The Hildebrand Rarity
AlphaOmegaSin
EnglandPosts: 10,926MI6 Agent
Do you think that the The Hildebrand Rarity should of been a full Length Novel? It's got a rather interesting Murder Mystery Plot to it, the Story ends on a Cliffhanger with the Mrs Krest obviously the Murderer.
1.On Her Majesties Secret Service 2.The Living Daylights 3.license To Kill 4.The Spy Who Loved Me 5.Goldfinger
Comments
The story isn't associated with any of the famous 'lost television episodes' that the author scripted in 1958 - 1959 and like QOS it feels a little out of place in the Bond canon. While Milton Krest and Fidele Barbey are very well rounded characters , Liz is merely a fluffy heroine who may or may not be a murderer. Other than Krest and his 'corrector', a grotesque portrait that matches the best of Fleming's baddies, there isn't much to the original story which would lend itself to expansion. For all that, I rather like it.
The who what now!? Why haven't I heard of this? Do go on...
In Pearson's 'The Life of Ian Fleming' p369 he writes :
...he knew Bond was in demand, the real question was how to make the most of him. As he reaalized, the big James Bond television deal with the Colombia Broadcasting system offered an easy way out. It was James Bond he was selling to the Americans, not the books. He could have his sack of gold in return for a series of outlines for half hour James Bond episodes on television. He found writing these child's play. He had finished six already. Without too much effort they could be turned into short stories, which was what he did that winter at Goldeneye, adapting 'Risico', 'From a View to a Kill' and 'For Your Eyes Only' directly from the televsion outlines he had prepared for CBS. He enjoyed short story writing and found the length suited him now. He added a story he had written on the way back from the Seychelles the summer before 'Quantum of Solace' and another 'The Hildebrand Rarity'. Together they formed a respectable collection under the title 'For Your Eyes Only' which Cape accepted in lieu of that year's full length Bond...
Now, you ask, what happened to the other 3 stories ?
Well, suspicion has it (and I don't have evidence from sources, I only remember reading this in some anthology, sorry) that both the card game and the golf game which feature in Parts One and Two of Goldfinger were also originally based on TV outlines.
Fleming had been in conversation with CBS for a couple of years and the TV deal was in the offing at the same time Kevin McClory started hawking ideas for a movie. Fleming wanted a visual outlet for 007 - one that was better than the Casino Royale episode - but he was also under pressure to continue to write the adventures. In the end, of course, it went horribly wrong with the Thundeball Court Case, but that's another story.
Sadly, Pearson's biography is very sketchy at precisely the time you want it to become detailed and he skims over most of 1958 - 1964 when Bond was finally becoming a phenomenon.
Still - what happened to the other episodes ??
If anyone has an answer, I'm listening too.