While I’m sure when IF started writing Bond thrillers he hoped to make a profit, there was also his strong desire to write a great spy novel. Thus, there was an element of personal artistry involved.
When IF passed so did his creation. Subsequent novels are motivated by his inheritors desire not to see the enormous cash cow he created die with the author. IMO the post Fleming Bond novels have as much validity as oil paintings by later day Picassos, Van Goghs or Rembrandts. Whatever they create may be good - but will never be authentic.
I was thinking about this just the other day. I think Fleming certainly relished the challenge of writing that first book, but I dare say the later ones were written at least partly with money in mind. As is often the way with these things. If that's true, his estate has just carried on from where he left off.
It is often the case with any creative endeavour that the original work, and artist too, is sacrosanct, or at least is privileged compared to anything which might follow it. One of the continuation novels could be just as good, but won't be re-printed or reappraised anywhere near the amount of times that Fleming's were. Gardner's books, for example, are the definition of obscure, as far as the general public are concerned.
We seem to place a higher value on the first of something and see it as the most authentic or insightful or as a statement of intent.
For instance, when the actor James Purefoy thought he would be playing The Saint, he bought an expensive first edition of the first Saint novel, Meet the Tiger, even though that particular volume isn't representative of the series or even portrays Templar as the more rounded character he would later become.
While I’m sure when IF started writing Bond thrillers he hoped to make a profit, there was also his strong desire to write a great spy novel. Thus, there was an element of personal artistry involved.
When IF passed so did his creation. Subsequent novels are motivated by his inheritors desire not to see the enormous cash cow he created die with the author. IMO the post Fleming Bond novels have as much validity as oil paintings by later day Picassos, Van Goghs or Rembrandts. Whatever they create may be good - but will never be authentic.
I was thinking about this just the other day. I think Fleming certainly relished the challenge of writing that first book, but I dare say the later ones were written at least partly with money in mind. As is often the way with these things. If that's true, his estate has just carried on from where he left off.
That's a good observation. I think his pursuit of trying to get movies made of his books (for many years) shows that he certainly wasn't afraid of using Bond to get a payday. Nothing wrong with it at all, but Bond has always been a commercial enterprise rather than high art.
I agree that as the thrillers became more popular there was a substantial effort by IF and others to make a commercially successful film series. That’s absolutely to be expected.
Specifically the post Fleming novels lack the voice of the master and IMO are hollow efforts. I read a considerable number of them and the experience was like eating rice cakes.
In terms of Bond-like characters in films, Pierce made a loose trilogy of anti-Bonds in The Tailor of Panama, The Matador, and The November Man.
I saw The November Man the other day. I really wanted to like it, but I'd probably rate it at 2 and a half out of 5. It felt like the script was maybe three drafts away from being ready. The daughter was introduced too late, as though she was an after-thought, while the minor twist that Alice (Olga Kurylenko) was Mira didn't have the punch it should have done as it was strangely underplayed. The two head honchos at the CIA were difficult to distinguish, personality-wise, so they should have put more effort into making them different (maybe make one a woman?). Really, there was too much hard-faced masculinity with everyone trying to be the tough guy. I understood what Pierce was trying to do in terms of making a rougher spy film, but his character was all over the place (one scene a maverick, next a professional, next again a psychopath), while Mason (Luke Bracy) was just sullen and petulant.
They announced a sequel while it was still in cinemas - obviously, as an empty show of confidence - but it never happened and I'm not surprised.
I think Pierce should do straight-to-DVD action films like John Cusack, Seagal, Nicolas Cage etc. There may be enough Bond fans to buy them in the supermarket, but there's just not enough to leave the house for the cinema to see them.
I agree that as the thrillers became more popular there was a substantial effort by IF and others to make a commercially successful film series. That’s absolutely to be expected.
Not really, it doesn't always follow. There are many authors who don't want or approve of their stuff being adapted, Alan Moore leaps to mind initially. Fleming seems to have pursued a film series pretty aggressively, also a TV series too.
Specifically the post Fleming novels lack the voice of the master and IMO are hollow efforts. I read a considerable number of them and the experience was like eating rice cakes.
He's a pretty iconic writer certainly, but not all of them are without value. The Raymond Benson ones are possibly the most rice cake-ish: I just don't know what they were thinking of at that point. I used to read Doctor Who novels around that time and some of them were genuinely impressive, thoughtful books (honestly!) and I couldn't believe that the James Bond series, which does have slightly more literary origins, couldn't muster a half-decent writer when there must've been loads who appreciated what Fleming did. Happily since IFP have pursued exactly those types of writers. Not always successfully, but that's fair enough.
I agree that as the thrillers became more popular there was a substantial effort by IF and others to make a commercially successful film series. That’s absolutely to be expected.
Not really, it doesn't always follow. There are many authors who don't want or approve of their stuff being adapted, Alan Moore leaps to mind initially. Fleming seems to have pursued a film series pretty aggressively, also a TV series too.
Specifically the post Fleming novels lack the voice of the master and IMO are hollow efforts. I read a considerable number of them and the experience was like eating rice cakes.
He's a pretty iconic writer certainly, but not all of them are without value. The Raymond Benson ones are possibly the most rice cake-ish: I just don't know what they were thinking of at that point. I used to read Doctor Who novels around that time and some of them were genuinely impressive, thoughtful books (honestly!) and I couldn't believe that the James Bond series, which does have slightly more literary origins, couldn't muster a half-decent writer when there must've been loads who appreciated what Fleming did. Happily since IFP have pursued exactly those types of writers. Not always successfully, but that's fair enough.
It's particularly impressive that there were strong Doctor Who novels for the first half of the '90s as they were all submitted to Virgin Publishing by fans who were often first-time writers.
Benson seems to have been chosen because he had written The James Bond Bedside Companion, and as such was already known to IFP. He was a journalist, but had never written a novel, which arguably shows in his work.
I can't help, however, feel that there may be an element of snobbery in IF's choice of Sebastian Faulks and William Boyd. I could be wrong, of course, but for such upper-middle class people as the Fleming family perhaps the Bond films have been a mild embarrassment, particularly as the public may assume that Ian himself wrote them with the same excesses. Even his own wife, Anne, was ashamed of the books (referring to them as "pornography"), while his friends would read out passages in front of him and laugh their hinds off. The modern films are rather like prestige pieces, so perhaps that influenced the direction of the books?
I agree that as the thrillers became more popular there was a substantial effort by IF and others to make a commercially successful film series. That’s absolutely to be expected.
Not really, it doesn't always follow. There are many authors who don't want or approve of their stuff being adapted, Alan Moore leaps to mind initially. Fleming seems to have pursued a film series pretty aggressively, also a TV series too.
Specifically the post Fleming novels lack the voice of the master and IMO are hollow efforts. I read a considerable number of them and the experience was like eating rice cakes.
He's a pretty iconic writer certainly, but not all of them are without value. The Raymond Benson ones are possibly the most rice cake-ish: I just don't know what they were thinking of at that point. I used to read Doctor Who novels around that time and some of them were genuinely impressive, thoughtful books (honestly!) and I couldn't believe that the James Bond series, which does have slightly more literary origins, couldn't muster a half-decent writer when there must've been loads who appreciated what Fleming did. Happily since IFP have pursued exactly those types of writers. Not always successfully, but that's fair enough.
It's particularly impressive that there were strong Doctor Who novels for the first half of the '90s as they were all submitted to Virgin Publishing by fans who were often first-time writers.
Benson seems to have been chosen because he had written The James Bond Bedside Companion, and as such was already known to IFP. He was a journalist, but had never written a novel, which arguably shows in his work.
Yeah I'm not sure there's much 'arguably' about it!
I can't help, however, feel that there may be an element of snobbery in IF's choice of Sebastian Faulks and William Boyd.
Probably, but that's kind of appropriate to Bond isn't it?
And it sort of fits with the movies too: they're utter hokum about a hero spy made by folks who are way overqualified for the job and far classier than they should be: John Barry, Ken Adam... Sam Mendes, even. So I think it's pretty valid to get Kingsley Amis and Sebastian Faulks to have a crack: if Fleming himself isn't around then you need an angle on why you're writing more books at all, and I think letting overqualified writers do it is valid. Horowitz has arguably written better books, but they're perhaps less in the way of events.
I could be wrong, of course, but for such upper-middle class people as the Fleming family perhaps the Bond films have been a mild embarrassment, particularly as the public may assume that Ian himself wrote them with the same excesses. Even his own wife, Anne, was ashamed of the books (referring to them as "pornography"), while his friends would read out passages in front of him and laugh their hinds off. The modern films are rather like prestige pieces, so perhaps that influenced the direction of the books?
Maybe. Are the Fleming family directly involved still? I don't know: I feel like there's a Lucy..? I'm sure they've made their peace with it by now!
While I’m sure when IF started writing Bond thrillers he hoped to make a profit, there was also his strong desire to write a great spy novel. Thus, there was an element of personal artistry involved.
I was thinking about this just the other day. I think Fleming certainly relished the challenge of writing that first book, but I dare say the later ones were written at least partly with money in mind. As is often the way with these things. If that's true, his estate has just carried on from where he left off.
That's a good observation. I think his pursuit of trying to get movies made of his books (for many years) shows that he certainly wasn't afraid of using Bond to get a payday. Nothing wrong with it at all, but Bond has always been a commercial enterprise rather than high art.
There's a couple of published articles where Fleming states he writes for money, and for pleasure. He could write for art if he so chose, but others could do that better.
I have a charming relative who is an angry young littérateur of renown. He is maddened by the fact that more people read my books than his. Not long ago we had semi-friendly words on the subject and I tried to cool his boiling ego by saying that his artistic purpose was far, far higher than mine. He was engaged in “The Shakespeare Stakes.” The target of his books was the head and, to some extent at least, the heart. The target of my books, I said, lay somewhere between the solar plexus and, well, the upper thigh. These self-deprecatory remarks did nothing to mollify him and finally, with some impatience and perhaps with something of an ironical glint in my eye, I asked him how he described himself on his passport. “I bet you call yourself an Author,” I said. He agreed, with a shade of reluctance, perhaps because he scented sarcasm on the way. “Just so,” I said. “Well, I describe myself as a Writer. There are authors and artists, and then again there are writers and painters.”
This rather spiteful jibe, which forced him, most unwillingly, into the ranks of the Establishment, whilst stealing for myself the halo of a simple craftsman of the people, made the angry young man angrier than ever and I don’t now see him as often as I used to. But the point I wish to make is that if you decide to become a professional writer, you must, broadly speaking, decide whether you wish to write for fame, for pleasure or for money. I write, unashamedly, for pleasure and money
PLAYBOY: You have said that you write unashamedly for money. Is that true?
FLEMING: Yes, it is. I do write for money – but also for pleasure. I’m very glad that people say kind things about my books – because, naturally, if they didn’t say so, I shouldn’t make any money, and consequently I shouldn’t enjoy the writing so much. I think that communicating enjoyment is certainly a very good achievement, even in the fairly modest seam of literature that comprises thriller writing. But it’s true that I write below my ultimate capacity – or at least I think I probably do. If I really settled down and decided to write a War and Peace among thrillers, if I shut myself up and decided to do this and nothing else, I dare say I might bring it off, if such a thing is possible. There’s a great deal of violence and sex in all great novels, so I dare say if I tried to do it in the modern vein I might conceivably succeed.
But I’m more interested in action than in cerebration, and I should think that the great War and Peace thriller would be more likely to be written by a man like Graham Greene or Georges Simenon, because either of them would do it more truthfully and accurately than I ever could. I enjoy exaggeration and things larger than life. It amuses me to have a villain with a great bulbous head, whereas, as you know, they’re generally little people with nothing at all extraordinary-looking about them. Then, too, I’m afraid I shouldn’t be able to write in sufficient depth to make this hypothetical thriller stand up as a classic.
Casino Royale was adapted to Climax Mystery Theatre October 21 1954, a year and a half after publication. (Fleming was paid $1,000-) Moonraker was begun as a film project before being rewritten as a novel, so that'd be about the same time. Fleming had tried repeatedly to get a film or television deal before he met McClory, that was always his goal. One reason he considered killing off his creation in From Russia With Love was that wasn't happening fast enough.
There was also the Daily Express comic strip which began July 1958, he was making money off of that too.
While I’m sure when IF started writing Bond thrillers he hoped to make a profit, there was also his strong desire to write a great spy novel. Thus, there was an element of personal artistry involved.
I was thinking about this just the other day. I think Fleming certainly relished the challenge of writing that first book, but I dare say the later ones were written at least partly with money in mind. As is often the way with these things. If that's true, his estate has just carried on from where he left off.
That's a good observation. I think his pursuit of trying to get movies made of his books (for many years) shows that he certainly wasn't afraid of using Bond to get a payday. Nothing wrong with it at all, but Bond has always been a commercial enterprise rather than high art.
There's a couple of published articles where Fleming states he writes for money, and for pleasure. He could write for art if he so chose, but others could do that better.
I have a charming relative who is an angry young littérateur of renown. He is maddened by the fact that more people read my books than his. Not long ago we had semi-friendly words on the subject and I tried to cool his boiling ego by saying that his artistic purpose was far, far higher than mine. He was engaged in “The Shakespeare Stakes.” The target of his books was the head and, to some extent at least, the heart. The target of my books, I said, lay somewhere between the solar plexus and, well, the upper thigh. These self-deprecatory remarks did nothing to mollify him and finally, with some impatience and perhaps with something of an ironical glint in my eye, I asked him how he described himself on his passport. “I bet you call yourself an Author,” I said. He agreed, with a shade of reluctance, perhaps because he scented sarcasm on the way. “Just so,” I said. “Well, I describe myself as a Writer. There are authors and artists, and then again there are writers and painters.”
This rather spiteful jibe, which forced him, most unwillingly, into the ranks of the Establishment, whilst stealing for myself the halo of a simple craftsman of the people, made the angry young man angrier than ever and I don’t now see him as often as I used to. But the point I wish to make is that if you decide to become a professional writer, you must, broadly speaking, decide whether you wish to write for fame, for pleasure or for money. I write, unashamedly, for pleasure and money
PLAYBOY: You have said that you write unashamedly for money. Is that true?
FLEMING: Yes, it is. I do write for money – but also for pleasure. I’m very glad that people say kind things about my books – because, naturally, if they didn’t say so, I shouldn’t make any money, and consequently I shouldn’t enjoy the writing so much. I think that communicating enjoyment is certainly a very good achievement, even in the fairly modest seam of literature that comprises thriller writing. But it’s true that I write below my ultimate capacity – or at least I think I probably do. If I really settled down and decided to write a War and Peace among thrillers, if I shut myself up and decided to do this and nothing else, I dare say I might bring it off, if such a thing is possible. There’s a great deal of violence and sex in all great novels, so I dare say if I tried to do it in the modern vein I might conceivably succeed.
But I’m more interested in action than in cerebration, and I should think that the great War and Peace thriller would be more likely to be written by a man like Graham Greene or Georges Simenon, because either of them would do it more truthfully and accurately than I ever could. I enjoy exaggeration and things larger than life. It amuses me to have a villain with a great bulbous head, whereas, as you know, they’re generally little people with nothing at all extraordinary-looking about them. Then, too, I’m afraid I shouldn’t be able to write in sufficient depth to make this hypothetical thriller stand up as a classic.
Casino Royale was adapted to Climax Mystery Theatre October 21 1954, a year and a half after publication. (Fleming was paid $1,000-) Moonraker was begun as a film project before being rewritten as a novel, so that'd be about the same time. Fleming had tried repeatedly to get a film or television deal before he met McClory, that was always his goal. One reason he considered killing off his creation in From Russia With Love was that wasn't happening fast enough.
There was also the Daily Express comic strip which began July 1958, he was making money off of that too.
Great research there!
Yes, I think although he was a terrifically talented writer, he wasn't exactly trying to be Rembrandt here. Continuing to try to make money from his creation is pretty much in the vein of how he went about things.
It's funny really, I hadn't considered it but this is another way in which the movies are rather excellent adaptations of the novels: they're done far better and with much more artistry than the material really deserves, much like Fleming's hugely enjoyable and brilliant prose is much better than the adventures of a slightly stock action hero character really require.
Benson seems to have been chosen because he had written The James Bond Bedside Companion, and as such was already known to IFP. He was a journalist, but had never written a novel, which arguably shows in his work.
Ironically, of course, Fleming was also a journalist who had never written a novel before Casino Royale.
It's funny really, I hadn't considered it but this is another way in which the movies are rather excellent adaptations of the novels: they're done far better and with much more artistry than the material really deserves, much like Fleming's hugely enjoyable and brilliant prose is much better than the adventures of a slightly stock action hero character really require.
While I'd argue with your thought that the films have done better than the material deserves, in some ways they have made significant improvements, such as Goldfinger's plan to irradiate Fort Knox, which is certainly more practical than stealing its contents.
Perhaps the most important thing about the movies: how many of us would have read Fleming if the movies had never been made? Very few I'd imagine, and almost all of us came to Fleming having fallen in love with the films.
Benson seems to have been chosen because he had written The James Bond Bedside Companion, and as such was already known to IFP. He was a journalist, but had never written a novel, which arguably shows in his work.
Ironically, of course, Fleming was also a journalist who had never written a novel before Casino Royale.
Good point! Even more amusingly, Gardner wasn't pleased with Benson as his heir, and disparaged him for being a journalist
While I'd argue with your thought that the films have done better than the material deserves, in some ways they have made significant improvements, such as Goldfinger's plan to irradiate Fort Knox, which is certainly more practical than stealing its contents.
Perhaps the most important thing about the movies: how many of us would have read Fleming if the movies had never been made? Very few I'd imagine, and almost all of us came to Fleming having fallen in love with the films.
Definitely. Without the films, Fleming would be read as much as Alexander Wilson or Victor Canning.
The GF film certainly improved on the book, in which Bond becomes Goldfinger's secretary!
I would 100% not read any of Fleming's writings without the movies. As I mentioned previously, I am not an avid reader. Honestly, haven't read a book in years. I mean, maybe close to a decade. It just hasn't really interested me. I have enjoyed reading CR. I will certainly keep reading his works and once I am done I may carry on with those that followed after him.
"History isn't kind to men who play God." - DC "I gave him the limp." - PB "Better make that two." - TD
"Keeping British end up, sir." - RM "This never happened to the other fellow." - JL "I must be dreaming." SC
Given the Book covers with scanty clad
Women sitting astride guns ....... I'd most
Likely have given them a go . I always
Judge a book by its cover.
But then don't forget they probably would be much less available if it wasn't for the movies. They probably wouldn't have disappeared forever but they'd be slightly harder to find and fewer reprints.
I would like to assert that IF’s comments on his writing likely contain a fair dose of modesty. Bond certainly was never intended to be high art. But as a thriller writer, Fleming was a master craftsman.
While the films and thrillers have a very symbiotic relationship (at least when IF was alive) I wouldn’t say scriptwriters made any meaningful improvements over the novels. Most folks now living saw the movies and then read the novels. Because of that and the passage of time between the film/novel it is practically impossible to measure the effect the films have on the perception of IF’s writing.
Like so many others, I saw FRWL in 1963 and then read the novel. But I really enjoyed the differences and found the thriller much richer. After TB the movies morphed into another dimension and without Fleming’s influence became “rice cakes” and there was nothing to distinguish them from run of the mill pop culture drivel... with a slight exception for CR’06 which actually used elements from the novel.
how many of us would have read Fleming if the movies had never been made? Very few I'd imagine.
Count me in that small group, but we're a rare breed and soon to be made extinct.
Can you know that for certain though? Did you read any of them before 1962?
Yes, I know it for certain. I inherited my grandfather's books and read them voraciously. It wasn't before 1962 (even I'm not that old, though it wasn't long after) but he'd been reading and collecting them before that. I just carried on where he left off.
Benson seems to have been chosen because he had written The James Bond Bedside Companion, and as such was already known to IFP. He was a journalist, but had never written a novel, which arguably shows in his work.
Ironically, of course, Fleming was also a journalist who had never written a novel before Casino Royale.
Good point! Even more amusingly, Gardner wasn't pleased with Benson as his heir, and disparaged him for being a journalist
I didn't know that about Gardner! Curious thing, snobbery.
Ironically, of course, Fleming was also a journalist who had never written a novel before Casino Royale.
Good point! Even more amusingly, Gardner wasn't pleased with Benson as his heir, and disparaged him for being a journalist
I didn't know that about Gardner! Curious thing, snobbery.
Definitely, it's my biggest pet peeve X-(
He didn't even like Bond that much either, and said the character couldn't come alive to him as he wasn't his own (which, perhaps, fair enough). Also, he disparaged the films, as the last one he had seen had been MR. Shame, as he may well have liked the more realistic FYEO.
This criticism worked both ways, as Michael G. Wilson claimed to have read For Special Services and not liking it. My impression is that there was a certainly amount of animosity between Eon and Glidrose (IFP at the time). Both, I think, wanted to be the only Bond supplier in town.
Boyd and Faulks criticized the films too, with the former calling the film Bond "a cartoon character". Of all the continuation authors, only Benson, Horowitz and perhaps Deaver were fans of the movies.
Good point! Even more amusingly, Gardner wasn't pleased with Benson as his heir, and disparaged him for being a journalist
I didn't know that about Gardner! Curious thing, snobbery.
Definitely, it's my biggest pet peeve X-(
He didn't even like Bond that much either, and said the character couldn't come alive to him as he wasn't his own (which, perhaps, fair enough). Also, he disparaged the films, as the last one he had seen had been MR. Shame, as he may well have liked the more realistic FYEO.
This criticism worked both ways, as Michael G. Wilson claimed to have read For Special Services and not liking it. My impression is that there was a certainly amount of animosity between Eon and Glidrose (IFP at the time). Both, I think, wanted to be the only Bond supplier in town.
Certainly now Eon could shut them down if they wanted, couldn't they? James Bond is a trademark of Danjaq, although I guess IFP have a contract which allows them to do whatever they want with the trademark for a set amount of time or something. I've always been a bit hazy on how that works.
Yeah looking through my books, it seems that neither Gardner nor Benson's books have a note to say James Bond 007 is owned by Danjaq, but the more recent books (and reprints of the Gardners) do have that credit. Did they get the total ownership of the name when they got Thunderball and Casino Royale I wonder?
I thought Eon had to to get the okay from IFP, but I could be wrong.
Perhaps, when Michael G Wilson made that comment in 1985, he thought IFP was piggy-backing off the success of the films (which, of course, they were).
It's maybe worth mentioning that Bond continuation authors making snide comments about the others was something of a tradition until recently (Kingsley Amis wrote a negative review for Licence Renewed, Gardner said the Benson jibe, Benson himself had disparaged Gardner in Bedside Companion, Faulks said he only read Fleming and not anyone after etc etc).
As an aside, I bought a box set of all the Flemings today (Penguin, 2006 paperbacks) in a charity shop for a tenner
I thought Eon had to to get the okay from IFP, but I could be wrong.
Ooh no I don't think so, certainly not now anyway: Danjaq own pretty much everything to do with the name and licence it to IFP. I think IFP wouldn't be able to sell Bond books (maybe not even the Flemings?) without Eon's allowing it.
Comments
I was thinking about this just the other day. I think Fleming certainly relished the challenge of writing that first book, but I dare say the later ones were written at least partly with money in mind. As is often the way with these things. If that's true, his estate has just carried on from where he left off.
It is often the case with any creative endeavour that the original work, and artist too, is sacrosanct, or at least is privileged compared to anything which might follow it. One of the continuation novels could be just as good, but won't be re-printed or reappraised anywhere near the amount of times that Fleming's were. Gardner's books, for example, are the definition of obscure, as far as the general public are concerned.
We seem to place a higher value on the first of something and see it as the most authentic or insightful or as a statement of intent.
For instance, when the actor James Purefoy thought he would be playing The Saint, he bought an expensive first edition of the first Saint novel, Meet the Tiger, even though that particular volume isn't representative of the series or even portrays Templar as the more rounded character he would later become.
That's a good observation. I think his pursuit of trying to get movies made of his books (for many years) shows that he certainly wasn't afraid of using Bond to get a payday. Nothing wrong with it at all, but Bond has always been a commercial enterprise rather than high art.
Specifically the post Fleming novels lack the voice of the master and IMO are hollow efforts. I read a considerable number of them and the experience was like eating rice cakes.
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
I saw The November Man the other day. I really wanted to like it, but I'd probably rate it at 2 and a half out of 5. It felt like the script was maybe three drafts away from being ready. The daughter was introduced too late, as though she was an after-thought, while the minor twist that Alice (Olga Kurylenko) was Mira didn't have the punch it should have done as it was strangely underplayed. The two head honchos at the CIA were difficult to distinguish, personality-wise, so they should have put more effort into making them different (maybe make one a woman?). Really, there was too much hard-faced masculinity with everyone trying to be the tough guy. I understood what Pierce was trying to do in terms of making a rougher spy film, but his character was all over the place (one scene a maverick, next a professional, next again a psychopath), while Mason (Luke Bracy) was just sullen and petulant.
They announced a sequel while it was still in cinemas - obviously, as an empty show of confidence - but it never happened and I'm not surprised.
I think Pierce should do straight-to-DVD action films like John Cusack, Seagal, Nicolas Cage etc. There may be enough Bond fans to buy them in the supermarket, but there's just not enough to leave the house for the cinema to see them.
Not really, it doesn't always follow. There are many authors who don't want or approve of their stuff being adapted, Alan Moore leaps to mind initially. Fleming seems to have pursued a film series pretty aggressively, also a TV series too.
He's a pretty iconic writer certainly, but not all of them are without value. The Raymond Benson ones are possibly the most rice cake-ish: I just don't know what they were thinking of at that point. I used to read Doctor Who novels around that time and some of them were genuinely impressive, thoughtful books (honestly!) and I couldn't believe that the James Bond series, which does have slightly more literary origins, couldn't muster a half-decent writer when there must've been loads who appreciated what Fleming did. Happily since IFP have pursued exactly those types of writers. Not always successfully, but that's fair enough.
It's particularly impressive that there were strong Doctor Who novels for the first half of the '90s as they were all submitted to Virgin Publishing by fans who were often first-time writers.
Benson seems to have been chosen because he had written The James Bond Bedside Companion, and as such was already known to IFP. He was a journalist, but had never written a novel, which arguably shows in his work.
I can't help, however, feel that there may be an element of snobbery in IF's choice of Sebastian Faulks and William Boyd. I could be wrong, of course, but for such upper-middle class people as the Fleming family perhaps the Bond films have been a mild embarrassment, particularly as the public may assume that Ian himself wrote them with the same excesses. Even his own wife, Anne, was ashamed of the books (referring to them as "pornography"), while his friends would read out passages in front of him and laugh their hinds off. The modern films are rather like prestige pieces, so perhaps that influenced the direction of the books?
Yeah I'm not sure there's much 'arguably' about it!
Probably, but that's kind of appropriate to Bond isn't it?
And it sort of fits with the movies too: they're utter hokum about a hero spy made by folks who are way overqualified for the job and far classier than they should be: John Barry, Ken Adam... Sam Mendes, even. So I think it's pretty valid to get Kingsley Amis and Sebastian Faulks to have a crack: if Fleming himself isn't around then you need an angle on why you're writing more books at all, and I think letting overqualified writers do it is valid. Horowitz has arguably written better books, but they're perhaps less in the way of events.
Maybe. Are the Fleming family directly involved still? I don't know: I feel like there's a Lucy..? I'm sure they've made their peace with it by now!
There's a couple of published articles where Fleming states he writes for money, and for pleasure. He could write for art if he so chose, but others could do that better.
From How to Write a Thriller, May 1963 issue of Books and Bookmen
https://lithub.com/ian-fleming-explains-how-to-write-a-thriller/
From the PLAYBOY interview, published December 1964
https://playboy.the007dossier.com/2014/12/05/the-playboy-interview-ian-fleming-december-1964/ Casino Royale was adapted to Climax Mystery Theatre October 21 1954, a year and a half after publication. (Fleming was paid $1,000-) Moonraker was begun as a film project before being rewritten as a novel, so that'd be about the same time. Fleming had tried repeatedly to get a film or television deal before he met McClory, that was always his goal. One reason he considered killing off his creation in From Russia With Love was that wasn't happening fast enough.
There was also the Daily Express comic strip which began July 1958, he was making money off of that too.
Great research there!
Yes, I think although he was a terrifically talented writer, he wasn't exactly trying to be Rembrandt here. Continuing to try to make money from his creation is pretty much in the vein of how he went about things.
It's funny really, I hadn't considered it but this is another way in which the movies are rather excellent adaptations of the novels: they're done far better and with much more artistry than the material really deserves, much like Fleming's hugely enjoyable and brilliant prose is much better than the adventures of a slightly stock action hero character really require.
Ironically, of course, Fleming was also a journalist who had never written a novel before Casino Royale.
While I'd argue with your thought that the films have done better than the material deserves, in some ways they have made significant improvements, such as Goldfinger's plan to irradiate Fort Knox, which is certainly more practical than stealing its contents.
Perhaps the most important thing about the movies: how many of us would have read Fleming if the movies had never been made? Very few I'd imagine, and almost all of us came to Fleming having fallen in love with the films.
Good point! Even more amusingly, Gardner wasn't pleased with Benson as his heir, and disparaged him for being a journalist
Definitely. Without the films, Fleming would be read as much as Alexander Wilson or Victor Canning.
The GF film certainly improved on the book, in which Bond becomes Goldfinger's secretary!
Count me in that small group, but we're a rare breed and soon to be made extinct.
Women sitting astride guns ....... I'd most
Likely have given them a go . I always
Judge a book by its cover.
"Keeping British end up, sir." - RM "This never happened to the other fellow." - JL "I must be dreaming." SC
Can you know that for certain though? Did you read any of them before 1962?
But then don't forget they probably would be much less available if it wasn't for the movies. They probably wouldn't have disappeared forever but they'd be slightly harder to find and fewer reprints.
While the films and thrillers have a very symbiotic relationship (at least when IF was alive) I wouldn’t say scriptwriters made any meaningful improvements over the novels. Most folks now living saw the movies and then read the novels. Because of that and the passage of time between the film/novel it is practically impossible to measure the effect the films have on the perception of IF’s writing.
Like so many others, I saw FRWL in 1963 and then read the novel. But I really enjoyed the differences and found the thriller much richer. After TB the movies morphed into another dimension and without Fleming’s influence became “rice cakes” and there was nothing to distinguish them from run of the mill pop culture drivel... with a slight exception for CR’06 which actually used elements from the novel.
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
Yes, I know it for certain. I inherited my grandfather's books and read them voraciously. It wasn't before 1962 (even I'm not that old, though it wasn't long after) but he'd been reading and collecting them before that. I just carried on where he left off.
I didn't know that about Gardner! Curious thing, snobbery.
Definitely, it's my biggest pet peeve X-(
He didn't even like Bond that much either, and said the character couldn't come alive to him as he wasn't his own (which, perhaps, fair enough). Also, he disparaged the films, as the last one he had seen had been MR. Shame, as he may well have liked the more realistic FYEO.
This criticism worked both ways, as Michael G. Wilson claimed to have read For Special Services and not liking it. My impression is that there was a certainly amount of animosity between Eon and Glidrose (IFP at the time). Both, I think, wanted to be the only Bond supplier in town.
Boyd and Faulks criticized the films too, with the former calling the film Bond "a cartoon character". Of all the continuation authors, only Benson, Horowitz and perhaps Deaver were fans of the movies.
Certainly now Eon could shut them down if they wanted, couldn't they? James Bond is a trademark of Danjaq, although I guess IFP have a contract which allows them to do whatever they want with the trademark for a set amount of time or something. I've always been a bit hazy on how that works.
Yeah looking through my books, it seems that neither Gardner nor Benson's books have a note to say James Bond 007 is owned by Danjaq, but the more recent books (and reprints of the Gardners) do have that credit. Did they get the total ownership of the name when they got Thunderball and Casino Royale I wonder?
Perhaps, when Michael G Wilson made that comment in 1985, he thought IFP was piggy-backing off the success of the films (which, of course, they were).
It's maybe worth mentioning that Bond continuation authors making snide comments about the others was something of a tradition until recently (Kingsley Amis wrote a negative review for Licence Renewed, Gardner said the Benson jibe, Benson himself had disparaged Gardner in Bedside Companion, Faulks said he only read Fleming and not anyone after etc etc).
As an aside, I bought a box set of all the Flemings today (Penguin, 2006 paperbacks) in a charity shop for a tenner
Ooh no I don't think so, certainly not now anyway: Danjaq own pretty much everything to do with the name and licence it to IFP. I think IFP wouldn't be able to sell Bond books (maybe not even the Flemings?) without Eon's allowing it.