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I would agree with this. You see the potential there for a strong character but he just comes off as mysterious and sort of robotic. Quarrel is easily the more interesting of the two.
I would say Lord likely gets more attention and credit because of Hawaii 5-O. It was a regular on American TV when I was growing up and often on at my house. But in retrospect without that association Lord would come off as forgettable and underwhelming as his successors.
It was a wasted opportunity that the character wasn't continued in the manner of DN. We tend to get someone who either cleans up Bond's messes or is Bond's servant. As pointed out in a recent Bond and Friends podcast. (check them out if you haven't already) even Hedison's Leiter in LALD is just cleaning up Bond's mistakes or damage.
Connery in DAF says "relax I've got a friend named Felix who will fix everything."
If Lord, or another actor of his age and stature, had continued in the role perhaps we would have seen the relationship like the books unfold in the movies. I wonder if Leiter took a break in the Moore years cause the character was too associated with Connery's Bond? He could have easily appeared in TSWLM and perhaps MR and OP?
I think Leiter never appeared again in Moore’s run after LALD because most of the Bond films’ literary counterparts didn’t have Leiter, so it never occurred to a writer until TLD to think of bringing him back. TMWTGG novel had Leiter IIRC, but the film is so unlike the novel it’s pretty much it’s own thing like TSWLM and MR. CR was the first film in over 30 years to have a novel counterpart with Leiter involved, and the most crucial given him helping Bond to buy back into the game.
Not just feels, but definitely was tacked on, since Leiter of course wasn't in the book. I also think that though Lord looked closest to Fleming's Leiter, he was also a bit miscast. Lord is a fundamentally cold actor, whereas the original Leiter is meant to be a warmer, earthier character than Bond. Leiter is the guy you'd like to have a beer with, whereas Bond is a bit too melancholy and hard-edged to really enjoy a drink with.
While on the topic of Felix, why did the Brosnan films so defiantly refuse to use him? Instead we got the boorish Jack Wade and the creepy Falco. Was the intent to give Bond an uneasy relationship with the CIA? Or was the series so traumatized by the Leiter-heavy LTK that it refused to use the character in any of the following films?
Not only to have a beer with but also argue about American cars vs European cars.
Yeah, his absence on Brosnan’s run really highlighted to me how disposable EON treated Leiter. Just getting him back in CR felt like the series coming home in a sense.
Falco was head of the NSA not CIA.
I stand corrected. So the intent was to give a Bond an initially adversarial relationship with the American intelligence services, later redeemed by NSA agent Jinx. The CIA seems entirely left out of the film.
Then in TB Bond's first meeting Leiter is sneaking around and then greets him at the door by throwing around his double -o number. I always found it funny that Bond punches Leiter in the gut and then later when the lackey is getting up he throws out double-o-7 casually. "Sorry Felix but you were just about to say double-o-7."
As we all know Connery hung up the Walther in 1967. Declaring he was done with Bond and walked away from the role. But what if he hadn't? What if after reading the script from Maibaum and the director Hunt he had been persuaded to stay on for one more Bond. Would the movie be better for it? Would him staying for a more serious Bond had impact on him staying for longer in the role? Would OHMSS been the better movie for his Bond to end on?
What say you Mi6...what if Sean Connery had starred as James Bond in OHMSS in 1969?
There's always been an argument, mainly by Lazenby's defenders, that audiences wouldn't have bought Connery's Bond being depicted more emotionally vulnerable. I vehemently disagree. I think audiences would have been moved to see Connery's Bond falling in love with Tracy. This is a man we've seen for five adventures. He's gone through so much, and here he finally meets someone who feels exactly like the kind of woman Bond would want to spend the rest of his life with. It would work for audiences not only because they're already on Connery Bond's side but that he EARNED it. This would have been regarded as a truly special Bond movie because it not only provided the thrills that the franchise has offered in the past, but to everyone's surprise, it's emotionally moving!
It's a shame because this was exactly the kind of stuff Connery would have salivated, but I don't blame him for wanting to walk away from Bond after YOLT, while a fun spectacle of a film, isn't as rich in character like the earlier films were.
Connery certainly would have been able to convey the very weary Bond of the novel too, which Lazenby was too young to ever depict that aspect of Bond for that story.
This reminds me: I always felt the filmmakers were stretching it having a 37 year old Daniel Craig play the upstart Bond written in CR. So it got me thinking of switching the two actors. Lazenby as the upstart in CR, and Craig as the weary agent in OHMSS. Somehow that just sounds more right.
I also felt Lazenby really should have had a standard adventure as a debut. Something action packed like LALD to suit his physicality. The Fleming's OHMSS just always felt wrong for a debut actor, and with Lazenby the kind of calibrated the film by de-emphasizing the weariness (like having Lazenby Bond upset that M would take him off assignment, when Fleming's Bond wanted out).
I think EON still saw the Brosnan era as direct continuity with the previous films so since Leiter had been half eaten by a shark in LTK they couldn't bring him back into active service.
CR obv changed all that with an explicit reboot. And tbh no one would have cared anyway. EON had been soft rebooting for years - it's just no one called it that.
Would have been interesting to see Leiter post-shark attack like in the novels, though I'm sure most audiences would have been like "who's this cripple?", and I'm not sure they would have brought back David Hedison for the part.
The second novel, Live and Let Die. After that he becomes a private detective, but is sometimes recalled to the CIA for special operations.
It would certainly have been played as a proper follow up, especially with Hunt back as he was keen on doing a follow up (albeit only with Lazenby). I think Connery would have cashed his chips after DAF. After that, who really knows? The DAF we got only happened because of OHMSS underperforming, and bringing back Hamilton to lighten up the series was part of a course correction that lead to Moore’s run.
I do think Connery could have pulled off the acting required in OHMSS. I wonder if he read any scripts or whether he was so turned off by the YOLT experience that he just refused to even entertain coming back. I can see the scene with M reassigning him playing much differently and with the audience feeling more in Bond's corner. I would hope all the cheesy references to the other films would be gone and instead he'd open a flask and drink in his office.
I know the 1965 version of this movie was very different to what came to the screen in 1969.
If Peter Hunt weren't directing, perhaps it would have been just another spectacle like YOLT.
I believe he announced YOLT would be his last in the middle of production. He was done. He had set his mind onto leaving so he could do other films. Getting time to do other movies between Bond films was very limiting because of the fast pace EON was cranking them out that he was lucky to catch a break. That and they wouldn't let him into the creative process. Dean Martin was making more money off of Bond parodies than Connery was as the real Bond actor seems pretty naff. Contrast that with how it works today, where Robert Downey Jr is able challenges Disney "if you think I'm that important to stand in a green screen set for months, pay up".
"Same old James!"
That's an aspect of LALD I like, that the filmmakers weren't trying to hammer home the idea that Roger Moore is the same James Bond from the last seven films. It's just "here's James Bond, now let's get onto the adventure".
With that in mind, Connery wouldn’t sign on to appear in his 6th Bondian epic, quitting the role in the midst of filming for YOLT. With problems with Gilbert’s regular editor, Thelma Connell, the producers asked Hunt to return. As part of their deal, they agreed that Hunt could direct OHMSS.
Let’s get creative in this alternative reality of ours, shall we? With Hunt vowing to do OHMSS as a straight adaption, could he convince Connery to agree to play Bond again? So, Connery read a rough draft of the script, and thusly he was reinvigorated to play ol’ Jimmy Bond.
(I.E. if Connery was enthused, in the vein of, let’s say, FRWL, then hell yes. But if he was unenthused, like YOLT, then I’d rather stick with Lazenby)