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I actually am glad there was none. Ski and snow is a bit too obvious and done to perfection in OHMSS.
Spot on @Creasy47 me olde matey,that's the reason.
In my parallel universe: Brosnan still being Bond.
Let's just hope it doesn't take us a 20 year stretch to return to a snowy location/a skiing sequence. TWINE was the last ski sequence we've had, unfortunately.
The open-ended fate of Blofeld in DAF is lousy. Either show Blofeld escaping or dying.
A better final scene for Moore. And Dalton. And Brosnan.
The SP lack of a ski sequence is a good one.
Hecht was probably the greatest screenwriter of classic Hollywood--based on what I've read, his Casino Royale would have easily given the 2006 version a run for its money. Truly one of the greatest what-ifs in Bond history. Of course, if a well-done, serious film of CR had been made in '67, it might have dissuaded EON from adapting the book decades later.
Moving on to EON, I agree with those who nominate filming YOLT after OHMSS. Apparently the producers wanted to take advantage of Bond's popularity in Japan, but this ultimately backfired, since Connery's Japanese experiences finalized his decision to quit. It might have been better to have beat Casino Royale to the box office instead with a production filmed closer to home. Since the producers wanted a space-oriented spectacle, they could have filmed Moonraker instead, with Drax working for Spectre instead of the Russians. A less aggravated Connery might then have been persuaded to appear in OHMSS. Under Hunt's direction, and given the opportunity to play a more human Bond, he might have given his best Bondian performance.
Afterward, Hunt and Connery could have return for the latter's swansong in You Only Live Twice. Following Fleming more closely, the film would end with an amnesiac Bond heading into the unknown. The next film in the series would be The Man With the Golden Gun, a perfect way to introduce a new actor as Bond, since the character returns from the Soviet Union as a brainwashed blank slate (Moneypenny even says "it's not him!") and undergoes a reboot.
Jumping ahead, I also agree with those who bemoan Dalton's not stepping into the role earlier. At the very latest, A View to a Kill should have been Dalton's first Bond. With a new, grittier actor in the role, the script would probably have been retailored and rewritten to produce a better movie too. I would have loved seeing Dalton do more Bonds after LTK, but the legal entanglements that prevented them were beyond EON's control and thus cannot be deemed lost opportunities.
I would be lying, however, if I said I didn't picture Sean as Bond as I read the book this time, and saw Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre and a sort of Jane Russell type as Vesper throughout. Now that would be a sight to see.
For what it's worth, Hecht's script does include the torture scene essentially as Fleming wrote it, except that the torturer is Le Chiffre's wife Gita. Her husband supervises her work. This was because Hecht decided having one man torture another's genitals was too "f-ggy." But the scene is every bit as brutal and just as creepy, because Gita is hideously disfigured, thanks to Bond having earlier used her as a human shield, and she is very happy to get her revenge.
Hecht's script was definitely for adults--several earlier scenes are set in LeChiffre's brothels, and there's even mention of underage prostitutes. The big question is whether Charlier Feldman, had he chosen to make a serious version, would have had the balls to film Hecht's script. That's open for debate. The late 60s were the era when the Production Code died out, and movies embraced previously unimaginable levels of sex and violence. But Hollywood producers are not the most courageous folks in the world...
Speaking of lost opportunities, take a look at the original treatment for Octopussy, as reported in the Taschen book:
That could have been a kick-ass debut for Dalton!
I'm not familiar with that treatment of CR, but I would've just liked to see the book faithfully adapted with no major alterations, and certainly not for giving Le Chiffre a woman on the side. I like just he and Bond being the focus of their actions against each other, with no extraneous stuff to water it down. I'd just want Vesper to be better written in the script, as they did with the 06 film. Everything else about the novel I think would be brilliant to see. I'd love to see a mini-series of it done in the period setting with all the bells and whistles. It's a very grounded and straight-forward story, and you could do it quite cheaply. The issue would just be getting the right casting, because if you don't find Fleming's Bond you might as well not even try.
Are you joking? It sounds like fanwank written by a Mendes fundamentalist.
Let's stop focussing everything on MI6 and have Bond actually do a mission for once.
Well I hope for your sake that you are because that plot sounds awful. It's basically the SP plot that got rejected. And when you see what we ended up with in SP that's quite a feat.
I liked Spectre except for Newman's garbage score.
I think Connery's annoyance at the Japanese fans was the effect, not the cause. He was really angry at how much the producers were making and he was not, and I can't see him sticking around for two films, or if he had, giving decent performances.
That treatment sounds fascinating. Interesting how, once again, Eon saves bits from previous scripts for the future (Villiers, Khan/Shah). I believe there was also a version where OP was the villain.
I can't see Cubby agreeing to kill off M (he was always so tied to formula), but it's intriguing that this notion was floated decades before it happened.
That version of OP does sound intriguing, like a Craig-style Bond adventure 25 years ahead of its time. It would've been a very good adventure for Dalton's Bond. I can't picture Moore's Bond in such a scenario.
Most likely Broccoli would've refused to pay her the asking fee (Cubby : "Why high paid actress when we can hire Bach for much less instead")
Huge loss, and the emotional payoff of "this time it's personal" didn't resonate nearly enough to justify it.
Fair point. But if the producers could have convinced him to stay on for a larger-than-usual salary (the way they convinced him to return), history might have been different.
In one sense, M had already died with Bernard Lee, which makes me wonder if the OP treatment was devised before Lee's death as a way to retire the actor (as Skyfall did with Dench). Killing off Robert Brown's M would have had much less impact.