The Lady from Shanghai: another connection between Orson Welles and James Bond?

The other week I happened to watch The Lady from Shanghai (1947), a classic film-noir written and directed by Orson Welles, and starring Welles alongside Rita Hayworth. The film's denouement is set within a deserted amusement park, through which Welles' character, sailor Michael O'Hara, makes his way before reaching the hall of mirrors, where (spoiler alert) he confronts and kills femme fatale Elsa Bannister, (played of course by Hayworth), who set O'Hara up for a murder he didn't commit.


 
As I was watching the film, I couldn't help thinking of The Man With The Golden Gun (1974), in which Bond makes his way through Scaramanga's private fun house before reaching a hall of mirrors, where he confronts and kills Scaramanga. The mirrored room also appears in the pre-credits sequence where mobster Rodney (Marc Lawrence) tries his luck against Scaramanga.


 
While the screenwriters of the Bond film (Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz) need not have been directly influenced by Welles' film, the earlier film reminds us that the idea of a hall of mirrors as a sinister, confusing place was well established by the time The Man With the Golden Gun was made. The film drew on this tradition, and the meme has echoes in other films with mirror-room scenes, such as Enter the Dragon (1974), Conan the Destroyer (1984), and even in Die Another Day (2002), when Bond passes an array of mirror and double-helix-pattern hangings in his search of Zao in the genetic therapy clinic.

If we can count the fun house sequence in The Lady from Shanghai as having a connection with James Bond, then it adds to the short list of existing links. Orson Welles played Le Chiffre in the 1967 version of Casino Royale, and another of Welles' films, The Third Man (1949) is cited by John Glen as having influenced aspects of The Living Daylights, which Glen directed. In his book, The Making of The Living Daylights, Charles Helfenstein describes how John Glen worked on The Third Man (as did another Bond director, Guy Hamilton) as a sound editor, and that the sound of the film's famous footsteps are his. Helfenstein also points out that Ian Fleming chose the 'Harry Lime theme' (Welles' character in The Third Man), as one of his 'Desert Island Discs'.

James Bond at Christmas - two Daily Express Bond film adaptations

Who wrote the first novelisation of a James Bond film? Christopher Wood, you say? His well-regarded work, James Bond and the Spy who Loved Me (1977) was certainly the earliest adaptation to appear in book form, but there were earlier novelisations – of sorts. In the run-up to Christmas 1971, readers of the Daily Express were treated to the serialisation by Victor Davis of the film version of Diamonds Are Forever. Three years later, again during the Christmas period, Victor Davis adapted the film of The Man With The Golden Gun (1974).
 

The banner for the Daily Express adaptation

The adaptation of Diamonds Are Forever was published over seven days from 17th to 24th December 1971. The structure and plot of the adaptation naturally closely followed that of the film. In Part 1 ('Blofeld was dead – but one question still nagged Bond'), Bond is on the search for Blofeld, just as he is in the film. Part 2 ('Two hired thugs and a cool dish called Tiffany'), we are introduced to villains Wint and Kidd and leading lady Tiffany Case, and in Part 3 ('Bond moves fast – and it's death by fire extinguisher'), Bond assumes the identity of diamond smuggler Peter Franks.

Part 4 ('The mob breaks up Bond's cosy date') sees the brief appearance of Plenty O'Toole, while Part 5 ('Two wheel drive – as Bond steers to safety') describes the car chase through Las Vegas. 'Blofeld comes back from the dead' is the title of Part 6, and the final offering on Christmas Eve is 'Bond gets a kiss with several kicks', a part that, as you might guess, features Bambi and Thumper.

Despite the somewhat uneven plotting – the helicopter raid on Blofeld's oil rig is described in two short paragraphs, while Bond's tussle with Bambi and Thumper is dealt with in nine – Victor Davis' adaptation is readable and exciting (no mean feat, given the challenge of condensing the script), and replicates to some extent the literary style of Ian Fleming. The best of Davis' Fleming-esque touches can be found in Part 1. Take this paragraph, for example:

“The urgency of the call would normally have given Bond that familiar charge of excitement, a heightened sense of perception that had always gone with the knowledge that he was about to be handed a new assignment in the field.”

Or this one:

“Bond smiled thinly at remembrance of the arduous and murderous trail that had led him across the world.”

Victor Davis knows his Fleming. Three years later, Bond was back in an adaptation of The Man With the Golden Gun. This time spread over five parts, the story ran from 16th to 20th December 1974.
 

Bond and Goodnight in the Daily Express

In Part 1 ('Who'd pay a million dollars to kill me?'), Bond receives the bullet on which his code number has been inscribed. Bond goes on the trail of the source of the bullet in Part 2 ('Sudden ambush by a very naked lady'), while Part 3 ('With eyes glazed, she was beautiful – dead beautiful') sees the death of Andrea Anders. Bond flies onto Scaramanga's island in Part 4 ('Champagne on the rocks with a bullet to pop the cork'), and in the final part ('A duel to the death as Scaramanga lays a trap in the fatal funhouse'), Bond goes head to head with Scaramanga.

Again, the sub-Fleming touches are there:

“Miss Moneypenny,far from her usual flirtatious self, ushered him straight through M's steel-plated and soundproofed door into the sanctum that the head of the British Secret Service had dressed overall more like a naval museum.

“James Bond's amused eyes passed lightly over the prints of the wooden ships of England, dashing in under French and Spanish cannon, and the rest of the mementoes, the flotsam of a distinguished seadog's life.”

Both adaptations by Victor Davis are interesting early entries in the sub-genre of continuation Bond – the film novelisation – and are well worth reading.

What James Bond is reading: Profiles in Courage

While the James Bond of the cinema is rarely seen carrying a book (a volume on heraldry in On Her Majesty's Secret Service is a rare example), the literary Bond is, well, more literary. You can find a general discussion of the books on Bond's bookshelf here, but in this post I want to focus on one particular volume – Profiles in Courage by John F Kennedy and published in 1956.

Profiles in Courage appears in Ian Fleming's final full-length novel, The Man with the Golden Gun (1965). Bond is in Jamaica on the trail of professional hitman Francisco Scaramanga. In chapter 7, Bond arrives at his hotel, settles into his room, calls room-service, and reads Profiles in Courage as he sips an ice-cold bourbon.

Fleming undoubtedly knew the book well. The chapter to which Bond turns, which is an account of US senator Edmund G Ross, who at the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in 1868 saved the president from conviction, is indeed subtitled, 'As I looked into my open grave'. This is chapter 6 out of 11; the book also includes profiles on president John Quincy Adams, 19th-century senators Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, Sam Houston, Lucius Lamar, and George Norris, and 20th-century senator Robert A Taft.

By referencing Kennedy's book, Fleming returned the compliment that Kennedy paid him when in 1961 he included From Russia, with Love in a list of his top ten books. Fleming's reference was also something of a tribute to Kennedy, who had been assassinated in November 1963. Earlier that year, Fleming had dined with Kennedy, and the two had got on enormously well, especially when Fleming suggested some innovative ways of dealing with Fidel Castro. It is notable that in the reference in his novel, Fleming uses the more familiar 'Jack Kennedy', rather than 'John F Kennedy'.

The edition shown here is a 1961 paperback. We don't know what edition Bond reads, but no doubt Bond would have found a paperback convenient for travelling, being easily packed in his suitcase.

Reference:

Lycett, A, 1995 Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond, Turner

From the pages of the Gleaner

In Ian Fleming's The Man with the Golden Gun (1965), we learn that Jamaica's Daily Gleaner is one of James Bond's favourite newspapers (presumably along with the Daily Express), and he buys a copy when he arrives in Kingston on route to Havana. In Bond's earlier Caribbean adventures, Fleming only adds passing references to the Gleaner, but in The Man with the Golden Gun, we have a lot more detail.

The edition Bond purchases can be dated to the 28th January 1964 or one of two days later. This date is provided by the reference in chapter 4 to French president Charles de Gaulle's recognition of Communist China, which happened on the 27th January. According to Fleming's description, the front page of Bond's edition is taken up with coverage of new laws preventing the consumption, sale and cultivation of marijuana. Fleming notes that de Gaulle's recognition of Red China appears well down the page.

In this case, Fleming was not being entirely accurate. A trawl through the archives of the Daily Gleaner reveals that the front page headline on the 28th January read: 'FRANCE RECOGNIZES RED CHINA'. There is no reference to drug laws. The story continued to be headline news the day after. The main headline on the front page was, 'FRANCE, RED CHINA DISPUTE POLICY'. Again, there was no mention of drug laws. De Gaulle slides from the front page after the 29th January, but there are no front-page references to drug laws over the following few days either.

There are two aspects of the Daily Gleaner that Fleming did record relatively accurately. One was the style of the paper's daily horoscope. Bond reads: 'CHEER UP! Today will bring you a pleasant surprise...' John Griswold gives Bond's birthday as 11th November, and on the 29th January 1964, his horoscope read: ACCEPTANCE: If there's any sacrifices to be made, it seems that you will have to make them.'

Fleming also captured the style of property auction notices rather well. Turning to the back page, Bond sees an advertisement for an auction of a property in Love Lane, Savannah La Mar. The auctioneers mentioned – the C D Alexander Co. Ltd of 77 Harbour Street – actually existed. A notice on the back page of the Gleaner dated 27th January 1964 began:

SALE BY AUCTION
at our offices, 77 Harbour Street, Kingston
On Friday the 14th February 1964 at 10.30 a.m.
UNDER POWERS OF SALE contained in a Mortgage:-

and ends with the name of the auctioneers, C D Alexander Co. Ltd, and their telephone number, 24897 (Fleming has an earlier phone number, 4897).

Reference:

Griswold, J, 2006 Ian Fleming's James Bond: Annotations and Chronologies for Ian Fleming's Bond Stories, Author House

Licence to Kill – from the pages of Ian Fleming

Let’s start with the plot. In the steamy tropics off the Caribbean Sea, James Bond ingratiates himself with a thug so that Bond can kill him. Unaware of Bond’s intention, the thug hires Bond to provide security during a deal to set up a syndicate allowing the thug to smuggle drugs into the United States. Someone close to the thug recognises Bond as an enemy and blows Bond’s cover. The thug and Bond fight it out in waste land, but Bond triumphs and kills him. 

I could be describing the plot to Licence to Kill, released in1989 and starring Timothy Dalton as James Bond, but I’m not. It is instead the plot to Ian Fleming’s The Man with the Golden Gun, published in 1965.

There is no evidence that the writers of Licence to Kill, Michael G Wilson and Richard Maibaum, intentionally based their story on Fleming’s novel. In interviews, the writers maintain that it was an original story mixed with unused elements from Fleming’s stories. One character, Milton Krest, derives from the short story, The Hildebrand Rarity. A scene where Felix Leiter is thrown to the sharks is taken from Live and Let Die.

The similarities between the film and The Man with the Golden Gun appear to be, as film credits have it, entirely coincidental, but they have provoked much recent discussion on fan site message boards, although I outlined the similarities earlier in a letter to Empire magazine in October 2008.

The principal action of Licence to Kill is set in the fictional central American country of Isthmus. This is not, of course, Jamaica, which features in The Man with the Golden Gun, but both locations have coastlines on the Caribbean Sea. To ingratiate himself into Sanchez’s service, Bond presents himself as a ‘problem eliminator’. In the book, Bond identifies himself to Scaramanga as an armed freelance insurance investigator about to contact his company to see ‘if they’ve got any other problems in the area’ (Chapter 6). 

It seems odd that the villain of the novel and film would hire someone he doesn’t know to provide security, but it may be explained if we consider (as Kingsley Amis had with regard to Scaramanga) the subtext of homosexuality. Sanchez and Scaramanga are simply attracted to Bond and drop their guard. We are told by a Secret Service psychologist that Scaramanga has homosexual tendencies. Scenes between Sanchez and his chief henchman, Dario, provide oblique references to Sanchez’s homosexuality. In one scene, Sanchez tenderly strokes Dario’s cheek. It is possible, too, that Sanchez’s pink shirt is intended as a signifier of his sexual orientation. As for the villains’ demise, Bond kills Scaramanga in Jamaica’s swamps, while Sanchez is killed in the desert of Isthmus. Both landscapes are marginal.

There are differences. Bond is on an official mission to kill Scaramanga, whereas in Licence to Kill, he is on his own, having resigned from the Secret Service. Drug smuggling is only one of Scaramanga’s concerns, but it exclusively occupies Sanchez’s business. However, given the extent to which the producers of the Bond films changes Fleming’s stories, often taking only character names and the broadest framework of the original plot, Licence to Kill could be regarded as a reasonably faithful adaptation of Fleming’s work.

When Michael G Wilson and Richard Maibaum wrote Licence to Kill, they were intimately knowledgeable about the world of Ian Fleming’s James Bond. At the start of scripting a new Bond film, it was usual to re-read Fleming to identify potentially exciting plot points that hadn’t already made it to the screen. The writers were unlikely to have been aware of it, but the practice may have been responsible for introducing traits or memes from The Man with the Golden Gun into the script of Licence to Kill.

Reference:
Hibbin, S, 1989 The making of Licence to Kill, Hamlyn, London