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Comments
Inglourious Basterds is very much a war film for me (obviously). Even though elements of the film might have a spy film flair to them, I was thinking of a straight-forward spy thriller.
Maybe with a cold war setting! That would have been great.
Definitely agree. The tension of some of the scenes in IB is way beyond the big action set pieces we see in most films today. That includes Bond too.
Good point. When he retires, the film industry will be missing something for sure.
Absolutely.... Case. Closed.
After TMWTGG Bond went through a producer change as Harry was bought out and Cubby took on the caretaker role of the franchise. TMWTGG had performed less then stellar at the Box Office and it was decided the rush to get the movie out after LALD had played a part in that. Cubby took 3 years to get TSWLM to the screen. It went through many different screenwriters. (a future what if topic) Cubby originally tapped Hamilton to direct Spy. He was all set to do it and then Superman came up and Hamilton left the project and Lewis Gilbert returned to the director chair. I believe it was Gilbert who brought in Chris Wood to write the script.
Okay, lets say Hamilton wasn't as tempted by the Superman project and instead stayed on as the director of Spy. What sort of movie would we have got? Would we have had the huge commercial success? What would the tone of the movie be?
What say you Mi6. What if Guy Hamilton had stayed on and directed Spy and made it four Bond movies in a row! (DAF, LALD, TMWTGG, and Spy)
I'm not sure how another Hamilton installment would have fared. Cubby did want to get back to the grandiose scope of the 60s films, as the last three had been pretty straightforward. Would Hamilton have stepped up for a more epic scope? Not sure. None of the other films I've seen of his really suggest that. Lewis Gilbert coming to bring back that grandiose quality brought back a certain freshness for 70s Bond.
Funny that Hamilton was going to have to deliver a big film with Superman. Another project that ended up going to another director.
I do think Cubby would have been more forceful in asking for a bigger movie but like you @MakeshiftPython I have trouble seeing it.
A lot of people say TSWLM is Roger's finest hour, or at least the first movie where we see him shine as Bond. How much is that a credit to the direction of Gilbert? Could it be that he was asking Moore to deliver something different then Hamilton had? I always felt that LALD and TMWTGG I could easily see Connery's Bond in both without much change.
We also need to remember that from DAF to TMWTGG the Bond movies were operating under lower budgets and tended to cost-cut. Broccoli decided that his first solo Bond was so crucial that it needed a bigger budget, a positively lavish one. Without Broccoli's efforts, TSWLM would not have had more scope than the previous Bonds, regardless of the director. That said, with YOLT Gilbert had proved he could handle an expensive production, so he was a natural choice for TSWLM.
I thought he was pretty good in November Man and he played a gritty character in that.
Would have been funny if he crossed paths with Jaws.
Yeah, I don’t mean just Hamilton’s other Bond films but even his non-Bond films were never really epic in scope. Closest may have been BATTLE OF BRITAIN, which I’ve only seen once and recall feeling it was less a war film and more played as a big lark (like every other Hamilton film).
Yes, they could have fed him to Jaws. ;)
- "I know you! You're that big toothed guy with the big teeth!"
Maybe Pepper could have been boat shopping? Or riding the train with Mabel? LOL!
In all seriousness, I think it might have been a worse movie with Hamilton at the helm. I am glad that Gilbert got the reins for this movie. I would have liked to have seen a plot that was a little more risky in terms of it's plot. To me it's a virtual copy of YOLT but as someone pointed out I think Cubby was more hands on and knew there was no room for error.
But what if Cooper's version had been selected for the film? Would it had repeated the chart success of LALD? What impact would it have had on the score of the film. As it was Barry had a tight time frame to score the film. Do you think he would have been able to use this theme through out his soundtrack?
What say you Mi6? What if Alice Cooper would have provided the theme song to TMWTGG?
I am not an Alice Cooper fan to begin with. I thought the song was lacking as well but I must appreciate the effort especially since he did this on his own without prompting from the producers. I think Barry's score is the least inspired of all his work. It's too repetitive and generic. Maybe working with a different theme song would have assisted in improving the overall soundtrack.
Elton John and Bond is intriguing, though. Especially in light of all the films his music has been in since.
That story isn't entirely true. Well, certainly not the way you've told it. Of course Saltzman knew who Paul McCartney was and his impact on the music scene. It's just at the time of pre-production, Saltzman was still thinking about casting a black actress as Solitaire and felt someone like Thelma Houston would've been more appropriate to sing the title song that McCartney had written to reflect the lead actress. Don't forget, Paul McCartney wrote the song in September 1972 after reading Fleming's book, so it was already in place before principle photography had started. George Martin explained to Saltzman that he didn't need to get anyone else to sing the song because no one was bigger than McCartney himself, and Saltzman agreed and dropped the idea of a black Solitaire. Let's also not forget McCartney's involvement was down to Harry's own music publishing company and Ron Kass, who would later run it, that set up the deal and major coup of getting McCartney in the first place. Sadly, the next movie would be principally a Cubby movie, meaning the title song choice would be down to him. As I pointed out above, Harry wanted one of his own two singers, but didn't get his way. Hell, I think even Cat Stevens could've written something really interesting, especially as he wrote songs for other artists. First Cut Is The Deepest springs to mind.
Not just Elton but Bernie Taupin's lyrics as well would've been something still spoken about today, and certainly a progressive step in the right direction just on the heels of McCartney & Wings' mega hit. But Cubby wanted Lulu and it was Lulu that we got.
Barry was never too happy about Cubby getting bands hired. He was much more accustomed to working with a singer and creating the music rather than collaborate with actual musicians, so it’s curious that it took until 1985 for that to happen, and worked well with McCartney because he already had a history with Martin.
So yeah, unless Cooper was willing to let Barry be the lead musician, it may have not gone well. Or, he would do what Duran Duran did and let Barry dictate things. We’ll never know, as the song is essentially a demo.
Back to Alice Cooper, I think it's interesting to consider a couple of Bond films having some rock musicians doing the theme song. It would appear that after McCartney the producers went MOR with artists like Simon, Bassey and Easton. In fact I would argue that till CR we didn't get a true rock song as the main title theme.
I find it cool to know that Alice was such a fan that he would pour his effort into this song. I find it grows on me to know this info.