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Some Kind of Hero - Matthew Field and Ajay Chowdhury
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Has anyone heard of this book? What exactly is it about? I will definitely pick up a copy though...
https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/literature-some-kind-of-hero?t=&s=&id=03910
https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/literature-some-kind-of-hero?t=&s=&id=03910
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looking forward to reading it, but it is
one big book.
Same here, just not got round to reading either.
I didn't find any shocking discoveries regarding the classic era of Bond films (1962-1989), perhaps because I own some of the rarer quoted sources, such as the Cinema Retro issue on Dr. No and Helfenstein's book on The Making of OHMSS. I'm less well-read when it comes to the Brosnan/Craig era, and I found those chapters very educational. It helps that the authors were able to interview most of the major players from those years, whereas most of the classic era luminaries are now dead. Purvis and Wade certainly come across as writers who know Fleming inside and out, and whose work has rarely made to the screen as they wrote it. Readers will also have a better appreciation of how the modern Bond films have been at the mercy of corporate interference and demands for rushed product (which blighted the Brosnan era).
I have to report that the authors have been badly let down by their editor and proofreaders. I gave up counting every instance of misplaced punctuation and garbled syntax. There are also too many direct quotations of anecdotes that would have been more effective if paraphrased.
Excellent as it is, Some Kind of Hero shows the limitations of oral history, which has been called the easiest kind to write. Not that I'm suggesting this book was easy to write--it was obviously a Herculean undertaking of several years' effort. But it would have been even more difficult if it relied on more than interviews and other Bond books and articles, and had also made use of archival research. That's easier said than done of course, since the archives of United Artists and EON are probably difficult to access.
But a definitive history of the Bond films will have to make use of archival research, because documents--such as interoffice memos between UA and EON, or producers' letters to the director--are often more reliable than memories of incidents that happened decades ago. For example, The chapter on OHMSS relies heavily on recent interviews with Lazenby and reproduces his claim that Hunt didn't speak to him during the shoot--a claim that has been challenged elsewhere on basic grounds of logic. That's the other problem with oral histories--they give priority to those who were available to be interviewed; Peter Hunt isn't around to give his side of the story. Another minor example--Guy Hamilton, in an interview decades after Goldfinger was made, dismisses Paul Dehn's contributions by saying he was lucky to get script credit. But Adrian Turner's examination (in his book on GF) of the screenplay's genesis convincingly suggests that Dehn played a major role in adapting the book.
A definitive history of the Bond films (at least of the classic era Bond films) will have to sort through all the drafts prepared for each production, in the way Helfenstein did for his OHMSS book. I'm rather surprised no one has conducted a study of the hoard of Bond scripts included in Richard Maibaum's papers at the University of Iowa (the list of the contents is here: http://collguides.lib.uiowa.edu/?MSC0149#series5). We know that in many cases the final film either deviated from Maibaum's script (DAF) or Maibaum initially had a very different vision of the material (DN, LTK, TLD, OP, TSWLM). It would be fascinating to learn even more of the roads untaken and whether the producers were wise to not take them.
Putting talk of definitive histories aside, Some Kind of Hero is required reading. No previous Bond book has compiled information from so many sources, and, as far as oral histories go, it will remain definitive for the classic Bond era (unless someone succeeds in scoring a detailed interview with Connery--Field and Chowdhury made an honorable attempt), especially since there's almost no one left to interview. Future Bond films will probably prompt future editions of Some Kind of Hero but why wait a few years when you can start with the current one?
I'm working my way through " Some kind of hero" at the moment, and I'm
Really enjoying it.
It is disappointing that there wasn't more of an analysis of the various scripts. In terms of Maibaum's papers, I think only Adrian Turner has used material from the University of Iowa for his book Adrian Turner on Goldfinger (1998). It does seem to be a mostly untapped resource.
The HMSS Weblog does have some great stuff on Maibaum's writing, and most recently an article in MI6 Confidential focused on the Donald E. Westlake treatments for TND (using manuscripts from Boston University).
I'll definitely have to seek those out! Helfenstein is the only other person to have gone through the Maibaum papers--the script chapter in his OHMSS book is completely fascinating and shows several "alternate reality" versions of that film and DAF. I haven't read Helfenstein's The Making of the Living Daylights, but I'm sure his discussion of the initial "young Bond" treatment is just as riveting. Bond scripts are such an unexplored, rich territory, especially when they contain material that wasn't filmed. Jeremy Duns wrote a terrific ebook about Ben Hecht's unused script of Casino Royale, which if filmed would have given the 2006 film a run for its money. Returning to Maibaum's papers, I agree that they are a mostly untapped source and deserve prolonged study.
Here's a three-part series in The Spy Command (formerly The HMSS weblog). A company called Film Finances published a book in 2011 about its involvement with Dr. No. The book reproduces a lot of letters, memos, call sheets, etc.
Because of cost overruns, Film Finances assumed control of the movie as it went into post production. That meant it controlled the spending in post production.
Part I (pre-production):
https://hmssweblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/23/financial-behind-the-scenes-of-dr-no-part-i/
Part II (principal photography):
https://hmssweblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/24/financial-behind-the-scenes-of-dr-no-part-ii/
Part III (post production):
https://hmssweblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/25/financial-behind-the-scenes-of-dr-no-part-iii/