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Reunion with Death - early third Dalton treatment?

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  • echoecho 007 in New York
    Posts: 6,304
    Reunion with Death sounds like a Christie knockoff.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 15,124
    echo wrote: »
    Reunion with Death sounds like a Christie knockoff.

    It does sound like a whodunit. Fun fact: Dalton did play Archibald Christie, Agatha Christie's first husband.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    Posts: 3,152
    Oh yeah, I forgot that! Proper swine in it, he was an' all.
  • Risico007Risico007
    Posts: 9,847
    Honestly I think they would of used The property of a lady I just get that feel with Dalton that being said I think Dalton should of done 4 films hell it should of gone Dalton to Craig

    But oh well
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 15,124
    Venutius wrote: »
    Oh yeah, I forgot that! Proper swine in it, he was an' all.

    I thought it was a really solid film. Not a masterpiece, but a good pseudo-biographic thriller.
  • Mathis1Mathis1
    Posts: 7,430
    Havent seen 'Agatha' film in years. Didnt Michael Apted direct?
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited February 2022 Posts: 3,152
    Dunno, actually. I remember Helen Morse from Picnic At Hanging Rock was in it and they actually filmed some of it in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, where the real Agatha Christie had holed up when she did her vanishing act in the '20s. I'd totally forgotten that Dalton played the cad husband, though!
  • DeathToSpies84DeathToSpies84 Newton-le-Willows, England
    Posts: 257
    Venutius wrote: »
    Timothy Dalton IS James Bond!

    Sadly, that snake John Calley didn’t think so. Remember, before Brosnan got the role, he wanted either Liam Neeson (who turned it down), Ralph Fiennes, or Hugh Grant (Really?!) as Bond. Then he buggered off to Sony a year later.

  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 15,124
    Mathis1 wrote: »
    Havent seen 'Agatha' film in years. Didnt Michael Apted direct?

    Yes he did.
  • RevelatorRevelator
    edited February 2022 Posts: 2,918
    DeathToSpies84 wrote: »
    Then he buggered off to Sony a year later.

    And ganged up with McClory to try launching a rival Bond series, by suing for co-ownership of the cinematic James Bond. Even in a place as crass and cutthroat as Hollywood this was regarded as a dick move.
  • DeathToSpies84DeathToSpies84 Newton-le-Willows, England
    Posts: 257
    Revelator wrote: »
    DeathToSpies84 wrote: »
    Then he buggered off to Sony a year later.

    And ganged up with McClory to try launching a rival Bond series, by suing for co-ownership of the cinematic James Bond. Even in a place as crass and cutthroat as Hollywood this was regarded as a dick move.

    Shows the kind of person Calley was.

  • ToTheRightToTheRight
    Posts: 16,169
    Calley was a poopy pants.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    Posts: 6,304
    Revelator wrote: »
    DeathToSpies84 wrote: »
    Then he buggered off to Sony a year later.

    And ganged up with McClory to try launching a rival Bond series, by suing for co-ownership of the cinematic James Bond. Even in a place as crass and cutthroat as Hollywood this was regarded as a dick move.

    I'm not pro-McClory but he had a point, at times. And Fleming did d*ck him over.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    Posts: 3,152
    Yeah and his mate, Alan Ladd Jr, who said he didn't think that Dalton was an 'appropriate' Bond and 'thought they could do better'!? 😮
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,413
    Brosnan's films did take off in a way that Dalton's didn't though.
  • RevelatorRevelator
    edited February 2022 Posts: 2,918
    echo wrote: »
    I'm not pro-McClory but he had a point, at times. And Fleming did d*ck him over.

    He was more than repaid. Fleming used plot elements derived from a set of scripts that he assumed Ivar Bryce owned the rights to. As a result, McClory ended up co-producing Thunderball and then made Never Say Never Again. Afterward, as if that wasn't enough, he tried claiming billions of dollars from EON in court and contesting its cinematic ownership of Bond. So I don't have much sympathy for the man, who got more than he deserved and overreached. A genuine filmmaker with a shred of artistic talent would have tried making films of his own after getting rich with Thunderball. Instead McClory spent the rest of his days trying to make more and more Bond films, until his last frivolous lawsuit backfired.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,413
    Brosnan tried to get him to make one with him too.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    Posts: 3,152
    Haven't re-read The Battle For Bond for 10 years or so, but my abiding memory of it is thinking McClory was one of these shameless spiv types who keeps turning up even though they know everyone's sick to the back teeth of them and doesn't want them there. I'm in the no sympathy camp on this one.
  • Escalus5Escalus5
    edited February 2022 Posts: 628
    Neither McClory nor Fleming comes off well in The Battle for Bond.

    McClory seems like someone who was scheming and manipulative. The book rather convincingly makes the argument that McClory used Jack Whittingham to win the court case and make a lot of money, and then dumped the guy and never compensated him for his support.

    The book also makes a strong case that Fleming deliberately took material from the scripts co-written by McClory and Whittingham with no intention of crediting them, knowing full well that it was wrong but convinced he could get away with it out of sheer arrogance. Well, that didn't turn out too well for him.
  • Since62Since62
    Posts: 1,630
    Indeed ! Publications of TB include the acknowledgement of 3-person authorship, which was one of the results of the litigation over the book. To be QUITE understated, it was quite bold of Fleming to set out to publish the next Bond novel using the script material developed with McClory and Whittingham. That sort of immoral behavior, ironically, is the sort of thing Fleming would ascribe to some of the villains in the books. For example - cheating at cards in MR. The tradition was used in other books and continued in the films, notably in GF with Goldfinger cheating at cards in MIami Beach, and in OP with the loaded dice in the game of backgammon.
  • RevelatorRevelator
    edited February 2022 Posts: 2,918
    The Battle for Bond itself is compromised by its insistence that Jack Whittingham was the real inventor of the cinematic Bond--this isn't supported by the summaries of his scripts and it slights EON's actual contributions.

    Fleming's attitude was that he might as well repurpose several ideas from the treatments and scripts, just as he'd recycled his older scripts into FYEO and DN. And since he assumed Ivar Bryce had legal ownership of the various drafts, he helped himself to various plot elements from that material.

    The resulting book was not a novelization of the scripts but a substantially different work. This is shown by the script synopses included in The Battle For Bond and the article "Inside Thunderball" by John Cork, who is especially good on showing how the novel differed (and often improved on) the treatments and scripts. The article can be read in the following three parts:

    http://archive.li/cjf2m

    http://archive.fo/Ha6nu

    http://archive.li/QQ2QU
  • RevelatorRevelator
    edited February 2022 Posts: 2,918
    To get the thread back on topic, has anyone here read the summary of Reunion With Death in The Lost Adventures of James Bond? It's been a while since I did, but my first impression was that the story, despite the Japan setting and nods to Fleming, was slightly underwhelming and didn't have enough commercial potential. I don't think there was any chance it would have been filmed, even if Giancarlo Paretti hadn't been looting MGM/UA at the time.

    As for the two other script summaries in the book, I think the Hong Kong-set film, with the cat burglar and robots, would have been a winner and could have possibly drawn back audiences. The other script summary didn't sit right with me, especially the ghastly comic relief sequence of Bond at the rodeo.
  • DeathToSpies84DeathToSpies84 Newton-le-Willows, England
    Posts: 257
    Revelator wrote: »
    To get the thread back on topic, has anyone here read the summary of Reunion With Death in The Lost Adventures of James Bond? It's been a while since I did, but my first impression was that the story, despite the Japan setting and nods to Fleming, was slightly underwhelming and didn't have enough commercial potential. I don't think there was any chance it would ever get filmed, even if Giancarlo Paretti hadn't been looting MGM/UA at the time.

    As for the two other script summaries in the book, I think the Hong Kong-set film, with the cat burglar and robots, would have been a winner and could have possibly drawn back the audience. The other script summary didn't sit right with me, especially the ghastly comic relief sequence of Bond at the rodeo.

    The sight of Dalton dressed as a cowboy and moaning "i’m too old for this" in the action comedy version of Property of a Lady makes me actually prefer the Alfonse Ruggiero draft that little bit more.

  • Herr_StockmannHerr_Stockmann
    Posts: 910
    Revelator wrote: »
    I don't think there was any chance it would ever get filmed, even if Giancarlo Paretti hadn't been looting MGM/UA at the time.
    I haven't read the book yet, but, Reunion with Death was written after the end of the end of the Giancarlo Paretti affair: Richard Smith was announced by Variety in 1993 (https://variety.com/1993/film/news/danjaq-on-bond-wagon-with-two-script-deals-107186/); it would have followed Dalton's Goldeneye, thus the presence in the script of Loelia Ponsonby, already introduced in France's first draft for Goldeneye. But yeah, I agree this script was slightly underwhelming and, of all the Bond 18 rejected pitchs, Donald E. Westlake's Forever And A Death would have better fit Dalton in my opinion (and had a better commercial potential).
  • George_KaplanGeorge_Kaplan Being chauffeured by Tibbett
    Posts: 685
    DeathToSpies84 wrote: »
    Revelator wrote: »
    To get the thread back on topic, has anyone here read the summary of Reunion With Death in The Lost Adventures of James Bond? It's been a while since I did, but my first impression was that the story, despite the Japan setting and nods to Fleming, was slightly underwhelming and didn't have enough commercial potential. I don't think there was any chance it would ever get filmed, even if Giancarlo Paretti hadn't been looting MGM/UA at the time.

    As for the two other script summaries in the book, I think the Hong Kong-set film, with the cat burglar and robots, would have been a winner and could have possibly drawn back the audience. The other script summary didn't sit right with me, especially the ghastly comic relief sequence of Bond at the rodeo.

    The sight of Dalton dressed as a cowboy and moaning "i’m too old for this" in the action comedy version of Property of a Lady makes me actually prefer the Alfonse Ruggiero draft that little bit more.

    I could only picture Roger while I was reading that one. You can tell William Davies went on to co-write the Johnny English films. The bit at the end where Bond forgets to turn off the bomb especially.
  • RevelatorRevelator
    Posts: 2,918
    Herr_Stockmann wrote: »
    I haven't read the book yet, but, Reunion with Death was written after the end of the end of the Giancarlo Paretti affair

    I stand corrected, thank you. The Variety article mentions John Cork getting hired as well. I'd love to hear more about the idea of his that impressed the Broccolis. It's safe to say no other screenwriter had greater knowledge of Bond than he did.
  • DeathToSpies84DeathToSpies84 Newton-le-Willows, England
    Posts: 257
    George_Kaplan wrote: »
    DeathToSpies84 wrote: »
    Revelator wrote: »
    To get the thread back on topic, has anyone here read the summary of Reunion With Death in The Lost Adventures of James Bond? It's been a while since I did, but my first impression was that the story, despite the Japan setting and nods to Fleming, was slightly underwhelming and didn't have enough commercial potential. I don't think there was any chance it would ever get filmed, even if Giancarlo Paretti hadn't been looting MGM/UA at the time.

    As for the two other script summaries in the book, I think the Hong Kong-set film, with the cat burglar and robots, would have been a winner and could have possibly drawn back the audience. The other script summary didn't sit right with me, especially the ghastly comic relief sequence of Bond at the rodeo.

    The sight of Dalton dressed as a cowboy and moaning "i’m too old for this" in the action comedy version of Property of a Lady makes me actually prefer the Alfonse Ruggiero draft that little bit more.

    I could only picture Roger while I was reading that one. You can tell William Davies went on to co-write the Johnny English films. The bit at the end where Bond forgets to turn off the bomb especially.

    Yeah, that’s more a Sir Roger moment than anything.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,413
    The Japan/robot one seemed the strongest to me too. One of them (was it that one?) had a great idea for a stunt, with Bond jumping from a plane into a pool on top of a tall building. Probably way too dangerous to actually do though.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 15,124
    Revelator wrote: »
    To get the thread back on topic, has anyone here read the summary of Reunion With Death in The Lost Adventures of James Bond? It's been a while since I did, but my first impression was that the story, despite the Japan setting and nods to Fleming, was slightly underwhelming and didn't have enough commercial potential. I don't think there was any chance it would have been filmed, even if Giancarlo Paretti hadn't been looting MGM/UA at the time.

    As for the two other script summaries in the book, I think the Hong Kong-set film, with the cat burglar and robots, would have been a winner and could have possibly drawn back audiences. The other script summary didn't sit right with me, especially the ghastly comic relief sequence of Bond at the rodeo.

    The robots were a terrible idea. It would have been Dalton's DAD.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited February 2022 Posts: 3,152
    Indeed. Fembots -v- Austin Powers is one thing, but robot assassins in an actual Bond film? It'd be like copying Austin and Dr. Evil by making Bond and Blofleld brothers. Oh, wait...
    Actually, some idiot suit at Universal tried to push Doug Liman into making Jason Bourne a robot at one point! Hence the spoof in American Ultra where the kid who doesn't know he's a deactivated CIA super assassin (in a town called 'Liman'...) goes 'Something weird's happening. I keep killing people - there's a chance I may be a robot!'
    The only blessing about no third Dalton film is it kept the robots at bay...
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