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The Spy Who Loved Me Script History
24th September 2004
MI6 looks back at the complex development of 'The Spy Who Loved Me' screenplay and the dozen writers who worked on it...
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Of all the James Bond films, perhaps one of the most complex
pre-production tales comes from "The
Spy Who Loved Me". Following from the box-office disappointment
of "The Man With The Golden Gun",
Albert R. Broccoli (now operating without co-producer Harry Saltzman
after he sold his share of Eon Productions) made a conscious decision
to bring Bond back to his biggest, and best.
But the road to success would prove to be one of the most winding
of all the Bond productions as the building block for the film
- the screenplay - went through more iterations than any production
during the 40 year history of 007 on the silver screen.
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It all started with the title. As "The Spy Who Loved Me"
novel was a departure from the usual Ian
Fleming canon, and told from the perspective of a young
woman with Bond only appearing the the final quarter of
the story, Fleming never wanted his controversial book to
appear on screen. But as most of the Fleming titles had
been exhausted by the movie franchise at this point, Broccoli
requested the Fleming estate give him permission to use
the novel's title only - which they granted. Broccoli now
had a title for his next movie, but no story.
Following a visit to Russia, Broccoli devised a plot befitting
the title whereby a female Russian spy would fall in love
with James Bond. The seeds were set for Bond's tenth film.
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Above: Cubby Broccoli went through a
dozen writers until he got the film he wanted. |
"You Only Live Twice" screenplay
writer Roald Dahl recommended comic writer Cary Bates to Broccoli,
and this would be only the first of several parallels between
the two films. The New Yorker created the first screenplay based
on a loose adaptation of Fleming's "Moonraker",
which saw SPECTRE using
a large underground base in Loch Ness, Scotland. The villain's
plot mechanism of hijacking nuclear submarines would see it through
the following ten writers to the final film, although in Bates'
treatment Bond and Tatiana Romanova
teamed up to foil Hugo Drax
and his henchmen Pluto and Plato (a chain smoker and alcoholic
respectively).
Above: Nuclear submarines featured throughout
the rewrites. |
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One Writer Is Not Enough
Broccoli was not happy with the screenplay and brought
in novelist Ronald Hardy to start from scratch. His plot
also involved nuclear submarines, but this time the villain
was equipped with tracking technology for capturing the
subs. This idea would be carried on throughout the project
despite Broccoli moving to the third writer.
Anthony Barwick picked up from where Hardy left off and
recycled the submarine tracking device idea, but axed SPECTRE
and brought in a villain obsessed with art. Zodiak's plan
was to ransom the world to give up its art treasures with
the threat of destroying the West's nuclear fleet using
long range torpedoes. Barwick's most original contribution
was the introduction of the villain's henchmen, which in
his treatment were albino triplets Tic, Tac and Toe - all
three of which would be killed by 007.
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Broccoli then brought in Derek Marlowe, Sterling Silliphant,
Tom Mankiewicz, John Landis and Anthony Burgess in turn after
Barwick departed the production. At this point a director was
assigned to the floundering film. Guy Hamilton was not a surprise
choice, having directed the previous three films ("Diamonds
Are Forever", "Live And Let
Die", "The Man With The Golden
Gun") and brought with him Bond family member Richard Maibaum
to work on the script.
Richard Maibaum
Maibaum brought back the shadow of SPECTRE but scrapped the idea
of a megalomaniac villain in the shape of Blofeld
or Zodiac. In one of the most interesting ideas devised for the
Bond series, but as yet unused, SPECTRE would be overthrown by
a collection of terrorist groups. Leaders of the Japanese Red
Army, Black September Organization, Bader-Meinhof Gang and Red
Brigade would storm into a SPECTRE meeting and assassinate the
old guard, taking over control of the world's largest criminal
set-up. The plot saw the new SPECTRE throwing out revenge and
extortion as ideals, preferring to settle for annihilation by
destroying the world's oil supply with captured nuclear submarines.
Broccoli liked Maibaum's treatment, but considered it too controversial
for 1976 and would later order changes. Considering the state
of the world today, Maibaum's idea is scarily plausible, and if
too controversial back then it is unlikely to see the light of
day in the 21st century.
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Richard Maibaum explained, "They level the place, kick
Blofeld out, and take over... They're a bunch of young idealists.
In the end, Bond comes in and asks 'All right, you're going
to blow up the world. What do you want?' They reply, 'We
don't want anything. We just want to start over - the world
is lousy. We want to wipe it away and begin again. So there's
no way we can be bribed!'"
"I never had Stromberg - or whomever
the hell it was in that movie - or that interminable thing
that went on in the tanker" - Richard Maibaum said in an
interview in STARLOG, March 1983.
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Above: Richard Maibaum and Ian Fleming
in conversation. |
Guy Hamilton quit the production in favour of the new "Superman"
franchise, although he was replaced on that project by Richard
Donner, and failed to see either film through to completion. Lewis
Gilbert was signed to take over the helm of "The Spy Who Loved
Me", and brought with him writer Christopher Wood to pick up from
Maibaum's draft.
Christopher Wood
"I had written ‘Seven Nights in Japan’ for
Lewis Gilbert. We got on well", Christopher Wood told MI6. "I
was rung up by him and asked if I wanted to write a Bond movie.
I thought he was joking!"
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Under the order of Broccoli's instructions, the terrorist
group were removed from the story, and the megalomaniac
villain was back in the form of Stavros, a wealthy shipping
magnate.
Stavros would use huge
tankers designed with a special bow to kidnap nuclear
submarines - similar to how Blofeld captured space capsules
in Gilbert's "You Only Live Twice".
The idea of using a supertanker as the device of villainy
was not new either, as Maibaum's early treatments for "Diamonds
Are Forever" saw Goldfinger's twin brother (to be played
by Gert Frobe),
and later Blofeld, firing a huge laser weapon from the deck
of the ship.
Left: Blofeld, or a character in
his style ,was the villain in most treatments up until the
Kevin McClory legal action. (Art by Nicholas
Anderson).
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For the final draft screenplay by Wood, the nuclear submarine
tracking device was to be used by SPECTRE to capture British and
Russian submarines with Bond and Anya
Amasova teaming up in Cairo after being played off against
each other by the third party - a typical SPECTRE plot line similar
to "From Russia With Love". Bond and Amasova would them travel
to Sardinia to face off with Stavros in his underwater base. The
villain's henchman became Jaws,
whose steel capped teeth were inspired by the goon from Fleming's
novel - despite Broccoli's agreement not to use anything except
the book's title.
Wood explained to MI6, "The script I received
was vastly different and featured - if I recall correctly - a
dastardly band of young radicals and a gloomy Norwegian fjord.
I suggested a return to more 007 audience-friendly territory."
Legal Problems
Just when everything was going smoothly, in stepped Kevin McClory
who claimed Eon Productions had no rights to use the SPECTRE organisation
which the courts had awarded to him during the 1963 "Thunderball"
legal settlement. Faced with the possibility of another long drawn
out battle in the courts, Broccoli asked Wood to remove all references
to SPECTRE from the screenplay - even changing the colour of the
villain's private army from black to red - to avoid any claims
from McClory.
Without SPECTRE, Stavros evolved into shipping billionaire Karl
Stromberg, who would threaten to destroy humanity alone. Despite
all the changes, McClory was still not happy with Broccoli's production,
but eventually dropped an injunction on the film's production,
probably due to realisation of the potential legal costs involved
with stopping the Bond juggernaut.
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Another old alliance would haunt the production of "The
Spy Who Loved Me". Back in 1970, "Thunderbirds" creator
Gerry Anderson was asked to provide a treatment for the
next film which was planned to be "Moonraker". Anderson
teamed up with his script editor on his popular TV series
"UFO" - Anthony Barwick.
The partnership created a seventy page draft which featured
a supertanker, a villain named Zodiak and identical triplets
Tic, Tac and Toe. The treatment was turned down and Eon
Productions decided to move ahead with Sean
Connery in "Diamonds Are Forever" instead.
Unsurprisingly, Anderson recognised the similarity of this
treatment with the one Broccoli received from Barwick in
the mid-1970's for "The Spy Who Loved Me", and brought legal
action against Eon Productions.
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Above: Gerry Anderson |
Gerry Anderson explained in his authorised biography, "My lawyers
weren't show business lawyers, so I was really in a very weak
position. I must confess I became very frightened, and after a
few weeks decided to drop the matter."
Anderson was persuaded that a court case would not be in the
interests of anyone, and he dropped his claim in return for selling
the treatment rights to the production for £3,000.
The final shooting script was nailed down on 23rd August 1976,
but several further changes would be made by Christopher Wood
and the production team during the filming. Less than a year later
on 13th July 1977, "The Spy Who Loved Me" opened with a Royal
Premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in London and concluded
one of the most turbulent and creative Bond productions in the
40 year history of 007's movie exploits.
Related Articles
"The Spy Who Loved Me"
Movie Coverage
"The
Spy Who Loved Me" Production Notes
Thanks to Christpoher Wood.
