints that the Sunday before last you preached a sermon against the leading character in my books, James Bond, and, presumably by association, against myself.</i><br />
<i>Now, having had a Scottish nonconformist upbringing and considering myself at least some kind of a sub-species of a Christian, I am naturally very upset if it is thought that I am seriously doing harm to the world with my James Bond thrillers.</i><br />
<i>Would you be so very kind and let me have a copy, if you have one, of your sermon, so I may see the burden of your criticisms and perhaps find means of mending my ways if I feel that your arguments have real weight behind them.</i><br />
<i>I can, of course, myself see what you mean about my books, but it occurs to me that you may have put forward profounder arguments than those that are already known to me.</i><br />
<i>This unlikely mood of death-bed repentance did not last long. Mr. Paxton hastened to assure him that he had never implied that the creator of James Bond had done the world a serious disservice. Reassured, Fleming turned his thoughts once more to making the best of a distinctly strained future.”</i></blockquote>
This letter has always interested me. I think it shows how Fleming worried about the effect Bond was having and was a sign he was becoming a more puritan, moralistic person by the time he was writing the Bond novels than he had been necessarily in his youth. <br />
Kingsley Amis in <span class="book"><em>The James Bond Dossier</em></span>, (1965), p. 85 in the Pan 1966 paperback edition points out that:<br />
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<i>“The moral content of Mr. Fleming’s work, the values expressed or implied, whether through Bond or directly by the author, have been denounced all over the place. Bernard Bergonzi, in a long piece in The Twentieth Century, March 1958, lamented the ‘total lack of any ethical frame of reference’ in the books. In the course of reviewing <span class="book">On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</span> in the Sunday Times, Raymond Mortimer complained that Bond’s values were ‘both anti-humanist and anti-Christian.’”</i></blockquote>
Amis goes on to defend Bond’s moral values, stating:<br />
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<i>“I should have thought that a fairly orthodox moral system, vague perhaps but none the less recognizable through accumulation, pervades all Bond’s adventures. Some things are regarded as good: loyalty, fortitude, a sense of responsibility, a readiness to regard one’s safety, even one’s life, as less important than the major interests of one’s organization and one’s country. Other things are regarded as bad: tyranny, readiness to inflict pain on the weak or helpless, the unscrupulous pursuit of money or power. These distinctions aren’t excitingly novel, but they are important, and as humanist and/or Christian as the average reader would want. They constitute quite enough in the way of an ethical frame of reference, assuming anybody needs or looks for or ought to have one in adventure fiction at all.”</i></blockquote>
There are strong religious symbols and themes used throughout the Bond novels. The best example is the reference to Bond as a St. George figure slaying the dragon and rescuing the damsel in distress. For example, Tiger Tanaka says to Bond in <span class="book">You Only Live Twice</span>, “You are to enter this castle of death and slay the dragon within.” This religious reference is also continued in the John Gardner Bond novels. The Bond novels display the classic battle between Good and Evil and the St. George references are an interesting way of highlighting this.<br />
There are also some more direct references to the Christian religion and the Bible throughout the Bond novels and short stories. In Fleming’s <span class="book">The Property of A Lady</span>, set in an auction room, there is the following:<br />
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<i>“Bond picked up a wood and ivory plaque that lay on the table. It said:</i><br />
<i>It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer.</i><br />
<i>But when he is gone his way, he boasteth.</i><br />
<i>- Proverbs XX, 14</i><br />
<i>Bond was amused. He said so. ‘You can read the whole history of the bazaar, of the dealer and the customer, behind that quotation,’ he said. He looked Mr Snowman straight in the eyes. ‘I need that sort of nose, that sort of intuition in this case. Will you give me a hand?’”</i></blockquote>
In John Gardner’s <span class="book"><em>Nobody Lives Forever</em></span> it is revealed that Bond had a very Calvinistic upbringing. John Calvin, of course, was one of the great Protestant reformers. John Gardner himself was a one-time Anglican priest in the Church of England, following his father into the profession until he gave it up, becoming an agnostic for many years until re-entering into the Christian faith a number of years ago. There are references to the Bible and poetry spread throughout his continuation Bond novels. John Gardner's seventh Bond novel <span class="book"><i>Scorpius</i></span> (1988) has the religious cult ‘The Society of the Meek Ones’, taken of course from one of the Beatitudes of Jesus Christ, ‘The meek shall inherit the Earth.’ Father Valentine in the novel uses an amalgam of faiths to convert disciples to carry out his suicide bombings and assassinations of politicians for him. As a more recent example in Raymond Benson’s first Bond novel, <span class="book"><em>Zero Minus Ten </em>(1997)</span>, there is the following passage in Chapter 20, ‘Walkabout’:<br />
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<i>“The Aborigines are known for practicing something called a ‘walkabout’, a rite of passage for young and old people alike. They would go out into the bush and stay there for days, weeks, or even months, living off the land, becoming one with the spirits whom they believe live there, and then return. Some say that the spirits act as guides and protect the humans. Bond wasn’t a religious man, but he stood there under the stars and closed his eyes. He breathed deeply several times, concentrating on the silence of the desert.”</i></blockquote>
From what is known about Ian Fleming’s background, and the fact that he based much of Bond on his own experience, it is fair to say that Bond was probably from a nonconformist Protestant background, as his father was a Scot from Glencoe, and Fleming himself was of this religion. The Protestant religion also fits more with the Anglo-Saxon, British Raj, patriotic elements which the pre-war spy thrillers with their support of the British Empire, which the Bond novels were partially descended from where the villain was mostly a foreigner, usually from Europe, and never from within Albion’s shores. As Amis points out in his<em> Dossier</em>, “Throughout Bond’s adventures no Englishman does anything bad. The villains are Americans, Bulgars, Chigroes, Corsicans, Germans, Italians, Jugoslavs, Koreans, Russians, Sicilians, Spanish-Americans and Turks.” “To use foreigners as villains is a convention older than our literature.” The rightness of England has with the attendant notion of the rightness of the Anglo-Saxon mainly Protestant view of England (the "Protestant work ethic" etc.), and this is why I think I can accurately pinpoint what religion Bond was born into and practiced - the Protestant religion and the Scots Presbyterian denomination. <br />
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Amen. <br />
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<b><u>TBB Article No. 19.</u></b><br />
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<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2006.</b><br />
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The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-59804903462987228452012-11-15T01:22:00.002+00:002020-11-04T13:07:21.833+00:00H.R.F. Keating on the James Bond Novels In the documentary <span class="film"><em>The Truth about Len Deighton</em></span> broadcast on <i>BBC Four</i> in the UK in January 2006 the novelist and critic H.R.F.<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span> </span></span></span>Keating, the author of the Inspector Ghote books about an Indian detective said the following about the range of spy fiction:<br />
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‘The spy story can vary enormously. It can be at one low pole, if you like, Ian Fleming, writing to get himself readers and get himself money. I’m sorry to say it, but that’s true. And at the other extreme is Len Deighton, using the spy story to say things about people and about the world in just the way that Graham Greene used the spy story for that. In Conrad – very happy to use the spy story to penetrate into people and their motives and why they do extraordinary and absurd things and Len is with them all along.’</blockquote>
Now, I have no doubt that what Keating is saying about Deighton is completely accurate. Deighton does not write mere ‘kiss kiss bang bang’ spy thrillers, but I think he is being a little unfair in his assessment of Ian Fleming, who always seems to be so undervalued as a ‘popular’ spy novelist.<br />
Let us not forget that it was HRF Keating himself who acted as the go-between for Glidrose in 1980 when John Gardner was asked to be the continuation James Bond author. From John Gardner’s site:<br />
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‘In the autumn of 1980 I was living in the Republic of Ireland: about two miles outside Wicklow town. There, on a glorious morning when the leaves were turning to red and gold, I received a letter from HRF Keating, the author of those wonderful Inspector Ghote books. In fact I did not recognise his handwriting so I put it into the pile I usually held back until my lunch break: the letters I thought were either love or hate mail. When I finally opened the envelope – Basildon Bond notepaper – I found that Harry Keating was acting as a go-between for Glidrose, the literary copyright holders in the James Bond books. They were sounding me out: would I consider writing a continuation James Bond novel?’</blockquote>
Perhaps some of Keating’s view of Fleming’s Bond novels comes from the article Ian Fleming wrote in 1962 entitled <span class="book">How To Write A Thriller</span>,<br />
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‘I am not an angry young, or even middle-aged, man. My books are not “engaged”. I have no message for suffering humanity and, though I was bullied at school and lost my virginity like so many of us used to do in the old days, I have never been tempted to foist these and other harrowing personal experiences on the public. My opuscula do not aim at changing people or making them go out and do something. They are written for warm-blooded heterosexuals in railway trains, aeroplanes or beds.’</blockquote>
Fleming continues he once asked an ‘angry young’ writer ‘of renown’ ‘how he described himself on his passport’:<br />
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“I bet you call yourself an Author,” I said. He agreed, with a shade of reluctance, perhaps because he scented sarcasm on the way. “Just so,” I said. “Well, I describe myself as a Writer. There are authors and artists and then again there are writers and painters.”<br />
This rather spiteful jibe, which forced him, most unwillingly, into the ranks of the Establishment, while stealing for myself the halo of a simple craftsman from the people, made the angry young man angrier than ever and I don’t now see him as often as I used to. But the point I wish to make is that if you decide to become a professional writer, you must, broadly speaking, decide whether you wish to write for fame, for pleasure or for money. I write, unashamedly, for pleasure and money.<br />
I also feel that, while thrillers may not be Literature with a capital L, it is possible to write what I can best describe as “Thrillers designed to be read as literature”, the practitioners of which have included such as Edgar Allan Poe, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Eric Ambler and Graham Greene. I see nothing shameful in aiming as high as these.’</blockquote>
Perhaps Fleming here is being a little too modest, polite and admirably unpretentious, as Kingsley Amis in <span class="book"><i>The James Bond Dossier</i></span> (1965) points out in pages 140-1 in the 1966 Pan paperback version:<br />
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If Mr. Fleming had wanted the Bond books to be read as literature (a big ‘if’, I would bet), he certainly went about it the wrong way. To begin with, he shouldn’t have behaved as unpretentiously, even flippantly, as he did when interviewed.</blockquote>
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‘My books tremble on the brink of corn.’<br />
‘I have a rule of never looking back. Otherwise I’d wonder, “How could I write such piffle?”‘<br />
‘[I am concerned in] the business of getting intelligent, uninhabited adolescents of all ages, in trains, aeroplanes and beds, to turn over the page.’</blockquote>
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That’s no way to go on. Mr Fleming seemed never to have heard of the most elementary maxim of the writer’s trade, People take you at your own valuation. If you tell them you’re a genius, or a mere entertainer, they’ll tell one another you’re a genius or a mere entertainer. The remedy was plain to see and not onerous. A few public statements with every other sentence beginning, ‘As a writer I…,’ a couple of articles explaining that the lot of 007 allegorized the lot of Western man, the Secret Service symbolized the contemporary consciousness, and critical esteem would have gone shooting up.’</blockquote>
And at p. 142 Amis continues,<br />
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‘That huge virtue of never stooping to pretentiousness, of never going in for any kind of arty or symbolic flannel, has cost Mr Fleming a formidable amount of critical acclaim, but it’s done as much as anything to bring him readers. Whatever the rights and wrongs of using literature as escape from life, there’s a lot to be said for using one kind of literature as escape from others.’</blockquote>
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<b><u>TBB Article No. 18</u></b><br />
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<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2006.</b>The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-78730427436841731182012-10-28T16:53:00.003+00:002020-11-04T13:07:45.424+00:00George Lazenby and the film of Len Deighton's Horse Under Water (1963) that never was<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
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“<i>You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.”</i><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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With most of the general discussion on contemporary spy fiction and films currently revolving around the “Bond-Bourne” debate, a rather reluctant spy from the 1960s who could give both characters some competition and is long overdue a comeback is Harry Palmer. This was the bland name given by Michael Caine to the nameless ‘anti-hero’ of Len Deighton’s original spy novels. The most appropriate source for a Harry Palmer comeback film would be Len Deighton’s second novel, <i>Horse Under Water</i> (1963) which, although it fell between <i>The Ipcress File</i> (1962) on the one side and <i>Funeral in Berlin</i> (1964) and <i>Billion-Dollar Brain</i> (1966) on the other, remains tantalisingly un-filmed at present. <i>Horse Under Water</i> was first published in <st1:country -region="-region" w:st="on">Britain</st1:country> by <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Jonathan</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Cape</st1:placename></st1:place> on 21 October 1963, with an original print run of 15,000 copies.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a> </div>
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In Len Deighton’s perceptive article on the 1960s spy-craze, entitled “Why Does My Art Go Boom” in the May 1966 edition of <i>Playboy</i> magazine, he revealed that after the success of the film <i>The Ipcress File</i> (1965), the film’s Canadian producer Harry Saltzman bought the film rights to the follow-up ‘Harry Palmer’ novel <i>Horse Under Water</i>:</div>
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“In the autumn of 1963 my second book, <i>Horse Under Water</i>, was published and Saltzman bought the film rights of that, too. There was more conjecture in the press. “Out-Bonds Bond” and “Anti-Bond,” they said.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a> </div>
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In an interview with author Edward Milward-Oliver ("EMO" below), Len Deighton revealed another connection which his second novel <i>Horse Under Water</i> had with James Bond:</div>
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“EMO: Had you already written your second novel <i>Horse Under Water</i> before <i>The IPCRESS File </i>was published?</div>
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DEIGHTON: It was in first draft. I took it to Hodder & Stoughton and asked them to read it through, because they’d warned me that second books always get slaughtered by the critics. So I got a bit nervous about this, and took a long time writing it – even today I must be one of the world’s slowest writers – until finally I had it ready. I took it to them, and they said they didn’t want to read it. They told me they had a policy of not dealing with a second book until the first had come out. </div>
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EMO: Tom Maschler at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Jonathan</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Cape</st1:placename></st1:place> published <i>Horse Under Water</i>. </div>
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DEIGHTON: That’s right. And that enraged some people, who claimed I was now going to be trained as the successor to Ian Fleming, who <st1:place w:st="on">Cape</st1:place> also published.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[iii]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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Indeed, <i>Queen</i> reviewed <i>Horse Under Water</i> at the time in the following way:</div>
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“James Bond’s most serious rival…Deighton decorates his thrilling plot with equally enthralling detail about secret service routine.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[iv]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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It has long been something of an enigma why <i>Horse Under Water</i> was never filmed along with the other ‘Palmer’ novels in the 1960s. It certainly had the potential for being the source for a successful film, as, for instance, the “whole of the first Penguin edition of Len Deighton’s <i>Horse Under Water</i> – over 60,000 books – sold out completely within 48 hours of publication.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[v]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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Christopher Bray’s recent biography of Sir Michael Caine, <i>Michael Caine: A Class Act</i>, (2005) has an interesting passage in the 1966-67 chapter which reveals that plans to film <i>Horse Under Water </i>in the 1960s were actually dealt a fatal blow by what could be described as the “Anti-Palmer” (at least in commercial terms), namely, the arrival of the first replacement James Bond actor in <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service </i>(1969) - the Australian ex-model George Lazenby:</div>
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“The critical reaction to the film [<i>Billion Dollar Brain </i>(1967)] was the most negative any of the trilogy had had, and while Saltzman had plans to film Deighton’s next Palmer novel, <i>Horse Under Water</i>, Caine was adamant (rightly enough as it turned out) that he had done everything he could with the character. ‘I hope some new actor can give his interpretation of Harry,’ said Caine, ‘but after three films I don’t think the Palmer character holds anything for me anymore.’ Saltzman did look around for another actor – ‘We don’t want anyone who looks like Mike and he probably won’t even wear spectacles or even be a cockney,’ he said – but nothing ever came of the idea. Since Saltzman was talking during the period of Sean Connery’s absence from the Bond series, when the part was taken over – disastrously, as far as the box office was concerned – by George Lazenby, he had good reason to change his mind and let the series go.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn6" name="_ednref6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[vi]</span></span></span></span></a> </div>
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Christopher Bray takes the quotes from Caine and Saltzman on the possibility of a new Palmer film from an article in the <i>Daily Mirror</i> on 3 December 1968.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn7" name="_ednref7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[vii]</span></span></span></span></a> It is believed that the actor that producer Harry Saltzman had in mind to replace Michael Caine in the role of Harry Palmer was Nigel Davenport.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn8" name="_ednref8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[viii]</span></span></span></span></a> It is interesting that Michael Caine felt he could do no more with the role of Harry Palmer, and in some ways this mirrors Sean Connery’s attitude towards the role of James Bond, especially during his experiences with an intrusive media whilst filming <i>You Only Live Twice </i>(1967) in <st1:country -region="-region" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Japan</st1:place></st1:country>. This led to him vacating the Bond role after what was to be his fifth (and seemingly final) Bond film.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn9" name="_ednref9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[ix]</span></span></span></span></a> It is also interesting to note that if the projected film version of <i>Horse Under Water </i>had went ahead as planned the Harry Palmer character would probably have been visually and audibly very different from the blonde and bespectacled chippy cockney spy in the mackintosh raincoat as portrayed by Michael Caine in the three preceding films, <i>The Ipcress File</i> (1965), <i>Funeral in Berlin </i>(1966) and <i>Billion Dollar Brain</i> (1967). </div>
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It is submitted then that the main reason for the proposed film version of <i>Horse Under Water</i> being ‘dead in the water’ had as much to do with Harry Saltzman’s negative experience with the first change of lead actor in the James Bond film series at the time as it had to do with the relatively poor critical reaction to the film of <i>Billion Dollar Brain</i>. It is fascinating to consider how the Harry Palmer series might have continued had a new actor been cast for a film of<i> Horse Under Water</i>. It is revealing how contemporary events in the ‘rival’ James Bond film series (which had the ever-restless Harry Saltzman as co-producer, alongside Albert R. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli) impinged on the Harry Palmer film series and ultimately ensured that the Palmer character did not have a fourth film in the classic 1960s “spy-mania” era. Either a 1960s period piece or a contemporary film version of <i>Horse Under Water</i> would still be a very welcome prospect for fans of Harry Palmer – and would surely represent a much more fitting comeback for the Palmer film series than the ‘straight-to-video’ <i>Bullet to Beijing </i>(1996) and <i>Midnight in St. Petersburg</i> (1997) were, in which Michael Caine reprised his famous role as Harry Palmer. Neither <i>Bullet to Beijing </i>nor <i>Midnight in St. Petersburg</i> were based on any Deighton material, (though the project did have the author’s blessing)<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn10" name="_ednref10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[x]</span></span></span></span></a> but if ever a future film producer or director deigns to notice the obvious potential of Len Deighton’s ‘Harry Palmer’ a film of <i>Horse Under Water</i> would be as good a place to look for cinematic inspiration as any. In the meantime, Deighton and Palmer fans can only hope that this particular <i>Horse </i>will yet get a to have a refreshing drink at the box office at some point in the not-too-distant future.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn11" name="_ednref11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[xi]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: small;">Bibliography</span></em></h1>
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Bray, Christopher, <i>Michael Caine: A Class Act</i>, (Faber and Faber, <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city>, 2005),</div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Deighton, Len, <i>Funeral in Berlin</i>, (Penguin Books, Middlesex, England, 1966 reprint),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Deighton, Len, <i>Horse Under Water</i>, (Penguin Books, Middlesex, England, 1970 reprint),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Deighton, Len, “Why Does My Art Go Boom”, (subtitle ‘as the spy craze continues to spiral skyward, the author of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“the ipcress file” files a personal report on the phenomenon’), <i>Playboy </i>(Chicago, May 1966),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Milward-Oliver, Edward, <i>The Len Deighton Companion</i>, (Grafton Books, London, 1987).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">(17/2/09).</span></div>
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This article originally appeared on <i>The Len Deighton Discussion Group and Archive</i> in February 2009 to celebrate Len Deighton's 80th Birthday. <br />
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<b><u>TBB Article No. 17</u></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: start;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2009.</b><br />
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Edward Milward-Oliver, <i>The Len Deighton Companion</i>, (Grafton Books, London, 1987).</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Len Deighton, “Why Does My Art Go Boom”, (subtitle ‘as the spy craze continues to spiral skyward, the author of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“the ipcress file” files a personal report on the phenomenon’), <i>Playboy </i>(Chicago, May 1966), p. 182. </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[iii]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Edward Milward-Oliver, <i>The Len Deighton Companion</i>, (Grafton Books, London, 1987), pp. 13-14. </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref4" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[iv]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Quoted on the <i>Horse Under Water </i>Penguin paperback back cover, (Penguin Books, Middlesex, England, 1970 reprint).</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref5" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[v]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Quoted on the <i>Funeral in Berlin</i> Penguin paperback back cover, (Penguin Books, Middlesex, England, 1966 reprint).</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref6" name="_edn6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[vi]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Christopher Bray, <i>Michael Caine:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Class Act</i>, (Faber and Faber, <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city>, 2005), pp. 104-105. </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref7" name="_edn7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[vii]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>, n. 19 and 20, p. 294.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref8" name="_edn8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[viii]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> From Kees Stam’s unofficial Harry Palmer Movie Site: </span><a href="http://members.tripod.com/keesstam/harrypalmer.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://members.tripod.com/keesstam/harrypalmer.html</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Bob Engesser added this on the messageboard, interesting enough to add here: “I recall a press release from the late 1960s stating that Harry Saltzman would produce <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Horse Under Water</i> with Nigel Davenport and not Michael Caine as Harry Palmer. Poor box office from Billion Dollar Brain the movie and not poor sales from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Horse Under Water </i>the book probably killed this project. <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Davenport</st1:place></st1:city> costarred with Caine in the underrated war film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Play Dirty</i> which was produced by Saltzman.”” (from: </span><a href="http://keesstam.tripod.com/trivia.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://keesstam.tripod.com/trivia.html</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">, accessed 17 February 2009).</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref9" name="_edn9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[ix]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Sean Connery was actually contracted for six James Bond films, but he would later return to his most famous role as 007 in <i>Diamonds Are Forever</i> (1971) for the official Eon Productions series after George Lazenby’s sole Bond outing, <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service </i>(1969), and later in the aptly titled and unofficial film <i>Never Say Never Again</i> (1983), a remake of his fourth Bond film, <i>Thunderball</i> (1965), which was released in the same year as Eon’s <i>Octopussy</i>, starring his successor Roger Moore as 007, prompting the press to refer to the ‘Battle of the Bonds’ in 1983. </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref10" name="_edn10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[x]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Christopher Bray, <i>Michael Caine:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Class Act</i>, (Faber and Faber, <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city>, 2005), p. 254 and n. 11, p. 304, “Quoted in the <i>Sunday Times Magazine</i>, 23 July 1995”). </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref11" name="_edn11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[xi]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> © 2009, “The Len Deighton Discussion Group” Moderator.</span></div>
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The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-43447770126944774872012-10-03T19:37:00.001+01:002020-11-04T13:09:20.816+00:00Whatever Happened to the Literary James Bond in the 1970s?<h2 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">The literary James Bond’s life and adventures are chronicled from the early 1950s onwards, and we know something of his life in the period before this. We know of his missions on into about the mid 1960s, with Kingsley Amis’ <span class="book"><i>Colonel Sun</i></span> (1968). After this mission however the life of Bond becomes sketchier. In fact the only decade of the literary Bond’s life that we do not seem to know very much about is the 1970s. This decade had no real continuation novel connected to Ian Fleming’s Bond novels as such, but it did have John Pearson’s <span class="book"><i>James Bond: The Authorised Biography of James Bond</i></span> (1973). It details Bond’s life from his birth to the events just after <span class="book"><i>Colonel Sun</i></span>, which means that it is still set in the 1960s.</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The other real literary continuation of James Bond in the 1970s were the two screenplays from the two last Bond films of the 1970s, <span class="film"><i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i></span> and <span class="film"><i>Moonraker</i></span>, published by the screenwriter and novelist Christopher Wood under the titles<i> <span class="book">James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me</span> </i>and <span class="book"><i>James Bond And Moonraker</i></span>, published in 1977 and 1979 respectively. As these are novelisations of the films to tie in with the Fleming Bond universe, they are not really seen by fans as being part of the literary Bond continuation. They do however tie in well with Fleming’s style of writing, making the books of the film at least owing more to Fleming than the films on which they are based. </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">When Glidrose continued the literary Bond series proper with </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span class="book">Licence Renewed</span> </i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">(1981) by John Gardner, there are some very interesting details of Bond’s life in the period in between. We learn that “there was not much to console Bond these days. There had even been times, recently, when he had seriously considered resigning – to use the jargon, ‘go private’.” </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There is recalled the famous exchange between M. and Bond on the disbanding of the Double-O Section,</span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>“‘Changing world; changing times, James,’ M had said to him a couple of years ago, when breaking the news that the elite Double-O status- which meant being licensed to kill in the line of duty- was being abolished.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>“This was during the so-called Realignment Purge, often referred to in the Service as the SNAFU Slaughter, similar to the C.I.A’s famous Hallowe’en massacre, in which large numbers of faithful members of the American service had been dismissed, literally overnight. Similar things had happened in Britain, with financial horns being pulled in, and what a pompous Whitehall detective called ‘a more realistic logic being enforced upon the Secret and Security Services’.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Gardner assures us that Bond’s role will still remain much the same. As M says to Bond, we are told a two years before <span class="book"><i>Licence Renewed</i></span> begins, so it can be assumed this was in 1979,</span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>‘As far as I’m concerned, 007, you will remain 007. I shall take full responsibility for you; and you will, as ever, accept orders and assignments only from me. There are moments when this country needs a trouble-shooter – a blunt instrument – and by God it’s going to have one. They can issue their pieces of bumf and abolish the Double-O Section. We can simply change its name. It will now be the Special Section and you are it.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Later we learn,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>“Bond had left M’s office on that occasion in an elated mood. Yet, in the few years that had passed since, he had performed only four missions in which his Double-O prefix had played any part. [...] It was the active life that Bond missed; the continual challenge of a new problem, a difficult decision in the field, the sense of purpose and of serving his country. Sometimes he wondered if he was falling under the spell of that malaise which seemed, on occasions, to grip Britain by the throat – political and economic lethargy, combined with a short-term view of the world’s problems.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Bond’s four most recent missions had been quick, cut and dried, undercover operations; and while it would be wrong to say that James Bond yearned for danger, his life now seemed, at times, to lack real purpose.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We learn of the changes in Bond’s lifestyle since the 1960s,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>“Bond had even managed to alter his lifestyle, very slightly, adapting to the changing pressures of the 1970s and early 1980s: drastically cutting back – for most of the time – on his alcohol intake, and arranging with Morelands of Grosvenor Street for a new special blend of cigarettes, with a tar content slightly lower than any currently available on the market.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>“With fuel costs running high, and the inevitability that they would continue to do so, Bond had allowed the beloved old Mark II Continental Bentley to go the way of its predecessor, the 4.5-litre Bentley.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The most interesting titbit of information comes when the details of Dr. Anton Murik and Franco are being told to Bond in M’s office. Bond says,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>‘Not a healthy mix – an international terrorist and a renowned nuclear physicist. Been one of the nightmares for some time, hasn’t it, sir? That some group would get hold of not only the materials but the means to construct a really lethal nuclear device? We suspect some of them have the materials – look at that fellow Achmed Yastaff I took out for you. At least four of the ships he arranged to go missing were carrying materials…’</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>M snorted, ‘Don’t be a fool, 007. Easiest thing in the world to construct a crude device.’</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It would perhaps be an interesting idea for a future Bond continuation author to look afresh at the literary Bond in the 1970s because there has been so little written about Fleming’s creation in this particular time period. It would give new scope and new ground for the literary Bond to work within. Perhaps the mentions of the four missions where Bond used his licence to kill could be expanded on in a novel or short story collection by a new continuation author at some stage, including the story of Achmed Yastaff. It might be some sort of an answer to the problem some see in continuing the literary Bond character indefinitely into the future, as the dates given in Fleming’s work give his revised date of birth as 1924. It would also be an adult antidote to the ‘Young Bond’ series. Of course in the novels Bond hasn’t really aged very much, but the 1970s could be an interesting retro angle rather than writing adventures in between the 1950s novels as some have suggested.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><u>TBB Article No. 16. </u></b><br />
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<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2005.</b>The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-54825260122417374002012-09-10T18:26:00.002+01:002020-12-01T14:53:30.078+00:00Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli and the Blueprint for James Bond<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;">
<b>By the time of Ian Fleming’s death in 1964 his publishers had “sold 30,000,000 copies of his 12 books in 12 years – give or take a couple of million.”</b><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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<b>Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli estimated that half of the world’s population has seen at least one James Bond film. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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In a television interview in 1996, “Cubby” Broccoli, the world-famous producer of the James Bond films, recalled the origins of the most famous literary and cinematic character in the world:</div>
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“Well, it all started with a man named [Ian] Fleming. Fleming’s books were very interesting to me, and I read them and reread them and was very surprised that no one had ever done them…Much to my surprise, I found that Fleming had made a deal with a man called Harry Saltzman who had an option for twenty-eight days. After some discussions, we made a deal where we became fifty-fifty partners and we started James Bond.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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Cubby Broccoli had first tentatively tried to acquire the film rights to Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels in 1959 so he was therefore eager to make a film partnership deal with the Canadian producer Harry Saltzman.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a> Broccoli continued the story of the birth of the cinematic James Bond in his autobiography, <i>When The Snow Melts </i>(1998), co-written with his close friend Donald Zec, where he described in more detail his meeting with Harry Saltzman:</div>
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“What mattered to me was following my hunch that Fleming’s books, James Bond, had great film potential. I could see that the only way I could proceed with the project was by going into partnership with Harry. For better or for worse I was reluctant, and it showed. But the danger was, if he dropped the option someone else might immediately pick it up. I was convinced that sooner or later others would catch on to 007. Rather than take that chance – Harry might even have considered renewing the option – I agreed to go into business with him. </div>
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‘We’ll make a deal,’ he said. ‘We’ll draw up a piece of paper now.’</div>
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Mark Elms, who had been managing director of Warwick Films, was still working in that office. Harry talked to him and brought out this piece of paper. </div>
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He said cheerfully, ‘You’ll have forty-nine per cent, I’ll have fifty-one per cent.’</div>
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I said less cheerfully, ‘No, Mr Saltzman. If you want to make the deal with you having fifty-one per cent, forget it.’</div>
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Saltzman half smiled. ‘What’s the difference? It’s only a couple of percent.’</div>
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‘Look, Harry, forget it!’</div>
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‘All right, we’ll have it drawn up. Fifty-fifty.’</div>
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‘Fine’ </div>
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We shook hands. I left with the feeling that this was going to be an interesting partnership.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[4]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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Steven Jay Rubin in <i>The James Bond Films</i> (1981) continued the story of the genesis of Eon Productions and the James Bond films:</div>
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“[Broccoli] decided to offer the project to United Artists and on June 20<sup>th</sup> 1961, he and Saltzman flew into <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York City</st1:place></st1:city> for a meeting with United Artists president Arthur Krim. Fortunately for the future of James Bond, United Artists was ready to deal. On the recommendations of David Picker, who was a Bond fan and UA London Chief, Bud Orenstein, Krim decided to go for the project. When Broccoli and Saltzman entered his office they found, to their surprise, the entire UA Board of Directors waiting for them. Within minutes, as Broccoli remembers, they had agreed a six picture deal.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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In a television interview in 1996 Cubby Broccoli described the first birth pangs of the later phenomenon of “Bondmania”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn6" name="_ednref6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[6]</span></span></span></span></a> after the release of <i>Dr No</i> in the cinemas:</div>
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“The audience reaction to the first picture, <i>Dr No</i>, was fantastic. They broke the doors down of the cinema. It was incredible.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn7" name="_ednref7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[7]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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The story behind the influence of author Ian Fleming on producer Cubby Broccoli is equally incredible, and there are perhaps facets of the short but interesting creative relationship between the two men that remain unexplored. A study of the Fleming Bond novels and his memorandum advice to Broccoli reveals the hidden depths of the literary influence on the subsequent highly successful Bond films produced by Eon Productions and also the visible influence of the early Bond films on the last few novels of Ian Fleming. </div>
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When work began on the script of what was to be the first James Bond film, <i>Dr No</i> (1962), based on Ian Fleming’s sixth James Bond novel, Cubby Broccoli revealed the extent of the influence which the author had over the production:</div>
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“…Ian attended several of our meetings well before the picture started. It was good having him around. His whole persona, the way he held his cigarette, his laidback style, that certain arrogance was pure James Bond. He never interfered in any way. There was no agreement giving him approval of the scripts, but we let him see them just the same, partly as a courtesy, but mainly because we valued his expertise. He was not concerned about the stories, but occasionally he’d make marginal notes in his miniscule handwriting, mostly on matters of protocol. For instance, Bond should never call M by that title in the Club; he should always address him as ‘Admiral’.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn8" name="_ednref8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[8]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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An example of this social etiquette in Fleming’s Bond novels may be found in <i>Moonraker</i> (1955) where Bond is asked by M to visit the Blades private card club to investigate the cheating of one of the members there, the national hero Sir Hugo Drax:</div>
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‘Bond pushed through the swing doors and walked up to the old-fashioned porter’s lodge ruled over by Brevett, the guardian of Blades and the counsellor and family friend of half the members.</div>
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“Evening, Brevett. Is the Admiral in?”</div>
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“Good evening, sir,” said Brevett, who knew Bond as an occasional guest at the club. “The Admiral’s waiting for you in the card room. Page, take Commander Bond up to the Admiral. Lively now!”’<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn9" name="_ednref9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[9]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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This scene from Fleming’s third novel is mirrored in the sixth Eon James Bond film, <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i> (1969), starring Australian ex-model George Lazenby as 007 in his first and only appearance in the role. Bond has driven to <i>Quarterdeck</i>, the residence of his chief, M, which was described in the original novel and faithfully portrayed in the film version by director Peter Hunt. However, the dialogue when Bond rings the ship’s-bell at the front door of the house and meets Hammond (M’s Chief Petty Officer on the HMS <i>Repulse</i>, who had followed him into retirement from the Royal Navy) was not in the original novel, but was actually taken from Fleming’s memorandum advice to Broccoli, and, by extension, from the scene in the Blades club in <i>Moonraker</i> where Bond asks for “the Admiral”:</div>
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<st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">HAMMOND</st1:place></st1:city>: “Good afternoon, James.”</div>
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BOND: “Good afternoon, <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Hammond</st1:place></st1:city>.”</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Is the Admiral in?”</div>
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<st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">HAMMOND</st1:place></st1:city>: “Certainly, sir.”</div>
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[<st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Hammond</st1:place></st1:city> shows Bond in to M’s study.]</div>
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M: “Um.”</div>
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<st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">HAMMOND</st1:place></st1:city>: “Excuse me, sir, Commander Bond to see you.”</div>
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M: “Right, show him in.”</div>
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<st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">HAMMOND</st1:place></st1:city>: “Aye, aye sir.”</div>
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[to Bond:]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“If you please, sir.”</div>
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BOND: “Thankyou.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn10" name="_ednref10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[10]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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Cubby Broccoli recounted how Ian Fleming had sent a fascinating memorandum to him after one of their enthusiastic talks about James Bond over dinner. Broccoli described Fleming’s ‘Editorial Notes’ as “the definitive thesis on the way James Bond should be structured and played.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn11" name="_ednref11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[11]</span></span></span></span></a> Therefore Bond aficionados should regard the excerpts that Broccoli gave in his autobiography from Fleming’s memorandum as the blueprint for James Bond as both a literary and cinematic character, the very touchstone of what makes the character in the novels and films ‘James Bond’ as opposed to any other standard secret agent character:</div>
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“‘Atmosphere: To my mind, the greatest danger in this series is too much stage Englishness. There should, I think, be no monocles, moustaches, bowler hats or bobbies, or other “Limey” gimmicks. There should be no blatant English slang, a minimum of public school ties and accents, and subsidiary characters should, generally speaking, speak with a Scots or Irish accent. The Secret Service should be presented as a tough, modern organisation in which men may dress more casually than they do in the FBI. Above all they should not slap each other on the back or call each other “old boy”. James Bond; James Bond is a blunt instrument wielded by a Government Department. He is quiet, hard, ruthless, sardonic, fatalistic. In his relationships with women he shows the same qualities as he does in his job, but he has a certain gentleness with them and if they get into trouble he is sometimes prepared to sacrifice his life to rescue them. But not always, and certainly not if it interferes with his job. He likes gambling, golf and fast motor cars.’”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn12" name="_ednref12" style="mso-endnote-id: edn12;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[12]</span></span></span></span></a> </div>
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It appears that Terence Young, the director of <i>From Russia with Love</i>, took Fleming’s memorandum advice to have subsidiary characters in the Secret Service speaking with accents from other parts of the <st1:country -region="-region" w:st="on">UK</st1:country> and <st1:country -region="-region" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ireland</st1:place></st1:country> on board. Desmond Llewelyn, who played the role of the gadget boffin “Q” in seventeen James Bond films, had starred as a Welsh tank driver in the war film <i>They Were Not Divided</i> (1950), which was directed by Terence Young, and Young was keen for Llewelyn (who was Welsh) to also use this accent for the role of M’s “Equipment Officer”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn13" name="_ednref13" style="mso-endnote-id: edn13;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[13]</span></span></span></span></a> in <i>From Russia with Love</i> (1963), later called “Q” in <i>Goldfinger </i>(1964) and the subsequent films. Llewelyn humorously recounted the story in a television interview broadcast in 2000:</div>
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“He sort of thought it would be a good idea to have me as a Welshman because when I went to rehearse he said, ‘How are you going to play this’, and I said, ‘Well, he’s an ordinary civil servant.’ He said, ‘No, I want you to play him as a Welshman.’ Well I said ‘Well, it wouldn’t work.’ I said, ‘Alright Terence, is this what you want?’: [<i>in a Welsh accent</i>] ‘This lovely case I’ve got ’ere. I push a butt-on and out comes a knife,’ and he said ‘No, no, you’re quite right!’ so I’ve played him as a toffee-nosed Englishman ever since.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn14" name="_ednref14" style="mso-endnote-id: edn14;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[14]</span></span></span></span></a><u><o:p></o:p></u></div>
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Ian Fleming’s memorandum to Cubby Broccoli delineating the blueprint for the James Bond character continued:</div>
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“‘Neither Bond nor his Chief, M, should initially endear themselves to the audience. They are tough, uncompromising men and so are the people who work for and with them.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn15" name="_ednref15" style="mso-endnote-id: edn15;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[15]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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Ian Fleming further elaborated on this perhaps surprising conception of James Bond in an interview with <i>Playboy</i> magazine, which was published after his death in December 1964. When the interviewer asked Fleming if he agreed with a reviewer who said that Bond was “the bad guy who smoulders in every good citizen” Fleming replied:</div>
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“I don’t think that he is necessarily a good guy or a bad guy. Who is? He’s got his vices and very few perceptible virtues except patriotism and courage, which are probably not virtues anyway…I quite agree that he’s not a person of much social attractiveness. But then, I didn’t intend for him to be a particularly likeable person. He’s a cipher, a blunt instrument in the hands of the government.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn16" name="_ednref16" style="mso-endnote-id: edn16;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[16]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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Broccoli, Saltzman and the scriptwriters incorporated the more unpalatable elements of the Bond character in the first film <i>Dr No</i>, in the scene where Bond shoots Professor Dent once in the front and then once in the back with his silenced gun (“That’s a Smith and Wesson, and you’ve had your six”, says Bond<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn17" name="_ednref17" style="mso-endnote-id: edn17;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[17]</span></span></span></span></a>). Professor Dent had already emptied the chamber of his own gun into Bond’s mocked up bed, and director Terence Young’s “preferred version had the unfortunate Professor being shot a further four times”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn18" name="_ednref18" style="mso-endnote-id: edn18;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[18]</span></span></span></span></a> beyond the two shots fired by Bond in the finished film. Bond’s first screen kill was “cut down from the original at the behest of the censor.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn19" name="_ednref19" style="mso-endnote-id: edn19;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[19]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although neither this scene nor the minor villain character of Professor Dent appeared in the original Fleming novel, of which the film is otherwise a faithful adaptation, it shows that from the very start the Bond producers were willing to follow Fleming’s advice of not always showing Bond in a heroic or particularly popular light. James Bond was first and foremost a government-sanctioned assassin with a licence to kill the enemies of the state in the line of duty, but he was conversely also a hero. Another clear example of this juxtaposition between the heroic, likeable Bond and the unappealing, cold and ruthless killer may be found in the most recent James Bond film, <i>Quantum of Solace</i> (2008), a post-Cubby Broccoli production, where Bond’s ally and friend René Mathis is shot and fatally wounded by enemy police officers. After a very poignant scene where Mathis’ life ebbs away in the arms of Bond, Bond takes his friend’s lifeless body and roughly places it onto a dumpster at the side of the road. Camille, his female ally, asks, “Is this the way you treat your friends?”, to which Bond replies that Mathis was “not the sort to care”.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn20" name="_ednref20" style="mso-endnote-id: edn20;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[20]</span></span></span></span></a> As Bond and Camille walk to their Land Rover and drive away, the director’s camera lens stays purposefully on the shot of Mathis spread-eagled atop the skip. The purpose of this approach appears to be to point out to the viewer, “What sort of a man is James Bond to do such a thing with his friend?” The silent lingering of the scene is one of the most powerful statements (and indictments) that the film makes of James Bond as a character, yet none of this should come as a surprise to the reader of Fleming’s novels, as Bond does sometimes do inexplicable, and seemingly uncaring and inhuman things in them. However, from a practical point of view, the viewer might also consider that Bond is too practical an agent in the field to allow the death of an ally and friend to alter his determination to see the job in hand through and it was perhaps neither the time nor the place to be distracted by a corpse or to be overly sentimental. Robert Harling, a friend and wartime colleague of Fleming revealed the possible source for Bond’s sometimes cold and unfeeling character in a television interview in 2002. Harling referred to how Muriel Wright, a wartime girlfriend of Fleming’s had been killed in an air raid and its subsequent effect on Fleming:</div>
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“I said to Dunstan [Curtis, of Fleming’s wartime 30 Assault Unit] that Fleming had gone off to identify her. I said he was so cut up. Dunstan said, ‘Well, you know that’s one of the troubles with Fleming. You have to get yourself killed before his emotions are involved.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn21" name="_ednref21" style="mso-endnote-id: edn21;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[21]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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In these examples from the Bond films, it is clear that the spirit of Fleming still lives on in the film series that Cubby Broccoli more than any other helped to initiate and sustain, even after the departure of his partner Harry Saltzman following <i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i> (1974). Broccoli recounted in his autobiography how Fleming continued his detailed description of the headquarters of the British Secret Service, and his recommendation that it be located “on the entire upper floor of a modern block of offices with shops below”:<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn22" name="_ednref22" style="mso-endnote-id: edn22;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[22]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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‘The list of other occupants of the building is innocuous: Universal Export, Central Radio Communications and so forth. Bond’s secretary, formerly of the WRNS, should be attractive, sexy, but extremely efficient and rather severe. She would obviously look much prettier away from the office. She is inclined to mother Bond – brushes his coat and so forth. They have a friendly, businesslike relationship with occasional sparks of flirtation from Bond. Their relationship…is rather similar to that between Perry Mason and <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Della Street</st1:address></st1:street>. Bond’s office, looking out over the park, should contain a number of office gadgets, such as a twenty-four-hour clock, Phonodeck, oddments like a shell-base for an ashtray, a shrapnel fragment as a paper-weight, three telephones, two black and one white – the latter direct with M and his Chief of Staff.’</div>
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Also, M’s clothes are described, right down to the bow-tie: dark blue with white spots.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn23" name="_ednref23" style="mso-endnote-id: edn23;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[23]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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This description of the headquarters of the British Secret Service provided in the memorandum by Fleming is very similar to the description given in his third Bond novel, <i>Moonraker</i> (1955):</div>
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“The ninth was the top floor of the building. Most of it was occupied by Communications, the hand-picked inter-services team of operators whose only interest was the world of microwaves, sunspots, and the ‘heaviside layer’. Above them, on the flat roof, were the three squat masts of one of the most powerful transmitters in England, explained on the bold bronze list of occupants in the entrance hall of the building by the words ‘Radio Tests Ltd.’ the other tenants were declared to be ‘Universal Exports Co.’, ‘Delaney Bros. (1940) Ltd.’, ‘The Omnium Corporation’, and ‘Enquiries (Miss E. Twining, OBE)’.</div>
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Miss Twining was a real person. Forty years earlier she had been a Loelia Ponsonby. Now, in retirement, she sat in a small office on the ground floor and spent her days tearing up circulars, paying the rates and taxes of her ghostly tenants, and politely brushing off salesmen and people who wanted to export something or have their radios mended.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn24" name="_ednref24" style="mso-endnote-id: edn24;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[24]</span></span></span></span></a> </div>
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Fleming’s description in the memorandum to Broccoli of what Bond’s office should contain also has a precedent in his novels. For instance, in <i>Dr No</i> (1958), there is the following description of M at his desk:</div>
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“When he had finished he tossed the pile into his <i>Out</i> basket and reached for his pipe and tobacco jar made out of the base of a fourteen-pounder shell.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn25" name="_ednref25" style="mso-endnote-id: edn25;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[25]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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Broccoli summed up the influence of Fleming’s notes, when combined with his series of James Bond novels and short stories:</div>
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“[E]verything about Ian Fleming made him an ‘original’. The success of the films, I have always believed, depended crucially on getting this authentic ‘feel’ behind the fanciful ideas, the spectacular stunts and the tongue-in-cheek dialogue. This is why we scoured the world for the perfect locations and built vast sets in meticulous detail, whatever the cost. It achieved the sort of visual impact television couldn’t possibly compete with.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn26" name="_ednref26" style="mso-endnote-id: edn26;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[26]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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In his autobiography, Broccoli described how Ian Fleming’s novels also provided the “careful blocking out of the character”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn27" name="_ednref27" style="mso-endnote-id: edn27;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[27]</span></span></span></span></a> that was needed to translate the James Bond of the books onto the silver screen:</div>
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“Fleming’s physical descriptions of James Bond were also very well drawn. He saw him as ‘very good looking. He reminds me rather of Hoagy Carmichael, but there is something cold and ruthless…’ (<i>Casino Royale</i>, Chapter 5). ‘His grey-blue eyes looked calmly back with a hint of ironical inquiry and the short lock of black hair which would never stay in place subsided to form a thick comma above his right eyebrow. With the thin vertical scar down his right cheek the general effect was faintly piratical…’ (<i>Casino Royale</i>, Chapter 8). Fleming gives Bond’s height as a little over six feet, his weight as around one hundred and sixty-seven pounds, and his build slim. Furthermore, the various descriptions confirm that Bond possesses ‘dark, rather cruel good looks’ and that women find him devastatingly irresistible. Well, we had our blueprint, but where was there an actor to fit it?”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn28" name="_ednref28" style="mso-endnote-id: edn28;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[28]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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In July 1961 the columnist Pat Lewis announced that Broccoli and Saltzman were “having trouble casting James Bond for their upcoming series of feature films.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn29" name="_ednref29" style="mso-endnote-id: edn29;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[29]</span></span></span></span></a> The story of the producers’ search for an actor to fit the 007 role is contained in the book <i>James Bond, The Legacy</i> (2002) by John Cork and Bruce Scivally:</div>
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“[Pat] Lewis announced a ‘find James Bond’ contest. Ian Fleming offered a description of the role: “He likes gambling, golf and fast motor-cars. He smokes a great deal, but without affectation. All his movements are relaxed and economical.”</div>
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Lewis put out her own criteria: “Compoetitors must be aged between 28 and 35; measure between 6ft. and 6ft. 1 in. in height; weight about 12st.; have blue eyes, dark hair, rugged features – particularly a determined chin – and an English accent.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn30" name="_ednref30" style="mso-endnote-id: edn30;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[30]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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The description of what the producers were looking for in their potential James Bond star matched the most complete description that Fleming ever gave of his secret agent in the novels. In <i>From Russia, With Love </i>(1957) Fleming used the literary device of the 1953 SMERSH file photograph of Bond which the chief of the Soviet organ of death, Colonel General Grubozaboyschikov (‘General G.’) pores over, to fill in the physical characteristics of the agent:</div>
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“It was a dark, clean-cut face, with a three-inch scar showing whitely down the sunburned skin of the right cheek. The eyes were wide and level under straight, rather long black brows. The hair was black, parted on the left, and carelessly brushed so that a thick black comma fell down over the right eyebrow. The longish straight nose ran down to a short upper lip below which was a wide and finely drawn but cruel mouth. The line of the jaw was straight and firm. A section of dark suit, white shirt and black knitted tie completed the picture.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn31" name="_ednref31" style="mso-endnote-id: edn31;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[31]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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General G. then reads some extracts from the SMERSH file on Bond:</div>
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“First name: JAMES. Height: 183 centimetres, weight 76 kilograms; slim build; eyes: blue; hair: black; scar down right cheek and on right shoulder; signs of plastic surgery on back of right hand (see Appendix ‘A’); all-round athlete; expert pistol shot, boxer, knife-thrower; does not use disguises. Languages: French and German. Smokes heavily (NB: special cigarettes with three gold bands); vices: drink, but not to excess, and women. Not thought to accept bribes.”</div>
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“This man is invariably armed with a .25 Beretta automatic carried in a holster under his left arm. Magazine holds eight rounds. Has been known to carry a knife strapped to his left forearm; has used steel-capped shoes; knows the basic holds of judo. In general fights with tenacity and has a high tolerance of pain (see Appendix ‘B’).”</div>
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“Conclusion. This man is a dangerous professional terrorist and spy. He has worked for the British Secret Service since 1938 and now (see Highsmith file of December 1950) holds the secret number ‘007’ in that Service. The double o numerals signify an agent who has killed and who is privileged to kill on active service. There are believed to be only two other British agents with this authority. The fact that this spy was decorated with the CMG in 1953, an award usually given only on retirement from the Secret Service, is a measure of his worth. If encountered in the field, the fact and full details should be reported to headquarters (see SMERSH, MGB and GRU Standing Orders 1951 onwards).”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn32" name="_ednref32" style="mso-endnote-id: edn32;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[32]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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The reason for the relative scarcity of detailed physical descriptions and details of Bond’s past life in the novels was explained by Fleming in an interview conducted by Roy Newquist in 1963:</div>
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“Now, you’ll notice that the James Bond of the first book was a straightforward man who didn’t really possess a total personality. In fact, in the first several books you’ll find absolutely no discussion of his character, few of his mannerisms, no character study in depth. The closest to this comes when the Russian Secret Service, the KGB scrutinizes him rather closely in <i>From <st1:country -region="-region" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Russia</st1:place></st1:country>, With Love</i>. But I kept him quite blank, in a way, at first, giving him no quirks, no particular morality or immorality, not even a detailed personal appearance. </div>
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As the series has gone on, however, James Bond has become encrusted with mannerisms and belongings and individual characteristics. This is probably a natural outgrowth of getting to know him better. I don’t know if this is good or bad, and I don’t know where all the elements that compose Bond come from, but there they are.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn33" name="_ednref33" style="mso-endnote-id: edn33;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[33]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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After some searching for the leading actor, the producers cast the then virtually unknown Scottish actor Sean Connery in the role of James Bond. Although Ian Fleming initially had reservations about Connery, Dominic Sandbrook in his book, <i>Never Had It So Good</i> (2005), on <st1:country -region="-region" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country> between 1956 and 1963, revealed that the reason for Fleming changing his initial opinion on the casting of Bond was the sense of a shared national identity between the author and the actor:</div>
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“Since Bond himself was half-Scottish and had attended an Edinburgh public school, and since Fleming was the grandson of a Dundee millionaire, Connery’s gentle Edinburgh accent was not quite as incongruous as is often claimed. ‘Not quite the idea I had of Bond,’ Fleming later admitted, ‘but he would be if I wrote the books over again.’<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn34" name="_ednref34" style="mso-endnote-id: edn34;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[34]</span></span></span></span></a> </div>
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In a sense, Fleming did write the books over again, with a very noticeable nationality change in the last few novels. These particular novels were written while the first few James Bond films were being produced and Fleming displayed signs that he was becoming influenced by the image and style of the Eon James Bond films which had brought his novels to a steadily widening readership. The most evident examples of this occur in the first new James Bond novel to follow the release of <i>Dr No</i> in October 1962, namely <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i> (1963). In this, Fleming’s eleventh novel, James Bond is operating undercover as Sir Hilary Bray from the College of Arms, ostensibly to research the claim of SPECTRE chief Ernst Stavro Blofeld to the extinct heraldic title of Monsieur le Comte Balthazar de Bleuville. In reality Bond is in Piz Gloria to track down Blofeld and find out what scheme he has dreamt up since the time of ‘Operation Thunderball’. In one passage in the novel, Bond’s German host at Piz Gloria, Irma Bunt, points out a guest at Piz Gloria immediately recognisable to all James Bond fans:</div>
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“‘A most interesting crowd, do you not find, Sair Hilary? Everybody who is anybody. We have quite taken the international set away from Gstaad and <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">St Moritz</st1:place></st1:city>. That is your Duke of Marlborough over there with such a gay party of young things. And near by that is Mr Whitney and Lady Daphne Straight. Is she not chic? They are both wonderful skiers. And that beautiful girl with the long fair hair at the big table, that is Ursula Andress, the film star. What a wonderful tan she has! And Sir George Dunbar, he always has the most enchanting companions.’ The box-like smile. ‘Why, we only need the Aga Khan and perhaps your Duke of Kent and we would have everybody, but everybody. Is it not sensational for the first season?’</div>
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Bond said it was.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn35" name="_ednref35" style="mso-endnote-id: edn35;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[35]</span></span></span></span></a> </div>
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Ursula Andress had memorably played the first Bond girl, Honey Ryder (Honeychile Rider in the original novel, shortened to ‘Honey’) in <i>Dr No</i> (1962), where she had emerged from the sea onto Dr No’s island Crab Key singing the song ‘Underneath The Mango Tree’. Fleming had met Andress on the set and several<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>photographs show the author and the actress together. The scenes on the beach where Bond meets Honey for the first time were filmed not far from Fleming’s Jamaican residence, <i>Goldeneye</i> in Oracabessa (where he wrote all of his James Bond novels and short stories). The topical reference in <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i> where Irma Bunt points out Andress to Bond is one of the clearest examples of the influence of Broccoli and Saltzman’s work on the creator of 007. </div>
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Another example of the influence of the Eon films in <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i> (1963) is evident in a number of passages where Fleming seemed to have derived inspiration from the casting of the Scottish actor Sean Connery as his hero. In the first interesting passage, James Bond has went to see Griffon Or, Pursuivant at the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Arms</st1:placename></st1:place> to see if he can track down the whereabouts of Ernst Stavro Blofeld. However, Griffon Or instead thinks that Bond is there to enquire about his own heraldry:</div>
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“Griffon Or held up his hand. He said severely, ‘Where did your parents come from, if I may ask? That, my dear fellow, is the first step in the chain. Then we can go back from there – Somerset House, parish records, old tomb-stones. No doubt, with a good old English name like yours, we will get somewhere in the end.’</div>
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‘My father was a Scot and my mother was Swiss. But the point is…’</div>
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‘Quite, quite. You are wondering about the cost of the research. That, my dear fellow, we can leave until later. But, now tell me. From whereabouts in Scotland did your father come? That is important. The Scottish records are of course less fully documented than those from the South. In those days I am forced to admit that our cousins across the border were little more than savages.’ Griffon Or bobbed his head politely. He gave a fleeting and, to Bond’s eye, rather false smile. ‘Very pleasant savages, of course, very brave and all that. But, alas, very weak at keeping up their records. More useful with the sword than with the pen, if I may say so. But perhaps your grandparents and their forebears came from the South?’</div>
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‘My father came from the Highlands, from near Glencoe. But look here…’</div>
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But Griffon Or was not to be diverted from the scent. He pulled another thick book towards him. His finger ran down the page of small print. ‘Hum. Hum. Hum. Yes, yes. Not very encouraging, I fear. <i>Burke’s General Armory</i> gives more than ten different families bearing your name. But, alas, nothing in Scotland. Not that that means there is no Scottish branch. Now, perhaps you have other relatives living. So often in these matters there is some distant cousin…’ Griffon Or reached into the pocket of the purple-flowered silk waistcoat that buttoned almost up to his neat bow tie, fished out a small silver snuff-box, offered it to Bond and then himself took two tremendous sniffs. He exploded twice into the ornate bandana handkerchief. </div>
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Bond took his opportunity. He leaned forward and said distinctly and forcibly, ‘I didn’t come here to talk about myself. It’s about Blofeld.’”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn36" name="_ednref36" style="mso-endnote-id: edn36;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[36]</span></span></span></span></a> </div>
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A little later on in the same chapter there is the indication that Fleming was also influenced by the tongue-in-cheek and humorous elements (such as the Bondian one-liners) introduced into the film characterisation of Bond in <i>Dr No</i> (1962), as well as the mention of the title of a future, post-Cubby Broccoli 1990s Bond film title:</div>
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‘This is the very warp and woof of history, Commander Bond.’ He reached for another volume that lay open on his desk and that he had obviously prepared for Bond’s delectation. ‘The coat of arms, for instance. Surely that must concern you, be at least of profound interest to your family, to your own children? Yes, here we are. “Argent on a chevron sable three bezants”.’ He held up the book so that Bond could see. ‘A bezant is a golden ball, as I am sure you know. Three balls.’</div>
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Bond commented drily, ‘That is certainly a valuable bonus’ – the irony was lost on Griffon Or – ‘but I’m afraid I am still not interested. And I have no relatives and no children. Now about this man…’</div>
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Griffon Or broke in excitedly, ‘And this charming motto of the line, “The World is not Enough”. You do not wish to have the right to it?’</div>
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‘It is an excellent motto which I shall certainly adopt,’ said Bond curtly.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn37" name="_ednref37" style="mso-endnote-id: edn37;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[37]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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Later on in <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i>, Bond asks Teresa (Tracy) di Vicenzo if she will marry him. Bond says to Tracy:</div>
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“‘Let’s get married in Munich. At the Consulate. I’ve got a kind of diplomatic immunity. I can get the papers through quickly. Then we can be married again in an English church, or Scottish rather. That’s where I’m from…’”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn38" name="_ednref38" style="mso-endnote-id: edn38;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[38]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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In O.F. Snelling’s early critical study of the literary James Bond,<i> Double O Seven James Bond: A Report</i> (1964) there appeared a throwaway reference to a 1964 interview in a footnote, which suggested that Fleming had intended both of James Bond’s parents to be of Scottish nationality, despite his having already stated in <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service </i>that Bond’s father was a Scot and his mother was Swiss.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn39" name="_ednref39" style="mso-endnote-id: edn39;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[39]</span></span></span></span></a> The following quote from Fleming arguably shows the influence of the recent casting of the Scottish actor Sean Connery in the lead role on his writing process:</div>
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‘Bond is Scottish. On both sides, as I shall explain in my next book.’ Ian Fleming to John Creusemann, in an interview in the <i>Daily Express</i>, 2 January 1964.’<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn40" name="_ednref40" style="mso-endnote-id: edn40;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[40]</span></span></span></span></a> </div>
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Ian Fleming’s “next book” was <i>You Only Live Twice</i> (1964), and in it he instead remained faithful to the details he had written of Bond’s Scot-Swiss parentage in <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i>. From the very beginning of his penultimate novel, Fleming continued to display the influence of the Scottish lead in the early James Bond films in his writing. In the first chapter Bond is playing the game of ‘Scissors, Paper, Stone’ with his host, ‘Tiger’ Tanaka, the Head of the Japanese Secret Service:</div>
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“‘Please tell our dainty and distinguished audience that I propose to rub your honourable nose in the dirt at this despicable game and thus display not only the superiority of Great Britain, and particularly Scotland, over Japan, but also the superiority of our Queen over your Emperor.’”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn41" name="_ednref41" style="mso-endnote-id: edn41;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[41]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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Later on in the novel, Bond is diving along with the <i>awabi </i>girls from Kissy Suzuki’s boat. Fleming describes how Bond felt after his “very honourable first catch”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn42" name="_ednref42" style="mso-endnote-id: edn42;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[42]</span></span></span></span></a> of ten shells:</div>
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“Ridiculously pleased with himself, Bond took a vague bearing on the island which, because of the drifting of the boat, was now only a speck on the horizon, and gradually worked himself into the slow unlaboured sweep of a Scottish gillie.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn43" name="_ednref43" style="mso-endnote-id: edn43;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[43]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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In Scotland a <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">‘gillie’ is a term for a man or boy who attends someone on a hunting or fishing expedition. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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A further example of the influence on Fleming’s writing of the sardonic humour that became a hallmark of Sean Connery’s portrayal of James Bond is also found in <i>You Only Live Twice</i>. Bond, who is under the guise of a deaf and dumb Japanese, has been captured in Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s Japanese “Castle of Death” and has been placed “directly above a geyser that throws mud, at a heat of around one thousand degrees Centigrade, a distance of approximately one hundred feet into the air.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn44" name="_ednref44" style="mso-endnote-id: edn44;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[44]</span></span></span></span></a> Fleming describes Bond’s reaction to his predicament above the geyser about to erupt, designed to make him speak:</div>
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“Bond turned and faced the couple under the clock. He said cheerfully, ‘Well, Blofeld, you mad bastard. I’ll admit that your effects man down below knows his stuff. Now bring on the twelve she-devils and if they’re all as beautiful as <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Fräulein</span> Bunt, we’ll get <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Noël</span> Coward to put it to music and have it on Broadway by Christmas. How about it?’</div>
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Blofeld turned to Irma Bunt. ‘My dear girl, you were right! It is indeed the same <i>Britischer</i>. Remind me to buy you another string of the excellent Mr Mikimoto’s grey pearls. And now let us be finished with this man once and for all. It is beyond our bedtime.’”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn45" name="_ednref45" style="mso-endnote-id: edn45;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[45]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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The playwright, actor and composer <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Noël</span> Coward was actually a friend of Fleming’s who lived in a house called <i>Firefly</i> in the mountains above Fleming’s house <i>Goldeneye</i> in Oracabessa in Jamaica.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn46" name="_ednref46" style="mso-endnote-id: edn46;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[46]</span></span></span></span></a> Such a humorous retort from Bond was not a feature of the earlier Bond novels, which were known for their humorlessness, and it represents further evidence of the influence of the Bond films. </div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The most significant reference to James Bond’s Scottish ancestry and early life comes in the obituary written by M that is rather prematurely printed in <i>The Times</i>, which appears in chapter 21 of the novel. James Bond is “missing, believed killed”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn47" name="_ednref47" style="mso-endnote-id: edn47;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[47]</span></span></span></span></a> after his infiltration of Blofeld’s Japanese suicide “Garden and Castle of Death”. The obituary of Commander James Bond CMG, RNVR, a brilliant literary exposition device deployed by Fleming, further reveals the influence of Sean Connery as Bond on the novels:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“James Bond was born of a Scottish father, Andrew Bond of Glencoe, and a Swiss mother, Monique Delacroix, from the Canton de Vaud. His father being a foreign representative of the Vickers armaments firm, his early education, from which he inherited a first-class command of French and German, was entirely abroad. When he was eleven years of age, both his parents were killed in a climbing accident in the Aiguilles Rouges above Chamonix, and the youth came under the guardianship of an aunt, since deceased, Miss Charmian Bond, and went to live with her at the quaintly-named hamlet of Pett Bottom near Canterbury in Kent. There, in a small cottage hard by the attractive Duck Inn, his aunt, who must have been a most erudite and accomplished lady, completed his education for an English public school, and, at the age of twelve or thereabouts, he passed satisfactorily into Eton, for which College he had been entered at birth by his father. It must be admitted that his career at Eton was brief and undistinguished and, after only two halves, as a result, it pains me to record, of some alleged trouble with one of the boys’ maids, his aunt was requested to remove him. She managed to obtain his transfer to Fettes, his father’s old school. Here the atmosphere was somewhat Calvinistic, and both academic and athletic standards were rigorous. Nevertheless, though inclined to be solitary by nature, he established some firm friendships among the traditionally famous athletic circles at the school. By the time he left, at the early age of seventeen, he had twice fought for the school as a light-weight and had, in addition, founded the first serious judo class at a British public school. By now it was 1941 and, by claiming an age of nineteen and with the help of an old Vickers colleague of his father, he entered a branch of what was subsequently to become the Ministry of Defence. To serve the confidential nature of his duties, he was accorded the rank of lieutenant in the Special Branch of the RNVR, and it is a measure of the satisfaction his services gave to his superiors that he ended the war with the rank of Commander. It was about this time that the writer became associated with certain aspects of the ministry’s work, and it was with much gratification that I accepted Commander Bond’s post-war application to continue working for the Ministry in which, at the time of his lamented disappearance, he had risen to the rank of Principal Officer in the Civil Service.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn48" name="_ednref48" style="mso-endnote-id: edn48;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[48]</span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Some elements of the literary Bond’s obituary in <i>You Only Live Twice</i> have made their way into the Broccoli produced Eon films. In Roger Moore’s third Bond film, <i>The Spy Who Loved Me </i>(1977), Commander Benson introduces Commander James Bond, dressed in his naval uniform, to Admiral Hargreaves, Flag Officer, Submarines. Hargreaves says to Bond, “Ark Royal, wasn’t it?” to which Bond replies, “Yes, sir”. Bond also appears in his naval uniform in the films <i>You Only Live Twice</i> (1967) and <i>Tomorrow Never Dies</i> (1997). Later on in <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i>, Bond meets Major Anya Amasova, Russian Agent ‘Triple X’, at the bar in the Mujaba Club run by Max Kalba. When Bond conveys that he knows Amasova’s identity as a Russian agent, she replies:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Commander James Bond, recruited to the British Secret Service from the Royal Navy. Licence to kill, and has done so on numerous occasions. Many lady friends, but married only once. Wife killed in…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">BOND: “Alright, you’ve made your point.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">AMASOVA: “You’re sensitive, Mr Bond.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">BOND: “About certain things, yes.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn49" name="_ednref49" style="mso-endnote-id: edn49;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[49]</span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The Spy Who Loved Me</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> was the first film that Broccoli produced after the breakdown of his partnership with Saltzman, and it is evident that he was keen to reassert the character of James Bond as originally defined by Fleming. A further reference to the obituary from <i>You Only Live Twice</i> is found in the scene in <i>GoldenEye</i> (1995) where Bond comes face to face with Janus, the head of the Janus crime syndicate. Janus turns out to be none other than his old friend and colleague 006, Alec Trevelyan. Bond confronts Trevelyan about his past:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“How did MI6 screening miss that your parents were Lienz Cossacks?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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TREVELYAN: “Once again your faith is misplaced. They knew. We’re both orphans, James, but where your parents had the luxury of dying in a climbing accident, mine survived the British betrayal and Stalin’s execution squads, but my father couldn’t let himself or my mother live with the shame of it. MI6 figured I was too young to remember and in one of life’s little ironies the son went to work for the government whose betrayal caused the father to kill himself and his wife.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn50" name="_ednref50" style="mso-endnote-id: edn50;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[50]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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The influence of the obituary featured in <i>You Only Live Twice</i> extended to the “reboot” of the Bond franchise in <i>Casino Royale</i> (2006), an updating of Fleming’s 1953 debut novel, where Cubby Broccoli’s successors as producers, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, presented a more “back-to-basics” Bond film. When Vesper Lynd, the International Liaison Officer for Her Majesty’s Treasury, makes contact with Bond on the train in Montenegro, she attempts to surmise details about his character from his appearance, dress and demeanour:</div>
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“By the cut of your suit, you went to Oxford or wherever, and actually think human beings dress like that. But you wear it with such disdain my guess is you didn’t come from money and your schoolfriends never let you forget it. Which means that you were at that school by the grace of someone else’s charity, hence the chip on your shoulder. And since your first thought about me ran to orphan that’s what I’d say you are.”</div>
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[Vesper deduces<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the accurascy of her last statement from the reaction on Bond’s face]: “Oh, you are.”</div>
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VESPER: “Hm, I like this poker thing. And that makes perfect sense since MI6 look for maladjusted young men that give little thought to scarifying others in order to protect Queen and country. You know, former SAS types with easy smiles and expensive watches.”</div>
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[Vesper looks at Bond’s watch]: “Rolex?”</div>
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BOND: “Omega.”</div>
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VESPER: “Beautiful.”</div>
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VESPER: “Now, having just met you I wouldn’t go as far as calling you a cold hearted bastard…”</div>
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BOND: “No of course not.”</div>
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VESPER: “But it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine you think of women as disposable pleasures rather than meaningful pursuits.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn51" name="_ednref51" style="mso-endnote-id: edn51;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[51]</span></span></span></span></a> </div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The evident influence of the Eon Bond films on the Bond novels continued into Ian Fleming’s last novel, <i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i>, which was published posthumously in 1965. In the final chapter Fleming has Bond again refer to his Scottish ancestry in a cable refusing the offer of a knighthood from M which he dictates to his former secretary and love interest in the story, Mary Goodnight:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“‘…EYE AM A SCOTTISH PEASANT AND WILL ALWAYS FEEL AT HOME BEING A SCOTTISH PEASANT AND EYE KNOW COMMA SIR COMMA THAT YOU WILL UNDERSTAND MY PREFERENCE AND THAT EYE CAN COUNT ON YOUR INDULGENCE BRACKET LETTER CONFIRMING FOLLOWS IMMEDIATELY ENDIT OHOHSEVEN.’<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn52" name="_ednref52" style="mso-endnote-id: edn52;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[52]</span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Mary Goodnight expresses her anger after transcribing Bond’s cable to M:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“‘Well really, James! Are you sure you don’t want to sleep on it? I knew you were in a bad mood today. You may have changed your mind by tomorrow. Don’t you want to go to Buckingham Palace and see the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh and kneel and have your shoulder touched with a sword and the Queen to say “Arise, Sir Knight” or whatever it is she does say?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Bond smiled. ‘I’d like all those things. The romantic streak of the SIS. – and of the Scot, for the matter of that. I just refuse to call myself Sir James Bond. I’d laugh at myself every time I looked in the mirror to shave. It’s just not my line, Mary. The thought makes me positively shudder. I know M.’ll understand. He thinks much the same way about these things as I do. Trouble was, he more or less had to inherit his K with the job. Anyway, there it is and I shan’t change my mind so you can buzz that off and I’ll write M. a letter of confirmation this evening…’”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn53" name="_ednref53" style="mso-endnote-id: edn53;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[53]</span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">After Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, the next most important figure in the history of the success of the James Bond character is undoubtedly Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli. Broccoli indelibly stamped the Bond films with some of his own personal experiences. Steven Jay Rubin noted the influence of the life experiences of Broccoli on the Bond films:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Cubby Broccoli was a former coffin salesman (the inspiration for the flaming hearse in <i>Dr. No</i>, the funeral parlour of Nathan Slumber in <i>Diamonds Are Forever</i>, and the graveyard world of Baron Samedi in <i>Live and Let Die</i> comes from this experience).”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn54" name="_ednref54" style="mso-endnote-id: edn54;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[54]</span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">To this list by Rubin of scenes from the Bond films influenced by the life of Cubby Broccoli there could be added the knife-throwing assassin secreted in a coffin on the funeral barge on the canal in Venice in <i>Moonraker</i> (1979), and most recently the scene in <i>Quantum of Solace</i> (2008) where a vehicle spills its cargo of coffins onto the road as Bond and Camille are pursued by an enemy on a motorbike.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">In his autobiography, Broccoli recounted his and his wife Dana’s reaction to hearing of the death of Ian Fleming from a heart attack on 12 August 1964:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Not only did we like Fleming immensely, and admire his taste and intellect; we also valued his ideas at the conference table. We were particularly sad he missed the opening of <i>Goldfinger</i>, though I’d shown him some of the early rushes. He was pleased with what he saw. All in all, I believed we served him well. Fortunately, Fleming’s interest in the films, plus the massive boost they gave his books, achieved his one ambition: to leave a handsome legacy to his family. We were glad of that, but shocked that he should die so young, just fifty-six years old. I don’t know how bad his heart was, but maybe if the bypass operation was as common then as it is now, he might be alive. But he was gone, and we had to do the best we could without him.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn55" name="_ednref55" style="mso-endnote-id: edn55;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[55]</span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Cubby Broccoli continued until his death as producer of the James Bond films, and the success of the subsequent films was due in no small part to his unique attributes in that vital role. His greatest legacy was the continuation of the further adventures of James Bond among different lead actors and directors and he would surely be proud of the achievements of his son-in-law Michael G. Wilson and his daughter, Barbara Broccoli, who succeeded him as producers of the Bond films. Donald Zec summed up well the determination of Cubby Broccoli to continue to contribute to the Bond legacy when he compared the late producer favourably with the vegetable which shares his surname:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“…the sturdier the roots, the more resilient the plant. ‘This is particularly so,’ say the experts ‘with broccoli, which has the strongest roots and flourishes under the most adverse conditions.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">On that score, its famous namesake Cubby Broccoli can truly, and proudly, rest content.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn56" name="_ednref56" style="mso-endnote-id: edn56;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[56]</span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">It is appropriate to conclude with two quotes from the actor Desmond Llewelyn, who starred in seventeen of the James Bond films as “Q” between 1963 and 1999, more than any other actor in the history of the series. In a television interview in 1997 in a programme to mark the release of the eighteenth official Bond film <i>Tomorrow Never Dies</i> (1997),<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn57" name="_ednref57" style="mso-endnote-id: edn57;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[57]</span></span></span></span></a> Llewelyn revealed what was at least one of the special ingredients in the phenomenal success of the Bond films:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“I’d never met a producer before. Producers <i>don’t </i>come onto the set and shake hands and welcome a small part actor. I mean the producer is sort of, well I suppose he’s God in a way [<i>laughs</i>]. But I mean you never sort of meet them or anything, but Cubby was always there.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn58" name="_ednref58" style="mso-endnote-id: edn58;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[58]</span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A little later in the same interview Llewelyn, whose face it is believed is known to half of the world’s population,<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn59" name="_ednref59" style="mso-endnote-id: edn59;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[59]</span></span></span></span></a> as the longest-serving actor in the Bond films, said of the key importance of Cubby Broccoli as the producer:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“He really was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i> most remarkable man and I mean if it wasn’t for Cubby there wouldn’t be Bond today. There’s no doubt about that.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn60" name="_ednref60" style="mso-endnote-id: edn60;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">[60]</span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<strong>This article is dedicated to the memory of Albert Romolo “Cubby” Broccoli (1909-1996) on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of his birth.</strong></div>
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<u><strong>Bibliography</strong></u></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Books</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Broccoli, Cubby with Zec, Donald, <i>When The Snow Melts: The Autobiography of Cubby Broccoli</i>, (Boxtree, London 1999),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Callan, Michael Feeney, <i>Sean Connery</i>, (Virgin Books, London, 2003), <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Cork, John and Scivally, Bruce, <i>James Bond, The Legacy</i>, (Boxtree, London, 2002),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Fleming, Ian, <i>Dr No</i>, (Jonathan Cape, London, 1958), <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Fleming, Ian, <i>From Russia, With Love</i>, (Jonathan Cape, London, 1957), <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Fleming, Ian, <i>Moonraker</i>, (Jonathan Cape, London, 1955),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Fleming, Ian, <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i>, (Jonathan Cape, London, 1963),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Fleming, Ian, <i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i>, (Jonathan Cape, London, 1965),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Fleming, Ian, <i>You Only Live Twice</i>, (Jonathan Cape, London, 1964),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Newquist, Roy, (ed.), <i>Counterpoint</i>, (George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1965),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Rubin, Steven Jay, <i>The James Bond Films</i>, (Talisman Books, London, 1981),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Sandbrook, Dominic, <i>Never Had It So Good</i>, (Little, Brown, London, 2005),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Smith, Jim and Lavington, Stephen, <i>Virgin Film: Bond Films</i>, (Virgin Books, London, 2002.), <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Snelling<i>,</i> O.F.,<i> Double O Seven James Bond: A Report</i> (1964) (Panther, London, 1965 edn),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Magazines <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Playboy</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">, December 1964 Ian Fleming interview,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Films<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Dr No</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">, (Eon Productions Ltd., 1962),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">From Russia with Love</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">, (Eon Productions Ltd., 1963),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">, (Eon Productions Ltd., 1969),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The Spy Who Loved Me</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">, (Eon Productions Ltd., 1977),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">GoldenEye</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">, (Eon Productions Ltd., 1995),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Casino Royale</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">, (Eon Productions Ltd., 2006), <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Quantum of Solace</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, (Eon Productions Ltd., 2008),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b>Television Specials</b> </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<i>“Now Pay Attention 007” A tribute to actor Desmond Llewelyn</i>, (Broadcast: Channel 4, 22 January 2000),</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Shaken and Stirred</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> (Broadcast: ITV, 11 December 1997), <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The Real James Bond</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">, (Broadcast: Channel 4, 12 March 2002), <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
The World of James Bond: A Tribute to Cubby Broccoli (Broadcast: ITV, 18 August 1996)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText2" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">[This article originally appeared on www.felixleiter.com on Sunday 5 April 2009 to celebrate the Centenary of the birth of Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli (1909-1996) I was an occasional Guest Author on this now defunct Felix Leiter fan site run by Chris Wright (aka Righty007)]</span><br /></div>
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;"><br />
<b><u>TBB Article No. 15</u></b><br />
<br />
<br />
<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2009.</b><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Introduction to Ian Fleming interview, <i>Playboy</i>, December 1964. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Cubby Broccoli quoted in the introduction to <i>The World of James Bond: A Tribute to Cubby Broccoli </i>(Broadcast: ITV, 18 August 1996). </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Michael Feeney Callan, <i>Sean Connery</i>, (Virgin Books, London, 2003), pp.108-109. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref4" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[4]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Cubby Broccoli with Donald Zec, <i>When The Snow Melts: The Autobiography of Cubby Broccoli</i>, (Boxtree, London 1999), (hereinafter “<i>Autobiography</i>”), pp. 149-150. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn5" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref5" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Steven Jay Rubin, <i>The James Bond Films</i>, (Talisman Books, London, 1981) p. 9.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn6" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref6" name="_edn6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[6]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> This term truly arrived with the release of the third Eon James Bond film <i>Goldfinger</i> in 1964.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn7" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref7" name="_edn7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[7]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Cubby Broccoli interview in <i>The World of James Bond: A Tribute to Cubby Broccoli </i>(Broadcast: ITV, 18 August 1996).</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn8" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref8" name="_edn8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[8]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 159. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn9" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref9" name="_edn9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[9]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Ian Fleming, <i>Moonraker</i> (Jonathan Cape, London, 1955), Chapter IV. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn10" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref10" name="_edn10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[10]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i>, (Eon Productions Ltd., 1969).</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn11" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref11" name="_edn11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[11]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 159.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn12" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref12" name="_edn12" style="mso-endnote-id: edn12;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[12]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>, pp. 159-160. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn13" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref13" name="_edn13" style="mso-endnote-id: edn13;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[13]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>From Russia with Love</i>, (Eon Productions Ltd., 1963).</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn14" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref14" name="_edn14" style="mso-endnote-id: edn14;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[14]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Desmond Llewelyn interview in <i>“Now Pay Attention 007” A tribute to actor Desmond Llewelyn</i>, (Broadcast: Channel 4, 22 January 2000).</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn15" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref15" name="_edn15" style="mso-endnote-id: edn15;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[15]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 160. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn16" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref16" name="_edn16" style="mso-endnote-id: edn16;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[16]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Interview with Ian Fleming in <i>Playboy</i>, December 1964.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn17" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref17" name="_edn17" style="mso-endnote-id: edn17;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[17]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Dr No</i>, (Eon Productions Ltd., 1962).</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn18" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref18" name="_edn18" style="mso-endnote-id: edn18;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[18]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Jim Smith and Stephen Lavington, <i>Virgin Film: Bond Films</i>, (Virgin Books, London, 2002.), p. 16.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn19" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref19" name="_edn19" style="mso-endnote-id: edn19;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[19]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>, p. 16. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn20" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref20" name="_edn20" style="mso-endnote-id: edn20;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[20]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Bond quoted in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Quantum of Solace</i>, (Eon Productions Ltd., 2008).<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn21" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref21" name="_edn21" style="mso-endnote-id: edn21;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[21]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Robert Harling interview in <i>The Real James Bond</i>, (Broadcast: Channel 4, 12 March 2002). </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn22" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref22" name="_edn22" style="mso-endnote-id: edn22;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[22]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 160. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn23" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref23" name="_edn23" style="mso-endnote-id: edn23;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[23]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn24" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref24" name="_edn24" style="mso-endnote-id: edn24;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[24]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Ian Fleming, <i>Moonraker</i>, (Jonathan Cape, London, 1955), Chapter II.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn25" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref25" name="_edn25" style="mso-endnote-id: edn25;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[25]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Ian Fleming, <i>Dr No</i>, (Jonathan Cape, London, 1958), Chapter II.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn26" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref26" name="_edn26" style="mso-endnote-id: edn26;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[26]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Autobiography</i>, pp. 160-161. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn27" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref27" name="_edn27" style="mso-endnote-id: edn27;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[27]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>, p. 163. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn28" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref28" name="_edn28" style="mso-endnote-id: edn28;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[28]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>, p. 164. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn29" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref29" name="_edn29" style="mso-endnote-id: edn29;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[29]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> John Cork and Bruce Scivally, <i>James Bond, The Legacy</i>, (Boxtree, London, 2002), p. 31.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn30" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref30" name="_edn30" style="mso-endnote-id: edn30;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[30]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>p. 31. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn31" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref31" name="_edn31" style="mso-endnote-id: edn31;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[31]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Ian Fleming, <i>From Russia, With Love</i>, (Jonathan Cape, London, 1957), Chapter 6. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn32" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref32" name="_edn32" style="mso-endnote-id: edn32;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[32]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn33" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref33" name="_edn33" style="mso-endnote-id: edn33;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[33]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Ian Fleming interview, conducted in London in October 1963, featured in Roy Newquist, (ed.), <i>Counterpoint</i>, (George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1965), pp. 210-211.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn34" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref34" name="_edn34" style="mso-endnote-id: edn34;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[34]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Dominic Sandbrook, <i>Never Had It So Good</i>, (Little, Brown, London, 2005), p. 584. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn35" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref35" name="_edn35" style="mso-endnote-id: edn35;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[35]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Ian Fleming, <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i>, (Jonathan Cape, London, 1963), Chapter 12.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn36" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref36" name="_edn36" style="mso-endnote-id: edn36;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[36]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Ian Fleming, <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i>, (Jonathan Cape, London, 1963), Chapter 6.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn37" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref37" name="_edn37" style="mso-endnote-id: edn37;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[37]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>, Chapter 6. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn38" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref38" name="_edn38" style="mso-endnote-id: edn38;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[38]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> Ibid</i>, Chapter 19. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn39" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref39" name="_edn39" style="mso-endnote-id: edn39;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[39]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>, Chapter 6. This passage from the novel is quoted above.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn40" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref40" name="_edn40" style="mso-endnote-id: edn40;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[40]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> A footnote in O.F. Snelling<i>, Double O Seven James Bond: A Report</i> (1964) (Panther, London, 1965 edn), p. 22.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn41" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref41" name="_edn41" style="mso-endnote-id: edn41;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[41]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Ian Fleming, <i>You Only Live Twice</i>, (Jonathan Cape, London, 1964), Chapter 1. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn42" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref42" name="_edn42" style="mso-endnote-id: edn42;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[42]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>, Chapter 14. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn43" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref43" name="_edn43" style="mso-endnote-id: edn43;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[43]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn44" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref44" name="_edn44" style="mso-endnote-id: edn44;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[44]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Blofeld quoted in <i>You Only Live Twice</i> (Jonathan Cape, London, 1964) by Ian Fleming, Chapter 19.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn45" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref45" name="_edn45" style="mso-endnote-id: edn45;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[45]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn46" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref46" name="_edn46" style="mso-endnote-id: edn46;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[46]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> John Cork and Bruce Scivally, <i>James Bond, The Legacy</i>, (Boxtree, London, 2002), p. 41. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn47" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref47" name="_edn47" style="mso-endnote-id: edn47;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[47]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Ian Fleming, <i>You Only Live Twice</i>, (Jonathan Cape, London, 1964), Chapter 21.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn48" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref48" name="_edn48" style="mso-endnote-id: edn48;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[48]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>, Chapter 21. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn49" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref49" name="_edn49" style="mso-endnote-id: edn49;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[49]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i>, (Eon Productions, Ltd., 1977).</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn50" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref50" name="_edn50" style="mso-endnote-id: edn50;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[50]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>GoldenEye</i>, (Eon Productions Ltd., 1995).</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn51" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref51" name="_edn51" style="mso-endnote-id: edn51;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[51]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Casino Royale</i>, (Eon Productions Ltd., 2006). </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn52" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref52" name="_edn52" style="mso-endnote-id: edn52;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[52]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Ian Fleming, <i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i>, (Jonathan Cape, London, 1965), Chapter 17. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn53" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref53" name="_edn53" style="mso-endnote-id: edn53;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[53]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn54" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref54" name="_edn54" style="mso-endnote-id: edn54;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[54]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Steven Jay Rubin, <i>The James Bond Films</i>, (Talisman Books, London, 1981) p. 9. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn55" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref55" name="_edn55" style="mso-endnote-id: edn55;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[55]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 197. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn56" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref56" name="_edn56" style="mso-endnote-id: edn56;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[56]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>, p. 327. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn57" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref57" name="_edn57" style="mso-endnote-id: edn57;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[57]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Tomorrow Never Dies</i>, Pierce Brosnan’s second Bond film, was dedicated in the end titles “In loving memory of Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli”. It was first Bond film to be released after the death of the producer. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn58" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref58" name="_edn58" style="mso-endnote-id: edn58;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[58]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Desmond Llewelyn interview in <i>Shaken and Stirred</i> (Broadcast: ITV, 11 December 1997).</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn59" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref59" name="_edn59" style="mso-endnote-id: edn59;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[59]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> This interesting statistic was mentioned in <i>“Now Pay Attention 007” A tribute to actor Desmond Llewelyn</i>, (Broadcast: Channel 4, 22 January 2000).</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn60" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref60" name="_edn60" style="mso-endnote-id: edn60;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[60]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-69195960883447167252012-08-18T20:23:00.008+01:002020-11-04T13:12:07.633+00:00The James Bond reference in The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970) (starring Roger Moore)<div style="text-align: justify;">
After finishing <i>The Saint</i> (1962-1968) television series, Roger Moore starred in the espionage film <i>Crossplot</i> in 1968.
In 1970 he starred in the serious psychological melodrama <i>The Man Who Haunted Himself</i>, which was directed by Basil Dearden, who would go on to film an
episode of <i>The Persuaders </i>in 1972. <i>The Man Who Haunted Himself</i> gave
Roger Moore the chance to show the considerable acting talents he could bring
to bear on a more serious production than the flippantly characterised Simon
Templar of <i>The Saint</i>. As Roger Moore is quoted as saying in the
collector’s booklet of the Warner-Pathe publicity campaign that accompanies the
Cinema Club Studio Canal DVD of the film:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“For the first time in my career,
I’ve been allowed to express emotion on the screen and really discover what
acting is.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
In the film, Moore plays successful
businessman Harold Pelham, of ‘Freeman, Pelham and Dawson Marine Engineers.’ In
the opening scene of the film, we see Pelham drive from his office onto the
motorway, and then suddenly something happens to him and he is unbuckling his
seat belt and accelerating greatly and swerving in between cars erratically
until the inevitable horrific crash comes. Pelham survives what was a
near-fatal car accident, however, but there are strange undertones. A double of
him seems to exist as he meets people in his office and at his club who claim
to have seen him while he was actually nowhere near the area at the time. After
the changes wrought within him by the car crash, throughout the rest of the
film Pelham is literally a man divided within himself, hence the title. It is
probably one of Moore’s best film performances and he really displays a range
of emotions convincingly throughout the film. It was made on a low budget of
under £300,000 and sadly did not perform well at the box office, due to a
lacklustre publicity campaign, and leaks to the press that the uncredited
writer/producer Brian Forbes was making lots of films from a small budget of a
few million pounds.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Perhaps the most interesting
thing about the film is the fact that Moore makes a reference to a fictional
character he was to be best known for playing just a few years later. When
discussing how industrial secrets seem to have leaked and found their way to
their competitors, the chairman of the board, Sir Charles Freeman says:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“Well, I don’t know. I’m getting
too old for this jungle. How could it happen, Pel?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">[Pelham]: “Come on, Charles.
Espionage isn’t all James Bond and Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Industry goes
in for it too, you know.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This reference to James Bond (and to the very different world of industrial espionage) came
about two years before Roger Moore would sign to play 007 with Eon Productions
in August 1972, and three years before Moore’s debut Bond film, <i>Live and Let Die </i>would be released in 1973. The scriptwriters have also interestingly made
reference to the previous year’s Bond film,<i> On Her Majesty's Secret Service</i> starring new Bond George Lazenby, which was released in December 1969 and still
showing in early 1970. Roger Moore had of course also appeared in an episode of
a television comedy show called ‘Mainly Millicent’ starring Millicent Martin
and guest stars in the summer of 1964 where he played James Bond in a sketch.
This sketch is available as an extra entitled <i>Roger Moore as James Bond, circa
1964</i> on the Ultimate Edition DVD of<i> Live and Let Die </i>first released in 2006.</div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<b><u>TBB Article No. 14</u></b><br />
<br />
<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2007.</b>The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-25269867880416934462012-08-16T15:40:00.005+01:002020-11-04T13:25:10.764+00:00The Oblique Reference to Felix Leiter in Moonraker (1979)<div style="background-color: #fbfcf7; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">The James Bond films of the Roger Moore era (1973-1985) are not renowned for their numerous appearances of Bond’s old CIA friend Felix Leiter. In fact, the only </span><st1:place style="color: #404040; font-family: Arial;" w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Moore</st1:city></st1:place><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";"> era Bond film to feature Leiter was </span><em style="color: #404040; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">Live and Let Die</span></em><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";"> (1973), where David Hedison played him in the first of two appearances in the role. Hedison was an old friend of Roger Moore’s, and had appeared in </span><em style="color: #404040; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">The Saint</span></em><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";"> and later appeared in the films </span><em style="color: #404040; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">North Sea Hijack</span></em><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";"> (aka </span><em style="color: #404040; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">ffoulkes</span></em><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">) (1979) and </span><em style="color: #404040; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">The Naked Face</span></em><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";"> (1985) opposite Moore. Hedison and Moore shared genuine screen chemistry in </span><em style="color: #404040; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">Live and Let Die</span></em><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">, perhaps due to the fact that the actors were also friends in real life. Perhaps one of the reasons for the lack of appearances for the Leiter character in the six Moore Bond films that followed was that Leiter only appeared in one of the novels that was filmed, </span><em style="color: #404040; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">The Man with the Golden Gun</span></em><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">, although he did not appear in the film version of this novel either. Another possible explanation is that the Leiter character also did not appear in any of the Ian Fleming Bond short stories, and as </span><em style="color: #404040; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">Moonraker</span></em><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";"> was the last Fleming Bond novel (omitting the then unavailable </span><em style="color: #404040; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">Casino Royale</span></em><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">) to be filmed by Eon Productions in 1979, thereafter the producers and writers relied on the short stories instead. It could of course be submitted that the films </span><em style="color: #404040; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">Dr. No</span></em><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";"> (1962), </span><em style="color: #404040; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">The Living Daylights</span></em><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";"> (1987) and </span><em style="color: #404040; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">Quantum of Solace</span></em><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";"> (2008), which all featured Leiter, were adapted from titles by Fleming where Leiter did not feature as a character. The lack of appearances for Leiter during the lengthy Moore era, after his initial appearance in 1973, therefore remains something of a mystery, especially as Leiter’s unfortunate mauling by a shark, which featured in Fleming’s </span><em style="color: #404040; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">Live and Let Die</span></em><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";"> (1954), was not actually filmed until the Timothy Dalton era in </span><em style="color: #404040; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">Licence to Kill</span></em><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";"> (1989), meaning there was again a lengthy absence for Leiter onscreen until </span><em style="color: #404040; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">Casino Royale</span></em><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";"> (2006).</span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">However, the character of Felix Leiter is also obliquely referred to in Roger Moore’s fourth James Bond film, <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">Moonraker</span></em> (1979). This film represents the only time even an oblique reference is made to Leiter in the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Moore</st1:city></st1:place> era after the character’s initial appearance in <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">Live and Let Die</span></em>. The reference occurs in the scene where James Bond surprises Dr Holly Goodhead in her <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Venice</st1:city></st1:place> hotel suite after his fight to the death with Hugo Drax’s henchman Chang. In the scene, which also features in the novelisation of the film, <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">James Bond and Moonraker</span></em> (1979), by screenwriter Christopher Wood, Bond searches Holly’s hotel suite and variously reveals: a slim gold retractable ball-point pen with a hypodermic poison needle, a dart-firing pocket diary, a flame-throwing small Christian Dior scent atomizer, and a handbag concealing a telescopic aerial and radio. In the novelisation, Wood has Bond further reveal dart-firing spectacles, a powder compact concealing a blade, a lipstick holder containing a miniature detonator and explosive charge and a Zippo lighter equipped to squirt the irritant chemical Mace in the face of an attacker. In the film, when Bond is confronted with all of this conclusive evidence pointing to Holly’s background in American intelligence, the dialogue in the scene is as follows:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">BOND: “Standard CIA equipment and the CIA placed you with Drax, correct?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">HOLLY: “Very astute of you, James”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">BOND: “Oh, not really. I have friends in low places.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">HOLLY: “Could this possibly be the moment for us to pool our resources?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">BOND: “It could have its compensations.”<sup><span style="font-size: small;">1</span></sup></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">There then follows the first kiss between Bond and Holly. From this moment on in the film, the two reluctantly work together as partners to investigate the affairs of Hugo Drax, the billionaire industrialist behind the Moonraker space shuttles. To the astute James Bond fan watching <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">Moonraker</span></em>, Bond’s line about having “friends in low places” would appear to be a reference to Bond’s old CIA friend Felix Leiter. A look at the scene as rendered in Wood’s novelisation of the film bears out such a contention:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">“Bond tossed the handbag on to the bed beside its contents. ‘I’ve seen this equipment before, Holly, and it wasn’t in Macy’s.’ He paused for a moment before he crossed to a drinks trolley. ‘It was being developed by the C.I.A. An old friend of mine, Felix Leiter, gave me a sneak preview.’ Bond turned his back to throw some ice cubes into a glass and top it up with Chives Regal. ‘I think you probably know him.’ There was no reply from Holly. ‘Because it occurs to me that the C.I.A. placed you with Drax. Correct?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">He waved a hand towards the trolley in invitation. Holly shook her head. ‘Correct.’ Her face softened into a conciliatory smile. ‘Could it be that this is the moment for us to pool our resources?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">Bond studied Holly over the top of his glass. It was the first time he could remember her smiling like that. So warm. So guileless. So insincere. He put down his glass. ‘That might have its compensations.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">Holly took a step towards him so that she was close enough to be touched. Her long silk gown could have been tied tightly across her low-cut nightdress but it was not. Bond drew her to him and kissed the corner of her mouth gently. His eyes were still suspicious.”<sup><span style="font-size: small;">2</span></sup></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">Bond’s reference to Felix Leiter in both the film (in an oblique manner) and novelisation of <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">Moonraker</span></em> is an attempt to show his <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">bona fides</span></em> to Holly; that they are actually working on the same assignment, albeit from different sides of the coin. It is interesting to note that the mention of Felix Leiter acts somewhat as a springboard for Holly to accept Bond as an ally, and from there on in the story they work together as a team. The Bond continuation author John Gardner used a similar technique in his third Bond novel, <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">Icebreaker</span></em> (1983), when the CIA agent Brad Tirpitz also tries to persuade Bond of his <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">bona fides </span></em>by making reference to Felix Leiter and his daughter Cedar Leiter:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">“‘Look, Bond.’ Tirpitz moved his chair closer. ‘I’m glad Kolya’s not here. Wanted a word with you alone.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">‘Yes?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">‘Got a message for you. Felix Leiter sends his best. And Cedar sends her love.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">Bond felt a strange twinge of surprise, but he showed no reaction. His best friend in the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country -region="-region" w:st="on">U.S.A.</st1:country></st1:place>, Felix Leiter, had once been a top C.I.A. man; while Felix’s daughter, Cedar, was also Company-trained. In fact, Cedar had worked gallantly with him on a recent assignment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">‘I know you don’t trust me,’ Tirpitz continued, ‘but you’d better think again, brother. Think again, because maybe I’m the only friend you have around here.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">Bond nodded. ‘Maybe.’”<sup><span style="font-size: small;">3</span></sup></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">The literary device of name-checking Felix Leiter to a potential ally therefore occurs twice in the “continuation” Bond literary canon, but Bond’s line about his having “friends in low places” is all that remains in the film version of <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">Moonraker</span></em> as a rather veiled reference to the old CIA ally and friend with whom he shared so many adventures in print and on screen. The same scene as enlarged in Wood’s novelisation provides the confirmation that Bond is referring to Leiter at this point, and it would have been pleasing to have had this more overt reference to Leiter and the CIA remain in the finished screenplay. After Leiter’s initial appearance in the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Moore</st1:city></st1:place> era in <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">Live and Let Die</span></em> the character was sadly not to reappear until Timothy Dalton took over the role in <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">The Living Daylights</span></em>. Instead, the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Moore</st1:city></st1:place> era had a succession of other Bond allies from the sublime Milos Columbo in <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">For Your Eyes Only</span></em> (1981) and Vijay in <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">Octopussy</span></em> (1983) to the ridiculous Sheriff J.W. Pepper who featured in <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">Live and Let Die</span></em> and <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">The Man with the Golden Gun </span></em>(1974). The character of Felix Leiter (especially as played by David Hedison) would have been a very welcome addition to some of the later <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Moore</st1:city></st1:place> era Bond films, but sadly this was not to be. It is therefore perhaps fitting that the space-age <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">Moonraker</span></em>, a film that many critics and fans regard as one of the most outlandish entries in the entire James Bond series, should contain at least a veiled reference back to one of Bond’s best friends and so hint to the audience that although the Bond films (and sometimes even the Bond novels) can at times verge into the realm of pure fantasy, Bond’s enduring and believable friendship with his American CIA friend Felix Leiter shows that they can also often be grounded in reality.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";"><em><strong>This article originally appeared on the Main Page of the now defunct website of my friend Chris Wright (Righty007) http://www.felixleiter.com as a Guest Article there on Friday 29 January 2010.</strong></em></span><br />
<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";"><em><strong><br /></strong></em></span>
<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";"><strong><u>TBB Article No. 13</u></strong></span><br />
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<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2010.</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><sup><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">1</span></sup><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";"> <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">Moonraker</span></em> (Eon Productions, 1979). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><sup><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";">2</span></sup><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial";"> Christopher Wood, <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">James Bond and Moonraker</span></em>, (Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1979), chapter 10.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><sup><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">3</span></sup><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> John Gardner, <em><span style="font-family: "arial";">Icebreaker</span></em>, (Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1983), chapter 8</span></span>The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-59349193842775283302012-08-15T20:08:00.003+01:002020-11-04T13:12:44.283+00:00The Changing Spelling of SMERSH throughout Ian Fleming's James Bond Novels and in the FilmsIn Ian Fleming’s James Bond
novels the Russian phrase<i> Smyert Shpionam</i> (‘Death to Spies’) provides a
conjunction to form the name for the Soviet organ of death, SMERSH. A close
reading of the Bond novels bears out the fact that the spelling of this Russian
phrase varies throughout Fleming’s work. In Fleming’s first novel, CASINO
ROYALE (1953) the reader is first introduced to SMERSH through ‘<i>Appendix B</i>,
a note on SMERSH,’ which is attached to the file from Head of S for ‘the
destruction of Monsieur Le Chiffre.’ This appendix reveals that:<o:p></o:p><br />
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“SMERSH is a conjunction of two
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‘Smyert Shpionam’, meaning
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Ranks above MWD (formerly NKVD)
and is believed to come under the personal direction of Beria.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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(‘Casino Royale,’ Ian Fleming,
Pan Books Ltd., London, 1965, p. 21)<o:p></o:p></div>
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After Bond was saved from a
savage torture and death at the hands of Le Chiffre by a SMERSH executioner, he
recalls to his French ally, René Mathis in hospital how the assassin had carved
a ‘calling card’ onto the back of his hand:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“‘What’s that?’ asked Mathis.
‘The doctor said the cuts looked like a square M with a tail on the top. He
said they didn’t mean anything.’<o:p></o:p></div>
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‘Well, I only got a glimpse
before I passed out, but I’ve seen the cuts several times while they were being
dressed and I’m pretty certain they are the Russian letter for SH. It’s rather
like an inverted M with a tail. That would make sense; SMERSH is short for
SMYERT SHPIONAM – Death to Spies – and he thinks he’s labelled me a SHPION.
It’s a nuisance because M will probably say I’ve got to go to hospital again
when I get back to London and have new skin grafted over the whole of the back
of my hand.’” (‘Casino Royale,’ Ian Fleming, Pan Books Ltd., London, 1965, p.
141)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Here Fleming uses the spelling ‘<i>Smyert
Shpionam</i>’ which looks more accurately Russian than some of the spellings of
the phrase that he later uses. <o:p></o:p></div>
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After successfully completing the
‘Casino job’ Bond, at the wheel of his 1933 4 ½- litre grey Bentley convertible
at the start of LIVE AND LET DIE (1954), bitterly recalls that SMERSH assassin
who branded him as a spy with a stroke of his stiletto knife in CASINO ROYALE:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“The hand had been fixed,
painlessly but slowly. The thin scars, the single Russian letter which stands
for SCH, the first letter of <i>Spion</i>, a spy, had been removed and as Bond
thought of the man with the stiletto who had cut them he clenched his hands on
the wheel.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What was happening to the brilliant
organization of which the man with the knife had been an agent, the Soviet
organ of vengeance, SMERSH, short for <i>Smyert Spionam</i> – Death to Spies?
Was it still as powerful, still as efficient?” (‘Live and Let Die,’ Ian
Fleming, Pan Books Ltd., London, 1963, p. 12)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Fleming has made a mistake in
this passage by claiming that the scar on Bond’s hand had read ‘SCH’ for
‘shpion,’ when in fact in CASINO ROYALE Fleming tells us that the Cyrillic
letters were ‘SH,’ which appears more accurate as these are indeed the first
two letters of ‘shpion.’ The next noticeable change to the spelling of the
Russian words which form the name SMERSH is that the second word ‘Shpionam’ in
CASINO ROYALE has changed its spelling to ‘Spionam’ in Fleming’s second novel,
LIVE AND LET DIE. The passage from LIVE AND LET DIE also contains the word
‘Spion,’ meaning spy, but as this is how Fleming has also now spelled
‘Spionam,’ is the reader to conclude that this is an anglicised version of a
Russian word which may be more difficult to pronounce with the ‘h’ added to it?<o:p></o:p></div>
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At the beginning of the fourth
chapter of Fleming’s fifth Bond novel, FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE (1957), entitled
‘The Moguls of Death’ there is another introduction to SMERSH:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“SMERSH is the official murder
organization of the Soviet government. It operates both at home and abroad and,
in 1955, it employed a total of 40,000 men and women. SMERSH is a contraction
of ‘Smiert Spionam’, which means ‘Death to Spies’. It is a name used only among
its staff and among Soviet officials. No sane member of the public would dream
of allowing the word to pass his lips.” (‘From Russia, With Love,’ Ian Fleming,
Pan Books Ltd., London, 1964, p. 27)<o:p></o:p></div>
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The spelling of the Russian words
which when contracted form the title SMERSH have changed here again. In CASINO
ROYALE the words were spelt ‘Smyert Shpionam,’ then in LIVE AND LET DIE the
spelling changed slightly to ‘Smyert Spionam’, and finally in FROM RUSSIA, WITH
LOVE it has changed to ‘Smiert Spionam.’ The ‘y’ in ‘Smyert’ and the ‘h’ in ‘Sphionam’
have both been lost gradually through the course of these two subsequent
novels. In his ‘Author’s Note’ to FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE Fleming writes the
following:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Not that it matters, but a great
deal of the background to this story is accurate.<o:p></o:p></div>
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SMERSH, a contraction of Smiert
Spionam – Death to Spies – exists and remains today the most secret department
of the Soviet government.” (‘From Russia, With Love,’ Ian Fleming, Pan Books
Ltd., London, 1964)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Perhaps these changes in spelling
can be explained by Fleming either having got the spelling of the name
incorrect or by anglicising the name to make it easier to pronounce. Of course,
mistakes like this had slipped into the Bond novels before. In DR. NO (1958),
for instance, Major Boothroyd replaces Bond’s Beretta .25 with a Walther PPK
7.65 mm pistol, to be worn in a Berns Martin Triple-draw holster. However, in
the later novels the holster has become <i>Burns</i>-Martin, a clear spelling
error either on the part of Fleming or the publishers. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In Fleming’s seventh Bond novel,
GOLDFINGER (1959) there is further confirmation that Fleming has now adopted a
new spelling of the Russian words:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“SMERSH, <i>Smiert Spionam</i>,
Death to Spies – the murder Apparat of the High Praesidium!” (‘Goldfinger,’ Ian
Fleming, Pan Books Ltd., London, 1965, p. 66)<o:p></o:p></div>
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When John Gardner took over the
Bond mantle as continuation author, his first Bond novel LICENCE RENEWED (1981)
made mention of Bond’s experience with the SMERSH assassin of Le Chiffre in
CASINO ROYALE:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“In the back of his mind, he
remembered, quite clearly, all the circumstances which had led to the plastic
surgery, that showed now only as a white blemish, after the Cyrillic letter<span style="font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"> Щ</span> – standing for
SH – had been carved into the back of his hand in an attempt by SMERSH to brand
him as a spy.” (‘Licence Renewed,’ John Gardner, Coronet Books, London, 1982,
p. 52) <o:p></o:p></div>
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This clearly implies that Gardner
believed that ‘Smyert Shpionam’ was the correct spelling of SMERSH’s full name.
It could be said that he was just taking the spelling of the Russian phrase
‘Death to Spies’ from the original spelling given in CASINO ROYALE, however. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In THE JAMES BOND DOSSIER (1965)
Kingsley Amis reveals the history of the changing names of the real-life SMERSH
in Soviet Russia:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Between 1953 and 1959 Bond’s
opponents tended to belong to, or to work on behalf of, a Russian
counter-espionage organization called SMERSH (‘a conjunction of two Russian
words “Smyert Shpionam”, meaning roughly: “Death to Spies”’). An organization
did exist under this name during the Second World War, but was redesignated
O.K.R. (<i>Otdely Kontrrazvedki</i>, Counter-intelligence Sections) in 1946. In
fact, thanks to the Soviet passion for renaming bodies while leaving their
functions much as they were, both SMERSH and O.K.R. were simply two of the
various labels successively attached to what had originally (1921) been founded
as Special Sections (<i>Osobye Otdely</i>) of the main U.S.S.R. Internal
Affairs apparatus, the Cheka […] The Special Sections are presumably still
continuing their work, but this has never been concerned with Western agents
outside Russia and the territories she has conquered or occupied. Perhaps Mr
Fleming was thrown off by the vague and misleading use of the word <i>shpion</i>.”
(‘The James Bond Dossier,’ Kingsley Amis, Pan Books, Ltd., London, 1966, pp.
121-2)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Amis clearly believes that
‘Smyert Shpionam’ is indeed the correct spelling, and perhaps the implication
that can be taken from this passage is that if Fleming gave a defunct name and
an inaccurately defined function to the dark core at the centre of Soviet
counter-intelligence, he may also have become confused about the translation of
the Russian words. However, Amis seems to get the feeling that Fleming believed
SMERSH was still functioning after the war under that title. SMERSH of course
did exist under that particular title during World War II and Fleming
accurately described its real-life function in the file on the organisation in
CASINO ROYALE:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“SMERSH was next heard of when
Hitler attacked Russia. It was then rapidly expanded to cope with treachery and
double agents during the retreat of the Soviet forces in 1941. At that time it
worked as an execution squad for the NKVD and its present selective mission was
not so clearly defined.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The organisation itself was
thoroughly purged after the war and is now believed to consist of only a few
hundred operatives of very high quality divided into five sections” (‘Casino
Royale,’ Ian Fleming, Pan Books Ltd., London, 1965, p. 21)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Of course, Fleming was not
writing a serious study of espionage services throughout the world when he
wrote the Bond novels. As well as SMERSH the functioning role of the Secret
Intelligence Service (MI6), with its attendant ‘OO Section’ is of course also
inaccurate and fantastical. It could be said that the OO Section bears some
resemblance to Fleming’s ‘Red Indians’ in the wartime Special Operations
Executive (SOE), which sent British trained agents behind enemy lines to commit
acts of sabotage in Hitler’s ‘Fortress Europe.’ Similarly, the<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Deuxième</span> Bureau (or ‘The Second Office
of the State Major General’), of which René Mathis becomes the head in FROM
RUSSIA, WITH LOVE, was at a time the old French army’s military intelligence
organisation, but not at the time of Fleming’s writing. The<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Deuxième</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span>Bureau
was created in 1871, at the time of the Franco-Prussian War in which France was
defeated and the German states unified into the new country of Germany. The<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Deuxième</span> Bureau was charged
with the task of informing the French army about the situation of the enemy
troops. The Second Directorate of the National Defence Staff, which combined
the formerly separate army, navy and air force specialists, would have been the
true successor to the <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Deuxième
</span>Bureau. The Second Directorate was certainly influenced by the
traditions and doctrines of the <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Deuxième</span>
Bureau, which was France’s Military Intelligence. General Charles de Gaulle, as
the leader of the Free French was partly responsible for the post-war shake-up
in French intelligence and counter-intelligence. Collaborative Vichy France had
dissolved the <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Deuxième</span>
Bureau during the Second World War. The <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Deuxième</span> Bureau features in Fleming’s CASINO ROYALE, at the end
of FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE and is mentioned in passing in THUNDERBALL.
THUNDERBALL also mentions that there was a Polish <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Deuxième</span> Bureau before that country’s
defeat at the beginning of the Second World War in September 1939. If Fleming
had wanted to be strictly accurate and up-to-date with French intelligence, he
would have placed Mathis in the <i>Service de Documentation Extérieure et de
Contre-Espionnage</i><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(“External Documentation and Counterespionage Service”)</span> (SDECE)
which existed from 1947 until 1981, well within the boundaries of the timeline
of Fleming’s Bond novels. Colloquially known as “The Pool,” the SDECE was
replaced with the <i>Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure </i>(DGSE).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such inaccuracy and sometimes-deliberate
concealment of the real facts is the very nature of fiction. Such
considerations aside, ‘the <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Deuxième</span>
Bureau’ has certainly got a much more romantic sound to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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In the Bond novels of the 1950s
Fleming’s villains tended to be working for SMERSH or on behalf of the Soviets
in either a sponsored [i.e. Sir Hugo Drax] or freelance capacity [i.e. Dr.
Julius No]. The only notable exception to this general rule in the early novels
would be DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1956) which featured an American crime syndicate
(‘the Spangled Mob’), led by the brothers Spang, involved in a diamond
smuggling pipeline, which was Fleming’s foray into the territory of American
gangsterism. In the Bond novels of the 1960s, however, Fleming averted his
focus from the Soviets, as he rightly sensed that there would be changes in the
relationship between the Soviets and the Western powers, and he no longer
wished to go down that political route. Instead he created the international
terrorist organisation SPECTRE (The Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence,
Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) headed by Ernst Stavro Blofeld and introduced
it in THUNDERBALL (1961). ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE (1963) and YOU ONLY
LIVE TWICE (1964) completed the ‘SPECTRE/Blofeld Trilogy,’ with THE SPY WHO
LOVED ME (1962) in between, being loosely a part of what could be called the
‘SPECTRE/Blofeld Quartet’ as in the chapter entitled ‘Bedtime Story’ Bond
relates his last mission in Canada on the trail of SPECTRE to Vivienne Michel,
the first-person narrator of the novel. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The subsequent films of the
novels, beginning with DR. NO, which was released in October 1962, took their
lead from Fleming’s change in the composition of his villains and replaced all
of the SMERSH and Russian backed villains of the novels of the 1950s with
either SPECTRE membership or independent status. As the Cold War thawed
slightly in the post-Cuban missile crisis détente after the events of the ‘13
days’ in October 1962 Russia was no longer seen as being in the ‘doghouse’ so
much. The Bond films therefore reflected the new political mood, and made
international terrorism in the form of SPECTRE the new villainous threat to the
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Despite this, SMERSH and the
attendant ‘Smiert Spionam’ made three appearances in the Bond films. Firstly,
Tatiana Romanova believes that she is working for the good of Mother Russia
when she reports to Colonel Rosa Klebb of SMERSH in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
(1963), but what she doesn’t know is that Klebb has defected to make her
services available to SPECTRE instead. Thus, the producers have avoided making
SMERSH the villains, as they were in the original novel and have instead carried
on from DR. NO where SPECTRE were the villains of the piece. SMERSH next makes
an appearance in Charles K. Feldman’s elaborate spoof of Fleming’s first novel
and Bond in general, CASINO ROYALE (1967). However, as SMERSH in the film are
responsible for the killing of sixteen KGB agents, and Fleming’s SMERSH was of
course a Soviet organisation, SMERSH is here presented as a SPECTRE-type
organisation under another name. The silhouetted presentation of SMERSH’s
leader, Dr. Noah (a.k.a. Jimmy Bond) adds to the attempt to ape Blofeld as he
had appeared in silhouette in the film THUNDERBALL (1965) under a half-closed
shutter.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The most important mention of
SMERSH, however, is made in a film where they have been disbanded for years. In
Timothy Dalton’s first outing as Bond, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS (1987), ‘Smiert
Spionam’ makes its only appearance in the Bond films as a phrase. However, the
keen observer will note that the spelling of this phrase has again changed,
this time surely due to inaccuracy. The KGB ‘defector’ General Georgi Koskov
tells M, Frederick Gray (the Minister of Defence) and Bond at the safe house in
Blayden that the new head of the KGB, General Leonid Pushkin was the reason
behind his ‘defection.’ Koskov maintains that Pushkin has a new ‘secret directive,’
namely ‘Smiert Spionom,’ which Bond explains to the Minister of Defence means
‘Death to Spies.’ Koskov says that this directive will mean the assassination
of British and American agents and that murder will follow murder. At his
following briefing from M for the assassination of Pushkin, Bond is shown the
brown paper tag that was found near 004’s body. An assassin in the employ of
American arms dealer Brad Whitaker had killed 004, and slid a tag with the
words ‘Smiert Spionom’ written in black marker pen onto the OO agent’s climbing
rope before abruptly severing it. Later in the film, in the scene where
Saunders is assassinated by being crushed in the path of an automatic door,
Bond finds a blue balloon with the words ‘Smiert Spionom’ again written in
black marker pen on it, floating towards him. The scriptwriters (Richard
Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson in this case) have obviously used the amended
spelling ‘Smiert Spionam’ featured in the novels FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE and
GOLDFINGER but have mistakenly transcribed it as ‘Smiert Spionom,’ replacing
the ‘a’ which was in all three versions of Fleming’s spelling of the Russian
word with an ‘o.’ <o:p></o:p></div>
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When Bond holds Pushkin at
gunpoint in his hotel room, Pushkin says, “‘Smiert Spionom’ was a Beria
operation in Stalin’s time. It was deactivated twenty years ago.” It is unclear
whether Pushkin is here referring to the ‘real-world’ SMERSH or the SMERSH of
the ‘Bond universe.’ If he were referring to the ‘real-world’ SMERSH, then as
it was deactivated in 1946 and Pushkin is speaking in 1987, it would have been
more historically accurate for him to say that it was deactivated forty years
ago rather than twenty. However, if he is referring to the ‘Bond universe’
SMERSH of the Fleming Bond novels it is still actually thirty years before
1987. In THUNDERBALL we are told that SMERSH disbanded in 1958 in the list
detailing the SPECTRE membership, therefore SMERSH was not disbanded in the
time of Stalin’s leadership [he died in March 1953] but during the leadership
of his immediate successor, Nikita Khrushchev:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“three former members of SMERSH,
the Soviet organization for the execution of traitors and enemies of the State
that had been disbanded on the orders of Khrushchev in 1958, and replaced by
the Special Executive Department of the MWD…” (‘Thunderball,’ Ian Fleming, Pan
Books Ltd., London, 1963, p. 52) <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">General Pushkin’s comments in THE LIVING
DAYLIGHTS about Beria heading the SMERSH operation are true to the ‘Bond
universe’ as in CASINO ROYALE Fleming had wriiten in the dossier on SMERSH:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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“Ranks above MWD (formerly NKVD)
and is believed to come under the personal direction of Beria.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, whom General Pushkin
claims originated the ‘Smiert Spionom’ operation, was indeed the director of
the Soviet secret police, a forerunner of SMERSH called the People’s
Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), from 1938 to 1953, and he played a
large role in the purges of Stalin’s opponents. Soon after Stalin’s death in
March 1953 Beria, as one of the four deputy prime ministers and as Minister of
Internal Affairs, attempted to use his position as chief of the secret police
to succeed Stalin as the sole dictator of the Soviet Union. By July 1953 he had
been defeated in this aim by an anti-Beria coalition. He was then arrested,
deprived of all his government and party posts and convicted of being an
“imperialist agent” and of conducting “criminal antiparty and anti-state
activities.” He was executed after his trial in December 1953. In Fleming’s
FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE there is a telling reference made to Beria. Fleming
describes the scene inside SMERSH headquarters at No. 13 Stretenka Ulista:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“On the walls are four large pictures in gold
frames. In 1955, these were a portrait of Stalin over the door, one of Lenin
between the two windows and, facing each other on the other two walls,
portraits of Bulganin and, where until January 13<sup>th</sup>, 1954, a
portrait of Beria had hung, a portrait of army General Ivan Aleksandrovitch
Serov, Chief of the Committee of State Security.” (‘From Russia, With Love,’
Ian Fleming, Pan Books Ltd., London, 1964, pp. 27-8) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In the following chapter there is more
information given on Beria:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Serov,
A Hero of the Soviet Union and a veteran of the famous predecessors of the MGB
– the Cheka, the Ogpu, the NKVD and the MVD – was in every respect a bigger man
than Beria. He had been directly behind the mass executions of the 1930s when a
million died, he had been <i>meteur en scene</i> of most of the great Moscow
show trials, he had originated the bloody genocide in the Central Caucasus in
February 1944, and it was he who had inspired the mass deportations from the
Baltic States and the kidnapping of the German atom scientists who had given
Russia her great technical leap forward after the war.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And Beria and all his court had gone to the
gallows, while General G. had been given SMERSH as his reward. As for Army
General Ivan Serov, he, with Bulganin and Khrushchev, now ruled Russia. One
day, he might even stand on the peak, alone. But, guessed General Vozdvishensky,
glancing up the table at the gleaming billiard-ball skull, probably with
General G. not far behind him.” (‘From Russia, With Love,’ Ian Fleming, Pan
Books Ltd., London, 1964, p. 34)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">By providing accurate background information on
the various Soviet secret intelligence and military organizations, Fleming can
introduce and expand the role of SMERSH as a useful fictional device, and carry
his readers along on the fantasy. This fits in with Fleming’s belief in
deploying real place names and brand names throughout his novels to make the
sometimes more fantastical elements of the plot seem more real. It is a clear
sign of Fleming’s skill as a writer that he can use this literary device to
invoke such a great amount of verisimilitude. Nikolay Aleksandrovitch Bulganin,
mentioned in the quoted passages above, was, for example, the premier of the
Soviet Union from 1955 until 1958. The real SMERSH would have fitted into the
Russian KGB’s Third Chief Directorate. It had as its chief assignment the
maintenance of security within the armed forces and watching for any potential
traitors within the military and intelligence services. This was the actual
function that SMERSH had carried out during the Second World War, as Fleming
rightly noted in the file on SMERSH in CASINO ROYALE. This also fits in with
the mention of the ‘secret directive,’ <i>Smiert Spionom</i> of General
Pushkin, the head of the KGB, referred to by the ‘defecting’ General Koskov.
The KGB, or <i>Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti</i> (“Committee of State
Security”) was the last of the major Soviet intelligence services created. Its
role resembled the American CIA and the FBI combined with the British Secret
Intelligence Service (MI6). The KGB was ordered into three directorates. The
First Chief Directorate was charged with carrying out counter-intelligence
missions to maintain internal security. Fleming’s description of SMERSH would
have probably fitted more aptly into the Second Chief Directorate, as it was
responsible for foreign intelligence and had a wide variety of subsections
dealing with different geographical areas and specific functions, such as that
of psychological warfare. By making Colonel General Grubozaboyschikov (‘General
G.’) the Head of SMERSH and Army General Ivan Aleksandrovitch Serov the Chief of
the Committee of State Security (i.e. Beria’s old job), Fleming is
acknowledging that there was not one centralized Soviet organ of
counter-espionage and terror like SMERSH, but actually a competing network of
military and secret counter-intelligence organizations under many different
titles. Fleming was clearly aware of the labyrinthine nature of Soviet
intelligence and the ever-changing series of names for organizations with much
the same role as their predecessors. Fleming explained away some of these
complexities in Soviet counter-intelligence in his Bond novels by saying that
SMERSH ranked “</span>above MWD (formerly NKVD)” in CASINO ROYALE. <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
As an interesting endnote the new
spelling of <i>Smiert Spionom </i>for SMERSH used in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS is
itself actually incorrectly spelt in the section on the film in Virgin Film’s
BOND FILMS (2002). In the entry for THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS under the heading ‘In
The Real World’ the history of SMERSH as a real-life organisation is briefly
outlined:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“Koskov terms his operations
against British agents <i>Smiert Spionem</i>, the Russian for ‘Death to Spies’.
When questioned General Pushkin claims that <i>Smiert Spionem</i> is an
abandoned operation dating ‘from Stalin’s time’.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
He is correct, as in 1943 this
phrase, contracted to SMERSH, became the new name given to a new Soviet
military counter-intelligence service. The organisation was disbanded in 1946,
although there are countless examples – including the use of the name on
official paperwork – of Soviet personnel referring to themselves as working for
SMERSH into the mid-1950s. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
SMERSH’s responsibilities
included the internal security of the Russian state, and its official duties
were roughly equivalent to those of MI5 in Britain, although its unsavoury
working methods invite comparisons with the Gestapo. SMERSH became infamous in
the West for its actions in the satellite communist countries of Eastern
Europe, especially Germany, immediately after World War Two. Ian Fleming used a
fictionalised version of the organisation as the main adversary of the literary
Bond. SMERSH agents appear in the novels <i>Casino Royale</i>, <i>Live and Let
Die</i>, <i>Moonraker</i>, <i>From Russia with Love</i>, <i>Doctor No</i> and <i>Goldfinger</i>.”
(‘Virgin Film: Bond Films,’ Jim Smith and Stephen Lavington, Virgin Books Ltd.,
London, 2002, p. 220)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
In the same book in the section
on the 1967 spoof version of CASINO ROYALE under the heading of ‘The
Opposition’ there is another description given of SMERSH:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“<b>SMERSH</b>: SMERSH were the
villains of Fleming’s earliest Bond novels, including this one. In those it was
– as in reality – a branch of the Russian Secret Service whose name was a
contraction of the Russian for ‘Death to Spies’ – <i>Smiert Spionem</i> (see<b>
The Living Daylights</b>). Here SMERSH is presented as an international
criminal organisation more like SPECTRE than anything else. Presumably SPECTRE
was avoided in order to prevent Kevin McClory becoming involved in the murky
legal quagmire surrounding this project.” (‘Virgin Film: Bond Films,’ Jim Smith
and Stephen Lavington, Virgin Books Ltd., London, 2002, p. 71)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
By incorrectly labelling SMERSH
as derived from the Russian phrase ‘<i>Smiert Spionem</i>’ instead of the
spelling <i>Smyert Shpionam</i> used in the novel of CASINO ROYALE on which the
spoof is ‘suggested,’ the writers of BOND FILMS have clearly become confused
with the incorrect spelling used in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS film, namely that of <i>Smiert
Spionom</i>, which is evidently derived from Fleming’s later adapted spelling
of the phrase, <i>Smiert Spionam</i>, used in the later novels which feature
SMERSH, namely FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE and GOLDFINGER. The writers incorrect
spelling of the Russian phrase is therefore not just a one-off confined to the
incorrect copying of the spelling used in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS film, but also
to refer to the spelling of the phrase in Fleming’s novels. This confusion over
the spelling of the Russian for ‘Death to Spies’ aptly illustrates the
complexities surrounding the phrase’s use throughout the whole literary and
cinematic Bond canon, and even in Bond commentaries and criticism. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
According to a source on the
Internet, the phrase from which SMERSH actually derives its name is, in
Russian, “C myert shpionam!” and this was the motto of the NKVD, a forerunner
of the KGB, officially known as “Voyenna Kontra Razvedka” (Military Counter-Intelligence).
As the poster “Jevez” explains on the file on SMERSH on the Bond website
‘Universal Exports’:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“The word, “shpionam” is both the
plural (“shpion” is the singular), and has the case-ending which denotes its
use as the object of a preposition. Since no preposition occurs immediately
prior to the word “shpionam”, it is understood that the preposition “to” is
intended. Hence, the motto has a translation of “with death to spies”. When it
is spoken in Russian, it is said so quickly that, to non-Russian trained ears,
it <i>appears</i> to sound like “smyert shpionam”, and that is how Fleming
wrote it. He wasn’t alone in that, as both our CIA, and the British Ministry of
Intelligence listed the radical branch of the VKR by that name. It was a very
real organization, until the fellows from SMERSH got a little out of hand and
began killing foreign spies in wholesale lots – very much against the typical
method of operation of intelligence units on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Both the CIA and the MI began massive retaliations, until Khrushchev kicked up
a fuss about it. When told by our ambassadors what was actually going on, he
ordered the VKR entirely disbanded, immediately.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
This seems to fit with the theory
expounded above that Fleming might have anglicised the spelling of the Cyrillic
phrase meaning ‘Death to Spies’. It could also be that he misheard it or read a
report in which it was spelt “Smyert Shpionam.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A Greek monk, now called St. Cyril (who features as a p[lot point in the
1981 film FOR YOUR EYES ONLY) who went over the Caucasus Mountains to bring the
gospel of Jesus Christ to the peoples there, created the Russian, or Cyrillic
alphabet. The monks that went there found that although the people had a
well-developed spoken language they had no comparable form of writing. They
therefore took the Greek and Roman letters and revised them to represent the
different phonetic sounds of the spoken Russian language. This explains why
some of the letters in the Russian alphabet look almost identical to the Greek
letters. For example, the letter carved by the SMERSH executioner onto the back
of Bond’s hand in CASINO ROYALE was the Cyrillic letter for SH – denoting
‘shpion,’ a spy. This letter resembles an inverted M with a tail. As the
Russian letter ‘C’ is always pronounced softly and is also a preposition
meaning either “to” or “with,” it is easy to see why Fleming mistakenly thought
that the three-word phrase “C myert Shpionam!” meaning “With Death to Spies!”
was spelt in only two words, “Smyert Shpionam” and meant “Death to Spies.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Interestingly, Khrushchev’s
disbandment of the VKR, which contained the radical branch, called SMERSH at
its core, after the reports of the killings of foreign spies, neatly matches
Fleming’s passage in THUNDERBALL on the complexion of SPECTRE quoted above
where he reveals that SMERSH “had been disbanded on the orders of Khrushchev in
1958, and replaced by the Special Executive Department of the MWD…” It appears
that there was a contemporary precedent for Fleming’s decision to disband
SMERSH and replace it with the international terrorist organisation SPECTRE,
quite beside the fact that Russia was by then (1961) starting to come out of
the ‘doghouse’ a little. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Overall then, throughout
Fleming’s novels, the continuation novels and the films, there have been four
separate spellings of the Russian for the phrase ‘Death to Spies,’ with no real
indication as to why changes in the spelling of the phrase were made or which
spelling is taken to be the most accurate, although the spelling ‘<i>Smiert
Spionam</i>’ turns up most throughout the novels, despite being spelt
incorrectly in the film of THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. All of the confusion over the
accurate spelling of the phrase that gives its name to SMERSH may have in fact
been down to Ian Fleming’s initial mishearing and misspelling of the words. The
history of the spelling of the Russian phrase in the Bond novels, films and
film guidebooks certainly reveals some interesting and unexplained
inconsistencies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><u>TBB Article No. 12</u></b></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: start;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2007.</b></div>
The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-76496905867777968482012-08-15T20:00:00.003+01:002020-11-04T13:15:56.931+00:00The Ubiquity of James Bond<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><b><u>Ian Fleming 1908-2008 Centenary
Celebration Article - 28 May 2008</u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Today, 28 May 2008, Ian Fleming
is having his centenary celebrated by his many fans and admirers around the
world, and he has rightly been placed firmly at the top of the James Bond tree
once again, due to the efforts of the Fleming family through Ian Fleming
Publications. There have been commemorative stamps featuring various James Bond
novel covers issued by the Royal Mail in January 2008; an exhibition at the
Imperial War Museum entitled ‘For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming + James Bond,’
detailing the similarities and differences between the creator and his
creation, the most famous fictional secret agent in the world, and today there
has been the hotly-anticipated ‘literary event of the year,’ the publication of
the new “period” James Bond novel, DEVIL MAY CARE, with best-selling author
Sebastian Faulks “writing as Ian Fleming.” In October 2008 Daniel Craig is set
to return in his second appearance as James Bond in QUANTUM OF SOLACE,
appropriately an off-beat previously little-known short story (outside of the
realms of Bond fandom) by Ian Fleming, in this his centenary year. This
refocusing on Ian Fleming on the occasion of what would have been his 100<sup>th</sup>
birthday also serves to remind us of the ubiquitous nature of Fleming’s
enduring creation, James Bond. James Bond, as both a literary and cinematic
character really does turn up everywhere, and this sometimes results in him
also turning up in the strangest of places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Focusing on the character of
James Bond in the printed medium, it will be observed that Bond has cropped up
in many weird and wonderful, as well as unexpected, places. It illustrates the
fascination James Bond has engendered throughout the decades since his creation
that he has turned up in so many interesting places. It is also a joy for the
Bond fan to uncover these often hidden gems between the pages of the most
un-Bondian looking of magazines, journals and books. Such finds often uncover
some interesting facts as the writers are looking at Bond from perhaps an
off-beat angle or in a new way that a Bond fan might never consider. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Kingsley Amis, later the first
official continuation James Bond author, in his excellent study of the literary
Bond, THE JAMES BOND DOSSIER (1965) wrote of one such interesting encounter he
had with Bond in a rather bizarre place:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“A much more thorough
arms-inspection than Mr Boothroyd’s was carried out more recently by Bob Glass,
evidently an American handgun specialist, in an article called ‘The Gunnery of
James Bond’. I read this in a magazine called <i>Snakes Alive</i> (Trinity,
1963) which, since it’s the journal of the Belfast Medical School, is probably
not generally circulated among Bond fans. For all I know, Mr Glass’s piece
appeared elsewhere earlier, but I can find no trace of this. In any event,
it’ll do no harm to recall here some of his observations...”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
(Kingsley Amis, ‘The James Bond
Dossier,’ Pan Books Ltd., London, 1966, <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
pp. 118-9.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Another example of James Bond
turning up in an unexpected place occurs between the pages of an issue of <i>Practical
Television</i> magazine, again I suspect, to use Amis’s words, a publication
“probably not generally circulated among Bond fans.” In the May 1967 edition of
<i>Practical Television</i>, in the section entitled ‘Underneath The Dipole’
there is a photograph of Mr Osata, Helga Brandt and a Japanese technician
sitting around the control panel in Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s hollowed-out
volcano, with a guard standing in the background. The caption below the black
and white photograph reads:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“The latest James Bond film “You
only live twice”, [sic] to be released in the autumn, is also to include
electronic gadgetry. This time a television control centre, bristling with all
the latest gear, in the side of a volcano. The photograph – wait for it, it’s
classified information – was taken at Pinewood Studios.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
(Iconos, <i>Practical Television</i>,
Volume 17, No.8, Issue 200, May 1967, p. 351.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
There had been no mention made of
James Bond earlier in the two-page round-up of what was going on “underneath
the dipole.” A “dipole” in the television context is an aerial consisting of a
horizontal metal rod with a connecting wire at its centre. So “underneath the
dipole” here means the television set itself. The photograph was seemingly just
included to highlight the fact that the “white heat” of British and other
television technologies would soon be turning up in a significant new British
film, and that everyone clearly <i>knew </i>who James Bond was. It could be
seen as a small way of adding a little visual sparkle, through a Bond
reference, to an otherwise “routine” <i>Practical Television</i> section.
Although there is no specific mention of James Bond in the articles which
accompany the photograph from YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, there is interestingly a
mention made of the television series THE AVENGERS, which was featuring future
Bond stars Patrick Macnee (as John Steed) and Diana Rigg (as Miss Emma Peel) at
the time. Iconos, the bespectacled author of the section, under a heading of
“Credit – where credit’s due” writes:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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“I would be a strong advocate for
credits, both for actors and technicians – providing the viewer was given time
to read them easily, without disturbing background flashes and “jump cuts” or
loud brash musical discords. For example, everyone knows who the stars are of <i>The
Avengers</i>; but without keen eyes it is difficult to see who the excellent
supporting actors are – unless you know them by sight, anyway!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
(Iconos, <i>Practical Television</i>,
Volume 17, No.8, Issue 200, May 1967, p. 350.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
One more recent example (though
there are certainly countless more out there waiting to be discovered by Bond
fans) occurs in <i>Criminal Law Textbook</i> by Russell Heaton LL.B. At the end
of each section in the textbook, Heaton places a typical Criminal Law problem
question for students to practice what they have learnt so far. In Question 4.2
Heaton falls back on the novel, or perhaps film of, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE for
inspiration on writing a problem scenario that will surely not unfairly
reference too many of the students, or other academic readers, surnames:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“Bond hails a taxi, but when it
stops Kleb rushes into the taxi ahead of him and slams the door in his face
jeering, ‘Ladies before gentlemen, Mr Bond.’ Bond shouts obscenities at her and
Kleb yells, ‘You’re going to pay for that Mr Bond. I’m going to shoot you.’
Bond, fearing he is about to be shot, panics and leaps over a wall into the
river running alongside the road. He is swept away by the current and, although
he is pulled from the river, his breathing has stopped. His breathing is
restarted by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but it is discovered that he has
suffered permanent brain damage, even though he does not die.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Discuss the criminal liability,
if any, of Kleb.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
(Russell Heaton, ‘Criminal Law
Textbook,’ Second edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006, pp. 521-2.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Heaton has here taken the
characters of James Bond and Colonel Rosa Klebb from both the novel and film
version of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and played out a neat little scenario with
them, only slightly amending ‘Klebb’ to ‘Kleb,’ and having Bond panic and jump
into a river due to Kleb’s possible ‘technical assault,’ as opposed to being
kicked by Klebb’s poisoned-tipped blade shoes which leads to the harrowing
final sentence in Fleming’s fifth novel,<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“Bond pivoted slowly on his heel
and crashed headlong to the wine-red floor.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
(Ian Fleming, ‘From Russia, with
Love,’ Pan Books Ltd., London, 1964, p. 207).<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
The reference in the scenario by
the villainous Kleb to ‘Mr Bond’ is also another unmistakably knowing Bond
element Heaton mentions. Heaton’s suggested answer to the problem question is
given at the back of the textbook and it covers sections 18, 20 and 47 of the
Offences Against the Person Act 1861, each covering grievous bodily harm (GBH)
with intent, inflicting GBH and assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH)
respectively. On Kleb’s criminal liability Heaton concludes:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“Therefore there is a probability
that she would be convicted under s. 47 but acquitted of offences under ss. 18
and 20.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
(Russell Heaton, ‘Criminal Law
Textbook,’ Second edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006, p. 523.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Heaton’s <i>Criminal Law Textbook</i>
is again another unexpected place to find a Bond reference, especially as it is
one that appears so knowing of the Fleming canon.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
From these three disparate
examples of James Bond turning up in the strangest of places it can be
concluded that Ian Fleming’s enduring creation is a truly ubiquitous
phenomenon, and in his centenary year of 2008, we can be assured that Ian
Fleming’s memory and work will live on for many years to come. James Bond’s
ubiquity after fifty-six years since his creation in 1952, nearly forty-four
years after Fleming’s death in August 1964, and one hundred years after
Fleming’s birth, is certainly a fitting tribute to the remarkable talents of
his too often forgotten creator. In the spirit of Ian Fleming’s own research,
it would be interesting to hear of any of the other strange, bizarre and
unexpected places other James Bond fans have encountered the world’s most
famous fictional secret agent. Such encounters can cover James Bond articles,
photographs or general references in initially unexpected or strange places. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
With all of this in mind, the
next time you see a copy of the likes of <i>National Geographic</i>, <i>The
Economist</i>, <i>Reader’s Digest</i> or the <i>Financial Times</i> don’t just
pass on by the newsstand uninterested but take the chance to delve into their
pages. With the evidence of the strange examples quoted above, in passing by
you conceivably might just miss an unexpected nugget of James Bond “gold”!<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
This article is written in memory
of Ian Lancaster Fleming (1908-1964) thanking him for the great pleasure he has given readers of many
different hues the world over, and wishing him all of the recognition he richly deserves on the 100th anniversary of his birth, 28 May 2008. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><u>TBB Article No. 11</u></b></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: start;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2008.</b></div>
The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-27755448775209786782012-08-15T19:57:00.006+01:002020-11-04T13:16:39.204+00:00The Inspiration of the ‘Tara'-type house featured in John Gardner's For Special Services (1982)<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">John Gardner (1926-2007) drew on the
inspiration of his own home in the United States when he gave the villainous Markus Bismaquer
a recreation of the house ‘Tara’ from the film <i>Gone With the Wind</i> in his
second continuation Bond novel <i>For Special Services</i> (1982). Gardner lived in Charlottesville, Virginia for a number of years, in a 'Tara'-type house. </span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">When Bond and Cedar Leiter first
visit </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Rancho Bismaquer</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> in Texas, the home of Markus and and his wife Nena Bismaquer it is
described thus:</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Bond heard Cedar give a startled
intake of breath. Facing them, set amid lush lawns, was a huge white house.
Wide steps led up to a portico where square columns rose to a flat roof. The
main roof was pitched back over the rest of the house, its red tiles a splash
of colour against the overall whiteness. There were dogwood trees in front of
the house, flanking the drive, and Bond thought, vaguely, that he had seen it
before.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘Tara,’ whispered Cedar. ‘It’s
Tara.’</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘Tara?’ Bond was lost.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">‘</span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: justify;">Gone With the Wind</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">. The
movie – Margaret Mitchell’s book. It’s the house from the movie. You know,
James, Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable…’</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘Ah,’ said Bond.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">‘How very clever of you.’ The
squeak rose excitedly from Walter Luxor. ‘It usually takes people longer. They
think they’ve seen pictures of it. Markus fell in love with it when he saw the
movie, so he bought the designs from MGM and built it here. Ah, here’s Markus
now.’” (</span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: justify;">For Special Services</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">, John Gardner, Coronet Edition, Kent, 1983,
p. 92)</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">In an interview in </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: justify;">The
Financial Times</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"> published on 30 June 2001, John Gardner told reporter Arnie
Wilson about his eight-year sojourn in the United States:</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘Only a decade ago Gardner,
author of more than 40 thrillers, was riding high and enjoying the good life
with his wife Margaret in a palatial colonial-style home in Charlottesville,
Virginia.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">“Remember Tara, the house in </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: justify;">Gone
With the Wind</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">, with those pillars?” he says. “It was too big, of course. I
always bought large houses because the books took up a lot of space.” (Arnie Wilson, ‘Off
Centre: Bond man shaken but not stirred: Ian Fleming’s successor is still
chipper, despite the loss of his health – and the Bentley', </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: justify;">The
Financial Times</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">, 30 June 2001)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">It is very interesting to note
that Bismaquer’s house is actually modelled on the house from the film </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: justify;">Gone
With the Wind</i><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">, a type of palatial colonial house which John Gardner himself
actually owned at the time. It can be looked at as Gardner’s equivalent of
Fleming’s self-built Jamaica home </span></span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: justify;">Goldeneye</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">, his retreat where he wrote the Bond novels. The
film buff in Gardner meant that he must have been a big fan of the 1939 film </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: justify;">Gone
with the Wind</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"> as well as Markus Bismaquer. The ‘Tara-type’ house was where
Gardner lived during his eight-year stay in the United States between 1989 and
1997, when he returned to Basingstoke in England. Gardner also lived in the
Republic of Ireland for income tax purposes as it was a tax haven between 1979
and 1984, then he lived in Oxfordshire in England between 1984 and 1989,
meaning that he wrote his James Bond continuation novels (1981-1996) in three
different locations.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"><b><u>TBB Article No. 10</u></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: start;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2007.</b></div>
The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-56105700080337664912012-08-15T19:52:00.004+01:002021-01-16T22:23:09.432+00:00Ian Fleming's Second Uncompleted James Bond Short Story CollectionIn the Jonathan Cape first
edition of OCTOPUSSY AND THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS (1966) by Ian Fleming there is a
very interesting piece of information contained on the dust jacket inner leaf:<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘These two stories, written in
1961 and 1962, were among those composed by Ian Fleming while he was writing
the incomparable series of James Bond thrillers. The first collection of
stories appeared in 1959 as<i> For Your Eyes Only</i>; a further collection
which he had planned to publish was never completed.’<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Does this mean that Ian Fleming
intended another short story collection outside of the OCTOPUSSY AND THE LIVING
DAYLIGHTS collection or simply that he had intended it to be a larger
collection containing a few more stories to make it a match for the ‘Five
Secret Occasions in the life of James Bond’ that made up FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
(1960)?<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">When Fleming’s second short story
collection and his last completed Bond work was published in paperback form in
1967 under the title of simply OCTOPUSSY the short story THE PROPERTY OF A LADY
which Fleming had specially written in 1963 for Sotheby’s ‘The Ivory Hammer’
was added to bulk out the collection. If Fleming had lived would 007 IN NEW
YORK, which was first published in the American edition of THRILLING CITIES
have also been included? Of course Fleming left behind at least two other
uncompleted Bond short stories when he died in August 1964. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">In THE LIFE OF IAN FLEMING by
John Pearson extracts from these two unfinished Bond short stories are given
along with some interesting details that place them in their proper context:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">‘During the winter, when the real
wealth of the world was still to be found on the Riviera, the Greek Syndicate
operated at Monte Carlo; and in the summer, as money migrated north, they came
shuffling their cards after it. And wherever the Greek Syndicate operated in
those days its best and most famous ‘dealer’ at baccarat was an ex-shipping
clerk with a gentle manner and an infallible memory for cards and faces. His
name was Zographos. He was one of Fleming’s earliest heroes. Through him
Fleming felt that he had finally begun to understand the real mystique of the
casino.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Not long before he died, Fleming
actually began a short story in which James Bond met Zographos. It never got
beyond the first page and a half, but it managed to convey something of the
excitement its author felt for the really great ice-cold gambler.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
…'It was like this, Mr Bond,’
Zographos had a precise way of speaking with the thin tips of his lips while
his half-hard, half-soft Greek eyes measured the reactions of his words on the
listener…‘The Russians are chess players. They are mathematicians. Cold
machines. But they are also mad. The mad ones forsake the chess and the
mathematics and become gamblers. Now, Mr Bond.’ Zographos laid a hand on Bond’s
sleeve and quickly withdrew it because he knew Englishmen, just as he knew the
characteristics of every race, every race with money, in the world. ‘There are
two gamblers…the man who lays the odds and the man who accepts them. The
bookmaker and the punter. The casino and, if you like’ – Mr Zographos’s smile
was sly with the ‘shared secret and proud with the right word – ‘the suckers.’<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">What seems to have excited
Fleming most of all was the thought that the Greek Syndicate and Zographos were
the bankers and in the long run had the odds in their favour. It made him think
that somehow, whether through skill or crime or self-control or knowledge of
human nature, a really determined man could beat the system, establish his final
ascendancy, his uniqueness as a human being, over Zographos’s ‘suckers’ and all
the other dull worthy people who gambled without appreciating what they were up
to.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">This was what Fleming always
wanted to do. But since he was a careful man with a profound appreciation of
money and a gambler in the imagination, he never did. It was left to James Bond
to risk everything on that single throw and clean out the bank.’ (‘The Life of
Ian Fleming,’ John Pearson, The Companion Book Club, London, 1966, pp. 207-8)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">An extract from Fleming’s second
uncompleted Bond short story and Pearson’s reading of it is also given:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">“‘In the early morning, at about
7.30, the stringy whimperings of the piped radio brought visions of a million
homes waking up all over Britain…of him, or perhaps her, getting up to make the
early morning tea, to put the dog out, to stoke the boiler. And then will this
shirt do for another day? The socks, the pants? The Ever-ready, the Gillette
shave, the Brylcreem on the hair, the bowler hat or the homburg, the umbrella
and the briefcase or the sample case? Then ‘Dodo’, the family saloon out on the
concrete arterial, probably with her driving. The red-brick station, the other
husbands, the other wives, the clickety-click of the 8.15 round the curve by the
golf course. Hullo Sidney! Hullo Arthur! After you Mr Shacker…and the drab life
picking up speed and flicking on up the rails between the conifers and the damp
evergreens.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Bond switched on his electric
blanket and waited for his hot water with a slice of lemon and contemplated the
world with horror and disgust.’</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Into this opening of a short
story he never finished Fleming managed to cram his horror of the idea of
marrying and settling down. It was a typical piece of Flemingesque black
fantasy – he must be one of the few men it is totally impossible to imagine
stoking an early morning boiler before driving off in a family saloon with a
bowler hat and a caseful of samples. It gives some idea of the passion with
which he clung to his independence during the long years of the romance before
‘Annee Rothermere’ became ‘Madame F’.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">For when the marriage did take
place not even its bitterest opponents could say that the couple needed more
time to get to know each other or that they failed to realize what they were in
for; rarely can two people in love have had quite such a gruelling prelude to a
wedding.” (‘The Life of Ian Fleming,’ John Pearson, The Companion Book Club,
London, 1966, pp. 192-3)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">It would be interesting to know
if the rest of these two unfinished Fleming Bond short stories are still in the
archives as Pearson did write that the Zographos story was a page and a half in
length, implying that that was just an excerpt and the other excerpt only
contains the opening of the story. It would be great if the rest of these
fragments of Bond short stories could be published also. A delve around in the
Fleming archives would hopefully uncover them in their entirety. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Perhaps one of the reasons that
the full short story collection was never delivered by Fleming, quite apart
from the fact that he died at the relatively young age of 56 was that Fleming
was not in a great state for writing during 1964. In his autobiography, WITHIN
WHICKER’S WORLD, Alan Whicker mentions how he was approached one day in 1964 by
Ian Fleming’s agent Robert Fenn, who was also a friend of his about the
possibility of doing a ‘Whicker’s World’ TV programme on the creator of James
Bond, who was then writing at Goldeneye, his house in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.
Whicker recalls:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">'After some discussion the BBC
agreed, and I wrote to tell Fleming I was looking forward to our meeting,
mentioned a few mutual friends, gave him a rough schedule of our movements and
a few thoughts on how we might approach the programme. By return I had the
rudest letter I have ever received. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">I should have kept it. It was
after all from a Bestseller, and must still be burning a hole in some
Documentary department file. He had not the slightest intention of giving his
valuable time to the BBC, or to me, for little or no payment. In that short
sharp vein he dismissed us as parasites upon the creative body. It was strong
stuff. Since I had understood the whole project was his and we were merely
being agreeable and falling in with his wishes, I was stunned.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
I had an active sense of
injustice and a tendency not to turn the other cheek, so was about to leap to
my typewriter and shoot off an indignant rejoinder. However for some reason I
stayed my hand. I have never been quite sure why. Instead I sent an unusually
gentle reply, regretting our lines had got crossed in that way, and saying only
that his decision was certainly my loss – as it was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Weeks later while filming in
Jamaica we visited Ocho Rios, and I went to stay with Jeremy Vaughan on his
father’s plantation, just above Goldeneye. They saw Fleming most days and were
concerned about him, for he was drinking heavily and usually legless by
lunchtime. His writing was not going well, if at all. I recalled what had
happened. ‘Don’t take it to heart,’ said Charles Vaughan. ‘That’s not like him
– but obviously he’s a sick man.’<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Within a few weeks, Ian Fleming
was dead. I was profoundly thankful I had not risen to the passing irritation
of an unhappy author in his last days.’ (‘Within Whicker’s World,’ Alan
Whicker, Coronet Edition, 1983, pp. 284-5)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">This description of Fleming’s
last few weeks and the effect it had on his creativity and his enthusiasm for
Bond is also borne out in Andrew Lycett’s biography of Fleming:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">‘Once again he claimed that he
would write no more Bond books. Although he had said this before, there was a
certain finality in his statement to Plomer, who was editing<i> The Man With
the Golden Gun</i>: “This is, alas, the last Bond and, again alas, I mean it,
for I really have run out of both puff and zest.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘Ian seized on the imminent
publication of Amis’s work as an excuse to delay putting out <i>The Man With
the Golden Gun</i>, which increasingly dissatisfied him. He hoped he might be
able to rework it in the when he was in Jamaica the following spring. But
Plomer disabused him of that idea, telling him that the novel was well up to
standard.’ (‘Ian Fleming,’ Andrew Lycett, Phoenix, London, 2002, p. 434)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">In an article entitled ‘My
Enemy’s Enemy Is My Friend’ over on the 007 Forever website, Nick Kincaid wrote
in February 2001 of Fleming’s plans for future Bond stories which were taken
from notes outlined in his 128 page notebook. Kincaid reveals some of the
contents of Fleming’s notebook,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">“In February 1964, shortly before
Fleming died, he allowed a reporter from the <i>Daily Express</i> to have a
look [at his notebook]. The reporter copied several entries:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘There was a notation of the name
“Mr. Szasz,” which Fleming thought would be ideal for a villain. He had somehow
come across the Bulgar proverb “My Enemy’s Enemy (is my friend),” and if he had
lived, it would probably have turned up on the lips of some inscrutable
villain” (Quoting from Henry Ziegler’s ‘The Spy Who Came In With The Gold’)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
The reporter’s notes from
Fleming’s notebook also revealed how Fleming had outlined prospective Bond
works. Here are the plot outlines:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“Bond, as a double agent, has to
shoot his own assistant in order to keep his cover…”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“A battle under Niagara Falls”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">“A masquerade ball in which the
benign clown is the Russian killer and the crowd thinks that a real fight is
part of the buffoonery.” (As Nick Kincaid notes in the article there are shades
of the 1983 film OCTOPUSSY here, where Bond, dressed as a clown has to persuade
the American General that there is a nuclear bomb in the cannon waiting to go
off any second.)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">It is a wonderful piece of blackish tragicomedy with clear Fleming roots. Consider, for instance, the scene in
Fleming’s CASINO ROYALE where one of Le Chiffre’s Bulgar henchmen places his
cane-gun against Bond’s spine and asks him to pull out of the high stakes game
of baccarat:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">‘Immediately he felt something
hard press into the base of his spine, right into the cleft between his two
buttocks on the padded chair.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">At the same time a thick voice
speaking southern French said softly, urgently, just behind his right ear:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">‘This is a gun, monsieur. It is
absolutely silent. It can blow the base of your spine off without a sound. You
will appear to have fainted. I shall be gone. Withdraw your bet before I count
ten. If you call for help I shall fire.’</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">The voice was confident. Bond
believed it. These people had shown they would unhesitantly go to the limit.
The thick walking-stick was explained. Bond knew the type of gun. The barrel a
series of soft rubber baffles which absorbed the detonation, but which allowed
the passage of the bullet. They had been invented and used in the war for
assassinations. Bond had used them himself.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
[…]<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘<i>Trois</i>’<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Bond looked over at Vesper and
Felix Leiter. They were smiling and talking to each other. The fools. Where was
Mathis? Where were those famous men of his?<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘<i>Quatre</i>’<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
And the other spectators. This
crowd of jabbering idiots. Couldn’t someone see what was happening? The <i>chef
de partie</i>, the croupier, the<i> huissier</i>? (‘Casino Royale,’ Pan Books
Ltd., London, 1965, pp. 87-8)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Another plot outline with a
connected circus/fairground theme is:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">“Fight in a fun fair with a man
on the rollercoaster being shot at by another on the Big Wheel.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">The notebook also contained
descriptions that may have turned up in a future Bond short story collection or
even novels:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">“She had a blunt, short-lipped
mouth, proud like a half-healed wound.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">“You won’t have a lover if you
don’t love,” (This is very like Elektra King’s and Viktor ‘Renard’ Zokas’s
shared philosophy in THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (1999): “There’s no point in
living if you can’t feel alive.”)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">“Most people are unconscious up
to 17, dreaming until 25, awake to 39, mad after 40, dead after 60.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">“Pain is a private address. Only
those who have been that way before know the unlisted number.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">As has been suspected, the
notebook also revealed that Fleming might have considered branching into
non-Bond stories, such as the story of revenge he had outlined in a synopsis.
Fleming may have also contemplated a book of non-fiction or a biography had he
lived:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">“Millionaire wants baby. Kidnaps
girl. Rapes her. Keeps her prisoner until baby is born. Makes huge settlement
on baby. She signs. He throws her out. She gets her revenge by proving the baby
started a week before he kidnapped her.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">A trawl through the various
excerpts from the uncompleted Bond short stories and from the outline notes
from Fleming’s notebook makes one wonder what might have been had Ian Fleming
lived beyond 1964. Would Ian Fleming have continued with more Bond short stories
and novels or would these unfinished stories have been his last foray into the
world of the literary James Bond? There is no real way of knowing, but there is
also no denying that a look through Fleming’s unfinished work does raise some
interesting questions about where he would have taken James Bond had he lived. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>TBB Article No. 9</u></b><br />
<br />
<br />
<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: start;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2007.</b></div>
The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-14346395070952355892012-08-15T19:46:00.003+01:002021-11-20T00:04:21.827+00:00Ian Fleming on James Bond's all-Scottish parentageIn O.F. Snelling’s book <i>Double O Seven</i> <i>James Bond: A Report</i> (1964) there is a very interesting footnote tucked away in
the chapter named ‘His Image’. This first study of the literary James Bond
was published just before Ian Fleming’s then new novel <i>You Only Live Twice </i>went
to press. As Snelling acknowledges in his Author’s Note Bond’s premature
obituary notice towards the end of the novel provided many of the answers to
the questions posed in his book. So short of re-writing the entire book before
publication, Snelling added in a few footnotes where he felt it was necessary
to provide the new details found in <i>You Only Live Twice</i>. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
In discussing James Bond’s
parentage, Snelling states that, <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘James Bond’s mother was Swiss.
His father was Scottish: a Highlander from near Glencoe. Neither Bond or his
creator lets drop much more about his family background.’ <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 183.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
There is a footnote after the
first sentence quoted from that passage. It reads:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘Bond is Scottish. On both sides,
as I shall explain in my next book.’ Ian Fleming to John Creusemann, in an
interview in the Daily Express, 2 January 1964.’ (Extracts, ‘007: James Bond A
Report,’ O.F. Snelling, Panther, London, 1965, p. 22)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
This is very interesting as when
the obituary of James Bond was given in <i style="text-align: start;">You Only Live Twice </i>(1964), we find
that he is actually of mixed parentage, and not Scottish on both sides as
Fleming had apparently originally intended in the beginning of the year. In the
obituary, which appeared in<i> The Times</i> we are told,<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘James Bond was born of a
Scottish father, Andrew Bond of Glencoe, and a Swiss mother, Monique Delacroix,
from the Canton de Vaud.’ (<i>You Only Live Twice</i>, Pan Books Ltd.,
London, 1966, p. 178)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Bond is therefore of Scots-Swiss
blood and not wholly Scottish as Fleming declared he was going to be in the <i>Daily
Express</i> interview Snelling quoted in his footnote. Fleming would have
surely had the novel written at this stage, but perhaps he was still having it
edited in places and perhaps this can explain why he decided to change the
nationality of Bond’s mother. <i style="text-align: start;">You Only Live Twice </i> was not published until the Easter of 1964, so he would still have had time from the date of the interview
(late December 1963/ very early January 1964?) to have small details like this
amended in the manuscript. Then again, perhaps it was a genuine mistake by
Fleming and he had simply forgotten these few lines from his novel, but that
would not really be like him. Fleming was nothing if not a stickler for these types
of details. He liked to get the details of his characters and situations right
if he could. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Did Fleming originally intend to
have Bond as a purebred Scot, as the <i>Daily Express</i> interview quote would
seem to suggest or is there another explanation? Evidently, Fleming later changed his mind and gave James Bond a mixed parentage. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>TBB Article No. 8</u></b><br />
<b><u><br /></u></b>
<br />
<b><u><br /></u></b>
<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: start;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2007.</b></div>
The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-69859627378632573612012-08-15T19:43:00.002+01:002020-11-04T13:18:10.480+00:00The Ian Fleming and Kingsley Amis References in John Gardner's The Liquidator (1964)<div style="text-align: justify;">
In the second chapter of John
Gardner’s first novel, <i>The Liquidator</i> (1964), which was Brian Ian ‘Boysie’
Oakes first adventure there is an interesting passage that quotes some of the
influences Boysie’s boss, Colonel Mostyn, subjects him to. As those who have
read the novel will be aware, ‘Boysie’ Oakes is mistaken for being a ruthless
killer when he saves Colonel Mostyn’s life by slaying two Germans who were
going to kill him during the Second World War in Paris in August 1944. Mostyn
was of course wrong to judge that ‘Boysie’ was a ruthless killer who might come
in useful in the future, as he had acted out of nervousness and fear when he
had shot the two Germans. Years later Mostyn, the Second in Command of British
Special Security decides to recruit ‘Boysie’ Oakes to work as an assassin for
the organisation to liquidate potential security risks. Mostyn, we are told,
‘brought his protégé to London for a long, arduous period of grooming and
polishing’:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘Mostyn personally supervised
Boysie’s reading – which ranged from Cervantes and Luther to Murdoch, Amis and
Ian Fleming. For weeks, Boysie was marched round the National Gallery, the
Natural History Museum, the Tate, the Victoria and Albert and the Wallace Collection.’
(<i>The Liquidator</i>, John Gardner, Corgi Books, London, 1965, pp. 36-7)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Gardner here rather interestingly
quotes the names of James Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, and the Angry Young Man,
author of<i> Lucky Jim </i>(1954), and future first Bond continuation author, Kingsley
Amis. He places both authors in the rather esteemed company of Cervantes,
Luther and Murdoch. It is rather ironic that John Gardner himself would become
both authors’ immediate successor when he took over the mantle of continuation
Bond author and publish <i>Licence Renewed</i> in 1981. It is also rather ironic that
Kingsley Amis would attack Gardner’s Bond novels both privately in letters to
his friend, the poet Philip Larkin and publicly in a harsh review of <i>For Special Services</i>, entitled ‘Double Low Tar 7, Licence to Underkill’ for the <i>Times
Literary Supplement</i> on 17 September 1982. Amis in many ways must have saw
himself as the only true heir to Ian Fleming when he published the first
continuation Bond novel, <i>Colonel Sun</i>, under the pen name ‘Robert Markham’ in
1968. He therefore clearly felt he was qualified, as one who had been that way
before, to attack what he saw as sub-standard work that brought, in his
opinion, the works of Ian Fleming into disrepute. In his <i>Times Literary
Supplement</i> review, Amis had railed against Gardner quite personally from the
start:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘Quite likely it ill becomes a
man placed as I am to say that whereas its predecessor was bad enough by any
reasonable standard, the present offering is an unrelieved disaster all the way
from its aptly forgettable title to the photograph of the author – surely an
unflattering likeness – on the back of the jacket. If so that is just my bad
luck. On the other hand, perhaps I can claim the privilege of at least a
momentary venting of indignation at the disrepute into which this publication
brings the name and works of Ian Fleming. Let me get something like that said
before I have to start being funny and clever and risk letting the thing escape
through underkill.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Later on in the same review, Amis
concludes,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘What makes Mr Gardner’s book so
hard to read is not so much its endlessly silly story as its desolateness, its
lack of the slightest human interest or warmth. Ian Fleming himself would have
conceded that he was not the greatest delineator of character: even so his
people have genuine life and substance and many of them both experience and
inspire feeling. So far from being the ‘man who is only a silhouette’ Bond is
shown to be fully capable of indignation, compunction, remorse, tenderness and
a protective instinct towards defenceless creatures.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
[…]<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
By a kind of tradition, however,
perhaps started by Buchan with Dominick Medina in <i>The Three Hostages</i>,
the main character-interest in this type of novel attaches to the villain. Mr
Big, Hugo Drax, Dr No and their like are persons of some size and power. They
are made to seem to exist in their own right, to have been operating since long
before Bond crossed their paths, rather than to have been run up on the spot
for him to practise on. But then to do anything like that the writer must be
genuinely interested in his material.’<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
John Gardner wrote about meeting
Kingsley Amis at the Savoy Hotel in London in June 1984 in the section ‘The Bond Books’ on his website - <a href="http://www.john-gardner.com/">http://www.john-gardner.com</a> - in early 2002:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘I was amazed to read recently, in Kingsley Amis’s letters, that Kingsley was convinced I was absolutely no
good at producing a thriller of drama and tension. In fact he had commented to
Philip Larkin that Peter Janson-Smith had thrown the manuscript of <i>Licence
Renewed</i> back at me because it was so bad. This, of course, never happened
except in the sense that I would take every manuscript back to do the necessary
work to make a better book and comply with those changes I had accepted from
the editor.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Amis was in fact quite amusing. I
met him at a lunch party Len Deighton gave at the Savoy for Eric Ambler’s
birthday. Out of devilment I said to him, “Kingsley, you’re quite right: the
Bond books are terrible hokum. No good at all. Dreadful,” – he had reviewed
<i>Licence Renewed</i> for, I think, <i>The Times Literary Supplement</i>, and it was a
review in which he set about me with a cat o’ nine tails, the rack and the
Chinese Water Torture. Kingsley looked at me in bewilderment, spluttering, “Oh
no, my dear chap, no! No!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Gardner is actually slightly
mistaken in his recollections here. He has become confused about who exactly wrote which particular review.
It was Philip Larkin, and not Kingsley Amis, who reviewed his first Bond novel,
<i>Licence Renewed</i> under the title ‘The Batman from Blades’ for the <i>Times
Literary Supplement</i> in May 1981. As is already stated, Amis actually reviewed<i>
For Special Services</i> for the <i>Times Literary Supplement </i>in 1982. It is indeed
interesting that Gardner and Amis met each other, and how their public and
private thoughts about each other were so different. Of course when Amis was
faced with Gardner, who was clearly trying to pull his leg, it would have been
very unlikely that he would have said something rude like, “Oh no, no, my dear
chap. Fleming’s Bond was anything but hokum. However, your incarnation brings
his novels and indeed reputation into disrepute. You should be ashamed of
yourself!” I suppose Gardner is trying to say that although Amis heavily
attacked his Bond continuation novels in private letters and in print, he did
not have the courage of his convictions to be downright rude and say face to
face to him that his work was complete rubbish. It seems Gardner takes some
comfort from this, that perhaps Amis’s bark was worse than his bite. Now Amis
was a curmudgeonly character by all accounts, but he clearly would not stoop so
low as to attack an author to his face at a friend’s birthday party, despite
his already much vaunted opinions in print. This was of course just good
manners, and it wouldn’t really have been expected for Amis to have reiterated
what he had written in his review of <i>For Special Services</i>, or to have laid bare
his thoughts from his private letters to Philip Larkin. His hardened opinions
about Gardner’s Bond novels probably never left him, but we have no record of
what he thought of the others in the series, if he ever deigned to read any of
them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Another point of interest is the
fact that all of these authors were either friends or had at least become
acquainted with each other. John Gardner for instance met Kinsley Amis, his
predecessor as Bond continuation author at a lunch party fellow spy novelist
and friend Len Deighton gave at the Savoy for another spy novelist, Eric
Ambler. Ambler, it will be remembered was greatly admired by Fleming and Bond
is actually reading Ambler’s <i>The Mask of Dimitrios</i> (1939) on the Orient Express
with ‘Captain Nash’ in Fleming’s<i> From Russia, With Love</i> (1957). The public and
private interactions about James Bond that occurred between these authors and poets is fascinating
and it would certainly have been very informative to have been a fly on the
wall at that lunch party at the Savoy which featured Gardner, Amis, Deighton,
Ambler and undoubtedly other authors of note.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p><br />
<b><u>TBB Article No. 7</u></b><br />
<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: start;"><br /></b>
<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: start;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2007.</b></div>
The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-63031160953543439832012-08-15T19:39:00.005+01:002023-03-07T10:38:34.352+00:00James Bond Novels that were Edited, Censored and BannedThroughout the years Ian
Fleming’s James Bond novels have been subjected to various forms of editing,
censorship and even banning orders in some countries. The American editors of
Fleming’s novels often wanted to change passages in terms of race and American
culture, to correct small mistakes or to make Bond more acceptable to the
native readership. The editing of the Bond novels ranged from changes in
character names to changes in dialogue and description, to even changes in the
actual title. Several of the novels were also banned in some countries due to
their perceived violent and overtly sexual overtones. A study of the history of
the editing, censorship and banning of Fleming’s Bond novels reveals some
interesting new information. <o:p></o:p><br />
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The history of the editing of Ian
Fleming’s Bond novels begins with the very first, CASINO ROYALE (1953). It was
slightly edited in places when it was published in America to suit the
sensibilities of the American audience. Andrew Lycett’s biography of Ian
Fleming reveals how Fleming’s American editor toned down some of the language
used to describe one of the love scenes between Bond and Vesper Lynd depicted
in Fleming’s debut novel:<o:p></o:p></div>
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‘In New York, Al Hart, Ian’s
editor at Macmillan, was wielding the blue pencil on <i>Casino Royale</i>. Ian
was unconcerned about possible mutilation of his masterwork. Indeed he
specifically asked Naomi Burton at Curtis Brown, “Would Al Hart like to take a
bit of the edge off the torture scene? He can certainly do so if he wants to.”
The incident, where Bond’s genitals were whipped with a carpet beater, remained
intact, but Hart did suggest some alterations to spare the blushes of American
readers. Where Ian had written, “He slipped his hands down to her swelling
buttocks and gripped them fiercely, pressing the centres of their bodies
together. Panting, she slipped her mouth away from his and they clung together
while he rubbed his cheek against hers and felt her hard breasts pressing into
him” Hart’s bowdlerised version did not quite have the same urgency: “His hand
slipped down her back and pressed her body fiercely to his. Panting, she
slipped her mouth away and they clung together; he brushed her ear with his
lips and felt the firm warmth of her breasts against him.” Hart asked
plaintively, “That’s not too emasculated, do you think?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ian could not care less. He told
Hart that he had been kinder than Naomi Burton who had argued about “the
relative impropriety attached to the front and back of a woman”. However, at
this stage, Ian was more interested in sales promotion than textual exegesis.’
(‘Ian Fleming,’ Andrew Lycett, Phoenix, London, 2002, p. 249)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Later in Lycett’s biography of
Fleming the re-launch of CASINO ROYALE under a new title in America is
documented:<o:p></o:p></div>
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‘Bond provided the other main
reason for Ian’s transatlantic jaunt. There were signs that the American
reading public was beginning to take notice of him. In April a paperback
version of <i>Casino Royale</i> had been published by Pocket books, with a new
title, <i>You Asked For It</i>, and a suggestive dime-store cover showing a
girl in erotic <i>déshabillé</i>.’ (‘Ian Fleming,’ Andrew Lycett, Phoenix,
London, 2002, p. 275)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Since publication, some of
Fleming’s Bond novels have also been banned in certain countries through
falling foul of the censor. The earliest banning of a Bond novel was LIVE AND
LET DIE, which was banned in the Republic of Ireland in 1954. Andew Lycett’s
biography of Fleming confirms that this banning, rather like the joint
condemnation from the Vatican and the Kremlin that met Eon Production’s DR. NO
(1962), did the promotion of the novel no real harm:<o:p></o:p></div>
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‘The banning of <i>Live and Let
Die</i> in Ireland in May helped the general publicity.’ (‘Ian Fleming,’ Andrew
Lycett, Phoenix, London, 2002, p. 255)<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Republic of Ireland has a
long history of banning books from publication. The Republic of Ireland’s
culture was very moral and religious with Roman Catholicism being the religion
of 93% of the population. The Irish Censorship of Publications Board that
banned LIVE AND LET DIE are a still functioning independent board that was
established by the Censorship of Publications Act, 1929 in Southern Ireland.
Its function is to examine books and periodicals that are for sale in the
Republic of Ireland. At the time of the banning of LIVE AND LET DIE from
publication in 1954 the Censorship of Publications Acts of 1929 and 1946
governed it, but there was also a new act passed afterwards in 1967, which
added an amendment limiting the period of prohibition orders of books to a
period of twelve years, but the Board could then ban the book again. The
Censorship of Publications Board could prohibit the buying, selling or
distribution of any publication deemed indecent or obscene in the Republic of
Ireland. Each of the five members of the Board had to read the publication
under consideration before any decision on whether or not it was to be
prohibited could be taken. For a book to be banned at least three members of
the Board had to agree with the decision and only one member was allowed to
dissent. When considering a book, the Board measured its literary, scientific
and historical merit and also took into account the language in which it was
written and the likely audience it was intended for. Some of Fleming’s literary
contemporaries’ novels were also banned in the Republic of Ireland. Fellow
espionage novelist Graham Greene’s novel THE HEART OF THE MATTER (1948) was
banned for instance, as were works by the author of the ASHENDEN spy short
story collection – W. Somerset Maugham, who influenced Fleming to write his
Bond short story QUANTUM OF SOLACE. Evelyn Waugh, the author of BRIDESHEAD
REVISTED, and an acquaintance of Ann Fleming, also had books that fell foul of
the Irish censor. In 1950 the English poet, novelist and critic Robert Graves,
who had work banned in the Republic of Ireland, described the Irish censorship
laws as ‘the fiercest literary censorship this side of the Iron Curtain.’<o:p></o:p></div>
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Nowadays, however, the Republic
of Ireland’s attitude to censorship has greatly changed. Since the 1990s the
Censorship of Publications Board does not prohibit publications very
often.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The popular Irish radio station
RT<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">É</span> 2 FM plays songs
from the top artists with any strong language unedited out before the
watershed. RT<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">É 2FM</span> also
has presenters who swear over the air long before the watershed. Such use of
swear words is not generally tolerated on BBC radio for instance, and if swear
words are broadcast the complaints that ensue mean an apology often has to be
made. Some of the Irish tabloids, such as the <i>Irish Daily Star</i> also
contain swear words in their headlines from time to time. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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LIVE AND LET DIE (1954) also
underwent censorship when it was published in America, mainly due to the
depiction of the novel’s black villains, but also due to the correction of
local details. As Andrew Lycett’s biography notes,<o:p></o:p></div>
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‘With a few changes for the local
market, <i>Live and Let Die</i> was published in the United States in January
to an unenthusiastic response. Only 5,000 copies were sold and Al Hart at
Macmillan was uncharacteristically blunt when he said, “Mr Bond will have to do
better than this.”’ (‘Ian Fleming,’ Andrew Lycett, Phoenix, London, 2002, p.
268)<o:p></o:p></div>
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The most visible change is the
fact that Chapter 5 in the original British edition of the novel entitled
‘Nigger Heaven’ is unsurprisingly renamed ‘Seventh Avenue’ in the American
edition. The American censor also heavily edited the dialogue in this chapter
to the extent that a whole passage detailing an argument between a black man
and his girlfriend is entirely cut, and dialogue spoken by Felix Leiter is also
edited.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the Berkley eighth printing of
LIVE AND LET DIE in paperback form in October 1985 it says that ‘This Berkley
book contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition,’ which is
cited in the printing history as having first been published by Macmillan in
1954. The British edition featured this passage in the chapter entitled ‘Nigger
Heaven’:<o:p></o:p></div>
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‘One can try,’ said Leiter. ‘But
I know what you mean – better the frying-pan you know than the fire you don’t.
It isn’t a bad life when it consists of sitting in a comfortable bar drinking
good whisky. How do you like this corner of the jungle?’ He leant forward.
‘Just listen to the couple behind you. From what I’ve heard they’re straight
out of “Nigger Heaven”.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(‘Live and Let
Die,’ Ian Fleming, Pan Books Ltd., London, 1963, p. 46)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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The passage was changed
considerably in the American edition:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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‘One can try,’ said Leiter. ‘But
I know what you mean – better the frying-pan you know than the fire you don’t.
It isn’t a bad life when it consists of sitting in a comfortable bar drinking
good whisky.’ <o:p></o:p></div>
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They finished their drinks and
Bond called for the check.’<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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(‘Live and Let Die,’ Ian Fleming,
Berkley Books, New York, 1985, p. 41)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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In the British edition Bond and
Leiter had overheard an argument between a black man and his girlfriend that
used the dialogue which Fleming, and indeed Raymond Chandler, were very
impressed with at the time. The “Nigger Heaven” phrase that Leiter used in the
British edition is also removed as it formed the chapter title in the original
version. It was obviously removed, as it would have been seen as more overtly
racist, offensive and derogatory to black readers and indeed to some of the
American public at large. The physical descriptions of the couple and their
dialogue took up over two and a half pages in the Pan paperback edition but the
passage was entirely cut in the American edition. It could be said that the
passage didn’t really contribute anything in terms of advancement of plot, but
was just inserted by Fleming to give a dash of ‘local colour.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today Fleming’s descriptions and dialogue for
his black characters are seen as rather patronising and even racially offensive,
but such writing must be looked at from the very different social perspective
of the times. In April 2003, however, Penguin Books published LIVE AND LET DIE
in a new paperback edition in America, which restored the omitted text and
included the original title of Chapter 5, “Nigger Heaven”. Fleming’s Bond
novels had been out of print in America for a number of years before the
Penguin reprints came along.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Not all of the changes in the
text between the British and American editions of LIVE AND LET DIE were to do
with the depiction of the black characters in the novel. Some of the changes
that were made in the Macmillan edition had also to do with correcting minute
mistakes that Fleming had made that would be spotted by the native population
that were more familiar with such details. The interesting article ‘The Mystery
Trains of LIVE AND LET DIE’ by John Cork of the Ian Fleming Foundation reveals
some of the mistakes Fleming made about the trains Bond and Solitaire travel on
in LIVE AND LET DIE, and the changes that Al Hart made as a result:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
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‘Bond and Solitaire travel on the
Silver Phantom from New York in the novel, leaving the train in Jacksonville,
Florida. Fleming describes the trains in Penn Station in the British edition:
“Under the bare electric bulbs the horizontal purple and gold bands, the
colours of the (sic) Seaboard Railroad, glowed regally on the streamlined
locomotives.” [‘Live and Let Die,’ Pan Books Ltd, London, 1963, p. 95]<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span color="windowtext">It
seemed odd that Fleming would get a detail like this wrong. He travelled with a
small notebook, which he kept to jot down just such notes. Nonetheless,
Fleming's American editor, Al Hart, made some changes to the text, including to
the above line. Hart altered the line to reflect the real colours of the
Seaboard Air Line Railroad, including the train's proper full name. Even though
the true Seaboard's colors [sic] were not as traditionally “regal” as Fleming's
purple and gold bands. The American version reads as follows: “Under the bare
electric bulbs the horizontal green, red, and yellow bands, the colours of the
Seaboard Air Line Railroad, glowed regally on the streamlined locomotives.”
[‘Live and Let Die,’ Ian Fleming, Berkley Books, New York, 1985, p. 83]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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In fact, Fleming originally
described the colours of the Atlantic Coast Line, a competitor of Seaboard's
for the lucrative NYC to Florida market.’ (Excerpt from ‘The Mystery Trains of
LIVE AND LET DIE’ by John Cork)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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Another example of the many edits
made to LIVE AND LET DIE concerns Fleming’s description of American cuisine. In
the fourth chapter of the novel, ‘The Big Switchboard,’ Bond enjoys a meal in
the British edition:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“He had a typical American meal
at an eating house called ‘Gloryfried Ham-N-Eggs’ (‘The Eggs We Serve Tomorrow
Are Still in the Hens’) on Lexington Avenue and then took a cab downtown to
police headquarters, where he was due to meet Leiter and Dexter at 2.30.”
(‘Live and Let Die,’ Ian Fleming, Pan Books Ltd., London, 1963, p. 34)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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In the American edition the
passage appeared slightly differently:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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“He had a typical American meal
at a restaurant called ‘Glorifried Ham-N-Eggs’ (‘The Eggs We Serve Tomorrow Are
Still on the Farm Today’) on Lexington Avenue and then took a cab downtown to
police headquarters, where he was due to meet Leiter and Dexter at two-thirty.”
(‘Live and Let Die,’ Ian Fleming, Berkley Books, New York, 1985, p. 30)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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In the American version the
clever marketing ploy of combining ‘glorified’ with ‘fried’ to make
‘gloryfried’ is changed to ‘glorifried,’ it is described as a ‘restaurant’ and
not an ‘eating house’ and the eggs are now advertised as being ‘on the Farm
Today’ instead of still being in the hens. The time that Bond was due to meet
Felix Leiter and Captain Dexter is also changed from figures in the British
edition to words in the American edition. These cultural changes in the
American edition were made because clearly the American editors were not nearly
as amazed as Fleming - ‘the Englishman abroad’ - was by the different nature of
American cuisine and culture. Perhaps they thought such references would be
patronising for the American readership, as it would be instantly more familiar
to them. It is perhaps ironic that the change was made to the slogan of the
American ‘eating house,’ as Fleming, being the brilliant journalistic observer
of other countries and cultures that he was, would surely have copied it
verbatim from just such a place into his notebook for later use.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Fleming’s third James Bond novel,
MOONRAKER (1955) was re-titled <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
TOO HOT TO HANDLE when Perma
Books published it in America in 1956. Perhaps this was to avoid confusion with
Arthur Watkin’s stage play THE MOONRAKER, which was running at the time and was
filmed under the same title in 1958. As was the case with the first American
editions of CASINO ROYALE, the novel was subtitled MOONRAKER on the cover. TOO
HOT TO HANDLE was notable for being the only Fleming Bond novel that was
“Americanised,” meaning the exchanging of American idioms for British ones such
as “jack of hearts” for “knave of hearts” in the Blades bridge scene and
“elevator” for “lift.” The title was later changed back to MOONRAKER in America
in 1960.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fleming and his publishers
themselves went through various title suggestions for the novel, such as THE
INFERNAL MACHINE, WIDE OF THE MARK and THE INHUMAN ELEMENT, before finally
settling on the simple, yet effective, MOONRAKER. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
On only two separate occasions
did Ian Fleming intervene and change elements of the text and circulation of
his Bond novels after publication. In his biography of the author, John Pearson
reveals how Fleming was forced to revise a character name in DIAMONDS ARE
FOREVER (1956) when the friend he had taken it from objected:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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‘…[Fleming] found that his little
habit of amusing himself by bestowing the names of friends or relatives on
characters in his novels had this time involved him in a difficulty. […] But
when <i>Diamonds Are Forever</i> was published one of the victims objected
strenuously to Fleming’s private joke. This was Anne’s cousin, the present Lord
Arran, the columnist, who in those days was known as “Boofy” Gore. As a
surprise for him Fleming borrowed the nickname and attached it to a
particularly unsavoury character in the book. Great displeasure had resulted,
and this was the only occasion when Fleming is known to have apologised and
changed the name of one of his characters in subsequent editions.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
He had not meant to be unkind.
Although he was the most selfish and egocentric of men in the way he planned
his life and pursued his objectives, he could take much trouble over the people
he cared for.’ (‘The Life of Ian Fleming,’ John Pearson, The Companion Book
Club, London, 1966, pp. 300-01)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
In Andrew Lycett’s biography of
Fleming there is an elaboration on the “Boofy” Gore episode:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘Ann was game enough to jump to
her husband’s defence and help defuse a potentially tricky legal problem when,
on Easter Day, she received an apopleptic call from her relative by marriage,
“Boofy” Gore, later the Earl of Arran. Gore had been alerted by Lord Lambton to
a passage in <i>Diamonds Are Forever</i> which ran, “Kidd’s a pretty boy. His
friends call him ‘Boofy’. Probably shacks up with Wint. Some of these homos
make the worst killers. Kidd’s got white hair though he’s only thirty. That’s
why he works in a hood.” Ian had done his usual trick of assigning the names of
friends and acquaintances to his characters. But Kidd was a particularly
unpleasant character. Gore railed against Ann: Ian was his best friend, how
could she have allowed him to do this? Ann replied that she was only married to
Ian: she had neither written nor even read the book in question. Still fuming,
Gore contacted Ann’s sister, Laura, who telephoned Ann, by then out at church
for Easter Sunday matins. Fionn fielded her aunt’s abuse: “Your mother may like
pansies but other people don’t. Don’t forget Boofy has a million friends and
Ian has none.” (‘Ian Fleming,’ Andrew Lycett, Phoenix, London, 2002, pp.
288-89)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Andy Lane and Paul Simpson’s book
THE BOND FILES (2000) actually gives the character name change Fleming was
forced to make in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“In the first edition of the
book, Kidd was given the nickname ‘Boofy’ as a reference to a friend of Ian
Fleming – ‘Boofy’ Gore – who later became Lord Arran. Gore was reportedly very
unhappy that his nickname had been purloined, and Fleming had it changed in
later editions to ‘Boofuls’ Kidd.” (‘The Bond Files,’ Revised and Updated
Second Edition, Andy Lane and Paul Simpson, Virgin Publishing Limited, London,
2000, p. 23)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
In the 1962 eight printing of
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER in Pan paperbacks, however, and therefore presumably in
all of the previous Pan editions of the novel, Kidd is still referred to by
Leiter in the text as ‘Boofy,’ and not the nickname ‘Boofuls’ which Fleming had
it changed to. Presumably the change of Kidd’s nickname was made only in the later
reprints of the novel in hardback by Jonathan Cape beyond the first edition,
and Pan Books Ltd. took its’ text from the Jonathan Cape first edition which
contained the ‘Boofy’ nickname. Then again, perhaps Arthur ‘Boofy’ Gore forgave
Fleming and permitted him to allow the paperback edition to use his nickname,
or, more probably he had no control over the paperback editions or perhaps he
did not notice that they had reverted to using his nickname again. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
There was a slight amendment made
to later editions of Fleming’s FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE (1957). Fleming’s
original manuscript had the title ‘From Russia, With Love,’ but later published
editions of the novel had no comma in the title and a lower case ‘w,’ so that
the title appeared as ‘From Russia with Love.’ The film version used this
slightly amended title when it was released in 1963. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Fleming’s sixth Bond novel, DR.
NO (1958) also underwent some amendments when it was published in different
editions. DR. NO was serialised in America under the title NUDE GIRL OF
NIGHTMARE KEY. Hutchinson Educational Ltd. published a special ‘junior’ edition
entitled DOCTOR NO under their Bulls-Eye Books range in 1973, which was adapted
from the Fleming source novel by Patrick Nobles. The violence, in what critics
saw as Fleming’s most sadistic novel, was carefully toned down and the sexual
content was removed entirely. As well as a simplified text, the Bulls-Eye
edition of DOCTOR NO also included drawings of Bond’s guns, and sketch maps of
the West Indies showing both Jamaica and a plan view of Crab Key. Other junior
editions from Hutchinson Educational included Fleming’s LIVE AND LET DIE and
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
DR. NO was also the first Fleming
Bond novel to contain a censored swear word (the f-word) in dialogue. In the
particular scene Quarrel, on Bond’s instructions, is twisting the arm of the
Chinese ‘freelance’ photographer, Annabel Chung in order to procure
information, who for the second time has taken Bond’s photograph. Bond is
trying to make the stubborn Chung see sense and relent to Quarrel’s pressure:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“Tell,” said Bond softly. “Tell
and it will stop and we’ll be friends and have a drink.” He was getting
worried. The girl’s arm must be on the verge of breaking. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“____ you.” Suddenly the girl’s
left hand flew up and into Quarrel’s face. Bond was too slow to stop her.
Something glinted and there was a sharp explosion. Bond snatched at her arm and
dragged it back. Blood was streaming down Quarrel’s cheek. Glass and metal
tinkled onto the table. She had smashed the flashbulb on Quarrel’s face. If she
had been able to reach an eye it would have been blinded.” (‘Dr. No,’<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Ian Fleming, Pan Books Ltd.,
London, 1965, p. 38)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
In this instance it gave the
scene more bite and added to the sense of the Chinese photographer’s clear
venom at her captors. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
In GOLDFINGER (1959) there is
another rare four-letter word<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(again the
‘f-word’) spoken by Bond in an understandably angry exchange with Goldfinger as
a circular saw is about to cut him in half. In the scene in Chapter 15 of the
novel, entitled ‘The Pressure Room,’ there is the following passage:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“Bond decided it was time to stop
talking. It was time to start winding up the mainspring of will-power that must
not run down again until he was dead. Bond said politely, ‘Then you can go and
____ yourself.’ He expelled all the breath from his lungs and closed his eyes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘Even I am not capable of that,
Mr Bond,’ said Goldfinger with good humour.” (‘Goldfinger,’ Ian Fleming, Pan
Books Ltd., London, 1965, p. 150)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
The swear word was already edited
out before publication, and it is an understandable piece of censorship.
Perhaps it was even censored out like this on Fleming’s manuscript. Four letter
words have never featured very heavily in Fleming’s novels and this was only
the second time Fleming had used the ‘f-word’ in his dialogue. Although Fleming
and his creation were certainly not prudish about strong language, these kind
of swear words feel out of place in the literary Bond’s world, and are
thankfully used sparingly by the author so that in the rare instance when they
are used, they are all the more effective as a result. In Raymond Benson’s
continuation Bond novels there has been a greater use of strong language. For
instance, Benson’s second Bond novel, THE FACTS OF DEATH (1998) contained a
passage where Felix Leiter used the ‘f-word’ heavily. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
In THE JAMES BOND DOSSIER (1965)
Kingsley Amis states that ‘<i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i> was banned in Australia
and the Central African Federation.’ (‘The James Bond Dossier,’ Kingsley Amis,
Pan Books Ltd., London, 1966, p. 85). The Central African Federation was
brought into existence by the Conservative government in Britain in 1953 by
combining the territories of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in southern Africa. It was
also less commonly known as the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and it
came to an end in 1963. Australia still has high levels of book censorship
compared to other democratic nations, such as in Europe and in North America.
Many books are apparently banned in Australia through fears that they may
offend certain segments of the population. Books containing erotica (which THE
SPY WHO LOVED ME could possibly be said to qualify for with the cinema
seduction scene with Derek) and illegal drug use are the most readily banned in
Australia. In a footnote in THE JAMES BOND DOSSIER, Amis says that <i>Punch</i>
disliked the book for being ‘pornographic,’ and he believed that the ‘hideous
seduction scene in a cinema’ was what they were referring to. Amis actually
thought that the scene could not be more anti-pornographic and, in defence of
Fleming, noted that the term is commonly misused to mean ‘concerned with
physical sex.’ (<i>Ibid</i>, p. 59) THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1962) was most
probably banned in these countries due primarily to the comments that arose
from Fleming’s use of the first-person female viewpoint of the heroine,
Vivienne Michel. Towards the end of the novel, after having just made love to
Bond, she infamously suggests that, <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘All women love semi-rape. They
love to be taken. It was his sweet brutality against my bruised body that had
made his act of love so piercingly beautiful.’ (‘The Spy Who Loved Me,’ Ian
Fleming, Jonathan Cape, London, Fifth Impression, 1963, p. 197).<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
It is somewhat strange that the
novel did not follow the fate of LIVE AND LET DIE and receive a banning order
in the Republic of Ireland also. The Censorship Board provided under The
Censorship of Publications Act of 1929 and 1946 in the Republic of Ireland
could prohibit the sale and distribution of a book that was not only ‘indecent
or obscene’ but also that advocated ‘the unnatural prevention of conception or
the procurement of abortion or miscarriage or the use of any method, treatment
or appliance for the purpose of such prevention or procurement.’ Perhaps the
abortion described by Vivienne Michel was the reason that the novel was banned
in several countries around the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, Vivienne Michel tells the reader how she was
forced to have an abortion by her German lover, Kurt Rainer, when she tells him
that she is pregnant with his child:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘The business of my abortion, not
to mince words, was good training for my new role. The concierge at my hotel
looked at me with the world-weary eyes of all concierges and said that the
hotel doctor was on holiday but that there was another who was equally
proficient. (Did he know? Did he guess?) Dr Susskind examined me and asked if I
had enough money. When I said I had, he seemed disappointed. The gynaecologist
was more explicit. It seemed that he had a chalet. Hotels in Zurich were so
expensive. Would I not care to have a period of rest before the operation? I
looked at him with stony eyes and said that the British Consul, who was my
uncle, had invited me to recuperate with his family and I would be glad if I could
enter the clinic without any delay. It was he who had recommended Dr Susskind.
No doubt Herr Doktor Braunschweig knew the Consul?<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
My hocus-pocus was just good
enough. It had been delivered with my new decisive manner and the gambit had
been thought out beforehand. The bifocals registered shock. There were coolly
fervent explanations and a hasty telephone call to the clinic. Yes, indeed.
Tomorrow afternoon. Just with my overnight things. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
It was as mentally distressing
but as physically painless as I had expected, and three days later I was back
in my hotel.’ (‘The Spy Who Loved Me,’ Ian Fleming, Jonathan Cape, London,
Fifth Impression, 1963, pp. 81-2).<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
After the largely negative
critical fall-out which resulted from Fleming’s attempt to “examine Bond from
the other end of the gun barrel” in which he had for the first time written a
Bond novel in the first person narrative of the heroine, and in which Bond only
appeared two-thirds of the way through, he tried to stop any further print runs
of the novel. This was one of the few times that Ian Fleming actually acted as
his own censor. As Lycett’s biography of Fleming reveals:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘To his publisher Ian admitted
that his “experiment” had “obviously gone very much awry”. As a result he asked
[Michael] Howard [a director at Jonathan Cape] to help him ensure that <i>The
Spy Who Loved Me</i> had “as short a life as possible”. Calling on Jonathan
Cape to accept its share of their inevitable joint financial sacrifice in “as
friendly a spirit as you can muster”, Ian requested that there should be no
reprints and no paperback version of his controversial book. Ann’s reaction
suggested what a trying partner she could be. Having badgered Ian and made him
feel guilty about the book, she wrote to Evelyn Waugh the following day, telling
him in confidence of her husband’s resolve. But, true to character and
conscious of the need to keep the Bond cash cow producing, she could not resist
adding flippantly, “I am doing my best to resolve this foolish gesture because
of the yellow silk for the drawing-room walls.”’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(‘Ian Fleming,’ Andrew Lycett, Phoenix,
London, 2002, p. 402)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
After Fleming’s death in August
1964, Lycett reveals how Fleming’s wish not to have THE SPY WHO LOVED ME
republished beyond its Jonathan Cape hardback editions and Book Club editions
was abandoned:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘The Fleming backlist was
exploited for all its worth: after the idea of issuing <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i>
in paperback arose, Hugh Fisher, one of the title’s trustees, was unhappy about
appearing to ignore Ian’s express wish that it should be assigned to the
literary scrapheap. When Peter Janson-Smith, as Ian’s agent, produced solid
evidence that Ian had not meant what he said, Fisher nevertheless felt duty
bound to resign.’ (‘Ian Fleming,’ Andrew Lycett, Phoenix, London, 2002, p. 446)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
THE SPY WHO LOVED ME also
appeared in a condensed form in <i>Stag Annual</i> men’s magazine, published by
Atlas Magazines in 1964 under the title MOTEL NYMPH. It featured rather
salacious illustrations of Vivienne Michel, Bond and the other characters from
the novel. THE SPY WHO LOVED ME was finally published in paperback form by Pan
Books in Britain in 1967, the year in which Fleming’s last three published Bond
short stories also appeared in Pan paperbacks under the shortened title
OCTOPUSSY. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Ian Fleming also stated that he
did not want the film producers, Harry Saltzman and Albert R. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli
to use any more than the title of the novel for any future film. He did not
want any of the plot of his novel to be filmed, but wanted an original story to
be written for the title. This was what happened when THE SPY WHO LOVED ME was
filmed in 1977, of course. There were, however, two small links to the Fleming
novel in Roger Moore’s third outing as James Bond, despite Fleming’s wishes.
Fleming’s primary villainous thug in the novel, Sol ‘Horror’ Horowitz has
steel-capped teeth, a feature which Karl Stromberg’s steel toothed henchman,
Jaws, was to inherit. Another scene that was borrowed slightly from the novel
was where Major Anya Amasova finds Jaws in her wardrobe on the train. In the
novel, Vivienne had found ‘Horror’ hiding in her wardrobe.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
In Soviet Russia it was not just
the literary James Bond that was banned, but the cinematic incarnation also. As
Vladislav Pavlov wrote in his article entitled ‘Behind Enemy Lines, The Russian
Perspective’ in the ‘James Bond 007: Goldfinger’ Titan comic strip book:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“Penetration of the Iron Curtain
was always quite a difficult task, even for a fictitious spy. The tightly
sealed borders and propaganda machine sifted out all the material venerating
the ‘capitalistic way of life’ and anti-Soviet ideas, leaving no chance for the
forbidden fruits of the ‘decadent West’ to ripen. So it’s no wonder that
anything concerning the notorious James Bond was officially banned in the
USSR.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
At the beginning of the article
there is an interesting quote from the state pedalled propaganda against Ian
Fleming’s creation:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“James Bond lives in a
nightmarish world where laws are written at the point of a gun, where coercion
and rape is considered valour and murder is a funny trick.” (Yuri Zhukov, <i>Pravda</i>
Newspaper, September 30, 1965)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Vladislav Pavlov reveals that
despite this propaganda from the state organs against James Bond he was still a
figure that was well known:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“the very names of Ian Fleming
and his creation were well-known, and occasional articles, similar to Zhukov’s
one, would appear in the Soviet media attacking 007, vilifying him, juggling
with facts for the benefit of the regime. As a result, in this maze of
propaganda, lies and distorted mirrors, the Russian people would catch
occasional glimpses of Bond’s shadow.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
The article also makes it clear
that there was an intellectual underground that took the risk and were able to
get hold of Ian Fleming’s banned Bond novels:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“Some people studying English or
those involved in the publishing business were also on occasion lucky enough to
lay their hands on a few smuggled paperbacks, including Fleming’s novels. […]
In short, to be published in the USSR, a novel had to be politically neutral,
with no anti-Soviet ideas or, better still, actually criticise the American
‘way of life’. James Bond’s escapades did not match these criteria, so, for the
huddled masses, 007 remained the proverbial forbidden fruit.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
With the advent of the era of <i>perestroika</i>
and <i>glasnost</i> ushered in by Mikhail Gorbachev censorship in Russia was
beginning to cease to exist. As Pavlov writes:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“Moreover, the first Russian
editions of Ian Fleming’s novels appeared in bookshops, the short stories often
published discreetly as leaflets. Due to the then lack of copyrights law, the
market was all but deluged with various editions. Some translations were
rough-and-ready; other editions contained incorrect information in Ian
Fleming’s biography. Nevertheless, the reader was finally able to fully enjoy
the James Bond novels, discovering him to be very different from the image
drawn in the angry and slanted articles of the past.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
According to this article there
is still work to be done in promoting the literary Bond in modern Russia as
“the non-Fleming Bond novels are still out of favour with Russian publishers,
except for Kingsley Amis’ Colonel Sun, and a couple of ‘books of movie’ by John
Gardner and Raymond Benson.” (Extracts from ‘Behind Enemy Lines, The Russian
Perspective,’ Vladislav Pavlov, ‘James Bond 007: Goldfinger’, Titan Books,
London, 2004)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
This study of the history of the
banning, editing and censorship of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels has revealed
the changing nature of these practices throughout the years. It is interesting
to consider how what were probably Fleming’s two most controversial novels,
<i>Live and Let Die</i> and <i>The Spy Who Loved</i>, suffered the most stringent
censorship and banning. The modern reader can indeed be grateful that Fleming’s
Bond novels can now be read freely in almost all countries unedited and
uncensored, as the author initially intended. Ian Fleming, it seems, had the
last triumph, and his free speech and independent thought, no matter how
controversial and unpalatable it was initially deemed, prevailed in the
end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><u>TBB Article No. 6</u></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2007.</b></div>
The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-41114679279184096202012-08-15T19:36:00.002+01:002020-11-04T13:19:10.097+00:00James Bond in Contemporary World War II and Cold War EventsThe literary James Bond has been
involved in some of twentieth century’s most pivotal historical events, as a
trail through the novels will reveal. It seems that Bond was involved in some
way with the secret service from before the beginning of the Second World War
itself. The Head of S (the section of the Secret Service concerned with the
Soviet Union) in the first Bond novel <i>Casino Royale</i> (1953) reveals to his
Number Two who he thinks will get the project for the ruination of Le Chiffre
at the baccarat table:<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“One of the Double O’s - I guess
007. He’s tough and M thinks there may be trouble with those gunmen of Le
Chiffre’s. He must be pretty good with the cards or he wouldn’t have sat in the
Casino in Monte Carlo for two months before the war watching that Roumanian
team work their stuff with the invisible ink and the dark glasses. He and the
Deuxieme bowled them out in the end and 007 turned in a million francs he had
won at shimmy. Good money in those days.” (<i>Casino Royale,</i> Pan Books Ltd.,
1965, pp. 24-5)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
M later says to Bond during his
briefing for the mission,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“I’m going to ask the Deuxieme to
stand by. It’s their territory and as it is we shall be lucky if they don’t
kick up rough. I’ll try and persuade them to send Mathis. You seemed to get on
well with him in Monte Carlo on that other Casino job.” (<i style="text-align: start;">Casino Royale,</i> Pan
Books Ltd., 1965, p. 26)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Later on in <i>Casino Royale</i> are
Bond is recovering in hospital from the horrific torture with the carpet beater
that he received at the hands of Le Chiffre he recounts to Mathis how he earned
his Double O status during the war for the secret service:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“‘Well, in the last few years
I’ve killed two villains. The first was in New York – a Japanese cipher expert
cracking our codes on the thirty-sixth floor of the RCA building in the
Rockefeller centre, where the Japs had their consulate. I took a room on the
fortieth floor of the next-door skyscraper and I could look across the street
into his room and see him working. Then I got a colleague from our organization
in New York and a couple of Remington thirty-thirty’s with telescopic sights
and silencers. We smuggled them up to my room and sat for days waiting for our
chance. He shot at the man a second before me. His job was only to blast a hole
through the windows so that I could shoot the Jap through it. They have tough
windows at the Rockefeller centre to keep the noise out. It worked very well.
As I expected, his bullet got deflected by the glass and went God knows where.
But I shot immediately after him, through the hole he had made. I got the Jap
in the mouth as he turned to gape at the broken window.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bond smoked for a minute.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘It was a pretty sound job. Nice
and clean too. Three hundred yards away. No personal contact. The next time in
Stockholm wasn’t so pretty. I had to kill a Norwegian who was doubling against
us for the Germans. He’d managed to get two of our men captured – probably
bumped off for all I know. For various reasons it had to be an absolutely
silent job. I chose the bedroom of his flat and a knife. And, well, he just
didn’t die very quickly.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘For those two jobs I was awarded a Double O
number in the Service. Felt pretty clever and got a reputation for being good
and tough. A double O number in our Service means you’ve had to kill a chap in
cold blood in the course of some job.’” (<i>Casino Royale</i>, Pan Books Ltd., 1965,
pp. 141-2)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
In the ‘Chronology of James
Bond’s Adventures’ in <i>James Bond: The Man and His World </i>by Henry Chancellor
it dates these two assassinations as happening between 1941-44, and it also
claims that Bond was 17 when he claimed he was 19 and entered the RNVR as a
Lieutenant, then the secret service between 1937-41.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Regarding Bond’s involvement in
the armed forces in the Second World War, <i>Dr. No</i> (1958) gave one of the first
mentions of Bond’s involvement in the armed forces before his entry into the
world of espionage. When Dr. No’s men on the boat give their warning to Bond,
Quarrel and Honey Rider over the loudhailer on the beach at Crab Key we are
told,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“The machine gunner trained his
gun into the tops of the mangroves behind the beach. There came the swift
rattling roar Bond had last heard coming from the German lines in the Ardennes.
The bullets made the same old sound of frightened pigeons whistling overhead.”
(<i>Dr. No</i>, Pan Books Ltd., 1965, p. 77)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
The Ardennes Offensive, or ‘the
Battle of the Bulge’ as it is popularly called began on 16 December 1944 and
ended on 16 January 1945. It was the last German offensive on the Western Front
during the Second World War. The ‘bulge’ refers to the unsuccessful attempt by
the Germans to drive a wedge into the Allied lines. After their invasion of
Normandy in June 1944, the Allies moved rapidly across northern France into
Belgium during the summer, but they lost their momentum in the autumn. General
von Rundstedt’s Panzer Armies took advantage of the bad weather, which was
hampering Allied aircraft and launched two parallel attacks with the aim of
retaking the great port of Antwerp. The Fifth Army under General von Manteuffel
had advanced by 24 December 1944 to within four miles of the Meuse River.
However, by Christmas the inadequacy of German supplies and Allied resistance
had halted the German offensive and ensured that this was to be the farthest
point of the German drive. The Germans thereby made an orderly withdrawal
between the 8 and 16 January 1945, having failed in their last desperate
attempt to regain the initiative on the Western Front.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Further details of Bond’s wartime
activities are given in M’s obituary for Bond in <i>The Times </i>in <i>You Only Live Twice</i> (1964):</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“By now it was 1941 and, by
claiming an age of nineteen and with the help of an old Vickers colleague of
his father he entered a branch of what was subsequently to become the Ministry
of Defence. To serve the confidential nature of his duties, he was accorded the
rank of lieutenant in the Special Branch of the RNVR, and it is a measure of
the satisfaction his services gave to his superiors that he ended the war with
the rank of Commander. It was about this time that the writer became associated
with certain aspects of the Ministry’s work, and it was with much gratification
that I accepted Commander Bond’s post-war application to continue working for
the Ministry in which, at the time of his lamented disappearance, he had risen
to the rank of Principal Officer in the Civil Service.” (<i>You Only Live Twice,</i> Pan Books Ltd., 1966, p. 179)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
There is something at odds here.
In DR. NO we were led to believe that Bond’s wartime activities must have been
in the army as the Ardennes mention suggests. But the <i>You Only Live Twice</i> obituary confirms that Bond was a Royal Volunteer Naval Reserve (RNVR) man. As Kingsley Amis points out in <i>The James Bond Dossier</i> (1965):</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“But, even if Bond had learnt how
to handle a bazooka in the Ardennes sector in 1944 (what was a Commander from
Naval Intelligence doing there, by the way?), he had fairy-tale luck when he
was allowed to snatch one off a U.S. soldier and fire it at Goldfinger’s
hijacked train. Here reason makes a late come-back and, though Bond hits with
his first and only shot, he inflicts no more than superficial damage.” (<i>The James Bond Dossier,</i> Kingsley Amis, Pan Books Ltd., London, 1966, p. 18-9)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
In<i> Thunderball </i>(1961) Bond is
sent to Shrublands to make to recuperate from his hard drinking and smoking.
When Bond goes to see Mr. Joshua Wain in Consulting Room A he asks, “Bond to
remove all his clothes except his pants.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
We are told that,<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“When he saw the many scars he
said politely, ‘Dear me, you do seem to have been in the wars, Mr Bond.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: justify;">Bond said indifferently, ‘Near
miss. During the war.’”</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
After completing his inspection
of Bond’s body, Wain informs him that there is:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“‘some right sacroiliac strain
with the right ilium slightly displaced backwards. Due to a bad fall some time,
no doubt.’ Mr Wain raised his eyes for confirmation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Bond said, ‘Perhaps.’ Inwardly he
reflected that the ‘bad fall’ had probably been when he had had to jump from
the Arlberg Express after Heinkel and his friends had caught up with him around
the time of the Hungarian uprising in 1956.” (<i> Thunderball,</i> Chapter 2, Pan
Books Ltd., 1963, p. 21)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
In October 1956 the Hungarians
had revolted against the communist rule, but Khrushchev sent Red Army tanks
onto the streets to swiftly and ruthlessly crush the uprising. Later on in the novel<i> Thunderball </i> when Bond and Felix Leiter are welcomed on board a United States Navy
submarine, the captain, Commander Peter Pederson, U.S.N., says to his guests,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“‘Well gentlemen. Welcome aboard.
Commander Bond, it’s a pleasure to have a member of the Royal Navy visit the
ship. Ever been in subs before?’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: justify;">‘I have,’ said Bond, ‘but only as a supercargo. I was in intelligence –
RNVR Special Branch. Strictly a chocolate sailor.’</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
The captain laughed. ‘That’s
good!…’ (<i> Thunderball, </i>Chapter 20, Pan Books Ltd., 1963, p. 195)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Ian Fleming was of course also in
Naval Intelligence during the Second World War, being the Personal Assistant to
the Director of Naval Intelligence. He too held the rank of an honorary
commander in the RNVR, and like Bond he was teased for being a ‘Chocolate
Sailor’ who was more of an 'ideas man' who sat behind a desk in the Admiralty
planning missions rather than out in the middle of the action as he would have liked to have been.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
In the short story ‘Quantum of
Solace’ from the <i>For Your Eyes Only</i> (1960) collection we are told
what Bond’s mission had been:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“Bond had been in the colony for
a week and was leaving for Miami the next day. It had been a routine
investigation job. Arms were getting to the Castro rebels in Cuba from all the
neighbouring territories. They had been coming principally from Miami and the
Gulf of Mexico, but when the US Coastguards had seized two big shipments, the
Castro supporters had turned to Jamaica and the Bahamas as possible bases, and
bond had been sent out from London to put a stop to it. He hadn’t wanted to do
the job. If anything, his sympathies were with the rebels, but the Government
had a big export programme with Cuba in exchange for taking more Cuban sugar
than they wanted, and a minor condition of the deal was that Britain should not
give aid or comfort to the Cuban rebels. Bond had found out about the two big
cabin cruisers that were being fitted out for the job, and rather than make
arrests when they were about to sail, thus causing an incident, he had chosen a
very dark night and crept up on the boats in a police launch. From the deck of
the unlighted launch he had tossed a thermite bomb through an open port of each
of them. He had then made off at high speed and watched the bonfire from a
distance. Bad luck on the insurance companies, of course, but there were no
casualties and he had achieved quickly and neatly what M had told him to do.”
(‘Quantum of Solace,’ from <i>For Your Eyes Only</i>, Pan Books Ltd., 1965, p. 85)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
This assignment saw Bond trying to
stop Fidel Castro’s communist rebels from overthrowing the brutal regime of the
pro-American dictator of Cuba, <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Fulgencio
Batista. The rebel forces under Castro had launched their ultimately successful
attacks against the regime in the autumn of 1958 and Batista was forced to flee
with his family to the Dominican Republic on 1 January 1959. This left the
rebel leader Fidel Castro in charge of Cuba, where indeed he remained as leader
until ill health forced him to hand the reins of leadership to his brother (as Acting President of Cuba) on 31 July 2006.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Another assignment from the <i>For Your Eyes Only</i> short story collection is mentioned in passing in ‘The Hildebrand Rarity’:</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“It had been nearly a month before when M had
told Bond he was sending him to the Seychelles. “Admiralty are having trouble
with their new fleet base in the Maldives. Communists creeping in from Ceylon.
Strikes, sabotage – the usual picture. May have to cut their losses and fall
back on the Seychelles. A thousand miles farther south, but at least they look
pretty secure. But they won’t want to be caught again. Colonial Office say it’s
safe as houses. All the same I’ve agreed to send someone to give an independent
view. When Makarios was locked up there a few years ago there were quite a few
Security scares. Japanese fishing-boats hanging about, one or two refugee
crooks from England, strong ties with France. Just go and have a good look.” M
glanced out of the window at the driving March sleet. “Don’t get sunstroke.”</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Bond’s report, which concluded that the only
conceivable security hazard in the Seychelles lay in the beauty and the ready
availability of the Seychelloises, had been finished a week before and then he
had nothing to do but wait for the <i>Kampala </i>to take him to Mombasa.”
(‘The Hildebrand Rarity,’ from <i>For Your Eyes Only,</i></span> Pan Books Ltd., 1965, p.
156)</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
The continuation author John Gardner kept on
the tradition of reporting Bond’s involvement in contemporary events in
<i>Icebreaker </i>(1983):</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“In more official terms, Bond was what the
American Service speaks of as a ‘singleton’ – a roving case officer who is
given free rein to carry out special tasks, such as the ingenious undercover
work he had undertaken during the Falkland Islands conflict in 1982. Then he
had even appeared – unidentifiable – on a television newsflash, but that had
passed like all things.” (<i>Icebreaker, </i>Coronet Books, Hodder and Stoughton
Ltd., 1984, p. 21)</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Falklands War was a brief, undeclared war
fought between Argentina and Great Britain in 1982 over the control of the
Falkland Islands. Argentina had claimed sovereignty over the Falkland Islands
since the early nineteenth century but Britain consistently rejected
Argentina’s claims, having administered the islands since 1833. In early 1982
the Argentine military junta under Lieutenant General Galtieri launched an
invasion of the Falkland Islands. Argentine troops invaded the Falklands on 2
April 1982, rapidly overcoming the small garrison of British marines at the
capital of Stanley. The British government under Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher assembled a naval task force with which to retake the islands. Perhaps
Bond could have fitted among this contingent? The British naval force and the
land-based Argentine air force fought intensive battles, the Argentineans
sinking the HMS Sheffield and the container ship Atlantic Conveyor with Exocet
air-to-sea missiles in the process. Argentina failed to stop the British from
making an amphibious landing near Port San Carlos, on 21 May 1982.The large
Argentine garrison at Port Stanley surrendered to the British on 14 June 1982
and this effectively ended the Falklands conflict. Argentina’s defeat in the
war discredited the military government to the extent that it led to the
restoration of a civilian government there in 1983. In Britain, Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher converted the widespread patriotic support for her tough
stance on Argentina into a landslide victory for the Conservative Party in the
1983 General Election. </span>It seems fitting then to end this study of the literary James Bond’s involvement in contemporary events here as the Falklands War was seen by
many as Britain’s last great outpouring of patriotic fervor for a war in a
far-flung part of the dwindling Empire.<br />
<br />
<b><u>TBB Article No. 5</u></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2007.</b></span></div>
The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-31834968836857174592012-08-15T19:30:00.002+01:002020-11-04T13:19:37.569+00:00Arthur C. Clarke's "Mysterious" Involvement in Ian Fleming's Moonraker (1955) Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008),
author of over one hundred books of fiction and non-fiction and broadcaster,
seemingly had connections with Ian Fleming’s third James Bond novel, <i style="text-align: justify;">Moonraker</i> (1955). In <i style="text-align: justify;">James Bond: The Man and His World:</i> <i style="text-align: justify;">The Official Companion to Ian Fleming’s Creation</i>(2005) by Henry Chancellor there
is the following passage in the ‘Inspirations’ section for the novel <i style="text-align: justify;">Moonraker</i>:<br />
<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“The story of the Moonraker
rocket targeting London and Bond’s attempts to stop it was originally conceived
for a film. ‘The reason why it breaks so badly in half as a book,’ Fleming
explained to Joyce Briggs, Rank’s script editor at Pinewood, ‘is because I had
to more or less graft the first half of the book on to my film idea in order to
bring it up to the necessary length.’ Ian’s film idea had been about a German
V-2 rocket, which he had updated to an early intercontinental nuclear weapon –
an extremely topical subject, as both the Americans and the Russians were
rushing to develop this new technology. As he was not an expert in this field,
Ian went to great lengths to make sure his Moonraker rocket was correct,
writing to Arthur C. Clarke and the British Interplanetary Society to check his
facts about range and accuracy.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
(Henry Chancellor, <i>James Bond: The Man and His World:</i> <i>The Official Companion to Ian Fleming’s Creation</i>, John
Murray, London, 2005, p. 56). <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Arthur Charles Clarke, born in
Minehead, Somerset was to science fiction what Ian Fleming was to spy fiction,
an innovator who changed the genre forever. Just as John Buchan and "Sapper" influenced Fleming’s spy novels, so the works of H.G. Wells and Olaf Stapledon
influenced Clarke, and like Fleming with his literary predecessors, he was
their literary heir. In 1937 Clarke joined the British Interplanetary Society,
for which he twice served as Chairman, in 1946-7 and 1950-3 respectively, just
before Fleming was referred to him when writing and researching <i>Moonraker</i>. The
British Interplanetary Society was a small, advanced group, which met regularly
to contemplate ways in which Man could be sent to the Moon. In London, from
1937 to 1941 Clarke was an Assistant Auditor with the Exchequer. During the
Second World War, Clarke joined the Royal Air Force, serving from 1941-46,
eventually becoming a radar instructor and technical officer on the first
Ground Controlled Approach radar. In 1945, before leaving the RAF with the rank
of Flight Lieutenant, and more than a decade before the first orbital rocket
flight, he published a technical paper, “Extraterrestrial Relays”, in <i>Wireless
World</i>, which became one of his most influential pieces of writing as in it
he was the first to propose (and describe) a geosynchronous communications
satellite. He discussed the possibility that radio signals could be bounced off
a satellite with a geosynchronous orbit, calculating that, at a height of 23,
000 miles above the Earth, an object could sustain a fixed position over one
particular place on the Earth. Clarke was paid £15 for his article, which
anticipated the age of satellite communications. Clarke’s lawyer, who insisted
it was too outlandish to be taken seriously, dissuaded him from patenting this
idea. Clarke subsequently wrote a book on this subject, with the subtitle <i>How
I Lost a Billion Dollars in My Spare Time</i>.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After the war Clarke entered King’s College
London, completing his BSc. degree with a First in Physics and Mathematics in 1948.<br />
<br />
In the
early 1950s Clarke discovered the southern oceans through scuba diving and in 1954
he moved to Sri Lanka, where he remained until his death in March 2008. This
interest represents another connection with Ian Fleming as he was also a keen
scuba diver who wrote evocative underwater scenes in novels like <i>Live and Let Die </i>(1954) and <i>Thunderball </i>(1961) and several of his short stories like ‘The
Hildebrand Rarity’ and ‘Octopussy.’ Clarke wrote several celebratory
non-fiction books about the ocean, namely <i>The Coast of Coral</i> (1956) and <i>Indian Ocean Adventure </i>(1961), which was written along with his diving partner, Mike
Wilson. The fiction of this period, such as <i>The Deep Range</i> (1957) also
reflected his new interest in the ocean. Clarke’s interest in scuba diving
enabled him to experience something of the weightlessness of outer space. He
established a deep-sea diving school in Sri Lanka, and he became an honoured
resident of the island and Chancellor of Moratuwa University. The diving
school, at Hikkaduwa, south of Colombo, was destroyed in the December 2004
tsunami and then rebuilt. It was Clarke’s collaboration with the film director
Stanley Kubrick, however, which really led to his extraordinary fame as a
science fiction writer and expert. When Kubrick asked him to expand his early
short story ‘The Sentinel’ (1951) the result was the film script of the
enormously successful <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i> (1968). Clarke simultaneously
fleshed out the story into a novel. In later years, Clarke became a household
name beyond the realm of science fiction after the release of his two series, <i>Arthur
C. Clarke’s Mysterious World</i> (1980) and <i>Arthur C. Clarke’s World of
Strange Powers</i> (1985). His appearances in these television series brought
him to a wider audience, which shared his fascination with the contemplation of
events and circumstances, which seemed to be scientifically intractable. Clarke
also provided the commentary for the American CBS television network on the
lunar flights of Apollos 11, 12 and 15. Clarke was appointed CBE (Commander of
the Order of the British Empire) in 1989 and knighted in 1998. Clarke had
become a semi-hermit in Colombo and during his latter years he was partially
immobilised in a wheelchair after contracting polio as a young man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Andrew Lycett’s biography of
Fleming contains further details and gives a conflicting account of Arthur C.
Clarke’s involvement which seems to contradict Chancellor:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
“To check technical details of
rocketry, Ian called on Writers’ and Speakers’ Research, the small agency set
up by Joan Bright and Joan Saunders, wife of another of his wartime NID
colleagues. They proposed he should get in touch with Arthur C. Clarke. But,
since Clarke was away in the United States, the British Interplanetary Society
suggested another scientist to cast his eye over the manuscript.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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(Andrew Lycett, <i>Ian Fleming</i>, Phoenix, London, 2002, p. 257.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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As Chancellor’s book lists
“Lycett, Andrew, <i>Ian Fleming</i>, Wiedenfield & Nicolson, 1995” in the
Bibliography of <i>James Bond: The Man and His World</i> at page 243, his information
on Arthur C. Clarke and <i>Moonraker</i> appears to have possibly been corrupted from
this original source, or perhaps it is from a letter Fleming received from
Arthur C. Clarke or the British Interplanetary Society, or even a copy of the
letter Fleming may have sent to Clarke. Chancellor’s book also contains a
photograph of space-related clippings collected by Fleming. One particular
picture of various satellites and spacecraft has the following text printed
below it:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“This selection of cross-sections
of satellites and other spacecraft features in a clipping collected by Fleming.
This is precisely the sort of technology that would appeal to the Bond villain,
and the later Bond films developed this further.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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(Henry Chancellor, <i>James Bond: The Man and His World: The Official Companion to Ian Fleming’s Creation</i>, John
Murray, London, 2005, p. 123.) <o:p></o:p></div>
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The next two pages contain a side
view and plan view photograph of a flying saucer. The text printed below the
flying saucer reads:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Fleming once interviewed the
French inventor Henri Coanda, a scientist who had successfully designed and
built a flying saucer, called a ‘lenticular aerodyne’ (above). It was powered
by achieving a vacuum around the edge of the wing – see opposite from above.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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(Henry Chancellor, <i>James Bond: The Man and His World:</i> <i>The Official Companion to Ian Fleming’s Creation</i>, John
Murray, London, 2005, pp. 124-5.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is clear from these
connections and the clippings he kept for inspiration, that Fleming had an
interest in space-age technology. The Space Race between the superpowers of the
United States and the Soviet Union was burgeoning alongside the Arms Race at
the time Fleming was writing <i>Moonraker</i>, so in this sense the novel was very
topical and played on the very real fears of nuclear annihilation held by
society at large. Although both Lycett and Chancellor give conflicting accounts
of Arthur C. Clarke’s involvement in Fleming’s research and writing of <i>Moonraker</i>, Clarke, or perhaps some other notable scientist or expert of the
time appear to have a small cameo in Fleming’s novel. When James Bond visits
the Ministry of Supply to study Major Tallon’s record there, Fleming describes
the expert Bond was assigned on rocket technology:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Then he had had an inadequate
half-hour in the Operations Room of the Ministry with Professor Train, a fat,
scruffy, undistinguished-looking man who had been runner-up for the Physics
Division of the Nobel Prize the year before and who was one of the greatest
experts on guided missiles in the world. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Professor Train had walked up to
a row of huge wall maps and had pulled down the cord of one of them. Bond was
faced with a ten-foot horizontal scale diagram of some thing that looked like a
V2 with big fins. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“Now,” said Professor Train, “you
know nothing about rockets so I’m going to put this in simple terms and not
fill you up with a lot of stuff about Nozzle Expansion Ratios, Exhaust Velocity,
and the Keplerian Ellipse. The Moonraker, as Drax chooses to call it, is a
single-stage rocket. It uses up all its fuel shooting itself into the air and
then it homes on to the objective. The V2’s trajectory was more like a shell
fired from a gun. At the top of its 200-mile flight it had climbed to about 70
miles. It was fuelled with a very combustible mixture of alcohol and liquid
oxygen which was watered down so as not to burn out the mild steel which was
all they were allocated for the engine. There are far more powerful fuels
available but until now we hadn’t been able to achieve very much with them for
the same reason, their combustion temperature is so high that they would burn
out the toughest engine.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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The professor paused and stuck a
finger in Bond’s chest.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“All you, my dear sir, have to
remember about this rocket is that, thanks to Drax’s Columbite, which has a
melting point of about 3500 degrees Centrigrade, compared with 1300 in the V2
engines, we can use one of the super fuels without burning out the engine. In
fact,” he looked at Bond as if Bond should be impressed, “we are using fluorine
and hydrogen.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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“Oh, really,” said Bond
reverently.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Professor looked at him
sharply. “So we hope to achieve a speed in the neighbourhood of 1500 miles an
hour and a vertical range of about 1000 miles. This should produce an
operational range of about 4000 miles, bringing every European capital within
reach of England. Very useful,” he added drily, “in certain circumstances. But,
for the scientists, chiefly desirable as a step towards escape from the earth.
Any questions?” <o:p></o:p></div>
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(Ian Fleming, <i>Moonraker</i>, Pan
Books Ltd., London, 1963, pp. 71-2.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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In this passage it is evident
that Fleming has copied almost verbatim the words of possibly Arthur C. Clarke,
or if Lycett’s account is correct, some other eminent scientist or expert in
the field from the British Interplanetary Society. Clarke was certainly
qualified to give expert advice to Fleming on the technical details of rocketry
in <i>Moonraker</i>. In 1961 he won the Unesco Kalinga Prize for his numerous factual books on popular-science, and later he won the American Association for the
Advancement of Science Westinghouse Award in 1969. This technical knowledge
also informed the narrative of his science fiction. In 1986 the Science Fiction
Writers of America made him a Nebula Awards Grand Master. The ‘Professor Train’
sequence from <i>Moonraker</i>, with its technical exposition on rocketry for Bond and
the reader, is like a blueprint for the Q/Bond scenes with Q the boffin giving
Bond the run-down on his various gadgetry and Bond being very flippant, rather
as the literary Bond is here at one point. There is a hint of this where in the
quoted passage above Bond reverently replies, “Oh, really” to Professor Train’s
imparted technical information. Perhaps this scene from <i>Moonraker</i> was as much
of a influence on the Q/Bond relationship in the films as the Major Boothroyd
‘Armourer’ character from the novel<i> Dr. No</i> was, who eventually developed into
Q, the head of Q Branch in the subsequent films after <i>Dr. No </i>(1962), as played
by Desmond Llewelyn. The relationship between Bond and an expert is certainly
similar in this sequence. <o:p></o:p></div>
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While it is unclear exactly
whether Arthur C. Clarke was involved in helping Ian Fleming get the technical
details correct in <i>Moonraker</i>, it is certainly an interesting fact that Fleming
was referred to him as an expert and may well have decided to embellish his
information in a character called ‘Professor Train’ in an amusing, but also
informative sequence from his third Bond novel which may have been a literary
influence for the later Q/Bond sequences from the Bond films. It also shows
Fleming’s dedication to his writing and his desire to represent technical and
scientific information in an accurate and believable way, to ease the reader
into Bond’s more outlandish world, in much the same way as he used famous brand
names to also ease the reader into Bond’s world. It remains a “mysterious”
chapter of the already fascinating history of the <i>Moonraker</i> novel, and the
discrepancy between the accounts of Lycett and Chancellor does not provide a
definite confirmation of Arthur C. Clarke’s involvement in Ian Fleming’s <i>Moonraker</i>. The truth surrounding his involvement in <i>Moonraker</i> therefore remains
a mystery worthy of <i>Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World</i>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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[The Sir Arthur C. Clarke
biographical details are taken from the Obituaries for the author printed in <i>The
Times </i>(pp. 76-7), Thursday 20 March 2008,<i> </i>and <i>The Independent </i>(pp.
50-1), Thursday 20 March 2008.]<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><br /></b>
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<b><i>This article is dedicated to the memory of Sir Arthur C. Clarke who was born in
Minehead, Somerset on 16 December 1917, and died in Colombo, Sri Lanka on 19
March 2008, aged 90.</i><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><u>TBB Article No. 4</u></b><br />
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<br /></div>
<b> © </b><b>The Bondologist Blog, 2008</b><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10pt;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">
Macintyre, Ben, ‘A man on the Moon? It was all thanks to H.G. Wells,’ <i>The
Times</i>, Friday 21 March 2008, p. 23.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</div>
The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-22585321800375194742012-08-14T22:00:00.004+01:002020-11-04T13:20:28.084+00:00The Disbanding of the Double-O Section first mentioned in Ian Fleming's Goldfinger (1959)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
John Gardner is often criticised by Bond fans for making so many changes to the character of the literary James Bond during his tenure as continuation Bond novelist. These changes range from Bond gradually cutting down on his alcohol intake and cigarette smoking, his promotion from the rank of Commander to Captain in the Royal Navy in <i>Win, Lose or Die</i> (1989), his drinking of tea and beer, and towards the end of his run, the replacement of M’s department with Microglobe One in <i>SeaFire</i> (1994). The disbandment of the Double-O Section reported in Gardner’s first Bond novel, <i>Licence Renewed</i> (1981) is probably the most striking change, which Gardner made initially, however. In the Fleming novels, the Double-O Section of the British Secret Intelligence Service contained a relatively small group of agents who were ‘licensed to kill in the line of duty.’ This ‘licence to kill’ is the very <i>raison d’étre</i> for Bond’s existence. It gave Bond the power to kill on a mission, which was a very fundamental and responsible, and some might even say evil power, which, placed in the wrong hands could lead to disaster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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In LICENCE RENEWED Gardner tries to make his version of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service more in line with real-world intelligence services, telling of the Realignment Purge of 1979 which put paid to the Double-O Section:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“‘Changing world; changing times, James,’ M had said to him a couple of years ago, when breaking the news that the élite Double-O status – which meant being licensed to kill in the line of duty – was being abolished. ‘Fools of politicians have no idea of our requirements. Have us punching time clocks before long.’<o:p></o:p></div>
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This was during the so-called Realignment Purge, often referred to in the Service as the SNAFU <b>[which stands for "Situation Normal All F****d Up"] </b>Slaughter, similar to the C.I.A.’s famous Hallowe’en Massacre, in which large numbers of faithful members of the American service had been dismissed, literally overnight. Similar things had happened in Britain, with financial horns being pulled in, and what a pompous Whitehall directive called ‘a more realistic logic being enforced upon the Secret and Security Services.’<o:p></o:p></div>
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‘Trying to draw our fangs, James,’ M had continued on that depressing day. Then, with one of those rare smiles which seemed to light up the deep grey eyes, M grunted that Whitehall had taken on the wrong man while he was still in charge. ‘As far as I’m concerned, 007, you will remain 007. I shall take full responsibility for you; and you will, as ever, accept orders and assignments only from me. There are moments when this country needs a trouble-shooter – a blunt instrument – and by heaven it’s going to have one. They can issue their pieces of bumf and abolish the Double-O section. We can simply change its name. It will now be the Special Section, and <i>you </i>are it. Understand, 007?’<o:p></o:p></div>
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‘Of course, sir.’ Bond remembered smiling. In spite of M’s brusque and often uncompromising attitude, Bond loved him as a father. To 007, M <i>was </i>the Service, and the Service was Bond’s life. After all, what M suggested was exactly what the Russians had done with his old enemies SMERSH – <i>Smyert Shpionam</i>, Death to Spies. They still existed, the dark core at the heart of the K.G.B, having gone through a whole gamut of metamorphoses, becoming the O.K.R, then the Thirteenth Department of Line F and now, Department Viktor.” (<i>Licence Renewed</i>, John Gardner, Coronet Books, 1982, pp. 17-18.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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There is further mention made of this meeting where M had given Bond the news that the Double-O Section was to be disbanded in Gardner’s third continuation Bond novel, <i>Icebreaker</i> (1983):<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Even though the old élite Double-O section, with its attendant ‘licence to kill in the course of duty’, had now been phased out of the Service, Bond still found himself stuck with the role of 007. The gruff Chief of Service known to all as M had been most specific about it. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you will remain 007. I shall take full responsibility for you, and you will, as ever, accept orders and assignments only from me. There are moments when this country needs a trouble-shooter – a blunt instrument – and by Jove it’s going to have one.’<o:p></o:p></div>
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In more official terms, Bond was what the American Service speaks of as a ‘singleton’ – a roving case officer who is given free rein to carry out special tasks, such as the ingenious undercover work he had undertaken during the Falklands Islands conflict in 1982.” (‘Icebreaker,’ John Gardner, Coronet Books, London, 1984, p. 21)<o:p></o:p></div>
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As can be seen from the earlier similar passage quoted from <i>Licence Renewed</i> dealing with Bond’s unofficial troubleshooting, Gardner has actually misquoted M, by having him say ‘by Jove’ instead of ‘by heaven.’<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is interesting that in Chapter 5 of Ian Fleming’s <i>Goldfinger</i> (1959), entitled ‘Night Duty’ the politicians of the 1950s were also considering the disbandment of the Double-O Section:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“‘You’ll soon pick it up,’ M had said unsympathetically. ‘If you get in trouble there are the duty section officers or the Chief of Staff – or me, for the matter of that.’ (Bond had smiled at the thought of waking M up in the middle of the night because some man in Cairo or Tokyo was in a flap.) ‘Anyway, I’ve decided. I want all senior officers to do their spell of routine.’ M had looked frostily across at Bond. ‘Matter of fact, 007, I had the Treasury on to me the other day. Their liaison man thinks that the double-O section is redundant. Says that kind of thing is out of date. I couldn’t bother to argue’ – M’s voice was mild. ‘Just told him he was mistaken.’ (Bond could visualize the scene.) ‘However, won’t do any harm for you to have some extra duties now you’re back in London. Keep you from getting stale.’” (<i>Goldfinger</i>, Ian Fleming, Pan Books Ltd., 1965, p. 43)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Perhaps this short passage from <i>Goldfinger</i> was where Gardner would later get the inspiration to disband the Double-O Section and have Bond continuing his role as ‘007’ in the ‘Special Section.’ It is more likely, though, that this change was a result of the Glidrose policy that requested that Bond be transported from where Fleming left him in the 1960s to the 1980s, with all of the tradecraft he would have acquired knowledge of and the attendant changes to the secret service that had occurred in the interim. Gardner introduced a more realistic take on the secret services from the very beginning of his tenure as Bond continuation author, featuring the head of MI5, Special Branch and having the real French secret service instead of the Deuxiéme Bureau, for instance. It does, however, provide some justification for Gardner disbanding the Double-O Section as Fleming had made mention of the belief held by the Treasury official that the Double-O Section was an unnecessary diversion of government funding which should be removed. Considering that the Double-O Section was under threat from the Treasury in 1958/9, it is perhaps not surprising that M was forced to abolish the Double-O Section in 1979, two years before the events of <i>Licence Renewed</i>. He had clearly held back the forces of the purse string for long enough, at some twenty years! It is revealing that there was at least some justification provided by Bond’s creator for Gardner, the continuation author, to make what seems like such a fundamental change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><b><u>TBB Article No. 3</u></b></span></div>
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<o:p></o:p><br />
<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: start;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2007.</b></div>
The Bondologist Blog http://www.blogger.com/profile/03877901404588318838noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942111195746710054.post-86295907134688498452012-08-13T17:40:00.002+01:002020-11-04T13:21:49.526+00:00Ian Fleming's "Thrilling" Inspiration for Roald Dahl's You Only Live Twice (1967)<div class="bbc_center"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="bbc_underline">It is a salient fact that it is difficult to see very much
of the influence of the work of the late Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, in
the Eon Productions film version of <i>You Only Live Twice</i> (1967). It bears
virtually no resemblance to the Fleming penultimate novel of the same name,
published in 1964, the same year in which Fleming died of a heart attack on 12
August. The first four films; <i>Dr No</i> (1962), <i>From Russia with Love</i>
(1963), <i>Goldfinger</i> (1964) and <i>Thunderball</i> (1965) had all
generally been quite faithful to their Fleming source material, although there
was the noticeable intrusion of set pieces and outlandish gadgetry from the
third film, <i>Goldfinger</i>, onwards. Despite this, the first four James Bond
films would have been recognisable to any reader of the Fleming Bond novels as
more or less straight adaptations from the page to the screen, with a few
amendments in plot and dialogue and added action sequences and gadgetry. It
probably appeared to Fleming aficionados that this pattern of relatively
faithful adaptations of the James Bond novels would continue well into the
1960s, and this would have been true, had it not been for Eon Productions’
decision to discard virtually all of the content of Fleming’s 1964 Bond novel,
extracting only a modicum of the elements of the plot. The first scriptwriter
was Harold Jack Bloom, who replaced the usual Bond scriptwriter Richard Maibaum
and he was credited with only “additional story material.” When Bloom left the
project the producers hired a friend of Ian Fleming’s, Roald Dahl (the
Welsh-born children’s author and purveyor of adult macabre tales with an ironic
or blackly comic twist, of Norwegian descent), in place of the usual
scriptwriter Richard Maibaum and to write a completely new script at extreme
variance with Fleming’s original, admittedly rather odd and sadly un-cinematic,
novel. Fleming’s original novel had concerned James Bond being sent on a
diplomatic mission to Japan to retrieve a MAGIC 44 cipher (a literary example
of Hitchcock’s famous MacGuffin – a faceless device used by the author to gain
entry into the plot) vital to British interests from the Japanese Secret Service,
in exchange for helping the Japanese with a rather curious and indeed bizarre
problem in their own backyard. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="bbc_underline">Half of the novel is a travelogue around Japan and the
customs and traditions of its evaporating culture as it entered into the 1960s
and the increasing Americanisation of its society. Notably Fleming had, the
year before, in 1963 published a book of collected travel writing entitled <i>Thrilling
Cities</i>, from trips around the world reporting for the <i>Sunday Times</i>
in 1959 and 1960. A large part of one chapter of <i>You Only Live Twice </i>simply
listed, in botanical textbook-like fashion, no less than twenty-two different
types of poisonous flowers, plants and trees with which a certain Dr Guntram
Shatterhand had populated his “Garden of Death”, which surrounded his Japanese
“Castle of Death”. This “Garden of Death” was the polar opposite of the
Biblical perfect Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve before the Fall of Man, after
they ate of the fruit of the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The purpose of this “lovesome spot” was to entice the notoriously suicidal
Japanese population into a garden of suicidal delights, where there were also
boiling mud fumaroles, poisonous snakes and piranha fish occupying the castle’s
moat. It was a veritable anti-Eden; a dystopia of mammoth proportions, a Hell
on Earth created by an evil genius that had tipped over into utter madness and
insanity. James Bond’s task, taking his orders from ‘Tiger’ Tanaka, the Head of
the Japanese Secret Service, the <i>Koan-Chosa-Kyoku</i>, is to “enter this
Castle of Death and slay the Dragon within”. The plot of Fleming’s <i>You Only
Live Twice</i> takes an unexpected twist when Dr Shatterhand and his female
companion are revealed to Bond in police-held photographs to be none other than
the internationally wanted Ernst Stavro Blofeld and Fraulien Irma Bunt. Blofeld
was the head of the now defunct international criminal organisation SPECTRE and
the murderer of Tracy Bond, Bond’s bride of just a few hours in the previous
novel, <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i> (1963). Irma Bunt, who also
appeared in <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i>, is his dumpy lover, later
seen by Bond in a Japanese suit of armour and with a resplendent butterfly net
hat. Blofeld also appears in a full Japanese suit of armour, complete with
samurai sword. The idea of wearing the armour is to protect the two villains
from the many lethal inhabitants of their poisonous garden creation. James
Bond’s mission to remove a thorn in the Japanese government’s side immediately
turns into a vendetta against Blofeld and Bunt. Bond gladly takes on the
mission with a renewed determination to avenge his late bride and to deal a
fatal blow to the man who had been his enemy on two different missions,
recorded in <i>Thunderball </i>(1961) and <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i>
(1963). Bond succeeds in penetrating the poison garden and the castle and
against the odds he kills Blofeld with his bare hands and leaves Bunt
unconscious in the castle where he mechanically stops the underground lava
eruptions, which occur at a point in the castle every fifteen minutes. Bond
escapes the castle by cutting a foothold into the material of the warning sign
banner attached to the castle with Blofeld’s sword and cutting its mooring so
that he drifts away by hanging onto the helium balloon that held the sign in
place. Bond is shot in the side of the head as he drifts away on the warning
sign attached to the helium balloon. As a result of this, Bond loses his
memory, and stays with the love interest in the novel, Kissy Suzuki, living the
simple life of a Japanese fisherman called Taro Todoroki, until he realises his
past life had a lot to do with Russia, and Kissy Suzuki sends him on his way
there, with a brainwashed Bond returning to his old self after an assassination
attempt on M in the next and final Bond novel in the series, <i>The Man with
the Golden Gun</i> (1965). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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The film version of <i>You Only Live Twice</i>, released
just three years after the publication of the novel in 1967, bears very little
resemblance to the plot of the novel. In fact, it is one of the most divergent
James Bond films from its source material, along with <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i>
(1977) and <i>Moonraker </i>(1979). Both films were like <i>You Only Live Twice</i>,
also directed by Lewis Gilbert. Part of this was due to the fact that the
producers of the film, Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, found that the feudal
Japanese did not built their castles near the sea as they were prone to damage
from typhoons coming in from the coast – rather they had built them inland.
This meant Blofeld’s Garden of Death and Castle of Death were now a dead
letter, and using a recognisance flight they looked for another suitable
location such as the volcanoes of Japan. From <i>You Only Live Twice</i>
onwards (with the exception of the faithful adaptation of <i>On Her Majesty’s
Secret Service</i> in 1969) the James Bond films of the 1970s became ever more
divergent from their Fleming source material, and with the increasing budgets
from the studio, the stunts and action sequences and gadgetry became ever more
extravagant and outrageous in nature and less and less recognisable to the
Fleming reader. As a character construct James Bond became less and less the
focus of attention but merely a catalyst for the outlandish plot of the
villains and for the breathtaking stunts. The new scriptwriter Roald Dahl wrote
an entirely new story, replacing the bizarre plot of the novel with something
Bond film-going audiences would find more familiar. Dahl is on record as saying
that Fleming’s <i>You Only Live Twice</i> was “tired”, “bad” and “Ian’s worst
book.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">1</span></a> Dahl also said “<i>You Only Live Twice</i>
was the only Fleming book that had virtually no semblance of a plot that could
be made into a movie. The concept of Blofeld patrolling his garden of poisonous
plants in a medieval suit of armor [<i>sic</i>] and lopping off the heads of
half-blinded Japanese was ridiculous. When I began the script, I could retain
only four or five of the original novel’s story ideas. Obviously, the movie had
to take place in Japan. We kept Blofeld and Tiger Tanaka and Bond’s pearl-diving
girlfriend, Kissy Suzuki. And we retained the Ninjas – those masters of
oriental martial arts who use their talents to raid Blofeld’s hideout. But
aside from those bits, I had nothing except a wonderful Ian Fleming title.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">2</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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The plot of the film version of <i>You Only Live Twice</i>
concerned the hijacking of United States and Soviet space rockets using a
rocket which opened up at its nose and swallowed them like a space age shark,
bringing the rocket and the crew back into a hollowed out dormant Japanese
volcanic lair in an effort to start World War III. The international criminal
and terrorist organisation SPECTRE (the Special Executive for
Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) is behind the scheme for
world domination, with the (presumed) backing of the communist government of
Red China (a world nuclear power since October 1964). Red China had much to
gain from pitting the two world superpowers, the United States and the Soviet
Union, against each other to provoke a nuclear war with the inevitable outcome
of mutually assured destruction (or MAD for short) and with Red China becoming
an ascendant new superpower arising in the East to dominate world politics and
to plan world condominium. SPECTRE was the vassal for hire through which Red China
pitted the two remaining world superpowers were set to destroy each other in a
nuclear war, in much the same way as the Quantum organisation was for hire to
restore dictatorships and organise “regime change” in the new series of James
Bond films starring Daniel Craig as Ian Fleming’s secret agent. The film
version of <i>You Only Live Twice</i> has only basic elements taken from
Fleming’s novel, such as the characters of Kissy Suzuki, ‘Tiger’ Tanaka, Dikko
Henderson and Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The Japanese location is of course used, as
are Tiger’s ninjas and the idea of the oubliette Bond falls down as he runs
after Japanese secret agent Aki, in his first meeting with ‘Tiger’ Tanaka comes
from the one in Blofeld’s “Castle of Death”. The Japanese castle is replaced
with a hollowed out volcano containing a military base, a rocket launching pad
and a space rocket capable of swallowing other space rockets, conveyed into
place by a monorail. The rocket is able to return to its volcano base with
either the United States or Soviet rocket inside it. Roald Dahl had taken his
plot from the newspapers of the day, with the Cold War heating up again with
the contemporary Space Race, replacing the Arms Race, between the United States
and Soviet Russia well under way.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The plot of the film is pure science fiction fantasy with
a megalomaniac villain trying to pit the two world superpowers together for his
own nefarious ends. Fleming has the Japanese “Castle of Death” dissolve due to
Bond’s turning on of the lava eruption lock valve below the stone floor of the
castle in ‘The Question Room’, causing the necessary pressure to make a
volcanic eruption occur, This in turn destroys the castle from inside with the
resultant eruption of molten lava. Fleming describes how the castle “swayed in
the moonlight and seemed to jig upwards and sideways and then slowly dissolve
like an icecream cone in sunshine.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">3</span></a> This
ending of the novel mirrors Dahl’s decision to have Blofeld use a self-destruct
lever to explode the inside of his volcano, thus triggering a volcanic
eruption, when his volcano is compromised by Bond and Tiger’s ninja army.
Piranha fish also appear in both the novel and film versions. The opening
sequence also has James Bond apparently “killed” by some Japanese gunmen who
fire into his upturned bed, perhaps inspired by Bond’s “missing, presumed dead”
<i>Times</i> obituary written by M which features in a late chapter of
Fleming’s source novel. Other Fleming elements that were retained in the film
version of <i>You Only Live Twice </i>were Bond’s makeover to fit in as a
Japanese citizen and the Ama fishing community with diving girls like Kissy.
There were also nominal references to the traditional role of men and women in
Japanese society and the use of the ON code of honour. Apart from these disparate
elements, the finished film bore very little resemblance to Fleming’s source
novel, being the first, and certainly not the last, to take the title of a
Fleming Bond novel and very little else besides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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It is rather disappointing that Roald Dahl felt the need
to divert the screenplay so far from the novel. Dahl was surely one to
appreciate the macabre gothic horror aspects of Fleming’s fiendish imagination.
<i>You Only Live Twice</i> holds the place of the darkest and most morbid
novel, not surprising given Fleming’s poor state of health at the time he was
researching and writing it Dahl took only some of the ideas from the script
work already done by Harold Jack Bloom and wrote his own original script.
However, such a divergent approach was probably inevitable. The previous film,
the gadget-laden <i>Thunderball </i>had a plot concerning a hijacked British
Vulcan bomber and its lethal atomic cargo. Following this with a screenplay
about a Japanese suicide garden and castle would probably not have went down
well with audiences in the firm grip of Bondmania. Roald Dahl’s blackly comic
and ironical adult stories, later immortalised (and introduced by Dahl himself)
in such television adaptations as the anthology series <i>Way Out</i> and <i>Tales
of the Unexpected</i>, were in their own way just as bizarre and macabre as
what Fleming’s imagination conjured up in <i>You Only Live Twice</i>. Fleming
had given Dahl the idea for his famous short story called “Lamb to the
Slaughter”, published in a collection in 1953, and which was later on several
occasions adapted for television. <i>You Only Live Twice</i> is arguably one of
Fleming’s finest novels, precisely because it is so uniquely different from the
other Bond novels, and this is sadly what also made it so un-filmable in the
late 1960s, as it would represent a formula piece of “the same mixture as
before”. The lack of fidelity with the Bond novels of Ian Fleming
notwithstanding, there has been a Fleming inspiration for the film version of <i>You
Only Live Twice</i> which has never (as far as this writer is aware) been
acknowledged, and which makes one feel that perhaps the plot of the film
version of <i>You Only Live Twice</i> would surprisingly have met with some
recognition from Fleming. It is impossible to know if Roald Dahl ever read
Fleming’s non-fiction travel book <i>Thrilling Cities</i> (1963), but if he had
they would surely have found inspiration for their plot about a rocket hidden
in a hollowed out volcano with a man-made crater moving roof. In <i>Thrilling
Cities</i>, in the chapter on the capital city of Berlin, Fleming (normally a
Teutonophile) concludes his thoughts with the following passage:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I left Berlin without regret.
From this grim capital went forth the orders that in 1917 killed my father and
in 1940 my youngest brother. In contra-distinction to Hamburg and so many other
German towns, it is only in Berlin and in the smoking cities of the Ruhr that I
think I see, against my will, the sinister side of the German nation. In these
two regions I smell the tension and hysteria that breed the things we have suffered
from Germany in two great wars and that, twice in my lifetime, have got my
country to her knees. In these places I have a recurrent waking nightmare: it
is ten, twenty, fifty years later in the Harz Mountains, or in the depths of
the Black Forest. The whole of a green and smiling field slides silently back
to reveal the dark mouth of a great subterranean redoubt. With a whine of
thousands of horsepower, behind a mass of brilliant machinery (brainchildren of
Krupp, Siemens, Zeiss and all the others) the tip of a gigantic rocket emerges
above the surrounding young green trees. England has rejected the ultimatum.
First there is a thin trickle of steam from the rocket exhausts and then a
great belch of flame, and slowly, very slowly, the rocket climbs off its
underground launching pad. And then it is on its way. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Yes, it was obviously time for
me to leave Berlin.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">4</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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As Fleming notes he had
lost his father, Major Valentine Fleming MP in World War I in 1917 and his
brother Michael Fleming in World War II in 1940, so one can understand his
mistrust of the Prussian militaristic strain which then still existed in
Germany (there are even worrying remnants of this type of Germany today, such
as the neo-Nazis, as well as neo-Fascists in Italy). The idea of a whole green
field sliding back to reveal the dark mouth of a subterranean redoubt and with
a launch pad a missile aimed at England sounds remarkably similar to the film
version of You Only Live Twice. Its plot concerns the crater of a Japanese
volcano sliding back to reveal a subterranean base filled with armed guards, a
control room and a launching pad for a rocket, which is capable of swallowing
other rockets in space. The intention of this is to pit the two superpowers
against each other in order to start a nuclear holocaust between the United
States and Soviet Russia, leaving SPECTRE and their Japanese allies in charge
of what is left of the world. The plot of the film version of <i>You Only Live
Twice</i> is essentially of the same type as what Fleming describes as being in
his nightmares – that of a resurgent Germany able to threaten Europe and the
world again in the passage from <i>Thrilling Cities</i>. Whether Dahl ever read
<i>Thrilling Cities</i> one can never know, but it is at least feasible that
this interesting passage from Fleming’s travel book could have been at the back
of his mind when he sat down to write the screenplay for a film that, at first
glance, has so very little to do with the work of Ian Fleming. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Fleming’s mistrust of
the divided Berlin, a miniature model of how Germany was divided between the
Allied powers and the Soviets reflected contemporary British public opinion.
Even though post-war Germany was weakened and divided, the memory of the Blitz
on UK cities by the German Luftwaffe in 1940-41 and the German V-1 and V-2
rockets aimed at London and other British cities in 1944-45 were still fresh in
the minds of the British population in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In this
backdrop, it was no surprise that Fleming wrote <i>Moonraker</i>, partly as a
polemic against the Prussian militaristic side of Germany, which interestingly
fell within the Soviet sphere of influence in East Germany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The film <i>Seven Days to Noon</i> (1950) was
one of the first to deal with the fear of nuclear weapons in the post-war
world, with a plot involving a nuclear device being planted in London by a mad
scientist and the attempts of the authorities to track him and the atomic
device down. Interestingly, the screenplay of the film was written by Paul
Dehn, who later worked on the script of <i>Goldfinger</i> with Richard Maibaum.
Though there is no evidence for it, Fleming may well have been inspired by <i>Seven
Days to Noon</i> to write <i>Moonraker</i>, his third and arguably finest Bond
novel, also involving an attempted nuclear attack on London. Fleming is on record
as having said that the novel came from a film idea about updated V-2 rockets
and the Blades gambling scene and other early parts of the novel were tacked
onto this film idea, for which Fleming had written a film script. The novel <i>Moonraker</i>
was the result of an adaptation of the film script into prose. Although Germany
was weakened by the carve-up between the British, French and American
controlled sectors on the West German side and the Soviet controlled sector on
the East German side it was typical of the generation that had experienced the
World Wars to be sceptical about a new peaceable Germany emerging. Fleming’s <i>Moonraker</i>
was published in 1955, just ten years after World War II, the most destructive
war in human history. <i>Moonraker </i>features a rabid Nazi, who sponsored by
the Soviets, plans to target a nuclear missile, the eponymous <i>Moonraker </i>on
the centre of London as revenge for the Allied victory over Germany in the last
war. The supposed war hero, Sir Hugo “Hugger” Drax was revealed to be firstly a
cad as a card cheat in the gentleman’s club Blades (the crime that brought him
to the attention of the British Secret Service and M and Bond). Secondly, he is
also revealed to be a lunatic Nazi, masquerading as a British war hero under
the identity of a dead man, after his own German bomb destroyed his face and he
feigned a loss of memory. In reality Sir Hugo Drax is Graf Hugo von der Drache,
a German Count who had fought in World War II as a committed and now post-war
embittered Nazi. This aspect of a Nazi con man pulling the wool over the eyes
of the British establishment fitted in with the paranoia that the two World
Wars had created in post-war Britain in the late 1940s and the 1950s. In <i>Moonraker</i>,
there is an interesting exchange between James Bond (“<i>die Englander</i>”)
and the newly revealed German Nazi Graf Hugo von der Drache after he had
delivered to his captive audience his remarkable life story and explained his
finely wrought plan to destroy London:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“You can spare us the
jokes,” said Bond roughly. “Get on with your story, Kraut.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Drax’s eyes blazed
momentarily. “A Kraut. Yes, I am indeed a <i>Reichsdeutscher </i>– the mouth
beneath the red moustache savoured the fine word – “and even England will soon
agree that they have been licked by just one single German. And then perhaps
they’ll stop calling us Krauts – BY ORDER!” The words were yelled out and the
whole of Prussian militarism was in the parade-ground bellow.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">5</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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This sums up the
post-war consensus on Germany – that it had to be weakened and controlled by
United States and Soviet occupation and de-nazified, to use the American
expression. During World War II there were many rumours of the creation of a
super weapon by the Nazis, most notably the attempts by the Germans to create a
nuclear weapon by splitting the atom, using experiments with “heavy water” in
Norway. There were also rumours in the latter stages of the war that the
Germans had created a “Death Ray” or other fantastic weapon that would wipe out
vast swathes of the Allied armies in its wake. There was also the suggestion
that Hitler would attach a giant magnifying glass to an airship in order to
magnify the sun’s rays and to harness this vast destructive power to destroy
American cities with a “Sun Gun” and force the withdrawal of the Americans from
the war (cf. <i>Diamonds Are Forever</i> in 1971, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Man with the Golden Gun</i> in 1974 and <i>Die Another Day</i> in
2002). In the latter stages of the war, when the tide was turning against the
Axis powers of Germany, Italy, Japan and their satellite allies, Hitler and his
Italian ally Mussolini held on to the ludicrous hope that a “Death Ray” or some
such other weapon, like the more credible nuclear bomb would be developed in
time to destroy the approaching Allied forces. These weapons all smacked of
science fiction and such rumours as the “Death Ray” proved to be unfounded
examples of the now lunatic Hitler and Mussolini clutching at straws, although
the belief in the possibility of such fantastic weapons in the age of the <i>Blitzkrieg
</i>was rife in the British population also. There were also rumours in the
aftermath of the war that Hitler was still alive, and rather than having
committed suicide in the Berlin bunker on 30 April 1945 as he was surrounded by
the Red Army, he had escaped by submarine to somewhere in South America.
Hitler’s right hand man, Martin Bormann, had never been found when he escaped
from the Berlin bunker shortly after Hitler’s suicide. There were rumours that
he too had escaped Germany and also fled to South America (his skeletal remains
were later found by workmen digging a hole in December 1972 and it is believed
he was killed in May 1945 in an explosion from a Soviet shell.) In “The Eagle’s
Nest”, the first episode of <i>The New Avengers</i> written by Brian Clemens
there is a plot to revive the comatose body of Adolf Hitler using suspended
animation after his body was recovered from a plane which crashed in 1945 on
the lonely island of St Dorca containing “Germany’s greatest treasure”. The
island contained Nazis wanting to create a new Third Reich, but of course the
rather fantastic plot is foiled when Trasker, the main villain is shot and his
finger pulls the trigger of the machine gun he is holding, with some bullets
entering the comatose body of Hitler, thus dashing any hopes of a new Third
Reich.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn6" name="_ednref6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">6</span></a> <i>The Boys From Brazil</i>, a novel by
Ira Levin and later a film mines similar territory, as does Robert Harris’ <i>Fatherland</i>,
featuring the dystopia of a Nazi Germany that had won World War II and with
Adolf Hitler celebrating his seventy-fifth birthday in 1964. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It could be said that <i>Moonraker</i>,
with a plot involving a German Nazi posing as a successful English businessman
and philanthropist, seemingly donating a test rocket with nuclear capability
called the Moonraker for the defence of the realm, fed into this hysteria. In
some ways it was the British equivalent of the “Reds under the beds” Communism
scare initiated by Senator McCarthy in the United States in the McCarthyism
over-the-top conspiracy theories of the 1950s. Instead of the Moonraker
rocket’s expected test flight with the tip of the rocket containing harmless
flight test equipment, Drax had instead covertly placed a Soviet atomic warhead
in the rocket nose. The flight test equipment had in exchange been couriered to
the Soviets who, as a former combatant against Nazi Germany are ironically now
employing the ex-Nazi Drax to make a nuclear strike against the Unites States’
key ally in Europe. Drax’s intention is to decimate London and its environs
with a nuclear missile strike in revenge for Germany’s defeat at the hands of
the British and Americans. It is also Drax’s personal revenge, as a
half-English, half-German man who was embittered as one of his own German
planes had bombed him and he had been taken, in his British uniform disguise to
the hospital he had planted a bomb at, which then exploded with him in it,
causing his face to be so badly destroyed that he had to receive rather botched
plastic surgery. Medical procedures such as plastic surgery had become more
advanced sadly de to necessity as a result of the turning point of the war
itself and the horrific injuries military and civilians received. Fleming is
almost poetic in his language when he is referring to the potential nuclear
catastrophe that awaits the population of London:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“There the gleaming
rocket stood, beautiful, innocent, like a new toy for Cyclops.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But there was a
horrible smell of chemicals in the air and to Bond the Moonraker was a giant
hypodermic needle ready to be plunged into the heart of England. Despite a
growl from Krebs he paused on the stairway and looked up at its glittering
nose. A million deaths. A million. A million. A million. <o:p></o:p></div>
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On his hands?
For God’s sake! On <i>his</i> hands?”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_edn7" name="_ednref7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">7</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Fleming’s sixth
Bond novel <i>Dr. No</i> (1958) featured a plot involving the attempted
toppling of American space rockets by a mysterious half-Chinese, half-German
called Dr Julius No who operated from the island base of Crab Key off Jamaica.
This novel formed the basis for the first James Bond film released in Britain
on 5 October 1962, just over a week before the events of the Cuban Missile
Crisis, which was the hottest that the Cold War ever got between the United
States and the Soviets. It is interesting that the producers chose <i>Dr. No</i>
as the basis for their first film, after they had rejected <i>Thunderball</i>
(1961) due to intellectual property legal wrangles surrounding the novel
involving Fleming, Jack Whittingham and Kevin McClory. These legal wrangles
were not properly resolved until a High Court case in the following year, where
McClory received the film rights to the 1961 novel, on which Fleming,
Whittingham and he had contributed ideas when it had originated as a James Bond
film script in 1959. Fleming claimed that he had merely written the novel that
the film was to be based on. As a result, <i>Dr. No</i> became the first James
Bond film and, with the possible exception of <i>Goldfinger</i> (1959)
involving a raid on the gold held at Fort Knox, it was one of the most
outlandish of all of Fleming’s Bond novels. It featured Bond going through a
human endurance test, through tunnels containing spiders, vast heat and in the
end up a fight with a giant squid. Although the budget of <i>Dr No</i> was too
small to allow of such extravagances, it helped to set the Bond films on their
more outlandish path. This eventually led to the producers and scriptwriters
feeling that they had to constantly outdo the last James Bond film in terms of
set pieces and daring stunts. It also led to the fantastic plots like
attempting to start World War III (the shared “any old plot in a storm” linking
<i>You Only Live Twice</i>, <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i> and <i>Tomorrow Never
Dies</i>) or to annihilate the entire human race on Earth and repopulate it
from space in a neo-Hitler fashion (<i>Moonraker</i>). Space age science
fiction style plots also feature in several other Bond films. <i>Diamonds Are
Forever</i> (1971) had a diamond-encrusted satellite laser used to threaten the
United States into nuclear disarmament. <i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i>
(1974) similarly had a solar power cell weapon run by the MacGuffin the Solex
Agitator. <i>GoldenEye</i> (1995) featured a stolen Russian satellite space
weapon used to try to destroy London with an electromagnetic pulse. <i>Die
Another Day</i> also featured a sun-powered satellite laser called <i>Icarus</i>,
used to attempt to destroy the border between North Korea and South Korea, so
that South Korea could be overrun by North Korean troops. The film is based on <i>Moonraker</i>,
with a villain called Sir Gustav Graves, who is in fact the North Korean
Colonel Moon, changed into a Caucasian Englishman with the help of cutting edge
technology, in much the same way as Graf Hugo von der Drache was changed by
explosions and botched plastic surgery into the English war hero Sir Hugo Drax.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">It is interesting to note that even the most
outlandish of the Bond films, such as <em>You Only Live Twice</em>, which is
wildly divergent from its novel source, has a precedent in the imagination of
Ian Fleming himself. This influence turns up not in a Bond novel, but in the
most unlikely place of a non-fiction travel book, appropriately entitled <em>Thrilling
Cities</em>. There is surely much else in the journalism of Ian Fleming from
which one could tease out influrences in his later James Bond novels and the
James Bond films. This is why an affordable version of <i>Talk of the Devil</i>
(Queen Anne Press, 2008) released in Ian Fleming’s Centenary Year should be
released, so that aficiandos can savour all of these hitherto unknown
influences. This is also why Ian Fleming should never be overshadowed by the
“Frankenstein's Monster” of the James Bond films. Fleming was the character’s
progenitor and without his brilliant imagination there would be no James Bond
in print or in film.</span> The James Bond universe owes much to its creator
and even in its most offbeat and outlandish elements the Fleming influence
shines through. Of course the Bond films have long since eclipsed their creator
and many of them bare very little resemblance to the work of Ian Fleming, but
in every film there are at least a few elements which recall the creator’s
work. An interesting case in point is the film version of <i>You Only Live
Twice</i>. One feels that if Fleming had lived to see the film version of <i>You
Only Live Twice</i> he would not have been so disappointed by it as one might
imagine. Although the film and novel are wildly divergent, they are in their
own way both part of Fleming’s vibrant imagination, whether in one of his
fiction or non-fiction books. The film version of <i>You Only Live Twice</i>,
for long thought of as the film which started the break away from the novels as
source material for the Bond films has all along contained a Fleming link that
has went unacknowledged for too long. This untold Fleming <i>Thrilling Cities</i>
influence on the film of <i>You Only Live Twice</i> deserves to finally be
acknowledged by Bond aficionados and scholars as an interesting footnote in
James Bond film history. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<b><u>TBB Article No. 2</u></b><br />
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<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<b style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">© The Bondologist Blog, 2012.</b><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">1</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Donald
Sturrock, <i>Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl</i>, (Harper Press, London,
2011), p. 434. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Roald Dahl
quoted in Steven Jay Rubin, <i>The Complete James Bond Movie Encyclopedia</i>,
Newly Revised Second Edition, (Contemporary Books, Chicago, 2003), p.97.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">3</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Ian Fleming,
<i>You Only Live Twice</i>, (Pan Books Ltd., London, 1965), p. 177.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref4" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">4</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Ian Fleming,
<i>Thrilling Cities</i>, (Jonathan Cape Ltd., London, 1963), p. 148. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn5" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref5" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">5</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Ian Fleming,
<i>Moonraker</i>, (Pan Books Ltd., London, 1961), p. 157 (hereinafter “<i>Moonraker</i>”)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn6" style="mso-element: endnote;">
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref6" name="_edn6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">6</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Dave Rogers,
<i>The Complete Avengers</i>, (St Martin’s Press, New York, 1989), p. 229. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn7" style="mso-element: endnote;">
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6942111195746710054#_ednref7" name="_edn7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;">7</span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Moonraker</i>,
p. 154. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
</span></div>
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