How close does Thunderball follow the movie?
raptors_887
CanadaPosts: 215MI6 Agent
I have the movie ranked 23rd out of 23 in my Bond rankings. But after reading the Dr. No novel, the movie itself shot way up in my rankings. Mainly because I found the novel so enjoyable. I'm wondering if Thunderball is similar to the movie or is it like Moonraker where the title is the only thing they have in common?
Thanks.
Thanks.
1: Casino Royale 2: Goldeneye 3: Skyfall 4: Octopussy 5: Goldfinger 6: Tomorrow Never Dies 7: The World Is Not Enough 8: The Living Daylights 9: From Russia With Love 10: The Spy Who Loved Me
Comments
Very closely. The pts is the only thing added on, as they needed
A big opening.
So that's why the barmaid down the Dog and Duck is called Thunderball
An early start for the Innuendo !
McClory is a Poison Name in the Bond Universe.
Heroism
Confidence
Pride
Nobility
Strength
Virility
Provision
Protection
All things, reflected in Bond.
Rampant Hamsters !
Luckily I'm a lover not a fighter
One of the things I liked in the Book, was how to fight Largo's men the
Navy crew had to make their own weapons etc by strapping knives to
Brush handles etc to make a " Spear"
Somehow more graphic ( for me at least ).
Thunderball is a relatively faithful adaptation. However, it feels more faithful in letter than in spirit. The movie adds a little too much gadgetry and action, and it lacks the heart of the book. In Fleming's original, Bond was a much more human and vulnerable hero--in the movie he's a bored superman, and you have no idea why he's at Shrublands. The other characters are similarly less vivid than their literary counterparts. In the book, Largo was a twisted mirror image of Bond--in the movie he's a fat old man with no personality. Movie Domino is equally boring because they gave most of her personality to Fiona Volpe, who was invented for the film.
By itself, Thunderball is one of the better Bond films. As an adaptation it's somewhat disappointing and lacks characterization. And as Raymond Benson pointed out, the script needlessly over-complicates the book's plot by throwing in plastic surgery shenanigans, a pointless reconnaissance of Largo's estate, excessive underwater scenes, and so on. The final result is a bloated, impersonal film.
Incidentally, the film of Dr. No is a better adaptation, but it lacks the wildness of the book.
Fleming used various plot ideas from the screenplay, but his book is much different from the McClory/Whittingham script. And when Thunderball was actually filmed, the main source was Fleming's novel, not the earlier scripts. In that sense, Fleming wrote the book of the future film.
It was also found that Fleming's war chest of ideas was just that, too passe and dated from his own WWII and early post-war experiences/research. Technical consultation that the team sought provided them with the modern themes of a nuclear threat and international terrorism (compare this with the nuclear threat in MR, which basically was a WWII-related plot in disguise). The Battle for Bond goes on to say that Fleming was in possesion of the various versions of the screenplay and that Richard Maibaum basically used these to develop his own draft, since TB was the most current novel and it was slated to be the first EON Bond movie.
It's interesting to note that McClory, as co-producer of TB, was heavily involved and rolled-up his sleeves during production as a resource person just as Fleming did in DN, but to a greater extent, because the elements of the movie that he sought were the same elements that he worked with Fleming and Jack Wittingham to develop for the original story development. Fleming cannibalized those ideas wholesale for his novel, with some exceptions like the Shrublands sequence that I think was solely his contribution and which made it to the movie.
As the risk of sounding preachy, history is always written by the victors and because the EON films series dominates film history, people will always single out the antagonists to the series and McClory is the biggest one; I'm reminded of James Dean's Jett Rink character in Giant, who was an uncouth, low-life opportunist who "struck" oil and fortune and later as an old man, he was overly celebrated by Texas high-society for his enormous success.
You can't really blame him. The way things went down between him, Fleming and Bryce was just unforgiveable; it came to a point when his partners became unprofessional, behaved like brats and basically ganged up on him for no really compelling business reason. Imagine being in his shoes as an up and coming filmmaker, to have a sure hit on your hands and working hard to make it happen and then loosing it just like that; then Broccoli and Saltzman comes along and hits the goldmine, which should have been yours. To further add insult to injury, EON's success is built on the foundation you helped build.
Have you read that book? Believe, me, I have a strong bias for anything Fleming and would root for him and different aspects of his life, but after reading this book and critically assessing the information presented, I saw how McClory was indeed a victim and the toll which the whole affair took on Fleming's life, was largely his own fault as a consequence of his actions.
It became so important to him, that even though she suggested
Many times dropping the whole thing, he just couldn't as it
Became an obsession.
Maibaum's primary influence was Fleming's novel, not Whittingham's screenplay, which differs substantially from the book in ways that don't show up in the film, and the idea that Fleming's sole contribution was Shrublands is ridiculous (Need we point out a little thing called Spectre? And Domino doesn't even appear in Whittingham's screenplays!). The versions of Largo and Domino that appear in the film are Fleming's, not the cruder Largo and moneygrubbing Gaby of the earlier screenplays, and the shape of the film is that of the book--unlike Whittingham's version, no atom bombs go off at the end! The Whittingham/McClory scripts influenced Maibaum's in only two major ways--the elimination of the submarine chase in favor of aqua-paratroopers, and the surgical double for Petacchi (which needlessly complicated the film).
The Battle for Bond gives useful information on the genesis of the project, but it's ridiculously slanted toward Whittingham (it even includes useless photos of his daughter as a pop star), and even Sellers eventually grows tired of McClory's flakiness. Fleming certainly helped himself to the plot ideas in the scripts (since he believed them to be Bryce's legal property), but as John Cork--who looked through all the drafts--points out in his excellent article “Inside Thunderball" (now sadly offline), the project didn't really come alive until Fleming reworked it for his novel. It's Fleming's version of Thunderball that became the film, not McClory or Whittingham's. Neither of the latter need to be idolized or regarded as pioneers. Whittingham was a journeyman screenwriter who would be otherwise forgotten, and McClory wasted the rest of his life--a filmmaker of real originality and talent would have tried making other films instead of dickering around in court. The heroes who made the Bond films what they are are Maibaum, Young, Hunt, Adam, Barry, Connery, and Broccoli and Saltzman. Anyone else remains a footnote.
Battle for Bond
Of all the personalities involved in the project, it was Whittingham's accounts that were the most accessible through his personal documents provided to the author of Battle for Bond, which is why much of the data seems slanted to what he had to say. The peripheral accounts about his daughter's career, though unrelated, seems more like a concession of gratitude by the author for providing him with Whittingham's voluminous files; I think Sellers’ accounts of his interactions with Whittinghams’ daughter gave plenty of credibility to that information. To be fair, Whittingham was also a victim of McClory's poor handling of business relationships; however, his accounts about the whole matter seemed to be the most sincere, stating what he thought were the facts that best defended McClory's stance despite seeing all the signs of getting screwed by McClory.
I don't agree with what you said about Whittingham and McClory being footnotes to the heroes behind EON's success, because arguably, the developments made by the McClory team in character and plot development and the necessary, specific changes needed to translate Bond from print to screen, is largely credited to Maibaum and Young, despite the fact that it wasn't original. Are you saying that the series would enjoy the same success if the McClory production never entered the picture? I wonder how EON's early efforts would have turned out without any of those important developments ever taking place. Without the McClory project, we would not likely have had Blofeld and Specter; there would be no movies based on the original Blofeld trilogy and to say the least, it would have significantly changed the Bond/EON film canon since Blofeld/SPECTRE was a significant plot thread in the early movies that helped give the series its "grab" IMO. Hence, would they still have achieved the same success to make it beyond whatever would have been their first movie?
Lastly, I think it’s worth mentioning John Cork, since you brought him up. If you watch “Inside Thunderball,” which has been included in the TB DVDs and Blu-Rays and some TB VHS editions, you will barely see McClory and whatever footages there were of him are so fleeting (some were from Ken Adam’s personal video footage), because you must remember that EON had plenty of control in whatever Cork had to present in all the featurettes of the Bond movies and even in his book, James Bond, the Legacy. Just like I said, history is written by the victors and for the most part, it’s EON’s version of history.
And yet the characterizations in Fleming's novel are by all accounts richer than those in the earlier scripts. The idea that McClory and Whitingham mapped out how to adapt Bond is bunk--they did nothing "original." As Sellers admits, even Fleming from the start injected added humor into his treatments. And there was never any chance that the Bond novels wouldn't be softened for the screen--not if they wanted to reach a mass audience. Claiming great things for McClory and Whittingham denigrates Maibaum and Young, and yet it's they who crafted the successful adaptations by using a common-sense approach. They're the ones with the proven track record. McClory and Whittingham aren't responsible for the success of Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. Praising them belittles Maibaum, and he deserves far more credit.
Yes, I would. That's because the series was made by a superb team that was far more talented than Whittingham and McClory. And any picture made after Goldfinger would have been a massive success. As for whether Blofeld or Spectre would have existed without the McClory project, that's up for debate, since Fleming seemed to have grown tired of Smersh after Goldfinger (hence his suggestions to Cuneo) and I doubt that the movies--no matter who made them--would have directly featured the Russians as the villains in the first place. It's interesting to note that Goldfinger, the integral hit of the series, doesn't use Spectre or the Russians.
Oh, and I think you have understandably confused John Cork's “Inside Thunderball” featurette with his essay of the same title. The essay goes through the history of the scripts, including McClory and Whittingham's drafts and Fleming's treatments, and is not an EON publication. It used to be online but is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine. I can give instructions to any interested readers.
Regarding Fleming's richer characterization, you mustn't confuse characterization in fiction vs. characterization for film, they’re practically different animals.
“And there was never any chance that the Bond novels wouldn't be softened for the screen--not if they wanted to reach a mass audience.”
That’s a general solution, but the question you should be asking, is, would EON have developed the same, specific solution they came up with, without the treatment that the McClory team developed? That creative process was not done in a vacuum as you’d like to think.
Regarding GF being the film that launched the juggernaut success of the series, again I contend, would they have even made it beyond their first movie? My main point about that, is that if you remove McClory from the equation, if he never crossed paths with Bryce and Fleming, you will not have the same Bond series we enjoy today and the changes will not be minor either, they will be radically different; how's that for McClory and Whittingham being mere footnotes? Facts are facts are facts. Despite the credit you give Maibaum and Young (believe, me, I give them the lion’s share of credit and respect for EON’s early success), you cannot ignore the glaring fact that they had at their disposal the screen treatments and screenplays already developed by the McClory project. Unfortunately, that is the lynchpin to all your suppositions above, rendering them as mere conjectures with no definite conclusions about true credit to the Bond series’ success factors.
And as Cork and Sellers point out, it's Fleming's versions of Largo and Domino that prevailed, not McClory/Whittingham, and it's Fleming who first suggested adding more humor to Bond. The fiction characterizations influenced the film ones.
But the McClory team DIDN'T develop specific solutions. Adding humor and softening the violence aren't brilliant solutions--they're commonsense ones that have been applied countless times before when adapting crime/action novels. It's what Hollywood has always done.
The only radical difference I can think of is Spectre, which Fleming might have created regardless. And Spectre wasn't required to make the first three films work. Dr. No could have been an independent operator, as Goldfinger became, and FRWL would have worked just as well with Smersh. And Spectre is still far down on the list of "pulls" that made the Bond films sensations.
So what? Was Maibaum secretly consulting Whittingham's script for tips every time he adapted a Fleming novel? Doubtful, and there's nothing that points to it. There are no concrete examples of profound borrowings--not from Whittingham's style of dialogue (which doesn't sound that great in the excerpts we have) or adherence to his most noticeable ideas (Maibaum had better sense to end Thunderball with an A-bomb going off--he stuck with Fleming's book instead).
Why not give credit to the people who actually made the successful films and continued making them? Why make nebulous suppositions about what they supposedly borrowed? The case for the McClory group's influence is hazy and weak. It's common sense and a given that humor and general audience appeal would have been added to any films of the books, and Spectre's existence with or without McClory remains debatable. Beyond that, there's nothing actually specific that points to a profound influence. Seller's book has a great journalistic hook, but it's ultimately less than meets the eye.
Obviously you are severely biased in all of this and you'll argue exteneously around what are facts and appeal to "common sense" and simplistically dismiss my arguments as "nebulous suppositions." If you can be objective in the slightest, you wouldn't dismiss the possibility of McClory's positive impact to the Fleming canon and the EON series, even if it were only a small one (though I contend that his "small role" made a significant impact to everything else.) I'm actually shocked that you don't really consider the existence and role of Blofeld/SPECTRE in both the books and film series a radical or in the least a significant factor and that for me renders any further, logical debate useless.
But it's the vagueness of a broad phrase like "creative and strategic actions" that strands the argument. For it to work, it needs to be proven that McClory and Whittingham's "strategies" would not have been adopted if their scripts hadn't been read by the EON team. Now, there are instances where Maibaum and company borrowed plot elements from the scripts (the surgical double and the aqua-paratroopers), though these are overbalanced by the fact that Fleming's novel remained the source of the film. Spectre, as portrayed in Fleming's novel, is certainly an indirect borrowing from the scripts. But beyond that, the overall strategies turn out to be any that a film crew would take in adapting the books in the early 1960s. Unless the EON staff were rank amateurs who really needed guiding from some rather shaky scripts, they would have taken them regardless. Had the scripts not been read, DN and FRWL would have been somewhat different, but not integrally so, because the appeal of cinematic Bond existed without Spectre.
Blofeld and Spectre are certainly significant. But: (1) The first three Bond films, the ones that put the series on the map, could easily have worked without Spectre (Goldfinger is proof of that), and (2) we don't actually know if Fleming wouldn't have created Spectre--or an independent alternative to Smersh--without the film. Fleming proposed the idea to McClory and Cuneo after reading Cuneo's outline, which suggests he might have already had such an organization on his mind.
How can you prove that assumption to be true? In business, no two professional business consulting teams will come out with the same or even near identical recommendations. No two people think the same and factor in the committee effect; how can you predict that an entirely independent (which is not the case here, btw) adaptation of the books would have yielded: (1) a similar, yet as an equally or more successful approach, or; (2) a different, yet as an equally or more successful approach? Yours is a weak assumption.
Again, that is a difficult assumption to prove, given that EON’s creative process was tainted by the reading of the McClory project scripts.
Yes, I agree, we don’t actually know, do we? As for your assumption that Fleming solely came up the SMERSH substitute, again, how can you objectively dismiss the share of input or even the possibility of Whittingham’s (and even McClory’s) contribution to Blofeld/SPECTRE, with so much certaintly on your part?
Hindsight is 20/20. Even the EON pioneers apart from the producers were not sure of a series taking place after their debut film, though to be fair that was the vision of the Broccoli and Saltzman, but there was no guarantee of success. What I’ve been saying all this time is that McClory’s role was an active factor in the history of the Bond film series in varying degrees. Had his partners honored their working agreement that would have led to actual film production, there wouldn’t be EON because there would have not been any film options available for Saltzman to purchase, which BTW was not Fleming’s first attempt to bring Bond to the screen; my point here is that others could have come before EON had their shot and for EON, it was their fortune that everyone's timing fell into place.
As for Fleming’s books, had there been no TB and the creative overhaul that Fleming undertook, thanks to the 1st TB film project, who knows what direction he might have taken after GF? Granted, he had other real-life experiences going on that made it to his books, but arguably he was wallowing for a lack of good, contemporary plots; even YOLT, sans Blofeld, was sort of a rehash of the FRWL plot, which was a derivative of his WWII experiences.
All of this brings me back to:
My response was that history is written by the victors and it’s obvious you have a strong bias for EON and your response is to make exhaustive, extraneous arguments to leave no credit to McClory and his role in both the books and EON film series. You attempt to place to burden of proof solely on my arguments while dismissing it seems, any burden of proof on what you have to say. On my end, the proof is there, that EON read the early TB scripts; the UK courts ruled in McClory’s favor, acknowledging his rights to ownership to the TB scripts/screen treatment/etc., which EON did read and borrowed from liberally in establishing their own series. What is there left to prove? And again, I will ask you, in response to “McClory just could not let the whole go,” can you fault him, knowing that he had a shot of success in the same magnitude of the most successful film series in history and it was cheated from him? Please answer these questions.
What I said in a nutshell!
As I said previously, the adoption of two script elements (neither of which was integral to the movie) is dwarfed by the fact that the rest of Thunderball is an obvious adaptation of Fleming's novel, not Whittingham's considerably different scripts. Both Sellers and Cork state that as well. And beyond those plot changes, what other evidence is there in the other Bond films of McClory/Whittingham's mode of adaptation?
By looking at practically every film ever adapted from a crime/adventure novel before the late 60s. Your own case can only come up with three vague elements--humor, lessened sex/violence, and Spectre. The last is dealt with below. As for humor, even Fleming--as Sellers admits--called for more of that before McClory. Lessened sex/violence is simply a no-brainer. There's no way on earth that Honey Ryder would have emerged from the beach nude onscreen, just as there's way Bond would have stabbed Grant in the groin on film. That simply would not happen in a mass-market film before the late 60s. No one with any knowledge of the movies would say otherwise.
Except that it's not difficult to imagine DN or FWRL without Spectre, and since we don't know of any other McClory/Whittingham elements in those films, the case rests.
Because we have to rely on evidence, and the evidence, in the form of documents, says that Fleming devised Spectre before anyone else.
Yes, but when you put it that vaguely, even I can agree with you!
"Sort of" is a rather big stretch. And YOLT was written when Fleming's health had seriously begun to fail. OHMSS shows what he was capable of after GF, and there's not much of McClory in it.
I didn't write that--I think you mixed up that quote with mine. But I certainly agree with the sentiment.
I have a strong bias for plausibility and facts, and your argument is short on both. I think you have been suckered by Sellers' book, which has a strong emotional hook but lacks concrete evidence to back up its deification of Whittingham.
Except that they didn't. Two plot elements were borrowed, that's it. The rest was adapted from Fleming's novel. As for the rest of the series, what have you been able to prove in terms of influence? Nothing beyond Spectre, which was not an integral element in the success of the first Bond films.
I can easily fault him. He wasted the rest of his life chasing after another man's creation. And for what? To ape the success achieved by more talented people than himself. Film history is written by the people who actually get things done and make good films. McClory didn't. He made a piddling independent film that everyone eventually tired of, and then what? Thunderball, whose success is due to its being made by the team that made the Bond films a success? Never Say Never Again, which he lost creative control over and which was--ironically enough--still mostly based on Fleming's novel? I would have had much more respect for McClory if he'd ever demonstrated artistic talent outside of James Bond. It's difficult to imagine a genuine artist who would have forgone the opportunity to make his own films in order to endlessly chase after a property made successful by other people. Ivar Bryce threw in the towel (much to Fleming's fury) in the initial court case, yet I notice that McClory's argument that he devised the cinematic template of the Bond films was rejected in every later court case.
The answer to the first question is nothing. And the second question should really be, what would James Bond be without Goldfinger? TB rode to success on GF's coattails, and the latter film ultimately left far more of an impression on the public and history.
There are some points of yours above that are outright false which I wanted to respond to, but I am weary! If you are trying to win by stubborn persistence and over-reaching arguments, then I concede on those grounds. Congratulation, you may have the last word. At least I am left with the consolation of knowing that someone spent their whole day reading The Battle for Bond.