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Read an exclusive extract from the forthcoming
book The Battle For Bond by Robert Sellers, unraveling
the
untold
story
behind the 007 legend...
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Book Extract: The Battle For Bond
7th June 2007
The Battle For Bond - "The Genesis of Cinema's Greatest
Hero" by Robert Sellers
Cinema history might have been very different had the first
James Bond film not been
Dr. No in 1962 starring Sean Connery, but Thunderball directed
by Alfred Hitchcock in 1959 and starring Richard Burton as agent
007. It sounds preposterous and unbelievable, but it almost happened.
It is late 1959 and Kevin McClory has teamed
up with Ivar Bryce to form Xanadu Films. They agree to make a
James Bond
film
and Ian Fleming has written a film treatment in order to interest
a major studio in the project...
Exclusive Extract
With the box office firmly in mind Ivar Bryce, who was the financial backer behind
the Bond film, had been mulling over his friend Fleming’s idea of bringing
in an industry big gun to help out the inexperienced Kevin McClory. Sailing
on the Queen Mary back to New York Bryce saw Alfred Hitchcock’s latest
North by Northwest with a packed audience and was so impressed he wrote to
Fleming about the experience on 18 September 1959. ‘It’s the most
terrific Bond-style thriller - almost plagiarising - and superb. You
must manage to see it somehow. It is exactly the picture we are trying to make.’ Bryce
then made the inspired suggestion of grabbing Hitchcock to direct the Bond
movie. ‘Hitchcock would be worth it, if we could get him.’
It was becoming increasingly obvious that a top director
was needed for the Bond film if it was going to attract stars
and American distributors. For a while William Fairchild
was considered to direct the film, as well as write it. But
Fleming had found his recent war film Silent Enemy: ‘Rather
uninspired. I’m inclined to think that Kevin could
do a much better and more imaginative job as director than
Fairchild, but Hitchcock would be the best of all.’ |
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The desire to bring in a heavyweight director was making McClory
feel dangerously excluded. He could perhaps sense the creative
hold he exercised over the project slowly ebbing away from him
and this intensely ambitious man wasn’t going to give in
without a struggle. “It was Kevin’s burning ambition
to make these movies,” says friend Jeremy Vaughan. “But
I don’t think he gave a damn who he walked over and what
he did in order to get there.”
Fleming had quickly come around to Bryce’s notion
of Hitchcock as their director. ‘Personally I feel
this would be by far the best solution for all of us.’ He
wrote Bryce 23 September. ‘I know Hitchcock slightly
and he has always been interested in the Bond saga.’ Fleming
decided to send a cable to the director through a mutual
friend, the acclaimed crime novelist Eric Ambler. It read: ‘Have
written Bond movie treatment featuring Mafia stolen atomic
bomber blackmail of England culminating Nassau with extensive
underwater dramatics. This for my friend Ivar Bryce’s
Xanadu films. Would Hitchcock be interested in directing
this first Bond film in association with Xanadu? Plentiful
finance available. Think we might all have a winner particularly
if you were conceivably interested in scripting. Regards
Ian Fleming.’
Fleming realised that with Hitchcock aboard it might mean
smaller profits for Xanadu because it would almost certainly
mean getting into partnership with the legendary director’s
own company. But then Xanadu would have a solid team of
experts behind them. ‘And the prestige value would
be colossal.’ He wrote Bryce. ‘My own feelings
about doing it all ourselves is that we are a terribly
amateurish crew playing around with your money. I don’t
like either of these feelings. To be allied with a friendly,
if very businesslike, group like Hitchcock’s would,
I believe, be healthier for all of us. Moreover, Kevin
would be kept in his place, which I think very important.’ For
the first time Fleming had revealed his true feelings about
McClory. ‘I can’t make up my own mind about
Kevin. I don’t particularly like him personally,
because I have never particularly liked Irish blarney.’
This was but one of numerous private pieces of correspondence
between Fleming and Bryce that McClory swore he never saw
and upon later discovery at the trial believed to be conspiratorial
against him, as they discussed partnership matters which
he was principally concerned. For example, discussing with
Fleming possible new investors into Xanadu, Bryce wrote. ‘I
have not asked anyone’s opinion, such as Kevin.’ This
was a strange stance, seeing that McClory was actually
Bryce’s partner in Xanadu. Maybe it was his own paranoia
working on overdrive, but McClory came to believe that
these secret communications demonstrated the influence
that Fleming was exerting on Bryce. McClory firmly believed
that it was Fleming’s desire to remove him from the
project’s hierarchy.
Early in October Fleming heard that Hitchcock was interested
in the Bond project and immediately wrote to Bryce. ‘Hitchcock
is in search of a vehicle, particularly for James Stewart
but, whether our story would suit Stewart or not, he is
definitely interested and wants to see it.’ Stewart
was a regular star for Hitchcock who’d used him already
in four movies, notably Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo
(1958). Hitchcock was currently in Paris but due in London
in a few days with the intention of reading the Bond script. ‘Of
course James Stewart is the toppest of stars.’ Fleming
continued. ‘And personally I wouldn’t at all
mind him as Bond if he can slightly anglicise his accent.
If we got him and Hitchcock we really would be off to the
races. Cross all your fingers.’ |
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In contrast to Fleming’s bursting enthusiasm for Hitchcock,
Bryce had blown cold on the idea. ‘If he did take it,’ Bryce
immediately wrote back. ‘He would take the whole thing
over, lock, stock and barrel, and we should all be no more than “angels” investing
our money in someone else’s enterprise - a thing
I wouldn’t be willing to do, myself. Hitchcock is, of course,
the greatest. Let us see what he suggests, but from all I can
learn here it will involve the freezing out of our group both
financially and personally. Also I shudder at lackadaisical Stewart
portraying dynamic Bond.’
Bryce in this letter also made clear his preference for Fleming
to continue to exert a governing hand over the script, even though
McClory had just hired screenwriter Jack Whittingham to write
a new draft. ‘I personally think it essential for you to
spend as much time as is humanely possible during the scriptwriting
period on working on it yourself, probably with Whittingham as
your number two.’
About to leave London for Berlin Fleming hastily did a re-write
of his earlier first stab at a Bond treatment, embodying everybody’s
fresh suggestions, including a scene where the villain Largo
kills Felix Leiter in cold blood. He then sent a copy to his
agent Laurence Evans to pass on to Hitchcock, with this proviso. ‘It
will reach you without me having time to look it over for mistakes,
but no doubt it will be sufficient to give Hitchcock an idea
of what we have in mind. I hope he likes it.’ Upon receipt
Evans phoned his client full of praise, which Fleming then reported
to Bryce. ‘Evans thinks the story is one of the most exciting
he has ever read and he has been on the job for 30 years, so
he ought to know. He really was overwhelmingly excited about
it and I’m greatly encouraged.’
Fleming’s trip to Berlin was part of a newspaper assignment
and he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself. ‘Spent
Sunday afternoon fratting with Russian soldiers in East Berlin,’ he
reported back to Bryce, ‘and Monday evening watching two
almost naked women wrestling in mud in Hamburg. One must try
and stay in the swim, you know.’
Bryce responded positively to Fleming’s second go at his
treatment, though made these criticisms to his friend. ‘Be
careful not to take Domino off the screen for too long. Also,
is it necessary to bump off poor Felix? You will need him again
you know - a problem you have already had once. I should
like to do Live and Let Die one day.’
McClory was likewise
impressed. ‘Very exciting,’ he
called it in a letter dated 16 October. ‘Although a great
deal of work has to be done on it, and I am not as yet convinced
that we have the full story, but I think this will come in the
next few script conferences.’ McClory was also convinced
he’d hired the right man in Jack Whittingham to take over
the scriptwriting duties from Fleming, as he explained to Bryce. ‘I
do feel sure that the sooner we can give a definite go ahead
to Jack Whittingham the better, as he is a most sought after
writer in England, and will obviously not be idle for long.’ Indeed
Whittingham was far from idle. He’d already started work
on something that would make film history - the first ever complete
James Bond movie screenplay.
The seemingly endless legal battles that Kevin McClory waged
against the James Bond producers split the film world, and the
publishing world, into two camps. Bitter arguments, unscrupulous
bids for credits
and recognition, as well as buckets of money, poisoned lifelong
friendships and fostered
strange and unlikely alliances. No one had the complete story
but everyone
had an unshakeable opinion. I knew most of the leading players
in this sad drama and this
book recalled many memories best forgot. Anyone with a desire
to go into the
entertainment world should read this exciting, gripping but in
the end, melancholy
story: it should be enough to change their mind forever.
- Len Deighton
About the Author
Robert Sellers is the author of several entertainment books including
biographies on Sean Connery, Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise. He
was also the author of ‘Very Naughty Boys’ the history
of George Harrison/Monty Python’s HandMade Films, a book
Empire magazine called, ‘essential reading.’
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