“We always start out trying to make another From Russia with Love..."

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• Fire_and_Ice_Returns I am trying to get away from this mountan!

  October 2023 Posts: 25,154

  Junglist_1985 wrote: »

  “We always start out trying to make another From Russia with Love..."
  
  Was thinking about this quote from Michael G. Wilson, and had me thinking... has there really ever been anything like From Russia With Love? To me it stands as a unique entry, combining Hitchcockian thrills and Cold War espionage (and of course some early Bond tropes). The closest I think we ever got was The Living Daylights.

  
  Richard Maibaum who Co wrote FRWL was actually an uncredited writer on one of my favourite Hitchcock films The Foreign Correspondent 1940, which is a fantastic war time espionage adventure.
  
  Richard Maibaum contributed a lot to the series including the two films you mentioned.
• SIS_HQ At the Vauxhall Headquarters

  October 2023 Posts: 3,789

  I think MGW is quite wrong in that, misplaced word, perhaps?
  
  For me, what they're trying to replicate is the quality of OHMSS in regards to filmmaking, well, I think not just EON, but also the likes of Nolan replicating it many times in Inception and one of his The Dark Knight films.
  
  Since Skyfall, they've been replicating it, with beautiful cinematography, emotional story and drama, and bombastic scores.
  
  It's not FRWL, maybe the screentest, but it's been changed after AVTAK, TLD had a different screentest, maybe Goldeneye replicated FRWL, but it's not for always, if anything, it's OHMSS (see also TWINE).
• 007HallY

  October 2023 edited October 2023 Posts: 4,166

  I think the full quote ends with Wilson saying that although they start out trying to make another FRWL ‘they always end up with another TB’.
  
  It’s not specifically to do with trying to replicate the plot of FRWL. The quote could just as easily begin ‘we always start out trying to create another OHMSS’. It’s just a comment on how they begin by honing ideas that are more grounded/character based, but as the process goes on much of the fantasy/escapism/scale of a Bond film creeps in. The films are just metaphors in this sense.
  
  I suppose out of the modern Bond films SF would be closest to FRWL. It’s a lot more stripped back much like FRWL is, and there’s a ‘cat and mouse’ aspect to the story. It even has an espionage themed McGuffin in the form of the list similar to the Lektor (insofar as this plot device is utilised - its use/the story shifts by the middle of the film).
  
  Really though, I don’t think there can be another FRWL or TB. No more than there can be another GE, CR, or SF. Each Bond film is unique in some way no matter what.
• CrabKey

  October 2023 Posts: 1,996

  Wilson may have said that, but he didn't mean it. Had he meant it, future Bond films would have been reasonably faithful adaptations of Fleming's novels instead of films whose only connection to Fleming's stories were the titles. No question the in name only films made big money, but it's not that they couldn't make another FRWL. They chose not to.
• DEKE_RIVERS

  October 2023 Posts: 1,368

  SIS_HQ wrote: »

  I think MGW is quite wrong in that, misplaced word, perhaps?
  
  For me, what they're trying to replicate is the quality of OHMSS in regards to filmmaking, well, I think not just EON, but also the likes of Nolan replicating it many times in Inception and one of his The Dark Knight films.
  
  Since Skyfall, they've been replicating it, with beautiful cinematography, emotional story and drama, and bombastic scores.
  
  It's not FRWL, maybe the screentest, but it's been changed after AVTAK, TLD had a different screentest, maybe Goldeneye replicated FRWL, but it's not for always, if anything, it's OHMSS (see also TWINE).

  
  Casino Royale IS the new Goldfinger.
• echo 007 in New York

  October 2023 Posts: 6,304

  FRWL is clearly the template for TLD.
• Dragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com

  October 2023 edited October 2023 Posts: 18,281

  I'd say that FYEO is also influenced by FRWL with its more serious, Cold War thriller plot and relatively little of the silliness of the Moore era intruding too much. It's also similarly faithful to the Fleming source material.
• echo 007 in New York

  October 2023 Posts: 6,304

  I mean, TLD is clearly "inspired by" FRWL in several respects. The opening training mission, the blonde love interest who defects, even arguably the triumvirate of villains.
• hegottheboot_ USA

  October 2023 Posts: 113

  I don’t know if MGW meant anything other than the serious spy story vs fantastic larger than life paradigm the series pivots between. Fittingly that quote went onto say we always end up making another Thunderball.
  
  Maibaum kept FRWL in mind as his target to aim for. It’s the series pinnacle in terms of getting the Bond cocktail just right for the more serious approach where Goldfinger is the flipside pinnacle for larger than life.
  
  It took me ages to realize that Maibaum’s TMWTGG rewrite has a great deal of FRWL flavor with the machinations of Andrea and the golden bullet. His contribution is the most underrated in the series and you can feel Bond elements in his earlier films-whether for Hitchcock, Alan Ladd especially in OSS which is literally as close as Hollywood got to a 40’s Bond-and of course the Warwick films Ladd brought him to the UK to write.
• thedove hiding in the Greek underworld

  October 2023 Posts: 5,434

  The fact that they still use the Bond meets Romanova scene after all these years tells us how highly the producers feel about FRWL. That Bond film has a great many elements that have it head and shoulders above others in the series.
  
  I think each time a new adventure is brought to the screen the producers are shooting for an ideal. Lately the ideal seems to have shifted to suited to be seen in a theatre. How often did we hear that in the weeks of promo for NTTD?
  
  One can only hope that MGW or Barbara have this laser focus on the next film. Because if they do they will be doing something magical. I would welcome a good old fashioned thriller, where Bond isn't always in the know and doesn't have all the right answers, a film where there is a genuine sense that Bond is in grave danger. The last time that was felt was CR in 2006. At no time have I feared for Bond in Daniels subsequent films.