James Bond 007 Blog

A great find from the Modern Mechanix blog.

James Bond’s Weird World of Inventions

007 tangles with the trickiest assortment of supergadgets ever assembled for the screen in new James Bond movie, “Thunderball”

By HERBERT SHULDINER

Gadgetry is a smash hit in Hollywood. Dozens of new films and TV episodes are filled with zany gimmicks and pushbutton devices to entertain audiences.

The thing that started this remarkable trend is the unprecedented success of the gimmick-packed James Bond movies. The first three 007 films raked in over $75 million. Gold finger alone has earned about $43 million—more than any film has ever returned over a comparable time span.

Because their success has spawned so many imitators, the Bond producers now have to reach for some pretty spectacular devices to keep Bondophiles on the edge of their seats. So they’ve invested about $500,- 000 for the zany gadgets in the newest 007 thriller, Thunderball, starring Sean Connery.

Most of the infernal devices never existed in the original Ian Fleming stories. “Our only excuse for using them” says screenwriter Richard Maibaum, “is that such devices are available and cry out to be buckled onto James Bond’s back.”

Some of the gadgets actually are buckled onto Connery’s famous back. One is the Bell jet-pack flying belt Bond uses in the beginning of the film to escape from a French chateau. Connery has to wear a special Dacron suit whose color won’t bleach out when touched by the belt’s highly concentrated peroxide fuel. The belt provides about 20 seconds of flight, but only 10 seconds is used for the upward flight. It would be disastrous to run out of power a couple of hundred feet up in the air.

Thunderbolts prize piece of gatgetry is a $300,000. 64-foot hydrofoil yacht. It belongs to 007’s enemies—SPECTRE—a sinister gang of international criminals that has hijacked two H-bombs from NATO. They’re holding the bombs for $300 million in ransom. If the Allies don’t pay off, SPECTRE threatens to wipe out two Western cities.

Click here to read the entire article and see more pictures.

Great piece in the New York Times travel section this week.

Ian Fleming’s Jamaica

Excerpt:

When Fleming made his first visit to the island 65 years to the month when I was there, he chose to stay in the cooler climes of the Blue Mountains. I followed his lead that evening and took the B1 road, which curls itself up into the mountains. My destination was Strawberry Hill, an 18th-century coffee plantation turned resort owned by Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records. A Jamaican native, Mr. Blackwell is part of Fleming lore himself, thanks to his mother, Blanche Blackwell, who was, depending on your source, either the writer’s close friend or his mistress and muse. That connection helped Mr. Blackwell, at age 24, land a gig as a location manager for “Dr. No” (you can spot him dancing in a bar scene filmed at Morgan’s Harbour), and his resort franchise includes the Fleming home on the North Coast.

Over a breakfast of scrambled eggs and Blue Mountain coffee (the same morning fare Fleming preferred and Bond nearly always enjoyed) on the balcony of a private bungalow, guests overlook the same vista Bond did in “Live and Let Die,” where he “had his breakfast on the veranda and gazed down on the sunlit panorama of Kingston and Port Royal.”

Most of Fleming’s days in Jamaica, though, were spent on the northern coast, best reached by the A3, or Junction Road, “that runs across the thin waist of Jamaica.” Bond and his local sidekick Quarrel travel the same route in “Live and Let Die” to get to the secret island lair of the villainous genius Mr. Big.

The mountainous interior of the island, “like the central ridges of a crocodile’s armour” as Fleming put it in “Live and Let Die,” is a constant pull on the steering wheel, back and forth, through little villages, past cliffside sundries shops and on numerous detours into rutted, gravel-spattered dirt roads. It’s a relief to reach the other side and spill into the ramshackle town of Port Maria, its pristine aquiline bay punctuated by the diminutive and uninhabited Cabarita Island, which inspired Surprise Island, the fictional hideout of Mr. Big.

Definitely worth a read, and there is a nice slideshow and video where the writer visits some Bond film locations.

This might be old news to some of you, but with the 100th anniversary of Ian Fleming’s birth coming up at the end of the month, Doubleday is releasing a new James Bond novel, Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks.

What I find interesting about this book is that rather than putting Bond in the present day, as all the post-Fleming Bond novels have been, Devil May Care is set in the cold war, picking up where Fleming left off in 1966 with Octopussy and The Living Daylights.

The author, acclaimed novelist Sebastian Faulks, is best known for his award-winning French trilogy The Girl at the Lion d’Or, Birdsong and Charlotte Gray, was hand-picked by the Fleming estate to pen the novel in Fleming’s voice. The book is meant to read like vintage Fleming: exciting, sexy, action-packed—everything you would expect from the classic James Bond series.

Here are some thoughts from Faulks on being chosen to carry on the 007 legacy:

I was surprised but flattered to be asked by Ian Fleming publications if I would write a one-off Bond book for the Ian Fleming centenary. I told them that I hadn’t read the books since the age of 13, but if when I re-read them, I still enjoyed them, and could see how I might be able to do something in the same vein, then I would be happy to consider it.

On re-reading, I was surprised by how well the books stood up. I put this down to three things: the sense of jeopardy Fleming creates about his solitary hero; a certain playfulness in the narrative details; and a crisp, journalistic style that hasn’t dated.

I developed a prose that is about 80 percent Fleming, I didn’t go the final distance for fear of straying into pastiche, but I strictly observed his rules of chapter and sentence construction. My novel is meant to stand in the line of Fleming’s own books, where the story is everything.

I’m a little nervous about someone trying to expressly write “as” Ian Fleming, but Faulks apparently realizes that this would be impossible and is making sure to go for a balance of Fleming’s style with his own twists.

Hopefully I’ll be getting a copy in a little bit and will share with you the latest Bond adventure. I’m also hoping to get a few copies to be used in a contest giveaway for the site, so stay tuned!

Doubleday Official site of Devil May Care

Penguin Books Official Site of Devil May Care

I recently had a chance to look over a new book by Robert Sellers entitled The Battle for Bond: The Genesis of Cinema’s Greatest Hero.

The book actually came out last summer, but Midpoint Trade Books NYC, Inc graciously sent over a review copy a few weeks ago.

The book is the account of Kevin McClory’s efforts to insert himself into the James Bond franchise. He, Ian Fleming and Ivar Bryce had started a project to bring Fleming’s hero to the big screen, and with the help of screenwriter Jack Whittingham, put together a screenplay for Thunderball. Fleming and Bryce however, were growing less than enamored of McClory and decided to cancel the project.

Fleming then went ahead and published the novel Thunderball using many aspects of the screenplay. It resulted in a much publicized court case, which took a heavy toll on the health of both Fleming and Whittingham, who traded heart attacks during the process. Eventually the court ruled in favor of McClory.

He was unable to make the move himself, and teamed up with Albert R Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, who by that time had already produced the first three James Bond movies. Thunderball was a huge hit, and the book contains many stories of the production and all that was involved. Some of this information I had seen and heard before, but much of it was new.

After making the movie, McClory wanted more, but had to wait 10 years to use his rights again. Right on cue in 1975, he announced that he would be making Warhead, and that Sean Connery would be involved in the project. That project eventually resulted in Never Say Never Again - and the book has plenty of information on the production of that movie (which was a total mess).

McClory continued into the 1990’s and even the early parts of this decade, determined to make a third movie based on the Thunderball material. He even claimed that he created the cinematic version of Bond, which was different from Fleming’s character in the novels. He filed suit after suit in this quest, but died a lonely, broken man.

The book was interesting to me because of the letters between the principals involved. You also get to see some of Fleming’s efforts at a screenplay, which to me, was gold, as I was reading new narrative from Fleming on Bond…something I didn’t think I’d ever do again. One can only wish that Fleming’s entire screenplays might see the light of day at some point.

One person who really annoyed me was Never Say Never Again director Irvin Kershner, who apparently only directed the movie for the paycheck. By his own admission, he had only seen two James Bond movies prior to directing NSNA and he even had this to say about Ian Fleming:

Just from having seen a couple of Bond films I knew what the so-called formula was; license to kill, plenty of women, action, that’s about it. There’s nothing else to them. I didn’t think Fleming was a great writer at all. In fact, I thought he was a mediocre writer.

Did Kershner believe that the Bond movies actually represented Fleming’s work? Had he actually read any of the novels? He just comes off as a total buffoon.

The book mostly revolves around McClory, but Jack Whittingham is a large figure as well. Much of the material from the book came from Whittingham’s papers, which his family had kept. Whittingham’s daughter, Sylvan, who contributed much to the telling of the story. (She’s had an interesting life herself.)

The following BBC video looks at the book, and also notes the objections from the Ian Fleming Will Trust, who filed suit to stop the distribution of the book, because of the plagiarism theme and because this is the centennial of Fleming birth and many events are planned for this year.

It seems like if you’re able to grab a copy of this book, you’d better do it while you can…I highly recommend it, as it is a fascinating look into the business side of Bond. I don’t think Ian Fleming comes off too poorly in it either, although he clearly made some unwise decisions along the way.

I was pleased with the announcement this week that the 22nd Bond film will be entitled Quantum of Solace. The name comes from an Ian Fleming short story in the For Your Eyes Only collection.

In this story, Bond is merely present as a story is related to him. He is in between missions, attending a dinner party at the Government House in Nassau. (pictured) Bond is bored by the other guests, though he notes the chatty wife of the other guest. As the party winds down, Bond finds himself with the Governor, merely trying to make conversation to pass the time. He makes an offhand remark about how he always thought it would be nice to marry an air hostess. This sparks a story from the Governor which takes up most of the rest of the narrative.

(The following is from Wikipedia, and from my recollection an accurate account of the tale)

The Governor of The Bahamas tells 007 a sad tale about a relationship between a former civil servant he calls Philip Masters, stationed in Bermuda, and air hostess Rhoda Llewellyn. After meeting aboard a flight to London the two eventually married but after a time Rhoda became unhappy with her life as a housewife. She then began a long open affair with the eldest son of a rich Bermudan family. As a result Masters’ work deteriorated and he suffered a nervous breakdown. After recovering he was given a break from Bermuda by the governor and sent on an assignment to Washington to negotiate fishing rights with the US. At the same time the governor’s wife had a talk with Rhoda just as her affair ended. Masters returned a few months later and decided to end his marriage, although he and Rhoda continued to appear as a happy couple in public. Masters returned alone to the UK, leaving a penniless Rhoda stranded in Bermuda, an act which he’d been incapable of carrying out merely months earlier. But Masters never recovered emotionally, his vital spark never relit. The governor goes on to tell Bond how after a time Rhoda married a rich Canadian and seems to be happy. When Bond remarks that she hardly deserved her good fortune, the governor says that Masters had always been rather weak, and that perhaps Fate chose Rhoda as its instrument to teach him a lesson. Bond deduces that the dinner companions whom he found so boring were Rhoda and her new husband, and he tells the Governor she was much more interesting than he had thought.

It remains to see if any elements from this story, such as character names, or locations find their way into the movie, but since the name comes from an Ian Fleming story, I wholeheartedly endorse the choice. There aren’t many original Fleming names left to use. Risico and The Hildebrand Rarity are the two remaining unused story titles from For Your Eyes Only. From the Octopussy collection, only The Property of a Lady title remains unused. 007 in New York would be the only other Fleming Bond title available after that.

The James Bond Encyclopedia is being released on October 15th. We were fortunate enough to get our hands on an advance copy of the book, and wanted to share our initial thoughts on the book.

The book covers all matters Bond, both in Ian Fleming’s novels, and the EON production movies. There are sections of the book devoted to Ian Fleming, The Bond Style, The Role of Bond, Bond Villains, Bond Women, Supporting Cast, Vehicles, Weapons & Equipment, and The Movies. There is also a comprehensive index from which you’ll be able to quickly find just about anything you’re looking for that is Bond related.

In many cases you get to see how things developed from the novels, and arrive in a sometimes slightly different form in the movies. You read about Fleming’s original take on things, and how he incorporated them into his novels, and then how those elements were brought the movie screens.

The photography in the book is what really stands out, as the coffeetable style book is really built around the pictures of each item that is discussed. No character or weapon from the series is too small, as you’ll be hard pressed to find something that the authors, John Cook and Collin Stutz have missed. The best thing about a book like this is that you can either try and read straight though, or you can just randomly open a page and read an entry and enjoy it just as much.

It seems that you can go into Barnes and Noble and find a number of books that might seem similar to this one. They’re especially common around the release time of each new movie. Those books have nothing on this one. If you’re a Bond fan, this publication comes highly recommended by this blog.

We were saddened to hear of the passing of John Gardner, who picked up the torch from Ian Fleming and wrote Bond novels in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

Gardner’s Bond utilized much of the latest technology of the day, and attempted to modernize the character - a move that worked well sometimes and not so well at others. James Bond drove a Saab (!) in some of Gardner’s novels, and while the car seemed pretty cool, sometimes I could just not get over the idea of 007 tooling around Europe in a Saab. For the most part, I really enjoyed the novels, and they allowed me as a teenager in the 1980’s to feel a sense of anticipation for the next Bond adventure.

While Ian Fleming’s life is often talked about as one long adventure, Gardner was no slouch in his own right. I encourage you to learn more about him from the links below.

Wikipedia

Commander Bond

Here are the latest James Bond headlines from around the world:

(Updated Automatically)

We suck. We know it. We’ve dropped the ball on this blog. We’ll try to do better.

Let us know what you’d like to see in the blog. More novel recaps? Bond related news? Movie items? Trivia?

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How many elements from the novel can you spot in the trailer?