Kevin McClory

Nicko1234

This is my first post here so please go easy on me.

I was reading the Girls, Guns and Martinis book and one of the most striking things about it to me was the attitude that the writers had for Kevin McClory. I wondered what the general opinion is of him on this board.

My own opinion is that many of his actions were understandable. If I thought that I had a claim on Bond then I would probably have fought for that. He probably did go too far in the late 1990s but the book made him out to be a madman.

Personally I think that that book let an irrational hatred of the man cloud their judgments towards Never Say Never Again. I certainly wouldn't say that it's a great film at all but is it really worse than the first Casino Royale?

Barbel

Ivar Bryce had a legit claim to be Ian Fleming's best friend, and was heavily connected to the Kevin McClory/Thunderball situation. In his book You Only Live Once he originally painted an even more unflattering picture of McClory than the book mentioned above does. McClory raised legal objections, and the book was edited and republished. I have both versions, and IMHO the impression given particularly by the original is that Bryce consciously or unconsciously blamed the stress of the court case brought by McClory (et al) for Fleming's heart attack, which caused Bryce as Fleming's co-defendant to concede the case- leading eventually to many other cases and NSNA- and contributed to Fleming's early death.
Bryce, who was personally involved, certainly did not like McClory in a much stronger way than Gary Morecambe & Martin Sterling who do not list his book in their bibliography.

As to their opinion of NSNA, I must say that their views ring mostly true with me. It does have its good points although they're outweighed by the bad- and I'd rather watch it than than 67 CR!

Napoleon Plural

McClory died recently, and the obit published by Graham Rye of the James Bond British Fan Club was very rough indeed, saying he was a real sheister (sp?) who would only use people as and when he liked.

Here it is:

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article2054582.ece

Not sure about NSNA, it got exageratedly good reviews when it came out, as critics had always slagged off Roger for not being Sean. It hasn't dated well, though. It doesn't bring anything new to the table, and didn't fulfil its brief as a tougher, grittier Bond film.

ToshTogo

It seems like this whole Thunderball situation bittered Kevin McClory right up and till his death.

Im sure he must have made a fortune from the '65 TB, but he still persisted in trying to bring "TB" back to the big screen after NSNA, i think he was osessive and insane hehehehe

Sir_Miles_Messervy

At least that puts an end to all this McClory nonsense. Never have to worry about him arguing that he can remake Thunderball yet again.

7289

The greed over James Bond was pretty bad and the only folks to profit from oo7 have been EON and their kin.

Fleming, was asked near the end of his life what it was like to have finally achieved "fame and fortune" his reply......"ashes".

Sweepy the Cat

As much as I'm angry about not been able to use Blofeld/SPECTRE I think now he's dead there is a possibility. But the truth is it's his character.

taity

Sweepy the Cat wrote:

As much as I'm angry about not been able to use Blofeld/SPECTRE I think now he's dead there is a possibility. But the truth is it's his character.

Always arguable. Legally it is - alongside Whittington (I believe) another gentleman who obtained legal rights in the court ruling. And its not fair to say it's his character - he only ever had the film rights, whereas Fleming held the book rights.

Additionally, to answer the moral question as to who owned the story...James Bond was a character who already existed, and McClory was hired to help bring him to the full screen. And when he created Blofeld, he created him alongside Fleming in a group effort. While he helped create the character, he never owned all ownership rights.

And it's moot whoever owned them in the 60's now anyway - EON now owns the rights to NSNA and I believe Blofeld/SPECTRE. Theres a posibility yes. But hopefully the days of looking back to the 60s and replicating it in new adventures is gone with Brosnan.

BarryFan

I Never liked NSNA. In fact I find myself watching it every other year or so, giving it it's 15th or 16th chance- some good scenes but that's all.

As for McClory, I strongly recommend the new book "The Battle for Bond" by Robert Sellars. I came upon it on Amazon, and found it to be a fascinating read. Lots of documentation from all the players- Fleming, McClory, Bryce, Whittingham, Cuneo- hundreds of letters and cables spell out everything. What it adds up to is debatable to this day, but it's all there to savor. Except for the annoyingly tiny typeset, it's a wonderful book.