Shocking. Positively shocking.

chrisisall

Hey everyone, refresh my memory- it's been a long while since I read the books, but I don't seem to remember a great deal of one-liners like that in them...
Was that Connery's addition to the movie Bond's character? ?:)

Hardyboy

Terence Young always took credit for introducing humor into the series--he said that it would be a good way to take the edge off an upsettingly violent moment, and that some self-parody would show that the films weren't taking themselves too seriously. In the end, though, who knows. . .

chrisisall

Hardyboy wrote:

Terence Young always took credit for introducing humor into the series--

Little did he know how far that would be taken later on, eh?

Napoleon Plural

Connery and Young had a good working relationship and worked on the humour a bit together, but I read that originally Young was upset at a preview that audiences were laughing. Then they decided to go with that and play up on that aspect a bit. But it was mainly Young, as without the humour edge it was felt that it was generally B-movie fare.

Loeffelholz

Charter James Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum discussed the philosophy behind the early Bonds as "...deadpan spoofing. We know it, and the audience knows it," but it would be difficult to know how much of this element was added in the first draft vs the shooting script---or whether, as seems likely, Terence Young managed the tone of DN as he shot it, which then became a foundation for what followed.

Loeffelholz

Here's a quote from a current article on the history of the Bond Franchise in Vanity Fair, written by David Kamp:

"If the Bond-mania-era films have an unsung hero, it’s Dick Maibaum, the man who gave 007 his wit. Not only was it he who came up with the lighthearted zingers that Bond deployed after his enemies met their grisly ends (e.g., “Shocking, positively shocking” and “I think they were on their way to a funeral”), but Maibaum was also the Bond team’s foremost problem solver. While the conventional wisdom is that the movies are more fanciful and silly than the novels, Maibaum often found himself laboring to fix plot holes in the books that wouldn’t survive big-screen scrutiny and cleaning up Fleming’s sexual content, which ranges from unevolved to just plain dirty."

chrisisall

Wow, that's a great find Loeff, thanks for posting it!

James Suzuki

Is that the article that is posted on the other thread?

Loeffelholz

xboy614 wrote:

Is that the article that is posted on the other thread?

Yes, it is.