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Excellent job! Thanks for share it.
Yep, a thousand thanks.
Here is the listing. Sotheby's writes: "This version of the script has a new villain, Klement Kronk, kill Blofeld and (with the help of Jaws) take over SPECTRE for his own fiendish purposes. Sadly, this portion of the story was changed before production commenced in the summer of 1976 in order to avoid the film getting dragged into an ongoing copyright dispute over the use of SPECTRE. This copy of the screenplay belonged to Ernie Archer, assistant art director for this and other Bond films."
Alas, only two pages are shown from this tantalizing script. One corresponds the pre-credits, the other to the Lotus chase:
Gosh, that sounds amazing.
One of the most fascinating things is that the storyline doesn't seem to be that different from the movie that ultimately got made. Based on Maibaum's statements, however, there was no tanker in his draft (although the idea was taken from one of his scripts for DAF by Christopher Wood), but still, the rest of the story seemed already in place. As I never liked the character of Stromberg too much, I would love to know more about this Klement Kronk.
That's correct. In his Starlog interview Maibaum said “I never had Stromberg—or whomever the hell it was in that movie—or that interminable thing which went on in the tanker.”
The article also states that one of his TSWLM screenplays "opened with a group of terrorists, comprised of everyone from the Red Brigade to the Weathermen," breaking into SPECTRE's ultra-modern headquarters. “They level the place, kick Blofeld out, and take over. They’re a bunch of young idealists. In the end, Bond comes in and asks, ‘All right, you’re going to blow up the world. What do you want? ‘ They reply ‘We don’t want anything. We just want to start over—the world is lousy. We want to wipe it away and begin again. So, there’s no way we can be bribed.’"
According to Maibaum, “Rightly or wrongly, Cubby thought it was too political. So many young people in the world support those people that we would have scrambled sympathies in the picture. Cubby is a very astute man. He knows…”
Maibaum confirmed that Jaws was in his draft and in the end "met his death in a furnace." However, the producers kept the character alive and “made a schlemiel out of him in Moonraker.”
That would certainly have been something, and maybe that would have set the stage for Dalton that would not have come across in this context as a breakup for the audience. I would be curious to know who wrote this treatment since it seems that George MacDonald Fraser, usually presented as the first screenwriter on the project, wrote a much more raving draft, with most notably a cameo appearance of Goldfinger outside the American airbase in Germany.
Feels like to some degree this has been resurrected in NTTD with Safin's lot - Blofeld to Bond 'Your enemy is my enemy'
That sounds fun: you can imagine how Bond might've looked inside and only his teeth would be left! :)
Sounds like the idea was reused, as a solar furnace featured in a few early drafts of “Spectre”.
Don't tell me Hinx's thumbnails were in the ashes! :D
Ha ha!
No from memory Q and Bond were kidnapped in Austria and taken to Blofeld’s Moroccan lair, and tortured in a solar furnace. Blofeld was watching Bond’s elevated vitals on a tablet due to the smart blood in him. Sounded like a pretty cool idea and makes better use of the smart blood.
Is that from one of the leaked drafts or no?
I think it is from one of the October 2014 drafts.
Afterward Maibaum and Wilson delivered a 62 page treatment on September 3, 1981 that retained Blofeld but moved much of the action to Tokyo. Kamal Khan was entirely absent.
This might be the treatment Charlie Helfenstein refers to in The Making of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, when he mentions a scene of Octopussy's girls raiding a Spectre factory that prints counterfeit money. In this version Octopussy was an Asian woman who ran a nightclub in Tokyo.
A further treatment by Maibaum and Wilson, dated September 30, "has a Cold War slant, dealing with a nuclear threat, adding a Netherlands-set pre-title sequence, dispensing with Blofeld, and making Octopussy more villainous."
Only after all of these was George MacDonald Fraser hired. After he came on board, the script team plugged on, and by December 15 1981 the revised storyline involved 009's murder in Berlin, the Fabrege egg auction in London, Bond playing backgammon with Kamal Khan, Soviet skullduggery, Octopussy's floating palace, and a climax with a nuclear threat.
Wow! I haven't heard that before. Do you recall the source? I'm eager to read more about this. Helfenstein mentions that some drafts of Octopussy involved Goldfinger's diamond-obsessed brother Monsieur Diamont.
To be honest, these Octopussy treatments featuring SPECTRE may now be the single thing from the series that I would most like to read or learn about, even more than the initial plans for DAF. But, since you mention The Making of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, is there anything in this book about Diamonds... starring Lazenby ?
There is indeed some tantalizing material about the early versions of DAF in The Making of OHMSS, and when I get home from work tonight I will try to summarize it.
That sounds good, might have to grab that book.
On Sept. 8, 1969 (while OHMSS was in post-production) Richard Maibaum began 13 weeks of script work on Diamonds Are Forever.
His first treatment began with a despondent Bond at home, still mourning Tracy's loss, with a framed picture of her by his bed. Bond receives a call from Marc Ange Draco and excitedly rushes out of his flat.
In a London post office a shadowy figure is seen removing a package. Bond follows the man and a chase begins in the mail railway system. Bond dodges gunfire and protects himself with sacks of mail. The shadowy man loses balance, falls onto the roadway and is electrocuted. His fedora falls off, revealing that the man is...Irma Bunt! And inside her package are...diamonds.
A later treatment begins with Bond in mourning in a small cottage, accompanied by a dog. As "We Have All the Time in the World" plays, Bond goes for a motorcycle ride with the dog running alongside. He hears a plane overhead and looks up to see a parachutist. She lands and the dog goes to greet her (despite Bond telling it to stay). Bond introduces himself. Her name is Tiffany Case.
A Land Rover speeds toward them. Bond assumes it's there to pick up Tiffany, until the Rover attempts to run him over. Two tries later the Rover sideswipes Bond. The driver gets out a pistol, which Bond karate chops into his own hands. Bond fires at the retreating vehicle; it crashes and fatally ejects the driver. Bond approaches and sees the driver is none other than Irma Bunt...with a package of diamonds. Cue the credits.
Unfortunately no further information on what happens next is given. That will have to wait until someone studies Maibaum's papers at the University of Iowa.
Ilse Steppat's death on Dec. 22, 1969 meant that Irma Bunt could no longer appear. In a memo addressed to Broccoli and Saltzman and dated Feb. 10, 1970, Maibaum wrote "I'd like for us to make some joint decisions...Do we use Blofeld as our mastermind again? If so, we can't avoid emphasizing the revenge aspect. The audience expects Bond to settle his account with him for murdering Tracy." Maibaum also wrote that since Bond and Tiffany had experienced great personal tragedies they could help each other recover.
At this point everyone involved still planned on introducing a new Bond. My own conjecture is that after Connery returned the producers decided there was little point in emphasizing the revenge aspect from a non-Connery film with a one-off Bond they wanted to forget.
I think pinning it on re-introducing Bunt is a bit of a bad idea though- would audiences really remember who she was? Most people nowadays think she's Rosa Klebb! :)
I would have preferred Irma to stay alive until the climax, as in Fleming's YOLT.
Although, I too would've preferred for her to stick around until the movie's climax.
I quite like this beginning, much more than the other suggested with Tiffany Case parachuted or the actual PTS with the Blofeld clones. Especially since it is easy from such an introduction to stay close to Fleming's novel, which I imagine was Hunt's wish if he had stayed at the helm, where it would have been more complicated with the other treatment. I hope that one day we can learn more about these treatments!
Nevertheless, thank you very much for these descriptions!