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I wanted to again mention FRWL because out of all the novels I read (admittedly most a long time ago) that is my favorite. I enjoy Moonraker a lot, too. But I wanted to say that I think FRWL is very well written, a cut above. The only part that makes me cringe is Kerim explaining his "way with women" to Bond because the things he did were truly disgusting and not acceptable (at any time, in any era, for me). That sort of threw me at first. But aside from that, it is so fascinating, suspenseful, exotic, fun, and I think truly Fleming's best writing. I would put Moonraker at the top, too, giving us more insights into Bond's character. I enjoy both of them a lot, but when I want to feel the danger, sense of being in a foreign land and in peril, psycho killers, and romance, with a great and unexpected ending, I think FRWL is hard to beat.
Thanks also to CommanderRoss and SaintMark for your fine contributions. Now who else would like to comment about the novels? Novels compared to films, just the novels themselves, any aspect of Fleming's writing, etc. :-B
I'll try to be on the forum a little today, but once I leave home I will be out of action again for a while. I'm happy to see others chiming in with this interesting topic.
Keep up the good work, everybody! :)>-
Fleming’s portrayal of homosexuality was rather shocking for his time. It’s not surprising to me that he depicts Wint & Kidd or Rosa Klebb in a rather negative light; I do wonder how he might have treated gays and lesbians had he survived into the days of gay liberation. Might we have seen a sympathetic homosexual character among the Bond supporting characters? No way of knowing, but I suspect the answer might be “Yes.” (Please remember that Fleming had a personal friendship with Noel Coward, well-known these days for his homosexuality but never openly acknowledged in public during his lifetime.) I don’t think Blofeld’s relationship with Irma Bunt was a way of stating that Blofeld’s tastes were perverse, rather that Blofeld was human, and that at times love is indeed blind.
I also wonder how Fleming would have treated the subject of drugs had he survived into the late ‘60s. In addition to his alcohol and nicotine addictions, Fleming’s Bond also used Benzedrine routinely while in the field. He also seemed to have a surprising tolerance for marijuana users, at least in Fleming’s later work: in TMWTGG, Bond (masquerading as Mark Hazzard) is put in charge of livening up Scaramanga’s party, and one of his first steps is to instruct the Jamaican band, “I’ll be sending over plenty of rum. SMOKE WEED IF YOU LIKE.” (caps mine.) Now it can be argued that Bond was playing a character (Hazzard) whose positions were deliberately intended to be unlike those of a member of Her Majesty’s Secret Service…but still, I am among those who suspect that Fleming’s Bond might have a bit more broad-minded on such topics if Fleming himself had lived to see 1969!
YOLT is the first Bond film to deviate significantly from its source material. While scriptwriter Roald Dahl is on record as stating that Fleming’s novel was more of a travelogue than a filmable story, I still think that Dr. Shatterhand’s Garden of Death could easily have been the backdrop for a visually stunning climax to an effective Bond film. I suspect that in reality, after the earth-shattering consequences of the villains’schemes in Goldfinger and Thunderball, Fleming’s original plot for YOLT was considered less compelling than that of the previous two films, and the powers that be at Eon felt the need to “amp up” Blofeld’s scheme beyond the relatively staid Japanese “retirement castle” envisioned in Fleming’s original novel.
OHMSS has been hailed as the Eon film that is closest of all to its source material. It was also -- let’s face it -- the least successful Bond film of its time. I’m not at all surprised that the decision to dispense with more of Fleming’s original work followed quickly on the heels of this movie, which has only recently begun to receive a better reception among fans of the Bond franchise.
DAF uses a surprising amount of original Fleming material in its first third or so, until the Willard Whyte plot -- and the diamond-powered laser satellite -- hijacks the film. Tiffany Case, Peter Franks, the diamond smuggling pipeline, and Wint & Kidd all hail from the pen of Fleming -- but when the original novel was written, Las Vegas was nowhere near the glittering showplace it had become by 1971 -- and let’s face it, DAF the novel isn’t one of Fleming’s more compelling works. It NEEDED to be spiced up…whether or not the film is successful in that regard is another matter entirely. Let’s just say that the Spangled Mob is another Fleming creation that has yet to appear in the Eon offerings and leave it at that.
LALD the film differs considerably from Fleming’s novel -- and yet I have assigned it to the realm of “Minor Changes” despite the fact that Dr. Kanaga and the plot to flood the world heroin market are completely new additions to the film’s storyline. That’s probably because, to my mind, so many of the story’s key elements remain untouched. Despite the absence of Felix’s disagreement with something that ate him, this film still has Mr. Big’s Harlem-based criminal gang, the island-based voodoo cult and Solitaire’s loss of her psychic powers due to her seduction by Bond. These points are the driving forces in the original storyline as I see it -- and they still remain in the film we are given. Besides, these omissions from the original novel just give us some Fleming material to appreciate in FYEO and LTK...
TMWTGG is one of Fleming’s weakest novels, aside from the creation of Scaramanga himself. It’s also one of the movies most made up from out of thin air. The “solex agitator” just screams “early-to-mid ‘70s” to me. For that matter, so does Nick Nack. I’m surprised he doesn’t shout, “De Plane, Boss, De Plane!” when Bond arrives on Scaramanga’s island. Moving on now….
TSWLM had to be completely created anew for the screen at Fleming‘s insistence, with only the title available for the folks at Eon to use. All things considered, they did an exceptionally fine job. Jaws and Sandor are more than a little reminiscent of Horror and Sluggsy, the villainous pair from the novel, and if the film’s heroine doesn’t ride a little motor scooter, well, at least we have Bond riding a water scooter instead…
MR took all the good-will that the previous film had generated, and shot it into space. There are little pieces of the original novel scattered here-and-there, notably Bond and his main heroine at risk of incineration from rocket exhaust…but Michael Lonsdale’s insufferably calm Drax in the film is only a vague approximation of the grotesque Drax from the novel, and his scheme is suffering from steroid poisoning. Destroying London is one thing, destroying all of humanity and repopulating the world with Drax’s notions of perfect human specimens is about five other things, none of them approaching believability. Call it the most cartoonish of all Bond films and watch it on Saturday morning after first enjoying a marathon of Merrie Melodies.
FYEO, as noted earlier, is a nice use of leftover elements from two different short stories plus a thrilling scene left out of LALD. Easily the most realistic of Roger Moore’s Bonds, if you enjoy Moore’s depiction of the character for the escapist thrills his films generally present then you may be disappointed with this film...but for viewers like myself who were getting terribly tired of his smirking approach to the world’s most famous secret agent this film was a welcome antidote to the previous offering.
OP: This short story would have been about ten minutes’ worth of screen-time if adapted faithfully for the Bond movie series. Instead, the screen-writers wisely dispense with it as five seconds of dialogue from Octopussy the movie's heroine. It is the reason she holds Bond in high regard, and is willing to become his love interest in this film. The rest of the movie is woven from whole cloth, right-up-to-the-top-but-not-quite-over-it Moore era escapist entertainment. I used to dislike it because of the Tarzan yell and the Bond-in-a-monkey-suit scene compounded by the Bond-in-a-clown-suit moment of wasted tension. Now I just see it as one of the more enjoyable of the empty-headed Moore films; okay for its time period but better things were just down the road. But first we had to get past...
AVTAK: The short story bearing this title is a minor little thing Fleming evidently produced over a weekend with nothing else on his schedule. There’s really nothing memorable to it unless one reads it as a demonstration of Fleming’s skills as a nature writer. Bond spends several hours, camouflaged, watching a pastoral scene until some baddies emerge from their hidden lair. He then dispatches them with ease and flushes out the lair itself. That’s about it. Honestly, Fleming’s description of the flora and fauna in this secluded locale is pretty much the only reason I can ascertain for the existence of this story. I hope he enjoyed himself writing it; the film-makers had nothing much to go on other than a title when creating the story-line for the movie. They even left out the first word of the short story’s title (for the record, that word is “From”) and for all I can tell, nobody missed it.
LTK takes a fairly strong short story that makes a dandy opening for this film, then manages to embellish it reasonably well for another hour and a half. TLD takes the Felix-Meets-Shark moment from LALD, adds on a fair amount of “The Hildebrand Rarity,” for leavening, then switches on the TV for a substantial helping of “Miami Vice.” That’s it for the brief reign of Timothy Dalton as Bond. Pierce Brosnan had hardly any Fleming material left for his films, as has been noted elsewhere, and I think he might have been a more satisfying 007 if some Fleming scraps had been tossed his way.
Finally, QoS the movie really doesn’t have anything at all to do with QoS the short story -- unless I missed something amidst all the shaky-cam editing. I do like the concept of “Quantum” the secret organization, and I hope future Bond films do something with it. I’d also like to see Dr. Shatterhand’s Castle of Death and the Spangled Mob used in the Bond series at some point -- but hopefully not all at once. With the little bit of Fleming they have left, the folks and Eon will need to dole it out pretty judiciously…
And another important point to make, when it comes to sexuality, is the gipsy fight. In the film it seems perhaps strange, but I never get the feeling it's a life or death fight. In the novel it's made abundantly clear it is. That ads to the tension and is another insight in Fleming's interest in the culturally different, bizarre and sexually extreme. Fleming had an, let's say exciting sex life himself and I think that perhaps helped him looking for these things to add to the books. After all Bond was some sort of better-then-he-really-was Fleming. He was what Fleming wanted to be. So your assessment, @Beatles, that Fleming might have been quite liberal when it came to gays, lesbians, drugs and all those things that became more well-known and less strange years later.
(ok, and when on-topic, how could so many have not seen Liberace was gay? I mean, come on!)
On the whole I can heartily agree with your division of the films @Beatles, I think that makes sense. Funny too to see that the 'minor-changes' films all make it to so many top 10's of casual 'Bond- aficionados'.
I found it not so offensive because you must read FRWL thinking that this novel was written in the '50's and there was no enlightenment as such in the Euro-Asian city of Istanbul. And through Kerim we get a pretty accurate if not disturbing view of how life and women were perceived in that time and at that place. It shows perhaps Flemings insight a bit above the touristy approach and gives it some local flavor. Which is what I admire most in Flemings reading.
I recently read Richard Starks "the Hunter" in which the main character named Parker is an awefull women unfriendly person and yet the book is perceived as a classic. But this book represented the USA in 1962 and the views upon that book has never been unfavorable while recent reviews do suggest that the views upon woman might be offending. But still it is a snapshot of the times.
Flemings views might in some instances be considered off in our modern days, but they were a product of his upbringing, social status and time. I have noticed them and agree with the criticism but am also very alert to the fact that Fleming wrote his books a long time ago. And as such you can learn from his thoughts and views and how different the world is.
Fleming wrote also wrote about extremes, exaggerated situations. Now, I readily admit that I have not studied the culture of Turkey or other eastern/middle eastern cultures during the fifties. I simply do not know, and I rather do not feel like starting an entire investigation as to the cultural treatment of women in Turkey during the fifties. ( Just typing all of that is tiring, geez.) I am rather in tune with my country's societal behavior during that time, naturally. So I am just clarifying that yes, I think it is best to keep in mind the times and social situation in which an author is writing, but also to realize that a writer of fiction uses his or her imagination to highlight things or make the story more compelling. And I do not know how much Fleming exaggerated; I simply do not know.
I do realize that there are some things done in certain cultures (meaning a certain amount of that culture accepts or at least continues the behavior), but that are totally unacceptable, even immoral/unethical, to me. And some of those things are happening today in India, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East in particular. I know that just from reading the news. I do not know enough of the cultural history of Turkey to say that Fleming was writing about an accepted or at least still perpetuated behavior. But it was repulsive to me. As are other things happening in the world today. It is still my favorite novel by Fleming, though. :)
I will try to make time later today to respond to some other points. I'm happy some of you are putting such good thought into this topic. I also want to share some of my favorite quotes from a couple of the novels; I will do that probably tonight. Meanwhile, carry on, everybody.
Cheers! :-bd
More reason to re-read 'em all again!
As I tried to make clear, I only found that one part repulsive (that is the best word I can come up with), and it still did not ruin the story in any way for me. FRWL is, in my opinion, a great Bond novel - highly atmospheric, intriguing, suspenseful, fun, sexy, and with a surprising ending.
There was no handkerchief, only a packet of tissues. (Later, Tiger explained. "Bondo-san, this Western habit of blowing the nose and carefully wrapping up the result in silk or fine linen and harboring it in your pocket as if it were something precious! Would you do the same thing with the other excretions of your body? Exactly! So, if in Japan you wish to blow your nose, perform the act decorously and dispose at once, tidily, of the result.")
The movie had no space for this scene...but the observation stayed with me all these years. I do not own, and do not use, a handkerchief. Never have, in all these intervening decades.
Similarly, I remembered Kerim's woman under the table from my initial reading of FRWL all those years ago...but in my most recent reading of Goldfinger, I was taken by surprise (and somewhat startled by) Oddjob eating the cat. At some point soon, I hope to begin a discussion on what we tend to remember from the novels -- what we don't remember -- and why.
I had forgotten about Oddjob eating a cat - ugh! I love animals so much, I am sure I blocked that out. I remember a good deal about Honey and Bond from Dr. No, though. I grew up as a nature loving Tomboy (albeit not a truly wild child like Honey), and I found it easier to relate to her than to the more glamorous, worldly women Bond often came across. Honey and Bond - those are more pleasant things to remember, oh yes. ;)
The YOLT quote is interesting. And I have to add a caveat. The Japanese people from my experience prefer not to use tissue either. Personally, I have never liked the idea of using a handkerchief ... tissue all the way for me, every time. Yet here, it is considered bad manners to even use tissue (in public, anyway). They are taught, since very little, to simply breathe in the excess mucus rather than expel it; then usually swallowing it. If they cannot, they will use tissue discreetly ... however, that is truly considered a last resort. So if you are a westerner, out and about in public areas in Japan or even in a meeting, you will find that custom to be alarmingly different and well, quite off-putting, to put it simply and mildly and without painting a more vivid picture. Different cultural takes on that for sure.
I am sure some of you out there have favorite quotes from the Bond novels - please join us. Any thoughts or musings are very welcome too. B-)
Cheers! Hope you are all having a great weekend.
Favourite songs
It should be instead less favourite songs, since I love most of them! I will nevertheless single out a few, though I find it difficult to leave some behind. I always had a thing for YOLT sung by Nancy Sinatra, it's so beautiful and slightly exotic. The opening chords symbolize everything I love about Barry's work for the Bond franchise. Also one of Bond-fan Robbie Williams favourite Bond songs, he even incorporated that mythical opening into his hit song Millenium. Nobody Does it Better is another of my very favourites and another of those I find synonymous with Bond. I like Carly Simon a lot, which of course helps. From the Dalton era I have to point TLD by A-Ha. I love it! In fact, I'm listening to it right now :D The Brosnan era opened with a great entry, U2's Bono and The Edge wrote the wonderful GE for Tina Turner to sing. Love it, loved the video clip, have no idea how many times I've listened to it but if I had to guess I would say close to a 4 digits number. The Craig era had two great songs and one I have mixed feelings about (though I don't think it's all bad). I'll go with You Know my Name as my pick, only because it manages to be a great rock song while retaining the class of a great Bond song.
Favourite soundtrack
Probably OHMSS takes the prize. It's so amazing, all of it! Barry was always excellent but he excelled in this one in my opinion. I also like the YOLT one, because it is exotic and manages to incorporate the sounds of the title song so well throughout. Also for the exoticism I also appreciate his work in OP. There is a non-Barry soundtrack that I must talk about and that is Arnold's CR. Beautiful, delicate, romantic as few can manage. He did a great job with that one.
Serra's GE
I really can't imagine GE without Serra's distinctive soundtrack. It's aged badly, I think. However it's probably the less elegant of every Bond soundtrack, the film deserved better.
What makes a great soundtrack or theme song?
A great soundtrack needs a distinctive sound, something that tells us immediately which film are we watching. I should be timeless and elegant (no disco sound, please). Strings and horns are a must, but should be used sparingly. A good romantic theme and a good action cue are also of elementary importance.
A great theme song needs to be catchy and Bondian but never a cliché! It might be a powerful rock tune or a romantic ballad but it always should have that punchy and sexy character that is characteristic not only of a Bond song but also of James Bond's character. Again, strings and horns are welcome but should be used with intelligence.
I did not know (am I the only one?) that Robbie Williams is a big Bond fan. :) I have not heard a whole lot of his music, but I rather like what I have heard. That is interesting!
I agree with your summation of what makes a great soundtrack/theme song. I want different sounds, a variety of instruments used, appropriate cues, melodies, the use of the theme song woven in at times, strings for sure ... yet I don't want kitsch, over the top, or cliche' (for example, a loud drawling sax when a sexually suggestive scene begins). A great soundtrack not only fits the scenes but has heart, brings a pulse to the whole film, and the composer has to have the talent and guts to be subtle, too. And I'm glad you like Carly because her voice is still, for me, the very best version of this song (and we have all heard countless renderings of this from other singers by now). And how I love the YOLT soundtrack and theme song. Barry was a genius.
OK folks, please chime in with your thoughts on music, directors, or the novels! We shall be on Bond novels as the current theme for about 2 more days.
Cheers! :)>-
I think TLD should receive a “Best use of Pop Performers” Award from Bond fandom at large. A-ha’s rendition of the title song is indeed one of the more memorable themes in the Bond canon, and Chrissy Hinds’ contributions to that same film, while not “theme songs” per se, certainly qualify as service above and beyond the call of duty. The tinny scrap of song heard through Necross’ headphones, “Where Has Everybody Gone?” is among the most chilling few notes ever to accompany a movie…and the end-credits ballad “If There Was a Man” is a masterpiece of melancholy. The late great Louis Armstrong also deserves particular mention here: his last recorded work, “We Have All the Time in the World” from OHMSS, is a worthy finale to the career of one of the music world’s premier performers. And finally, I believe that “Skyfall,” Adele’s contribution to the most recent Bond film, is also a song that will stand the test of time and be hailed as a classic in its own right.
There’s a lot more I could say on the subject of Bond theme songs…but I’ll leave it here for now… I need to get back to commentary on the novels before too long...
So let's get this lovely thread moving along again. For that, I need your help. Thanks in advance to all. Any further comments on Bond novels are very welcome. Please do give us your thoughts. For today, though, let's move to our next main topic: Bond scripts!
We have a lot to choose from to talk about when it comes to the scripts. Here are just a couple of things to think about: :-B
~ What makes a great Bond script? What key elements should it have and should not have. A Bond film is not just a regular action or spy film. What makes it special and how can the script have the right Bondian flavor?
~ How about the opposite, a really poor script? Give an example of a poor Bond script and how you think it was detrimental to the film. After all, a fine actor can overcome faults in a script sometimes. Was there any glaring example of the script itself having a negative impact on a Bond film?
I'll start us off: For me, I want to say that one example of a fine Bond script is Casino Royale. It is not the only one, but I feel like mentioning this one first. Casino Royale had not only the right (and coherent) build up of suspense, action, and mystery ... it also had outstanding dialog throughout (such an important element in a script!), a richly exciting beginning, and a fitting end that made us want more and has us believe that Bond was now fully a 00. Still raw, but there he was, the beginnings of the character we so thoroughly enjoy. This was a human, down to earth, intelligent, articulate, still amazingly vulnerable in his core, raw yet razor sharp and yes, brutal, Bond - and it is in the script. (Note: I do not mean the final P&W draft; I know there are differences in that. But what was actually shot. I have not read the actual shooting script; has anyone? I'd be interested to read it). I left the theater completely satisfied.
Please do join me and share your thoughts on Bond scripts, your favorites and most hated, the elements of a Bond script, etc. Lots of "etc.!" to be had.
Cheers!
:-bd
I think FRWL is great and the script is spot on, really excellent.
It certainly takes the atmosphere, tension, action, and mystique from the novel and makes the film rise above an ordinary spy film. I do think it is a wonderful script. I read parts of it online yesterday. It is interesting to see some bits that were cut from the film ... for example, at the end, after Klebb is taken away and Bond and Tania are on the boat (Matt Monroe about to sing) and Bond is holding the canister of film, there was an additional line Bond said to Tania before he dropped the film in the water. Here I'll copy that bit:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
He unspools the start of the roll and holds it up to the
light.
BOND
(looking at it)
He was right, you know. [What a performance!]*
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Then at the bottom of that page of the script (2nd to last page) is a note that says:
*At this moment there is a skip in the soundtrack where the line was removed, which is obvious because the lyric skips.
There are plenty of differences to be found in scripts and the films, in varying degrees depending upon which draft or final shooting script - all of which is interesting to read.
By the way, I found that it is easy to read some scripts on line. Maybe not so easy to find final shooting scripts, but early drafts, yes. Here is one link I was looking at a bit yesterday: http://scripts-onscreen.com/
This one will give you a selection of other sites where you can find Bond scripts online.
If any of you have favorite sources for reading Bond scripts, please let us know.
Your thoughts on what makes a bad script, how important a script is, your favorite Bond scripts, the effect of the writers strike on QOS, and anything else regarding the writing of scripts - all comments are welcome. Cheers!
:-bd
What makes a good script?
characters fleshed out and not painted with a broad brush
The hero's journey
Character Archs (do they evolve during the course of the film?)
Kick in the Ass Climax
What makes a script bad?
Broad brush story telling, generic so to speak
Crappy dialogue that appeals to a 14 year old
Plot holes
Credibility issues . We are expected to suspend belief when watching anything on TV from legal eagle shows like "The Good Wife" to suspense like "24". Movies are the same and we can accept the Star Trek universe long as it sticks to it's own established rules and parameters. When films (and TV) get to the point where they insult the viewer, then this is where I have a problem.
I will just throw this out for now and in my next post I will name two films that have Great Scripts and then pick one or two that I think are really bad.
Oh you mentioned plot holes! Yes, that is a running talking point for Bond films. Bond's world is not the usual, 100% reality based kind of story. I personally can give a good deal of leeway to plot holes if they are not so screamingly bad they take me out of enjoying the story.
You said "kick in the ass" climax and I would add "kick in the heart" too. I do want great action in a Bond film and as that is a huge of of Bond's world, and always part of his story, the action usually builds during a Bond film. That little quiet moment after the final huge action scene is important and helpful ... and can be a series of longer scenes that add huge emotional impact (QOS for all its flaws, has for me the perfect ending, lifting that film's quality by leaps and bounds by that alone) ... or a brief lighthearted moment indeed (Bond and Wai Lin going "under cover"; Bond and Domino being lifted off as their final rescue; Bond and Stacy (oh no, let's not go there!) ;) (I don't favor the brief tragic ending (OHMSS).
TWINE is the one I want to read. I want to see how big a mess it is on the page.
Goldeneye, keep in mind, has a reputation as a very good script indeed, quite well written - however, I am not talking about the original Michael France script which is so totally different. I remember reading that Judi Dench said it was so beautifully written. I do think that is a good one.
We have on this form a thread on Bond scripts (it is called, simple enough, Bond Scripts) :)>- Anyway, maybe those of you who participated on that one would like to join us here for a bit. I am copying below what our member 007 put in his opening post last August; these are nice and helpful for finding scripts online:
Casino Royale
http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/Casino-Royale.pdf
FRWL
http://www.universalexports.net/scripts/frwl.shtml
living Daylights
http://www.universalexports.net/scripts/tld.pdf
World is not enough
http://sfy.ru/sfy.html?script=world_is_not_enough
Tomorrow never dies
http://www.awesomefilm.com/script/tomorrowneverdies.txt -
This Scene is available on YouTube just in case you didn't know. I happen to like it quite a lots and I think this 2 - 3 minutes extra would not have hurt CR.
When you look at it, it is hard to believe that Purvis and Wade who also penned DAD did CR. Having Oscar winner Paul Haggis along did not hurt. We see the new "00" agent James Bond off on his first mission. Bond is kinda blunt and not so well polished in the beginning. He meets and falls in love with another operative Vesper. He is on a journey and we see him evolve during the film. The film also has great dialogue. "Im the money" "Every Penny of it." "That last hand nearly killed me." His relationships are good and the characters are all strong and well rounded. Not just bland dummies.
LeChiffe is a good villain but he is obviously middle management. He takes his orders from the mysterious Mr. White who is shrouded in mystery for much of the film. Keeping the stakes up there. Vicious and sadistic as LeChiffe is, he has real fear when he is at the mercy of Obanno and Mr. White.
The film ends on an interesting note, as Bond's journey is not yet complete. He has been betryaed by the woman he loves and he has trouble couping with this. All in all he remains in character.
I must sound like a broken record constantly praising my favorite film, OHMSS. Be it from the great Bond girl, good villain, soundtrack that approached perfection, to the high octane action sequences. But this film has a fantastic great script. Dick Maibaum who has penned many of the Bond films and had been writing scripts since the 1940's, has said that this was his "best script he did for a Bond film."
Note the little things: the road where Tracy dies is the exact same place where she and Bond first see each other in the PTS....her reactions to Bond when Dracco surprises her at the bullfights. "She likes you I can see it." Dracco says, which Bond comes back with "I'd like to meet your oculist". This is a priceless scene.
We see the journey of Bond and expecially Tracy. She starts as a suicidal lost woman but her love for Bond and her wanting to live progresses. Note the climax at Piz Gloria, where she handles two SPECTRE thugs on her own. However Bond's heriocs cannot shield her from his violent life. She is tragically killed as she admits that she now has a reason to live and a future, her arch being complete.
Bond himself, has gone from a bed hopping agent to a man wanting to settle down, falling in love with this countess. He knows he is giving up a lot but he accepts this.
The script has the classic: Boy finds girl, boy losses girl, boy finds girl again theme. The love story subplot is interwined thru the story: this is still a Bond movie. The downbeat ending is what makes the script/film such a classic.
So CR and OHMSS meets all the requirements of good writing: great dialogue, hero journey, character developement and archs, good pacing, Does a Bond script deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as Casablanca or Citizen Kane? Probably not but only a few films deserve this distinction.
Bonds are good fun, but even their scripts are subject to the standard set forth by classic storytelling.
I'm glad you mentioned dialog again because to me, when we talk about screenplays we are really talking mostly about dialog. Poor dialog is a stumbling block (see DAD for one shining example of crap dialog). A good actor can only do so much with it. The actors do say what is on the page (albeit some unscripted spontaneous dialog from actors are sometimes kept in a film - thinking of Jack Nicholson and Harrison Ford at the moment - and that can be a great addition). A really good screenplay is going to have good dialog: something that sparks, is realistic or funny; it will stand out in some way. I do think the dialog in Casino Royale is especially good, right from the PTS. Craig's delivery of that simple line (timed at just the right moment from the script): "Yes, considerably" is a perfect Bond moment. The whole Bond meeting Vesper scene is classically done and superbly delivered. It sparkles. The brutal and outstanding stairwell fight scene, and then the shower scene with Bond comforting Vesper, is also pretty much perfectly played in my opinion and an example of little dialog with much impact. That is where good acting makes a film soar. Yet the actual dialog throughout Casino Royale is consistently of a high standard. And that makes for a much better film, for sure.
Would anyone else care to list some examples which Bond films had a very good screenplay or a poor one? I am not fond of all of TMWTGG or TWINE's dialog, either. But in my opinion, Casino Royale, Skyfall, From Russia with Love, and For Your Eyes Only had very good scripts indeed.
So, I hold these four Bond up for your inspection, in general, for story and screenplay:
The Man With The Golden Gun
The World is Not Enough
Die Another Day
Moonraker
Does anyone honestly like these?
I'd love to hear pros and cons on these screenplays.
The dialog alone in all 4 of these films often make me cringe. And I'm going to try to find Moonraker and see if it actually reads: Jaws flaps his arm like a bird before crashing hilariously into the big circus tent and collapsing it ...
EDIT: It seems impossible to find Moonraker's script online. :( Shame. I wanted to read about the Bondola, too ...