Diamonds are Forever with Goldfingers Brother

John from Cork

Originally the idea was that the villain in DAF was going to be Goldfingers Brother who was obsessed with Diamonds. Would this have made it better? The whole ignoring Tracy thing when Blofeld was the villain has always been very jarring, plus the fact that Charles Gray's Blofeld is absolutely nothing like the previous Blofelds

SpectreOfDefeat

I've never particularly thought the 'Goldfinger's brother' plot point an especially strong one. It comes across as too blatant an attempt to simply copy and pastiche GF- by featuring Goldfinger's evil brother- rather than thinking up more subtle ideas.

Gray's Blofeld is nothing like the previous Blofelds, although one could argue that's intentional. Having a less menacing Blofeld arguably fits the more comedic tone of the film as a whole.

7289

After Thunderball its easier to see each subsequent Bond film as a one off. EON seemed to have been knocked off balance in YOLT, then by Lazenby and the return of Connery. While the return of Gert Frobe would have been interesting, the series had gone stale and the result would still have fallen flat

Shady Tree

DAF does its own thing, leaving alone OHMSS.

Going with the 'Goldfinger's brother' plot would not have been a good idea, imho; it would probably have felt too much like what's now called 'fan service', or even 'fanwank' - a franchise turning in on itself, as if conceding that it's already passed its prime.

As it is, DAF is a self-reflexive movie which calls back to GF in more subtle ways, some of which may possibly have been hang-overs from the discarded treatment. We have uses of an American setting for parts of both GF and DAF (as in both novels); there are parallels between the scenes with Sir Donald Munger and Colonel Smithers; in both films Connery has light moments of business with a red carnation; Shirley Bassey sings iconic title songs for both movies.

In DAF, it's notionally a surprise when the villain's true identity is revealed to Bond in Willard Whyte's penthouse. Oh, look! Blofeld's alive and well, the instigator of all the villainy! (It wasn't really a surprise for the audience, of course; not least because Charles Gray's star billing and image on lobby cards were clues that he'd have more to do in the movie than simply getting bumped off in the PTS!) Although Cubby Broccoli claimed that this 'surprising' moment in the penthouse was inspired by a nightmare he'd had about an imposter of Howard Hughes revealing his face, one wonders, also, about how 'the reveal' would have worked had Gert Frobe played the villain - the key dramatic beat eventually adapted to the film in its finished version, with Charles Gray in Frobe's place. One can imagine Bond's look of incredulity as he'd exclaim, "Goldfinger!" and Frobe's (re-voiced) reply, roughly along the lines of: "You killed my only brother, Mister Bond... Since then we Goldfingers have understandably been rather scarce!"

A general audience would obviously have picked up on the significance of any return by Gert Frobe. The significance of Guy Hamilton's return as director would have been of note only to those with a closer interest in the Bond films, but undoubtedly Hamilton's presence goes far in explaining what is, in DAF, a call back to some of the lightness and humour of GF, with touches of the bizarre.

Napoleon Plural

Shady Tree wrote:

DAF does its own thing, leaving alone OHMSS.

As it is, DAF is a self-reflexive movie which calls back to GF in more subtle ways, some of which may possibly have been hang-overs from the discarded treatment. We have uses of an American setting for parts of both GF and DAF (as in both novels); there are parallels between the scenes with Sir Donald Munger and Colonel Smithers; in both films Connery has light moments of business with a red carnation; Shirley Bassey sings iconic title songs for both movies.

Ask Higgins to make the picture larger.

Grindelwald

I want Zorins twin brother killed by a cowbell )

Barbel

) ) )

Higgins

Napoleon Plural wrote:

Ask Higgins to make the picture larger.

Your wish - my command

Grindelwald

A woman was actually killed by a metal bell recently , no joke

emtiem

So as his brother, he’d have been called Goldfinger as well? So you’d sort of be wondering why the first Goldfinger got his film named after him but this one didn’t!

SeanIsTheOnlyOne

John from Cork wrote:

Originally the idea was that the villain in DAF was going to be Goldfingers Brother who was obsessed with Diamonds. Would this have made it better? The whole ignoring Tracy thing when Blofeld was the villain has always been very jarring, plus the fact that Charles Gray's Blofeld is absolutely nothing like the previous Blofelds

I'm sure the movie would have been as bad with Goldfinger's twin brother as the main villain. The problem is deeper: DAF was the beginning of the franchise's descent into hell in terms of screenwriting until TSWLM, the first Bond film of the decade in which Tom Mankiewicz was not involved.

emtiem

SeanIsTheOnlyOne wrote:

John from Cork wrote:

Originally the idea was that the villain in DAF was going to be Goldfingers Brother who was obsessed with Diamonds. Would this have made it better? The whole ignoring Tracy thing when Blofeld was the villain has always been very jarring, plus the fact that Charles Gray's Blofeld is absolutely nothing like the previous Blofelds

I'm sure the movie would have been as bad with Goldfinger's twin brother as the main villain. The problem is deeper: DAF was the beginning of the franchise's descent into hell in terms of screenwriting until TSWLM, the first Bond film of the decade in which Tom Mankiewicz was not involved.

He did do a rewrite on TSWLM, and worked on Moonraker too.

SeanIsTheOnlyOne

emtiem wrote:

SeanIsTheOnlyOne wrote:

John from Cork wrote:

Originally the idea was that the villain in DAF was going to be Goldfingers Brother who was obsessed with Diamonds. Would this have made it better? The whole ignoring Tracy thing when Blofeld was the villain has always been very jarring, plus the fact that Charles Gray's Blofeld is absolutely nothing like the previous Blofelds

I'm sure the movie would have been as bad with Goldfinger's twin brother as the main villain. The problem is deeper: DAF was the beginning of the franchise's descent into hell in terms of screenwriting until TSWLM, the first Bond film of the decade in which Tom Mankiewicz was not involved.

He did do a rewrite on TSWLM, and worked on Moonraker too.

His contribution to TSWLM was quite minor and it is something you can really feel. The atmoshere of the movie shows it. His name doesn't even appear in the credits...
About Moonraker, he certainely wrote Jaws's romance ) ) )

emtiem

He’s not credited because of rules about the proportion of UK people needing to be credited to receive tax breaks.

SeanIsTheOnlyOne

emtiem wrote:

He’s not credited because of rules about the proportion of UK people needing to be credited to receive tax breaks.

But do you consider him as the man whose ideas where put into TSWLM's script and made it a classic ?
I have absolutely nothing against him but it's difficult to say his contributions were faithful to the essence of Fleming's novels, especially for DAF and TMWTGG.

@emtiem What do you think of his work ?

SpectreOfDefeat

As I understand it, Mankiewicz was hired on the proviso that he could write authentic American-sounding dialogue, which is why he contributed to much of both DAF and LALD given their heavy use of the United States. By the time of TSWLM, the films had definitively moved away from focusing on American locations and characters, so I assume Mankiewicz's services were simply no longer required for the atmosphere that TSWLM and MR were trying to capture. That's my theory, anyway...

Shady Tree

Some of the American characters' dialogue in GF (Leiter, the hoods) has a light, wise-cracking quality. Mankiewicz would later emulate that style and crank it up for the first two Bond films on which he has a credit. Personally, I love all that crackling American material; in DAF, it gifted Connery a perfect verbal foil. For me, by comparison, the dialogue in TSWLM and MR generally lacks zest (though I do love droll Drax's mannered, snarky eloquence).