Ian Fleming died 45 years ago today

Scribe74

Indeed, it was 45 years ago today our favorite author succumbed to a heart attack at the age of 56. Thanks, Ian, for the great stories and enthralling world you created. Here is a link to the article that ran in the Guardian the day after Fleming's death . . . it was the paper's opinion that Mr. Bond would die along with his creator.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/aug/13/archive-ian-fleming-james-bond

Rick Roberts

I always wondered what Fleming would have published after the Bond films really started taking off. He died before Goldfinger was finished and that was when the film series became huge.

Infernorhythm

RIP Mr. Fleming, we owe you a lot.

thesecretagent

Rick Roberts wrote:

I always wondered what Fleming would have published after the Bond films really started taking off. He died before Goldfinger was finished and that was when the film series became huge.

Like any writer with so many books behind him, whatever came next would probably have been poorer in quality than what went before. I found that his last work was trailing off. Lazily written short stories like Octopussy, Property of a Lady, The Living Daylights and Bond in New York.
The way Bond matured and progressed, and indeed aged, I would imagine Fleming was close to winding up the series. It's a shame it took so long for his work to transcend to celuloid, perhaps he could have kept it closer to the mark had he been alive to write Bond into the times.

Grindelwald

"It's a shame it took so long for his work to transcend to celuloid, perhaps he could have kept it closer to the mark had he been alive to write Bond into the times"

Meaning the films would've been better script wise......maybe yeah

Rick Roberts

thesecretagent wrote:

Like any writer with so many books behind him, whatever came next would probably have been poorer in quality than what went before. I found that his last work was trailing off. Lazily written short stories like Octopussy, Property of a Lady, The Living Daylights and Bond in New York.
The way Bond matured and progressed, and indeed aged, I would imagine Fleming was close to winding up the series.

I have to disagree with Octopussy and The Living Daylights, I found them both exceptional short stories. 007 in New York was simply a fictional rebuttal to Fleming's trip to New York. Property of a Lady was a dud though.

I think Fleming still could have pulled off a few good novels but I wonder if he would have started to use a bit more of the movie's infuence. Notice that OHMSS had a bit more humor then the usual novel and Bond was given a scottish ancestry in honor of Connery's preformance.

It's a shame it took so long for his work to transcend to celuloid, perhaps he could have kept it closer to the mark had he been alive to write Bond into the times.

Actually Fleming didn't really care as long as the films made money. He didn't like Dr.No or From Russia With Love.