Had Ian Fleming lived beyond 1964...

Silhouette ManSilhouette Man The last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,644MI6 Agent
edited July 2019 in James Bond Literature
...into the late 1960s and the 1970s, where would he have taken James Bond? Ian Fleming would hardly have approved of the direction the world took post-the 1964 General Election and the end of 'The Land of Lost Content'. The Beatles, The Rollng Stones, Harold Wlson's brand of new Socialism, 'White Heat', The Beat Movement, the Energy Crisis, the Man on the Moon, the Hippy Revolution, habitual illegal drug use, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Ian Smith in Rhodesia, the Nuclear Deterrent etc. etc. etc.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on what Fleming might have written about in this broad subject area on the background of the late 1960s and 1970s. :)
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
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Comments

  • AlphaOmegaSinAlphaOmegaSin EnglandPosts: 10,924MI6 Agent
    By the time YOLT (Novel) came out, Flemming was pretty much finished with the Character. But obviously changed his Mind and wrote Man with the Golden Gun. I think he would write a few more after that and then put James Bond to Bed for good.
    1.On Her Majesties Secret Service 2.The Living Daylights 3.license To Kill 4.The Spy Who Loved Me 5.Goldfinger
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy Behind you !Posts: 63,792MI6 Agent
    I agree AlphaOmegaSin, Fleming had run out of Ideas and seemed Bored with Bond.
    Perhaps he might of got another writer in to co-wright some, as some modern writers
    have done. but in the end, I think he'd of put Bond to bed.
    "I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
  • AlphaOmegaSinAlphaOmegaSin EnglandPosts: 10,924MI6 Agent
    I agree AlphaOmegaSin, Fleming had run out of Ideas and seemed Bored with Bond.
    Perhaps he might of got another writer in to co-wright some, as some modern writers
    have done. but in the end, I think he'd of put Bond to bed.

    The Ending to YOLT was a perfect, mysterious end to the Character. He should of left it there and then.
    1.On Her Majesties Secret Service 2.The Living Daylights 3.license To Kill 4.The Spy Who Loved Me 5.Goldfinger
  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,239MI6 Agent
    He might have done it for money, and cashed in. But the mellow tone of the last novels suggests he knew his time was up physically.
    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • perdoggperdogg Posts: 432MI6 Agent
    ...into the late 1960s and the 1970s, where would he have taken James Bond? Ian Fleming would hardly have approved of the direction the world took post-the 1964 General Election and the end of 'The Land of Lost Content'. The Beatles, The Rollng Stones, Harold Wlson's brand of new Socialism, 'White Heat', The Beat Movement, the Energy Crisis, Man on the Moon, the Hippy Revolution, Habitual drug use, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Ian Smith in Rhodesia, the Nuclear Deterrent etc. etc. etc.

    I'd love to hear your thoughts on what Fleming might have written about in this broad subject area on the background of the late 1960s and 1970s. :)


    I thought he pretty much ended it at the end of TMWTGG.
    "And if I told you that I'm from the Ministry of Defence?" James Bond - The Property of a Lady
  • Silhouette ManSilhouette Man The last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,644MI6 Agent
    Yes, sadly one gets the feeling that ILF was pretty much burnt out by the time of TMWTGG - as he said to William Plomer - "This is the last - I've run out of puff and zest." or words to that effect. So there probably would have been no further James Bond novels from Fleming anyway. Sad but true, I fear. :(
    "The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
  • AlphaOmegaSinAlphaOmegaSin EnglandPosts: 10,924MI6 Agent
    Yes, sadly one gets the feeling that ILF was pretty much burnt out by the time of TMWTGG - as he said to William Plomer - "This is the last - I've run out of puff and zest." or words to that effect. So there probably would have been no further James Bond novels from Fleming anyway. Sad but true, I fear. :(

    He probably would of passed it onto someone else, and became a background Ideas Person.
    1.On Her Majesties Secret Service 2.The Living Daylights 3.license To Kill 4.The Spy Who Loved Me 5.Goldfinger
  • Silhouette ManSilhouette Man The last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,644MI6 Agent
    Yes, sadly one gets the feeling that ILF was pretty much burnt out by the time of TMWTGG - as he said to William Plomer - "This is the last - I've run out of puff and zest." or words to that effect. So there probably would have been no further James Bond novels from Fleming anyway. Sad but true, I fear. :(

    He probably would of passed it onto someone else, and became a background Ideas Person.

    Yes, that seems to be a modern trend with thriller writers, e.g. Alistair Maclean, Tom Clancy et al.
    "The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
  • RevelatorRevelator Posts: 556MI6 Agent
    ...into the late 1960s and the 1970s, where would he have taken James Bond? Ian Fleming would hardly have approved of the direction the world took post-the 1964 General Election and the end of 'The Land of Lost Content'. The Beatles, The Rollng Stones, Harold Wlson's brand of new Socialism, 'White Heat', The Beat Movement, the Energy Crisis, Man on the Moon, the Hippy Revolution, Habitual drug use, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Ian Smith in Rhodesia, the Nuclear Deterrent etc. etc. etc.

    I'd love to hear your thoughts on what Fleming might have written about in this broad subject area on the background of the late 1960s and 1970s. :)

    Fleming would have undoubtedly disliked much of what happened after 1964, though whether he'd have hated every new development is up for question. Perhaps he might have found some aspects of the counterculture of interest--or perhaps future Bond villains would have relied on student protesters. We can't be sure. Fleming's ecological interests would have likely made him sympathetic to the environmental movement.
    Imagining what would have happened if Fleming lived also involves rewriting established history, because if Fleming survived then he would not have been afflicted by the illnesses of his final years, and that means both YOLT and TMWTGG would be different books from those we know today. (YOLT would have likely had a tighter structure and less travelogue material.)
    My own predictions are that many future Bond villains would have been KGB agents, though like Amis Fleming might have gravitated to the Red Chinese. There would be plots involving NASA-type space programs, and perhaps some involving drug smuggling (Fleming's interest in this is clear from The Poppy Is Also a Flower). Bond would go to some of the places Fleming was captivated by in Thrilling Cities, like Hong Kong and Macao. And the books would probably grow slightly more self-parodic and humorous, though there would be further griping and bitterness on the decline Britain. Fleming certainly died on the cusp of a new era, and wondering how Bond would have reacted to it is one of the great what-ifs of spy fiction.
  • Silhouette ManSilhouette Man The last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,644MI6 Agent
    edited March 2013
    Revelator wrote:
    ...into the late 1960s and the 1970s, where would he have taken James Bond? Ian Fleming would hardly have approved of the direction the world took post-the 1964 General Election and the end of 'The Land of Lost Content'. The Beatles, The Rollng Stones, Harold Wlson's brand of new Socialism, 'White Heat', The Beat Movement, the Energy Crisis, Man on the Moon, the Hippy Revolution, Habitual drug use, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Ian Smith in Rhodesia, the Nuclear Deterrent etc. etc. etc.

    I'd love to hear your thoughts on what Fleming might have written about in this broad subject area on the background of the late 1960s and 1970s. :)

    Fleming would have undoubtedly disliked much of what happened after 1964, though whether he'd have hated every new development is up for question. Perhaps he might have found some aspects of the counterculture of interest--or perhaps future Bond villains would have relied on student protesters. We can't be sure. Fleming's ecological interests would have likely made him sympathetic to the environmental movement.
    Imagining what would have happened if Fleming lived also involves rewriting established history, because if Fleming survived then he would not have been afflicted by the illnesses of his final years, and that means both YOLT and TMWTGG would be different books from those we know today. (YOLT would have likely had a tighter structure and less travelogue material.)
    My own predictions are that many future Bond villains would have been KGB agents, though like Amis Fleming might have gravitated to the Red Chinese. There would be plots involving NASA-type space programs, and perhaps some involving drug smuggling (Fleming's interest in this is clear from The Poppy Is Also a Flower). Bond would go to some of the places Fleming was captivated by in Thrilling Cities, like Hong Kong and Macao. And the books would probably grow slightly more self-parodic and humorous, though there would be further griping and bitterness on the decline Britain. Fleming certainly died on the cusp of a new era, and wondering how Bond would have reacted to it is one of the great what-ifs of spy fiction.

    Thank you, Revelator. Yes, he certainly did die on the cusp of a new era, didn't he?

    The end of the short orthodox premiership of Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Tory grandee and his replacement at the October 1964 election by Harold Wilson by the tiny majority of just four seats brought the end to what was dubbed the "13 years of Tory missrule" (1951-1964) and it ultimately brought about the end of the "Land of Lost Content". Interestingly, Lord Home's brother Henry was responsible for breaking Ian Fleming's nose at a football match at Eton, resulting in a permanent break and a metal plate having to be fitted.
    "The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy Behind you !Posts: 63,792MI6 Agent
    I wonder if anyone knows if Eon own the rights to the continuing
    Bond novels by Gardner, Benson etc. Or do they have some order
    stopping any other company buying the rights.
    I know EON now own all the rights to all the fleming Novels but I
    was wondering about the rest.
    The documentary on the book rights for Casino Royale ( On dvd )
    is amazing, The rights went through so many hands, and companies
    untill Eon finally got them. :)
    "I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
  • Silhouette ManSilhouette Man The last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,644MI6 Agent
    edited March 2013
    I wonder if anyone knows if Eon own the rights to the continuing
    Bond novels by Gardner, Benson etc. Or do they have some order
    stopping any other company buying the rights.
    I know EON now own all the rights to all the fleming Novels but I
    was wondering about the rest.
    The documentary on the book rights for Casino Royale ( On dvd )
    is amazing, The rights went through so many hands, and companies
    untill Eon finally got them. :)

    Eon owns the rights to the Continuation Bonds also as far as I know but has so far elected to do nothing with them. They'd have to pay 10% to IFP and presumably 10% or less to the Estate of Gardner, to Raymond Benson etc. This puts them off filming the continuations, though they have of course used elements from them over the years.
    "The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy Behind you !Posts: 63,792MI6 Agent
    Thanks for the Information. SM -{
    "I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
  • Silhouette ManSilhouette Man The last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,644MI6 Agent
    Thanks for the Information. SM -{

    My pleasure, Thunderpussy. :)
    "The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
  • Silhouette ManSilhouette Man The last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,644MI6 Agent
    edited August 2015
    Does anyone else want to add their thoughts on this one. I'm currently writing a piece on the future Bond novels Fleming had ideas for so all input is very much appreciated, as always! :) -{
    "The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
  • RevelatorRevelator Posts: 556MI6 Agent
    Looking back on my earlier comment, I'd reiterate that drug smuggling would have definitely been a subject of future Bond novels--Fleming was investigating the topic before his death and marijuana features prominently in TMWTGG. Fleming was against the prohibition of heroin in GF--I wonder what stance he'd take toward pot and LSD.
    Also, Richard 'Dikko' Hughes's "Sayonara to James Bond" (which can be read in Ian Fleming's James Bond: Annotations and Chronologies or Hughes's Foreign Devil) relates that Fleming was extremely interested in researching and visiting the Panama Canal. Hughes believes Fleming intended to send Bond there, and only illness got in the way.
    Lastly, given how often Fleming said he was fed up with Bond, I wonder if he would have eventually accepted outside help with the series. Not necessarily ghostwriters, but committee-drafted plots and scenarios which Fleming would oversee and rework to his satisfaction. Alexandre Dumas's collaboration with Auguste Maquet, which produced The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, is an example.
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,030MI6 Agent
    Fleming died before he saw how huge Bond would become with TB. I think this may have invigorated him and he almost certainly would have written some more novels perhaps imitating the style of the movies with grand set pieces and even more OTT villains.
    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • Silhouette ManSilhouette Man The last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,644MI6 Agent
    Revelator wrote:
    Looking back on my earlier comment, I'd reiterate that drug smuggling would have definitely been a subject of future Bond novels--Fleming was investigating the topic before his death and marijuana features prominently in TMWTGG. Fleming was against the prohibition of heroin in GF--I wonder what stance he'd take toward pot and LSD.
    Also, Richard 'Dikko' Hughes's "Sayonara to James Bond" (which can be read in Ian Fleming's James Bond: Annotations and Chronologies or Hughes's Foreign Devil) relates that Fleming was extremely interested in researching and visiting the Panama Canal. Hughes believes Fleming intended to send Bond there, and only illness got in the way.
    Lastly, given how often Fleming said he was fed up with Bond, I wonder if he would have eventually accepted outside help with the series. Not necessarily ghostwriters, but committee-drafted plots and scenarios which Fleming would oversee and rework to his satisfaction. Alexandre Dumas's collaboration with Auguste Maquet, which produced The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, is an example.

    Thank you, Revelator. I have that book by Richard Hughes. It has some interesting details and is one of the cornerstones for my upcoming article, among some other forgotten things.

    Some good food for thought there on Fleming and drugs - I concur. :) -{
    "The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
  • Silhouette ManSilhouette Man The last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,644MI6 Agent
    Does anyone else want to add their thoughts on this interesting topic of what Fleming would have done next had he lived beyond 1964? :) -{
    "The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
  • stagstag Posts: 2,083MI6 Agent
    Most of the contributors have summed up my thoughts. Personally I feel Fleming had run out of steam with YOLT. I believe he may have done a couple more books post TMWTGG but would have (open) ended it thereafter. There is only so far any writer can go with one character & I feel Fleming had reached the end of his own road with Bond.
  • CmdrAtticusCmdrAtticus United StatesPosts: 1,102MI6 Agent
    He actually was done with Bond when he killed him off at the end of FRWL (though he decided not to have it end with the authorities carting off Bond's corpse). However, like Sherlock Holmes, Fleming was convinced to bring Bond back - he had very large bills to pay after all.
    Obviously, even had his health not overcome him, the TB lawsuit, his troubled marriage and having a son to support took it's toll anyway. I think he would have divorced, kept drinking and smoking and would have been even more depressed at the shrinking of the empire and the counter culture youth movement that slowly strangled to death his conservative world and the values, manners and attire along with it. Though EON kept his character modern, Fleming was part of an anachronistic British culture that was fading away.

    Given all that, he may have written a couple more novels and may have even placed Bond back in the fifties in them. However, with the success of the films and all their clones, it's hard to say whether he would have done that or just would have let the whole thing go and lived off his money from the novels and films.
  • RevelatorRevelator Posts: 556MI6 Agent
    Another factor is that even if Fleming had decided he was done with Bond, very powerful commercial interests would have resisted his decision. By the time he died, Bond was an industry, and the annual novel was a vital part of it. Glidrose and half a dozen other companies wanted those books to keep coming. After Fleming died they were eager to keep the gravy train rolling by publishing TMWTGG and Octopussy, and after they ran out of Fleming they commissioned Colonel Sun. So even if Fleming said to hell with Bond, his publishers, the filmmakers, and Glidrose would have said "RECONSIDER." And the pressure would have quadrupled after the release of Goldfinger. If Fleming somehow resisted, then the powers-that-be would have likely said, "alright, but would it be okay if we got someone else to write Bond books? We'd put your name on them and give you a cut of the profits." Fleming, sick of Bond, probably would have blessed the deal. Perhaps Glidrose would have turned to Amis while Fleming was still alive, and Fleming would have looked over Colonel Sun the same way he looked over The James Bond Dossier.
  • stagstag Posts: 2,083MI6 Agent
    The last two posts are very good.

    Fleming, being the sort of character he was perhaps would have resisted any attempts to 'coerce' him into writing more Bond if he truly believed it was time for JB to be put to bed?

    As mentioned elsewhere he could have lived quite handsomely from all the licensing revenue. Perhaps, just perhaps, had he given up on Bond he may have written one or more books after a few years break when his enthusiasm for the character returned?
  • David SchofieldDavid Schofield EnglandPosts: 1,528MI6 Agent
    I don't think anyone has as yet used the word proprietorial (or an implication of such): once upon a time I'd have been with Revalator, and the idea of IF letting someone else write the books while he enjoyed the profits and went down the golf club and the inevitable bar afterward. Charteris had already started something similar with the Saint after its TV popularity. And yet, I wonder now how much IF could actually have given the original Bond - his Bond - in its true format, away?

    Sure, the idea of an Amis CS would certainly have appealed to IF's vanity and Jenkins PFO would most likely have seen the light of day, but I doubt much else. There would certainly not have been anything as remotely vulgar as JB by John Gardner nor - shudder at IF's reaction - Raymond Benson.

    Consider: Fleming said the books go wildly beyond the probable but not the possible - imagine, then IF's reaction to the lunacy of the film of YOLT. It has been suggested that the film YOLT might have been a template for Fleming's new direction; I totally disagree. Fleming's last novel TMWTGG was understated and a return to the simplicity of DAF. Many suggest this is because the novel was half-formed. But what if it was as IF intended, a simple novel as a response to his over-inflated TSWLM and YOLT. Might Fleming have planned a series of gritty but straightforward thrillers?

    I think its undeniable IF's input would have slowed; he seems essentially to be a lazy sod. But I can see him returning to HIS creation, as he had after FRWL and YOLT, though with the usual self-pitying background affectations of a man of his nature. And JB would have become more Connery as he had from OHMSS onward, culminating in the two becoming one in the steaming macho meeting of JB and Scaramanga in Savannah La Mar.

    However, one can only imagine how IF would have recoiled at the sight of YOLT Connery? Would he have "rebooted" when he saw Lazenby? Would he have got round to the early 70s Bond novel where a semi-retired Bond has married for a second time, two kids, a Rover and a house overlooking Royal St Marks and is suffering from loads of ennui?
  • Charmed & DangerousCharmed & Dangerous Posts: 7,358MI6 Agent
    Given all that, he may have written a couple more novels and may have even placed Bond back in the fifties in them.

    I'm no so sure. While Fleming was a conservative, he delighted in the modern world and all it could offer: fast cars, airplanes, kitchen gadgets and the like. I even think he delighted in taking a haughty, conservative view of the new world around him :

    "James Bond slung his suitcase into the back of the old chocolate-brown Austin taxi and climbed into the front seat beside the foxy, pimpled young man in the black leather windcheater. The young man took a comb out of his breast pocket, ran it carefully through both sides of his duck-tail haircut, put the comb back in his pocket, then leaned forward and pressed the self-starter. The play with the comb, Bond guessed, was to assert to Bond that the driver was really only taking him and his money as a favor. It was typical of the cheap self-assertiveness of young labor since the war. This youth, thought Bond, makes about twenty pounds a week, despises his parents, and would like to be Tommy Steele. It's not his fault. He was born into the buyers' market of the Welfare State and into the age of atomic bombs and space flight. For him, life is easy and meaningless. Bond said, "How far is it to Shrublands?''" Thunderball, Chapter 2.
    "How was your lamb?" "Skewered. One sympathises."
  • Matt SMatt S Oh Cult Voodoo ShopPosts: 6,596MI6 Agent
    However, one can only imagine how IF would have recoiled at the sight of YOLT Connery?

    If Fleming were still alive, do you think the producers would have made Fleming's YOLT into a film rather than ask Roald Dahl to write an original story with merely a Fleming title? None of the films before showed disrespect to Fleming's books, but to take Fleming's title and put a completely different story to it is disrespectful to Fleming (regardless of whether the film's story is good or not).
    Visit my blog, Bond Suits
  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 36,053Chief of Staff
    No, I don't think they would have taken that route (although contractually they could have)- but we'll never know. At the very least, I would hope they would have consulted him.
    There is still a fair amount of Fleming's YOLT in the film - though a lower % than previously- and I would hope that figure would have been higher if he had lived.
    Once again we'll never know, but if Richard Maibaum had been the chief scriptwriter then we might have had a very different YOLT today.
  • RevelatorRevelator Posts: 556MI6 Agent
    edited August 2015
    I don't think anyone has as yet used the word proprietorial (or an implication of such): once upon a time I'd have been with Revelator, and the idea of IF letting someone else write the books while he enjoyed the profits and went down the golf club and the inevitable bar afterward. Charteris had already started something similar with the Saint after its TV popularity. And yet, I wonder now how much IF could actually have given the original Bond - his Bond - in its true format, away?

    Ironically, up to now I was of the belief that Fleming would have never relinquished control of the books to ghost writers. I still don't think he would have relinquished full control. Now, in the case of Colonel Sun, Fleming would have probably limited himself to reviewing the manuscript and giving suggestions, but in other cases--involving less prominent writers with less understanding of Bond--the working process might have been similar to what happened with Thunderball (albeit with better legal protection). Plotting was never Fleming's strongest skill, and he might have appreciated help with that.
    In my last post I also brought up the example of Auguste Maquet and Alexandre Dumas, who cowrote The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers and many other books. The two would have "script conferences," after which Maquet would plot each chapter or provide a summary with skeleton dialogue. Dumas would then flesh out the lifeless directions and produce a rich work of literature. Perhaps Fleming would have found a Maquet of his own to keep the Bond bandwagon rolling.
    Fleming's last novel TMWTGG was understated and a return to the simplicity of DAF. Many suggest this is because the novel was half-formed. But what if it was as IF intended, a simple novel as a response to his over-inflated TSWLM and YOLT. Might Fleming have planned a series of gritty but straightforward thrillers?

    Perhaps you meant OHMSS rather TSWLM, though neither seems over-inflated to me, and pretty much all of the Bond novels seem gritty and straightforward next to the films. In Fleming, the flamboyance tends to derive either from the villain's scheme or his lair, and one could argue that the Bond books had already reached their height of flamboyance in Goldfinger (the Fort Knox setting and plot) and Thunderball (the nuclear hijacking). The settings and schemes in OHMSS and YOLT are smaller-scale and more plausible than those of the earlier books. I would interpret that as a sign of Fleming winding down, with TMWTGG as final proof. That book's villainous scheme is downright boring (sugar futures? really?) and its setting was chosen because Fleming didn't have to travel to obtain it (the book would have been more interesting if set in Cuba, and doubly interesting if Fleming had made it to the Panama Canal).
    But ultimately we return to the main factor: Fleming's health. If he was in better shape, I have no doubt that he would tried to compete with the flamboyance of the movies--because he would have likely enjoyed the film of Goldfinger and because he knew the public would come to expect such qualities. The film of YOLT would have probably been a step too far for him, but the filmmakers would have been more hesitant to jettison the books of a living author.
    I think its undeniable IF's input would have slowed; he seems essentially to be a lazy sod.

    Hey, one book a year is not lazy! Chandler thought it positively prolific, though it should be said that truly prolific writers--like E. Phillips Oppenheim, Edgar Wallace, and Erle Stanley Gardner--often dictated their books to their secretaries (so did Henry James, but he was never a bestseller).
  • AlphaOmegaSinAlphaOmegaSin EnglandPosts: 10,924MI6 Agent
    I've always thought that Fleming would have eventually handed over the Series to anouther Writer, whilst advising and reviewing the Manuscripts.
    1.On Her Majesties Secret Service 2.The Living Daylights 3.license To Kill 4.The Spy Who Loved Me 5.Goldfinger
  • David SchofieldDavid Schofield EnglandPosts: 1,528MI6 Agent
    Matt S wrote:
    However, one can only imagine how IF would have recoiled at the sight of YOLT Connery?

    If Fleming were still alive, do you think the producers would have made Fleming's YOLT into a film rather than ask Roald Dahl to write an original story with merely a Fleming title? None of the films before showed disrespect to Fleming's books, but to take Fleming's title and put a completely different story to it is disrespectful to Fleming (regardless of whether the film's story is good or not).

    Not a chance YOLT would have been the bloated film it became in 1967.

    I suspect Cubby and Harry would have used IF as a sounding board on most things (though as Barbel points out there was no obligation to), a sort of Obi Wan figure. I think as soon as they had floated a hollowed out volcano and space craft kidnapping, IF would have laughed and thrown plausibility back at that. I think IF's view would have overcome any movie maker hustering from Cubs and Harold...

    I would also suggest that in 1967 IF would have suggested to them that if EON wanted to make an action Bond they should consider making MOONRAKER or OHMSS (regardless of the inconvenience of snow...)....

    As another thought, I wonder of IF would have involved himself with mediating with Connery? Connery would surely have respected IF as Bond's creator, (though other than a nod to Terence Young, Connery thought no one else had worked on Bond other than himself) or would Fleming have considered by the mid 60s Connery was nothing more than a out of shape below stairs hand who was blowing his chance and wasn't worth his time?
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