James Bond: The Secret History - a review

Given the huge amount of information about James Bond available in print and on the internet, the title of Sean Egan's new book, James Bond: The Secret History (2016, John Blake) seems a touch optimistic. Are any secrets left to reveal? Egan's book doesn't contain much that's new, but it does explore areas of the world of James Bond that are likely to be less familiar to many readers, Bond fans included.

The book is part history of the books and films, and part analysis of the Bond phenomenon, and essentially its aim is to explain how a character created in the aftermath of the Second World War became the global success it has been for over fifty years. The author runs through the staples of Bond histories, among them the somewhat peripatetic life of Ian Fleming, the presidential boost, the struggles to get Bond to the television or cinema screen, the Thunderball case that cost one man his health and utterly consumed another, the endless studio wrangles, and the casting and recasting of Bond.

Along the way, the author examines the impact of Bond in popular culture through aspects as diverse as parodies, literary and cinematic imitators, toys, and computer games, and, based on his own interviews, presents the recollections of those who experienced the world of Bond first-hand, including continuation author Raymond Benson, composer Monty Norman, and Fleming friend and biographer John Pearson. Egan also draws on existing sources, which occasionally leads to repetition of inaccuracies. Contrary to popular opinion (even that of Cubby Broccoli), James Fox could not have turned down the role of Bond for moral reasons, for the simple reason that he was never considered.

Sean Egan brings attention to curious elements of the Bond books that, to be honest, had escaped me. For example, it's not certain that the zeroes in '007' are actually zeroes, rather than ohs, and it hadn't occurred to me that a line in Casino Royale alludes to Bond masturbating (that's a mental image I can't now unsee). Just as revealing is evidence that Dr No was intended as a subtle parody of Fleming's creation, and news that Raymond Benson had written a stage play of Casino Royale that went as far as rehearsals on Broadway.

There's much enjoyment to be had from the author's wry turns-of-phrase. I admit I chuckled at the descriptions of Bond and Sir Godfrey Tibbett in A View to a Kill as 'a not-exactly dynamic duo', and of the fight in Never Say Never Again between Bond and an assassin at Shrublands as 'well choreographed and real-looking...not least because Bond spends much of it running away'.

But die-hard Bond fans be warned. Egan's iconoclastic views are likely to make uncomfortable reading. In fact, pointing out the implausibilities and substandard plotting, the author has barely a good word to say about any of the Bond books or films, although he surprises with the things he does like. (The Spy who Loved Me, derided by most for its Mills & Boon heroine, and the near-absence of Bond, is in Egan's view an excellent novel, right up to the point that Bond appears.) In truth, there is much in Egan's words that Bond fans wouldn't totally disagree with, and in a way the criticism is a product of James Bond's very success. Any book or film held up to the light to the extent that Bond has been is likely to exhibit flaws.

While James Bond: The Secret History does not offer anything particularly secret, it does contain nuggets that will certainly be unknown to many readers (this reader included). The book is an entertaining trot through Bond lore, neatly weaving the various strands – literary, cinematic, and that of the wider Bond phenomenon – into a single, page-turning narrative, and provides a perspective on Bond that will surprise, please and irritate in equal measure.

James Bond: The Secret History by Sean Egan is out now, published by John Blake Publishing in hardback and priced £16.99

A look at Some Kind of Hero

While there have been many books over the years that have charted the history of the Bond films, none has been as detailed, fascinating or, to be honest, daunting, as Matthew Field and Ajay Chowdhury's volume. Stacking up at some 600 pages (with a further 100 for footnotes, references etc.), Some Kind of Hero: The Remarkable Story of the James Bond Films (2015, The History Press) could be described as the Bond film reference book to end all Bond film reference books, and I think it would be well deserving of the title.

The book begins, of course, with a chapter on Ian Fleming, before describing the tortuous path that eventually led to the deal between Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli to produce a series of Bond films, starting with Dr No in 1962. The book then runs through the background, scripts, production, casting, and much more for each film, pausing now and again to devote special chapter to key players and events. 

With so much written on Bond elsewhere, the authors could have taken the easy route by bringing together what has already been published. The authors haven't ignored those existing sources, but at the same time have assembled a huge amount of information gleaned from their own interviews with actors, production crew, producers and studio executives, and also trawled through some very useful archive material. One voice is notably absent, that of the original film Bond, Sean Connery. The authors made valiant attempts to secure an interview, but the odds were always going to be against them.

Reading the book, the overwhelming impression I gained of the business of making Bond films was that it's a wonder that any Bond film manages to be made at all.

There is the usual game of studio executive musical chairs, with Eon Productions having had to deal, seemingly, with new faces each time at United Artists, then MGM, more often than not a result of the almost never-ending saga of financial troubles, mergers, takeovers, and complex legal arrangements, all of which have threatened production and the survival of the Bond series.

And that's before one gets to the scripts. These days especially, many scriptwriters, most uncredited, have a hand in the screenplays. I hadn't appreciated, for example, that the director will usually bring in his own writers to rework existing drafts, or will even do some rewriting himself. Many ideas never make it to the final shooting script (and looking at some of the synopses of those early drafts, I'm glad they didn't), but often the final script is very different to the first draft. This can work to the film's advantage – Paul Haggis' involvement on Casino Royale (2006) transformed the film – but sometimes the work is a rewrite too far. Die Another Day (2001) began life as a fairly straight Cold War-style thriller with a good dose of Fleming, until director Lee Tamahori upped the fantasy, culminating in the invisible car and the execrable CGI.

More positively, the authors highlight aspects which demonstrate why the Bond series has lasted more than fifty years, among them the top actors, the expertise and dedication of the production crew, the sheer scale of the Bond films, the power of the series to film in places that would have been closed to any other production, and ability of Eon to respond to changing audience expectations and cultural environments. I was particularly impressed to read that screentesting for potential Bonds involves not just a run-through of classic Bond scenes, but a whole re-staging, with full sets, music, lighting and so on. At least for those screentests, the actors really are Bond.

I admit I skipped over the detailed plot synopses; by now I'm pretty familiar with the films, as I expect most readers will be. And despite the size of the volume, there are gaps. Each chapter ends abruptly at the point of the film's release, but I wanted to know more about how the films were received, both critically and by the cinema-going public. There's a chapter on Bondmania of the 1960s, but what of the enduring Bond phenomenon? There are few accompanying images, but then again, this is no coffee table book. The book is slightly marred by an unfortunate typo (probably a 'find-and-replace' that wasn't subsequently checked) that is repeated through the volume, right down to the final line.

But you can't fault the authors' knowledge, scope, tenacity, and story-telling. Some Kind of Hero is some kind of book, and is essential reading for Bond aficionados.

North By Northwest: the Bond connections

Scenes from North By Northwest (left) and From Russia With Love (right)

As I was flicking through the novel of Thunderball (1961) the other day, I was reminded about the small but influential role that Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 film of North By Northwest has in the world of James Bond. The film, starring Cary Grant as advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill on the run from a group of sinister agents – and the law – owing to a case of mistaken identity, is a classic thriller, whose combination of edge-of-the-seat action, amorous encounters, and sardonic humour would inspire both Ian Fleming and the producers of the Bond films.

The film had on its release an immediate impact on early attempts to bring James Bond to the screen. According to correspondence reproduced in Robert Sellers' book, The Battle for Bond, Ivar Bryce, Ian Fleming's friend and, effectively, producer and financier of those initial efforts, was so impressed by North By Northwest (“the best film of his life”, he wrote) when he saw it in September 1959 that he urged Fleming to see it. In Bryce's view, the film closely followed the style of Fleming's Bond adventures and represented a model for their proposed Bond film.

By October 1959, Fleming had seen North By Northwest. Robert Sellers reveals that Fleming had enjoyed the film, though complained about the humour, which he felt undermined the suspense. Still, the film must have stayed with him, because he referenced the film in the novel of Thunderball, which he wrote at Goldeneye over the winter of 1960. Chapter 9 sees SPECTRE agent Giuseppe Petacchi on board the Vindicator aircraft preparing to hijack the plane. “Five more hours to go,” he muses. “Rather a bind missing North by North-West at the Odeon. But one would catch up with it at Southampton.”

The following year, when the task of producing the first Bond film had passed to producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, North By Northwest may have been in the producers' minds as they considered the casting of Bond for Dr No (1962). In his autobiography, Cubby Broccoli recounts how he tried to persuade Cary Grant to take the role. Broccoli doesn't mention North By Northwest, but the film, as well as Grant's earlier spy film, Notorious (1946), provided the ideal screentest.

The plot of North By Northwest is a cat-and-mouse game setting an Everyman – albeit one that is suave and self-assured – against charming, sophisticated, vaguely European, villains. The plot's MacGuffin allows the characters to move seamlessly across iconic American landscapes by means of plane, train and automobile. Like Bond, Thornhill must rely on his wits and quickly form an uncertain alliance with a mysterious and seductive femme fatale. Grant’s physicality is impressive, particularly in the famous crop-duster scene, which sees Grant hit the deck time after time and sprint in between.

But Grant could also provide Bond's darker shading. As Jeremy Duns argues in his book, Rogue Royale (2013), Grant’s character in Notorious, T R Devlin, is closer than Thornhill is to the character of Bond. Devlin is morally ambiguous; his complicity in placing Ingrid Bergman’s Alicia Huberman in danger underscores his determination to serve the greater, patriotic, good. Alicia accedes to the mission for Devlin’s sake, but receives little reassurance in return. Devlin is in love with Alicia, but he must appear cold and unyielding in order to make her play her role convincingly.

Cary Grant's answer to Broccoli's offer was, of course, no. Grant never did sequels and Broccoli and Saltzman were offering a three-picture deal. Broccoli doesn't record his views on Grant's proto-Bond films, but the follow-up to Dr No, From Russia With Love (1963), probably the most Hitchcockian of Bond films, paid tribute to North By Northwest by alluding to the film's crop-duster scene. Just as Thornhill escapes the biplane, Bond flees from the path of a helicopter piloted by SPECTRE agents, and is forced to dive to the ground as it swoops down.

While the early James Bond films were reasonably straight adaptations of Ian Fleming's novels, there were other influences, including Hitchcock's North By Northwest. But then, North By Northwest had also impressed Ian Fleming, whose reference to the film in Thunderball is the most obvious sign that the film had had a degree of impact on his writing.

References

Broccoli, C, with Zec, D, 1998 When the Snow Melts: the Autobiography of Cubby Broccoli, Boxtree
Duns, J, 2013 Rogue Royale: the Lost Bond Film by the 'Shakespeare of Hollywood', JJD Productions
Sellers, R, 2007 The Battle for Bond: the Genesis of Cinema's Greatest Hero, Tomahawk Press

Why was Dr No the first Bond film?

My bedtime reading at the moment is David V Picker's memoir about his time in the film industry, Musts, Maybes, and Nevers: A Book About the Movies. In this very entertaining book, David Picker recalls his time as a film producer and, primarily, a studio executive, first at United Artists, then Paramount and Columbia. As head of production at United Artists, David Picker's job was to identify worthwhile and potentially profitable projects, help develop them, secure the money, and ensure that the films were delivered on time and to budget. Among the films he 'green-lit' were Midnight Cowboy, A Hard Day's Night, and, to the gratitude of millions of Bond fans, Dr No.

David Picker's account of how he said yes to Dr No offers an interesting perspective to the well known, and complex, story of how Fleming's novels made it to the screen (big and small), involving false starts, split ownership of rights, expiring options, and Fleming's idiosyncratic way of doing business. There are two aspects of Picker's tale, however, that differ from the standard narrative: the question of why Dr No and not Thunderball was chosen as the first Bond film, and Fleming's attitude towards films.

In his autobiography, When the Snow Melts (1998), Cubby Broccoli tells us that he and co-producer Harry Saltzman decided to film Thunderball as the first Bond film, but switched to Dr No to avoid legal complications when Kevin McClory, who had co-written the screen treatments on which Fleming's novel was based, filed an injunction to stop the film's development. This has long been the accepted version and is repeated in a number of books chronicling the history of the Bond films, among them Andrew Lycett's biography of Ian Fleming (1995), The Incredible World of 007 by Lee Pfeiffer and Philip Lisa (1995), and Bond Films by Jim Smith and Stephen Lavington (2002).

According to David Picker, however, the issue was simply about money. United Artists had set a budget of $1.1 million and David Picker felt that Thunderball would be too expensive to film. Dr No, on the other hand, seemed more achievable based on the parameters UA set. Picker implies that the suggestion of Dr No was his and that he persuaded Broccoli and Saltzman to consider the change. How far this is true is uncertain; everyone has their own view of an event, and it may be the case that the prohibitive cost of filming Thunderball was raised by Picker in addition to any discussion about pending litigation.

As for Ian Fleming's attitude to films, David Picker writes that his early attempts (independent of Saltzman and Broccoli) to secure the rights to film the Bond rights came to nothing, because, as he puts it, “Mr Fleming didn't like movies” and refused to sell the rights. I was surprised by this, as according to Andrew Lycett, Ian Fleming very actively pursued film and TV deals. Indeed, Fleming deliberately made Moonraker cinematic to attract film makers, and his novel Dr No was based on one of his screen treatments, Commander James Gunn. While Fleming's interest flagged after so many expressions of interest and preliminary developments stalled, it doesn't appear likely that Fleming ever refused to sell the rights to his novels.

I have to admit being sceptical of both David Picker's claims. That they have gained little foothold in 'Bond history' may be a reflection on the degree of their veracity. From a memetic perspective, they have had little chance of competing with the established narrative, not least because David Picker's version has been little known. In contrast, the memes that legal action prevented Thunderball from being the first Bond film and that Fleming was willing to make a deal for film rights have become well established in the cultural environment, and reinforced through repetition with the publication of each new history of the Bond films.

The journalist, the model, and the search for James Bond

The months before Daniel Craig was offered the role of James Bond saw intense media speculation about who would succeed Pierce Brosnan. Little had changed since 1961 when the producers Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli announced that they were about to film the first James Bond film, Dr No. Before Sean Connery had been cast, there was much anticipation in the press even at this early stage in the film series.

One of the journalists who joined the speculation, and indeed cultivated much of it, was Patricia Lewis, the show-business editor with the Daily Express. In June 1961, for example, Lewis reported that Saltzman was planning to screen-test Patrick Allen, but was ‘also thinking about Michael Craig and Patrick McGoohan’. In another article, she claimed that the producers were having trouble finding their man. This was enough for her to launch a competition to find the perfect actor, and of course gain massive publicity for the Daily Express. In an article entitled, ‘In search of a he-man’, she invited ‘every tough-talking type... a crack at landing this plum role.’ Lewis added that proof of acting ability was also required. Applicants were invited to submit their acting resumées and vital statistics to a film production company in Soho Square. Six finalists were to invited to a judging panel, which Lewis boasted would comprise Harry Saltzman, Cubby Broccoli, Ian Fleming, and Ken Hughes, as well as Lewis herself.

The winner was Peter Anthony, a professional model from London. Lewis quoted Broccoli as saying that Anthony had ‘a Greg Peck quality’ that was ‘instantly arresting’. This is not difficult to see from the image that Anthony had exploited during his earlier modelling career. His career had developed with Man About Town, a 1950s/60s lifestyle magazine for men, covering sport, drink, food, cars, and clothes, especially suits. One of its photographers was Terence Donovan, a pioneer of the ‘blow-up’ school of photography, who brought a sophisticated, masculine, film-style look to the magazine. His shots were about action and story. Set in real places far removed from the artificial creation of the studio, the photographs had a narrative drive that turned fashion shoots into stills from a film. And the movie was film-noir or spy thriller. Peter Anthony was one of Donovan’s stars.

In one image from 1960, ‘Starting Over’, Anthony is behind the wheel of a sports car. He is focused on the road ahead and drives with confidence. Another photograph, from 1961, shows Peter Anthony in the foreground. He wears a sharp suit and a shoulder holster for an automatic. The man is waiting for a contact, perhaps, but so too is the man in the shadows, hidden behind Le Figaro. And the title of this intriguing scene? ‘The secrets of an agent.’ The image could be lifted from Fleming; the hero could be Bond.

Anthony took these images to Broccoli and Saltzman. Pat Lewis reported that the producers were impressed and proclaimed that he was an ‘exciting find’. Anthony looked great in a suit; sophisticated with just the right hint of menace to have the edge over his enemies and the hold on the women. But image was not everything; the part demanded an acting ability that Anthony did not have. The producers agreed that he had potential, but was too risky to try out in their first film.

What of the other five finalists? According to Pat Lewis’ article in September 1961, the finalists were Gordon Cooper, a sales rep from Warrington, Anthony Clements, another salesman, this time from Bolton, Frank Ellement, a former teacher turned actor from London, Michael Ricketts, an aerial ropeways engineer from Hadleigh in Essex, and Bob Simmons, a stuntman.

Peter Anthony’s photographs certainly exist, but curiously, Bob Simmons makes no mention of this episode in his autobiography, while Cubby Broccoli excludes Peter Anthony from his. Reading Pat Lewis’ articles, I can’t help feeling that the competition results and the involvement of the Bond producers was to a large extent journalistic invention. If so, then that is another aspect of the media interest in the search for Bond that has seen little change in over 40 years.

Update: Click here for more further information on Peter Anthony's screentests.

Almost Bond

The actor Mark Greenstreet screen-tested for the role of James Bond in The Living Daylights in 1986 when Roger Moore retired from the part after completing A View to a Kill (1985). He came very close to winning the role, but it ultimately went to Timothy Dalton. In 2006, I spoke to Mark about his brush with the world of 007.

Mark Greenstreet rose to prominence in the BBC TV series Bret Farrar. This English country-estate-set crime drama, broadcast in 1986, starred Mark in the title role of a man persuaded to pretend to be a long-lost son to help claim a family fortune, but is then implicated in the murder of the man he impersonates. The drama was a hit in the US, and Mark soon drew the attention of producer Cubby Broccoli. Some may have considered Mark, then 25 years old, to be a little young for Bond, but Mark saw the influence of the teen-orientated ‘Brat Pack’ films and its large fan-base in Broccoli’s interest.

After watching all the Bond films to prepare himself, Mark was interviewed at EON’s Mayfair office by Barbara Broccoli, Michael G Wilson, and associate producer Tom Pevsner. Then it was off to the costumer to be fitted with the regulation dinner suit, and to be supplied with the spy’s essential accessory – a gun holster.

The screen test took place at Pinewood in front of Cubby Broccoli, director John Glen, and the main film crew. For tests, Glen always recreated scenes from Dr No and From Russia With Love. As Bond, Mark shot the duplicitous Professor Dent and seduced Tatiana Romanova (played by Fiona Fullerton) in a steamy bedroom scene. He also had to do some fighting and order breakfast. If only for a day, Mark was James Bond. Time enough, though for a surreal meeting in the toilets with Michael Biehn, who was at Pinewood filming Aliens and also in character.

The test went well, and Mark had a lovely time, but there his involvement with Bond ended. A case, perhaps of so close, and yet so Farrar. But if he had won the part, what would Mark Greenstreet’s Bond have been like? Mark thought that the later films were missing a hard edge. ‘When Connery slapped a woman, you felt like she wanted it’, he told me. Chances are, then, that Mark’s portrayal would have been closer to Sean Connery than Roger Moore. The actor who did become Bond, Timothy Dalton, took a similar approach, and his performance in The Living Daylights (1987) was lauded. It seems that after the Moore years, a relatively serious portrayal was inevitable as a trend to return to the roots of Fleming’s James Bond began to hold sway.

The man who wouldn't be Bond

There is a lot of confusion about which actors were considered for the role of James Bond in Dr No (1962), even among those closest to the casting process. In his autobiography, When the snow melts (1999, Boxtree), Cubby Broccoli writes that James Fox was put forward for the Bond role, but declined 'because of strong religious scruples'. Correspondence with James Fox suggests that this was not the case.

I wrote to James Fox in 2006 and asked him about his brush with James Bond. His reply indicated that he had had no involvement with the film's producers in 1961 (casting took place between June and August that year). In fact, James Fox first met Broccoli in 1981, not 1961. This followed a period of a break in acting and (by Fox's own admission) 'terrible films'. Broccoli 'gave me a large Jack Daniels', James Fox recalls.