Thunderball pre-Broccolli and Saltzman

johntitor1

Anyone ever wonder what Thunderball might have been like if McClory had been successful in getting the film financed and made before Brocolli and Saltzman entered the picture? I recently read the Battle for Bond book by Robert Sellers and aside from documenting the court case, it really shed some light on what Bond could have been like and even casts some suspicion that the screenplay that Jack Whittingham wrote for McClory (which Ian Fleming decided to base the novel on) might have heavily influenced the EON series. Even though Fleming came up with the idea for SPECTRE, he didn't seem keen on using it for the film until he wrote the novel. Instead he had the mafia stealing the bombs, and the climax was going to be that they were threatening to blow-up a USO show. We would have had Bond pretend to be one of the entertainers getting advice from Laurence Olivier and they would have cut between Bond fighting underwater and Sinatra singing on stage. There were some other fascinating developments that would have been crazy had they actually done it, but I just found this all a very interesting piece of alternative Bond history.

Dragonpol

Blowing up a USO show - could you please tell us more on this? It all sounds rather like Octopussy!

I too find it a very interesting piece of alternative Bond history.

johntitor1

If McClory had been successful in getting the 1st Bond film made, that's what it could have been. The major effort of the script that Jack Whittingham wrote -which Fleming plagerized for his novel - was to make Bond more likeable and to put him in an underwater adventure that would leave out much of the perceived "sadism" and "cruelty" of the Fleming novels. Having Bond prevent the detenoation of a nuclear bomb in an underwater battle was McClory's and Whittingham's idea. The plot device they chose was the USO show where we would have had celebrity cameos (which at the time was a thing to do to generate box office potential). They would have had Bond disguised as a performer and eventually intercut USO performance footage with underwater fights. McClory had the ambition but not the means to achieve making the 1st Bond film because movie studios were not confident in Bond at the time and Fleming selling rights left and right didn't help. There was even supposed to be a From Russia with Love TV movie to coincide with the film. At one point Fleming wanted both a Bond TV series and a Bond film series at the same time. It would have been nuts. Anyway, we should be grateful that these efforts were not realized because I think McClory would have not been able to make a strong enough 1st film to launch a franchise.

There's a great podcast where I learned all this. Give it a listen:


Here they interview the author of the Battle for Bond Book:

http://jamesbondradio.com/the-battle-for-bond-robert-sellers-interview-podcast-012/


Here they interview Sylvan Mason, daughter of Jack Whittingham:


http://jamesbondradio.com/jack-whittinghams-thunderball-podcast-013/


Here's the iTunes page to subscribe if you like what you hear:

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/james-bond-radio/id816222534?mt=2

Thunderfinger

Never knew about the plans for a FRWL tv movie. Would be interesting to learn more about that.

Ludovico

Why do I think it would have turned Bond into Adam West's Batman?

Thunderfinger

Ludovico wrote:

Why do I think it would have turned Bond into Adam West's Batman?

Starring Roger Moore of course.

Ludovico

I am not sure I could picture even Roger Moore in this James Bond.

Seriously toning down the sadism and cruelty of the books, the inclusion of big stars as themselves, that just sounds like self-parody.