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Oh very good.
However I'm no musical expert so am not entirely sure which bits are which but concentrating on day 4 here: http://www.jollinger.com/barry/lawsuit.htm it seems to me that only the start of the Bond theme is taken from 'Bad Sign, Good Sign' and Vijay does go on to play the latter part of the theme.
But this is nitpicking and I like the notion that there's a deleted scene where MP tells Bond the recognition code will be a tune from 'A House for Mr Biswas'. I shall certainly go with this in future viewings as that breaking of the fourth wall has always been a bit annoying. Top work @Murdock.
I can't really take any credit for it. I heard it on the James Bonding podcast and liked that theory so much that it's my in my headcanon now. ;)
Yes, it would seem that the producers felt Bond was above revenge and that was something only reserved for SPECTRE. Maybe they believed, rightly or wrongly, that a revenge-driven plot just wouldn't have sustained the entire running time of the movie, preferring Bond to indulge himself in a proper caper without any emotional ties? Saltzman had the belief that every Bond movie should carry a threat. I use a quote from Mankiewicz paraphrasing Saltzman during the early stages of writing DAF: "Tell me, what is the threat? That's what it's got to get down to: what is the threat?" Of course, the threat would be a laser in space powered by diamonds.
Anyway, with Lazenby out of the picture and John Gavin now chosen, the producers probably wanted to give their new 007 a story that didn't tie-in with the previous actor's story. From gleaming hints from Cubby's When The Snow Melts it seems that they would have still insisted that Gavin play the character as a British Secret Agent, which would suggest he'd need to speak with an English accent and not as an American. The only reason for his casting was that the producers simply couldn't find an English actor suitable for the role at that time to fill Connery's shoes. When Picker solved that problem by making a deal with Connery, they then had to go back and make further amendments to their script. God knows how many drafts were produced for DAF, it must be in double figures?
As you suggest, this could well have happened anyway with Lazenby in the role. Though there does appear to be a confusion as to who employed Mankiewicz. Some articles state that it was Picker that brought him in, then Cubby makes the claim elsewhere that it was he himself that hired the writer. Either way, I agree, Hunt would have fought to keep the silliness out of the movie had he been the director.
Yes, there's a piece on it here in the Telegraph...
https://telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/jamesbond/9864054/James-Bond-film-Thunderball-nearly-given-X-rating-by-censors.html
I shudder even thinking about it.
That would be the end of any more Bond films for me.
Same. There isn't a lot that'd make me stop watching them but that'd do it.
That's not to say I would have been in favour of Gavin or Brolin for that matter. Quite the contrary. I wouldn't have been favour of Lewis Collins either. These brutish types just aren't my cup of tea, regardless of their place of origin.
Don't get me wrong, I don't care where the actor is from, but Brolin didn't even try to do an accent for his screentest, which makes me wonder if any of the other Americans who came close would have had to do one if they got it. Judging by some of the actors they wanted (can't picture Burt Renyolds doing an English accent) I'd say no, probably not.
An American actor playing a British Bond is fine but an American actor playing an (inexplicably) American Bond? I honestly wouldn't count those films. Change his appearance, change his personality but you can't change Bond's nationality. His Britishness is one of the things that should be set in stone, it's part of what defines him.
Of course, Cary Grant is an entirely separate matter. He was 16 when he first went to America as a young acrobat from Bristol, England in 1920. Eventually he was to become an American citizen by 1942 with an adopted accent now described as transatlantic or mid-Atlantic accent. It's only understandable that America would like to claim him as one of their own, but the fact remains he was English, just as was Charlie Chaplin, Hitchcock, Vivien Leigh and Stan Laurel. In no way did Grant ever try to fool the public into thinking that he was an American, he even starred in The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss in 1937 playing an Englishman, along with Gunga Din a couple of year's later. He even tried it again with None but the Lonely Heart in 1944 which tells the story of a young Cockney drifter played by Grant, a role he identified with, but was met with indifference by American audiences. Same goes for a lot of Grant's attempts at playing English roles, which was why he stuck mostly to playing Americans. It would of course be with fellow Brit Alfred Hitchcock that he would find true immortality and fame outside of the screwball comedies that audiences seem to lap up in the 30's.
Funnily enough, Welsh-born actor Anthony Hopkins is now officially an American citizen, but we'll always associate him as Welsh and not American. I suppose what you're referring to is name by association, not so much the real facts. After all, Cary Grant was plain old Archibald Leach in those formative years. He was to be reborn as Cary Grant in Hollywood many year's later, so I guess this is where the confusion first arose.
PS. John Gavin was actually born Juan Vincent Apablasa Jr. That's right, he was of Mexican, Chilean and Spanish descent, and was fluent in Spanish. He too wasn't really American, but like Grant his Americanised stage-name gives the impression that he was. Though unlike Grant, Apablasa Jr was born in California so he's more American than Mr. Leach.
Regarding the late Lewis Collins: I'm a big fan of him as Bodie, but I just never saw him as Bond. I have seen the touted Who Dares Wins and again I don't see Bond there either. A bit unrefined for my tastes, which as you probably will have gathered my now lean towards the cultivated and polished (but certainly not effete). It's a fine balance for me. At least look good in the suits for pete's sake! I believe Collins didn't impress Cubby - came across as too aggressive or something along those lines.
I like FYEO very much, but wouldn't have minded a younger man in the role for that film.
I quite agree on Gavin, Brolin et al being completely unsuitable. The same goes for Neil.
I also agree that I didn't see Bond in Who Dares Wins, but then I wasn't expecting to as he wasn't playing Bond. One thing Collins had going for him was that he was edgy, cool, good-looking, had that brooding confidence/arrogance thing coupled with a great sense of humour and charm. Key attributes for Bond IMO. Moore lacked that edgy, brooding confidence thing, but made up with it in the other areas, but he was way too old by this point. Of course I'm talking as a paying customer having seen FYEO in the cinema and not as a little kid being taken to it by their parents. I was already quite headstrong in what I liked and didn't like to see in a Bond movie by then. For me, Moore was just too old for Bond by FYEO, and it ruined the experience for me (naff parrot and Thatcher jokes aside). As a young adult, I wanted to see someone maybe closer to my own age and fitness levels, not someone that reminded me of my dad. I guess I just don't care that much for FYEO, OP and AVTAK. The three jokers in the pack. MR and DAD can fight it out amongst themselves as to who is fourth.
Oh, yes. Sam Neil. Another Cubby misfire.
I hear you on the difficulty of an American playing Bond. The accent is difficult for them to pull of normally (although I think Brosnan came close to sounding other than British on occasion).
I agree on Collins having the cool edge. No question about it. What I think he lacked was a certain refinement. Having said that, I'm not that taken with Craig in that department either. Only Connery and Laz combined the credible lethality with style imho.
Thing with Collins was he was a blank canvas which Cubby could've built upon. If the character is written refined then that's how it should be played. For me, Moore was a great Saint but not a wholly convincing Bond. He could do the refinement bit but not the physical side. Though I do quite like LALD and TMWTGG, but not for the same reasons as I do the classic Sixties Bonds, at least Moore appears to be younger here. There's no way of proving it, but I honestly think Collins would have been better than Dalton had he got the gig in '81. Sigh!
No doubt. I don't think Cubby had the courage to go in a totally new direction after MR. After all, what had worked had worked very well and he was the one who co-created it. In a way, it took his daughter to shake the tree (yes, I know Dalton was a precursor, but even then they hedged and did him a disservice).
I think you could be right. Collins could have pulled off the insouciance far better than Dalton did. He was always far more comfortable with the ladies. Dalton wasn't, imho.
Yes, MR was a financial BO hit, surprisingly. I think people just wanted to go see what Bond looked like in a proper sci-fi movie. It was a bit of a curiosity, especially as Cubby was proclaiming: "This isn't science fiction... this is science FACT!" at every given opportunity. Of course that was total nonsense and the public were less likely to believe anything he said afterwards. Even though the phrase jump the shark hadn't properly been coined until 1985, I think audiences were aware that they'd seen something very similar happen in MR and as a result they stayed away from FYEO in their droves. Had Cubby had the foresight to recast his 007 for FYEO then he wouldn't have gone into OP without a rival Connery Bond threatening their takings in the form of NSNA and the prospect of having to recast a new Bond at the same time. Moore knew this and held out for even more money, which he got. If Cubby had recast on FYEO he would've been in a much better position with a younger actor invigorating the series with Collins rather than the two granddad Bonds going toe-to-toe at the BO in '93. For whatever reason, he felt Collins was too arrogant, even though the two had never met. I don't think he liked Collins stating publicly that he would make Bond tough again if he was cast in the role.
Of course, no one knows for sure how audiences would've reacted to a Collins Bond without a movie to show for it, but I can tell you that cinemagoers that were still bothering to turn up were only going to see a Bond movie for the laughs and the big stunts. Bond had lost his way and it needed addressing badly as the rot was already setting in. By the time AVTAK came out, it seemed there was no going back to the gritty, edgier Bond movies. What followed is public record, but at the time the later Moore Bond movies were the sight and sound of an undertaker nailing the coffin firmly shut.
Having said that, I do think that Cubby was perhaps in a better position with Moore for the famous OP/NSNA duel than if he had to rely on a newbie Bond in the saddle for his sophomore outing (assuming the switch had occurred with FYEO). Bond actors tend to have less than favourable second films (FRWL being an exception), and so perhaps having an old hand like Moore in the chair helped to vanquish Connery once and for all (my understanding is the official entry bettered the pretender at the box office). Old Connery vs young Collins (as the official Bond) would have made for interesting viewing in 1983 though.
AVTAK is pretty much near the bottom of the pile for me (along with SP, TWINE, DAD etc.), so I can relate to how disappointed you must have been with it upon release. Things changed fairly quickly though, because one could argue that LTK was the grittiest Bond film since the early 60s and that was only a few years later. Unfortunately it didn't resonate, and they were forced to go back to lighter fare with the Brosnan soft reboot.
I wouldn't necessarily agree that it changed fairly quickly. We're talking over a ten year period here, which used to mean an awful lot back then as opposed to now. We also have the benefit of hindsight, which again the ardent Bond fan didn't have at the time. For instance, going into AVTAK we had no idea whether Moore would come back for another movie afterwards (God forbid). There was no mention of it in the press. And let's not forget, Moore was already renown for stalling on his one-picture Bond deals by this stage. The rumours of the latest Bond movie being Moore's last had been circulating since the days of MR (if not TSWLM before that), so we could never really take anything seriously what was mentioned in the press. Had Cubby made the grittier changes after MR with a younger actor in the role and OP made without the slapstick humour, then they would have been ahead of the curve rather than playing catch up with the changing tastes of cinemagoers over the course of the 80's. I can only talk from my own POV, but I always felt uncomfortable laughing along with the rest of the audience watching those later Moore Bond entries. It felt wrong that Cubby had given in to spoofing his own movies. Sadly the audiences were mostly made up of young folk that now viewed Bond as one big joke, thanks in no small part to Moore's continued presence. The original fans just sat there rolling their eyes at how puerile it had all gotten, if they even bothered to turn up in the first place. For me, the die was already cast when Cubby made FYEO; the repercussions of which wouldn't be seriously felt until much later. Cubby was right to make FYEO more grounded, he just made it with the wrong actor and didn't have enough faith in his own product to jettison the buffoonery entirely.
Regarding Bond I always thought Ray Lonnen could have succeeded Moore for FYEO.
Ray Lonnen was a popular figure in The Sandbaggers for those not in the know. Certainly a better choice than Cubby's own. Though to be fair to Cubby, he did have Michael Billington waiting in the wings and on contract should Moore have declined MR.
Hm, that s certainly...controversial.
I said maybe for the greatest. But I'm fairly convinced that he would have made a stronger M than Brown.
Certainly is.. I thought Brown was an excellent M particularly in LTK!
Your Bond world, at least to that extent, is also my Bond world.