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007: What would you have done differently?

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  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 15,220
    Revelator wrote: »
    bondsum wrote: »
    That would be fantastic @coco1997. It would be great to find out the hidden gems in the early drafts for OHMSS, YOLT, TMWTGG and DAF. I think the rest have been covered extensively.

    Don't forget TSWLM (dozens of scripts and treatments by everyone from Anthony Burgess to John Landis) and OP (whose early treatments included Spectre, Blofeld, an Asian Octopussy, and Goldfinger's brother Monsieur Diamant [not all in the same treatment I hope])!
    To be honest, I think a few weeks will be required to sift through all the goodies there.

    Burgess had in mind "a gross Orson Wells in a wheelchair" for the villain of TSWLM. Now that's one thing I wish there had been in the movie.
  • coco1997coco1997
    Posts: 128
    Revelator wrote: »
    bondsum wrote: »
    That would be fantastic @coco1997. It would be great to find out the hidden gems in the early drafts for OHMSS, YOLT, TMWTGG and DAF. I think the rest have been covered extensively.

    Don't forget TSWLM (dozens of scripts and treatments by everyone from Anthony Burgess to John Landis) and OP (whose early treatments included Spectre, Blofeld, an Asian Octopussy, and Goldfinger's brother Monsieur Diamant [not all in the same treatment I hope])!
    To be honest, I think a few weeks will be required to sift through all the goodies there.

    What I'm hoping to do is scan as much material as they have and get it online. I see no reason why that wouldn't be allowed, do you?

    I've already recruited a buddy of mine to join me and we'll tag team it together. I'm REALLY hoping to find the early Octopussy with Spectre and possibly the early AVTAK with the Halley's Comet subplot.
  • TorgeirtrapTorgeirtrap
    Posts: 17,814
    AlexanderWaverly wrote: »
    Torgeirtrap wrote: »
    Off-topic question: Why are the Fleming papers, manuscripts etc. at Indiana University? Why not somewhere in Britain?

    Indiana University's Lilly Library specializes in rare books. It even has a Gutenberg Bible.

    The library approached Fleming's family after his death, primarily about buying his collection of first edition books. It ended up getting the manuscripts and correspondence as well.

    Thanks for the info! Did not know that.
  • StrogStrog
    Posts: 684
    coco1997 wrote: »
    What I'm hoping to do is scan as much material as they have and get it online. I see no reason why that wouldn't be allowed, do you?
    It is worth getting in touch with the university beforehand. After you fill out some paperwork they will probably charge you per page to scan. They will limit the # of scans/copies. In order to post any of it online you'd have to demonstrate fair use — I'm guessing Eon still technically owns these materials. Scans of individual script/treatment pages would possibly be allowed for any scholarly work/reporting, but not simply for a fan to post online. In fact I'm guessing they will only let you in the room with a pad and pencil for note taking. Maybe they allow pics, but I doubt it.

    Good luck. Really curious to hear what you find.
  • AlexanderWaverlyAlexanderWaverly
    Posts: 2,115
    Strog wrote: »
    coco1997 wrote: »
    What I'm hoping to do is scan as much material as they have and get it online. I see no reason why that wouldn't be allowed, do you?
    It is worth getting in touch with the university beforehand. After you fill out some paperwork they will probably charge you per page to scan. They will limit the # of scans/copies. In order to post any of it online you'd have to demonstrate fair use — I'm guessing Eon still technically owns these materials. Scans of individual script/treatment pages would possibly be allowed for any scholarly work/reporting, but not simply for a fan to post online. In fact I'm guessing they will only let you in the room with a pad and pencil for note taking. Maybe they allow pics, but I doubt it.

    Good luck. Really curious to hear what you find.

    Adrian Turner, the British film historian and author, went to Iowa City while researching his 1998 book on Goldfinger. That's how he was able to get so much material about the various drafts. Apparently Maibaum, despite being replaced by Paul Dehn, was kept in the loop and he sent memos with reactions.
  • bondsumbondsum
    Posts: 3,333
    Yes, it's a shame @AlexanderWaverly. I used to work with Adrian Turner long before he wrote his GF book. Never got to see him afterwards, otherwise I'd have quizzed him about all the stuff that wasn't included in the book.
    coco1997 wrote: »
    Revelator wrote: »
    bondsum wrote: »
    That would be fantastic @coco1997. It would be great to find out the hidden gems in the early drafts for OHMSS, YOLT, TMWTGG and DAF. I think the rest have been covered extensively.

    Don't forget TSWLM (dozens of scripts and treatments by everyone from Anthony Burgess to John Landis) and OP (whose early treatments included Spectre, Blofeld, an Asian Octopussy, and Goldfinger's brother Monsieur Diamant [not all in the same treatment I hope])!
    To be honest, I think a few weeks will be required to sift through all the goodies there.

    What I'm hoping to do is scan as much material as they have and get it online. I see no reason why that wouldn't be allowed, do you?

    I've already recruited a buddy of mine to join me and we'll tag team it together. I'm REALLY hoping to find the early Octopussy with Spectre and possibly the early AVTAK with the Halley's Comet subplot.
    I must admit I know little about the Halley's Comet subplot in AVTAK. Then again, I'm not a big fan of those later Moore movies. See what you can find out, mate. Anything's better than nothing. Good luck.
  • coco1997coco1997
    Posts: 128
    Strog wrote: »
    coco1997 wrote: »
    What I'm hoping to do is scan as much material as they have and get it online. I see no reason why that wouldn't be allowed, do you?
    It is worth getting in touch with the university beforehand. After you fill out some paperwork they will probably charge you per page to scan. They will limit the # of scans/copies. In order to post any of it online you'd have to demonstrate fair use — I'm guessing Eon still technically owns these materials. Scans of individual script/treatment pages would possibly be allowed for any scholarly work/reporting, but not simply for a fan to post online. In fact I'm guessing they will only let you in the room with a pad and pencil for note taking. Maybe they allow pics, but I doubt it.

    Good luck. Really curious to hear what you find.

    Good advice. I'll make sure to call their library beforehand. I'd hate to drive 3.5 hours only to get there and be completely shot down!
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    edited April 2018 Posts: 13,905
    Birdleson wrote: »
    I think that Hip's nieces sell the fight scenes admirably. Far better than Moore ever could.

    Not disagreeing. That they sell the fight scenes.
    15.jpg?1408451509
  • MadeleineSwannMadeleineSwann
    Posts: 591
    So here we go... THE SPY WHO LOVED ME.

    the-spy-who-loved-me-quad-poster.jpg


    Again, this is your chance to say whatever you would have done differently with the film, so things like; plot changes, character additions or subtractions. Anything you like. People will be given the chance to give their responses within 7 DAYS from today (this may change so let me know if you want me to extend the time for longer) until the discussion moves on to the next James Bond film. This will run until we reach SKYFALL as a discussion for SPECTRE already exists.

    Looking forward to hearing what you guys think.
  • Lancaster007Lancaster007 Shrublands Health Clinic, England
    Posts: 1,874
    For me the main thing I'd change is that Jaws dies in the end. I do believe that initially that was in the script.
    There will probably be some more later when I've had chance to think a bit!
  • RemingtonRemington I'll do anything for a woman with a knife.
    Posts: 1,534
    .Make Stromberg a more interesting villain. He comes off as kind of dull.

    .I wouldn't mind if Barbara Bach had been dubbed. She's pretty wooden at times.

    .Change the gunbarrel music.

    Still a 9/10 film for me.
  • TorgeirtrapTorgeirtrap
    Posts: 17,814
    Remington wrote: »
    .Make Stromberg a more interesting villain. He comes off as kind of dull.

    .I wouldn't mind if Barbara Bach had been dubbed. She's pretty wooden at times.

    .Change the gunbarrel music.

    Still a 9/10 film for me.

    He was dull, wasn't he. I have no problem at all with Curd Jürgens as an actor, but he didn't have a lot to do in this one, just as with Christopher Lee in TMWTGG. Wish they could have worked more with the character.

    Love the PTS. The flag on the parachute was a bit much, but it's still enjoyable.

    Agree that Jaws could have been a one film villain only. Instead we got the silly side of him in MR.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 15,220
    A gross Orson Welles in a wheelchair as the villain. Or at least a gross Jurgens as Anthony Burgess had imagined. Cut down the scifi elements drastically. Make Jaws less comedic.
  • bondsumbondsum
    Posts: 3,333
    Has anyone actually seen the Anthony Burgess draft for TSWLM? It was apparently written as one giant piss-take of where he thought the series had gone wrong, adding his own demented twist to it. Wasn't there something like twelve different scriptwriters after Burgess for the movie, including the likes of John Landis, Sterling Stilliphant and Derek Marlowe to name just a few, with something like fifteen different drafts?
  • DenbighDenbigh UK
    edited April 2018 Posts: 5,970
    Remington wrote: »
    Make Stromberg a more interesting villain. He comes off as kind of dull.

    I'd have to agree, I have to say apart from Jaws, the villains are quite uninteresting in this film. It's a shame that the rights to the character meant that the villain couldn't be Ernst Stavro Blofeld. That would've been a much more worthy return, with the scale of the film and it would've meant we would not have had that diabolical pre-title sequence for For Your Eyes Only.

    I also think they missed a trick with Naomi, Stromberg's pilot and assistant. It could have been a return to form with a character like Fiona Volpe. Although I am a fan of her demise, when she is blown up by the Lotus.
  • bondsumbondsum
    Posts: 3,333
    I totally agree with your "missing a trick" by not utilising Caroline Munro enough in the movie @Denbigh. I suppose when they wrote her part they didn't know Gilbert would cast an model/actress with that much sex appeal in the role.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Scale down on that tedious finale.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 15,220
    bondsum wrote: »
    Has anyone actually seen the Anthony Burgess draft for TSWLM? It was apparently written as one giant piss-take of where he thought the series had gone wrong, adding his own demented twist to it. Wasn't there something like twelve different scriptwriters after Burgess for the movie, including the likes of John Landis, Sterling Stilliphant and Derek Marlowe to name just a few, with something like fifteen different drafts?

    I've read details of it in Burgess' autobiography. Whether it's true or not is debatable but it was very much surreal and borderline apocalyptic. Next time I go to the Anthony Burgess Foundation I will try to look at the script if they have it.
  • coco1997coco1997
    Posts: 128
    Strog wrote: »
    coco1997 wrote: »
    What I'm hoping to do is scan as much material as they have and get it online. I see no reason why that wouldn't be allowed, do you?
    It is worth getting in touch with the university beforehand. After you fill out some paperwork they will probably charge you per page to scan. They will limit the # of scans/copies. In order to post any of it online you'd have to demonstrate fair use — I'm guessing Eon still technically owns these materials. Scans of individual script/treatment pages would possibly be allowed for any scholarly work/reporting, but not simply for a fan to post online. In fact I'm guessing they will only let you in the room with a pad and pencil for note taking. Maybe they allow pics, but I doubt it.

    Good luck. Really curious to hear what you find.

    lib.uiowa.edu/scua/msc/tomsc150/msc149/msc149.html

    Read the text in red near the top of the page: "This collection is open for research." I'm not concerned about any material being off limits, but I did shoot the Library an email out of courtesy.

  • echoecho 007 in New York
    Posts: 6,359
    I'd change very little of TSWLM. Business-wise, it is perhaps the most important film in the franchise. Another TMWTGG might have killed the series.

    And because Moore and Cubby bounced back, the odd bad Dalton, Brosnan, or Craig film isn't the death knell it could otherwise be.
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    Posts: 23,883
    Very much agreed. Once again I shall have to disappoint the OP.

    There is absolutely nothing I would change about this near masterpiece. If anything I wish it were longer, especially the Egypt scenes which are impeccable.
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 13,905
    bondsum wrote: »
    Has anyone actually seen the Anthony Burgess draft for TSWLM? It was apparently written as one giant piss-take of where he thought the series had gone wrong, adding his own demented twist to it. Wasn't there something like twelve different scriptwriters after Burgess for the movie, including the likes of John Landis, Sterling Stilliphant and Derek Marlowe to name just a few, with something like fifteen different drafts?

    Here's a description from the On This Day thread.
    (9 April) 2013: An article in NewStatesman relates Anthony Burgess' obsession with James Bond.
    new%20statesman.png
    https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/03/anthony-burgesss-007-obsession
    FILM - 9 April 2013

    Anthony Burgess’s 007 obsession
    Unbreakable Bond.
    By Andrew Biswell

    Ian Fleming and Anthony Burgess might seem an unlikely double act at first glance. It’s hard to imagine Fleming, the suave Old Etonian and veteran of British naval intelligence, having much time for Burgess’s defiantly northern, Catholic, working-class values. Had they met, Fleming may well have agreed with Burgess’s aristocratic pupils at the Malay College in Kuala Kangsar, the “Eton of the east” (where he taught in the 1950s), one of whom later said that Burgess was “not quite a gentleman”. Although Burgess and Fleming shared an agent – the amiable Peter Janson-Smith – there is no evidence to suggest that Fleming ever took the trouble to read A Clockwork Orange or any of Burgess’s other early novels.

    Yet Burgess was fascinated by Fleming and in particular by the James Bond novels, which he read with close attention after Terence Young’s film version of Dr No was released in 1962. Burgess’s book collection, now at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester, includes a complete run of the Bond novels and short stories, John Pearson’s The Life of Ian Fleming, Christopher Wood’s novelisations of the films and two copies of The James Bond Bedside Companion. Like his friend Kingsley Amis (who wrote the first post-Fleming Bond novel, Colonel Sun, under the pseudonym Robert Markham), Burgess was excited by the potential of the cold war espionage novel to reach a larger readership than his upmarket literary fictions were ever likely to attract.

    Writing on the occasion of Bond’s 35th anniversary in 1988, Burgess celebrated the enduring figure of the international agent known for drinking vodka Martinis and “cold lovemaking with other men’s wives”. In his general introduction to the Coronet series of James Bond reprints, Burgess identified Bond as a hero figure who seemed to defy the austerity of post-1945 Britain.

    There is an element of self-identification with Fleming on Burgess’s part, since both of them had come to the writing of popular novels in their middle years. Yet Burgess was aware of the growing distance between Fleming’s novels and the series of films that threatened to displace them in the popular imagination. “Bond,” he wrote, “is often compared facially to Hoagy Carmichael, the composer of ‘Stardust’, a song hit of the 1920s, but for very young readers the name ought to be glossed in a footnote. Bond belongs to history and these are historical novels.”

    Burgess’s first attempt at a spy thriller came in 1966, with the publication of Tremor of Intent, a kind of parody of the James Bond novels, featuring a British spy whose enormous appetites for food and athletic sexual intercourse cancel each other out. Having spent time with his first wife in Leningrad and having used elements of Russian vocabulary to construct an invented slang for Alex and his “droogs” in A Clockwork Orange, Burgess was well placed to write about what he had seen in the Soviet Union during the Khrushchev and Brezhnev years.

    It is clear from Tremor of Intent that Burgess did not share Fleming’s fathomless hatred of Soviet Russia. In From Russia, with Love, for example, Fleming presents his Soviet characters as deformed villains or sinister masturbators. Burgess’s Russians tend to be either inefficiently buffoonish or harmlessly drunk. This was a reflection of his own experience of visiting Russia for the first time in July 1961. He had expected to find an Orwellian dictatorship full of secret police. When a large fight broke out in the street outside the Metropol restaurant at 3am, no police arrived to break it up. “It is my honest opinion that there are no police in Lenin - grad,” Burgess noted shortly afterwards. When he wrote as much in the pages of the Listener, there was a complaint from the Soviet ambassador and he was officially denounced on Radio Moscow.

    Tremor of Intent is also a critique of the excessive appetites to be found in Fleming’s books. One of the set pieces in Burgess’s parodic Bond novel is an eating competition between the British spy Hillier and Theodorescu, a sybaritic villain with a suspiciously perfect English accent. Burgess describes the endless courses with relish:

    They got through their sweets sourly. Peach mousse with sirop framboise. Cream dessert ring Chantilly with zabaglione sauce. Poires Hélène with cold chocolate sauce. Cold Grand Marnier pudding, strawberry Marlow. Marrons panaché vicomte. “Look,” gasped Hillier, “this sort of thing isn’t my line at all . . . I think I shall be sick.”

    Many critics did not notice that Burgess had written an allegory of the seven deadly sins. William Pritchard, who understood the point of Tremor of Intent, wrote in the Partisan Review: “It might be thought odd that a book whose subjects include gluttony satyriasis, covetousness, smacking self-regard and nagging self-disgust turns out to be not just human but humane.”

    Determined to appeal to at least some of Fleming’s readers, Burgess told his editor at William Heinemann that he wanted a dust jacket suitable for the espionage genre. The art department duly produced an image of a spy in a white shirt and black tie, holding a gun and apparently being fellated by a naked woman. This provoked the outrage of the state censors in Malta, as Burgess discovered when he moved there and tried to import a copy.

    In 1975, Burgess revived some of the characters from Tremor of Intent when he was commissioned by Albert R Broccoli to write a screenplay for The Spy Who Loved Me. Fleming’s original novel was considered unsuitable for adaptation but the title was retained with the aim of building a new story around it. Burgess’s script, which is now at the University of Texas at Austin, is an outrageous medley of sadism, hypnotism, acupuncture and international terrorism.

    The plot concerns a private clinic in Switzerland, where small nuclear devices are secretly inserted into the bodies of wealthy patients while they are under anaesthetic, turning them into human bombs. An organisation called Chaos (Consortium for Hastening the Annihilation of Organised Society) plans to detonate one of these devices at the Sydney Opera House while the Queen is in the audience. Bond uses his newly acquired acupuncture skills to perform an emergency operation and defuse the bomb.

    Having read Burgess’s script, Broccoli and his associates decided not to put it into production. They probably suspected (quite rightly) that Burgess was not taking the assignment entirely seriously. The only element from Burgess’s script that survived into the 1977 Roger Moore film was the villain’s underwater base. The script credit went to Christopher Wood and Richard Maibaum.

    That may not be the end of the story, however. When Burgess was in the early stages of negotiating with Broccoli, they agreed that the book rights would remain with Burgess and that he would be free to publish a novelisation of his script. The opportunity is still there for another novelist, with the blessing of the Burgess estate, to write an espionage novel based on the materials that Burgess left behind. Perhaps Sebastian Faulks or William Boyd, who have both written Bond novels of their own, could be persuaded to take up the gauntlet?

    “Tremor of Intent” is published in paperback by Serpent’s Tail (£8.99). Andrew Biswell is the director of the International Anthony Burgess Foundation
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  • FrankXavierFrankXavier
    Posts: 678
    I would trim the climax a bit. It goes on a bit too long.

    Otherwise, Top 5 Bond movie.
  • MooseWithFleasMooseWithFleas Philadelphia
    Posts: 3,370
    More time in Egypt, less on supertanker. Supertanker is great, but between the bomb difusal, the placing of the explosive on the barricaded bunker, the shootout, the re-programming of missiles, it just goes on too long.
  • FoxRoxFoxRox
    Posts: 12,515
    More time in Egypt is a good call, because from Bond’s arrival to Egypt until he leaves is one of my favorite segments in Bond history. I can’t think of much else because TSWLM is one of the absolute best Bond films. I even like Stromberg and find him to be an underrated villain. I like that his craziness is totally on the interior rather than spilling over to the exterior like most villains.
  • barryt007barryt007
    Posts: 19,339
    Personally I wouldn't change anything...Stromberg is an elderly villain,he has other henchmen to do his work for him.

    Stands to reason that,once Bond got hold of him and passed his traps,that he would be no match for him.
  • ToTheRightToTheRight
    Posts: 16,205
    I wouldn't change anything on TSWLM either. To me it's a perfect Roger Bond. Maybe I'd add the traditional chords to punctuate the opening dots on the gunbarrel. One of my pet peeves on TND and TWINE, really. But on TSWLM it isn't a deal breaker.
  • CigaretteLeiterCigaretteLeiter United States
    Posts: 109
    Revelator wrote: »
    coco1997 wrote: »
    It's actually the University of Iowa.

    You are correct. Here's a description of everything in Maibaum's papers.
    I got confused and wrote the "University of Indiana, Bloomington," which is actually where Fleming's papers and manuscripts are. How convenient it would have been if Maibaum's papers had been at the same university!
    Anyway, I hope more scholars will make their way to Iowa City in the near future.

    Fleming's manuscripts are actually at IU? Holy hell, I'm starting school there in the fall and I didn't even know!
  • barryt007barryt007
    Posts: 19,339
    CigaretteLeiter wrote: »
    Revelator wrote: »
    coco1997 wrote: »
    It's actually the University of Iowa.

    You are correct. Here's a description of everything in Maibaum's papers.
    I got confused and wrote the "University of Indiana, Bloomington," which is actually where Fleming's papers and manuscripts are. How convenient it would have been if Maibaum's papers had been at the same university!
    Anyway, I hope more scholars will make their way to Iowa City in the near future.

    Fleming's manuscripts are actually at IU? Holy hell, I'm starting school there in the fall and I didn't even know!

    An inside man for MI6 then ;)

  • Lancaster007Lancaster007 Shrublands Health Clinic, England
    Posts: 1,874
    Although the pyramids are great, very atmospheric, I just can't get why when Fekkesh is talking to Major Amasova in the relative safety of a crowd after spotting Jaws, he would get up and put himself in mortal danger by going away from the crowd and into the teeth of Jaws! What is he, an idiot? This is a sequence I would change, just makes no sense.
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