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

James Brand: Is Bond a snob?

Controversially, in his BBC 2 series tracing the development of key character types in English fiction, Sebastian Faulks’ placed James Bond in the category of snob, rather than hero. Bond’s heroic (or even anti-heroic) qualities, it seems, were of less interest to Faulks than Bond’s consumerism and awareness of brand-name products. In Faulks’ view, this makes Bond a snob because such materialism is driven by a desire to gain status through the recognition and admiration of others. This snobbery is different from the kind that leads to disdain and rejection of people regarded as socially inferior, and Bond is instead what Faulks terms a ‘connoisseur snob’. The charge is not a new one – Paul Johnson got there first in 1958, accusing Bond of having the ‘snob-cravings of a suburban adult’ – but is it true?

It is undeniable that Ian Fleming’s novels feature many brand-name products and that Bond is loyal to them. Faulks reminds us of a few – sea-island cotton shirts, Morland Special cigarettes, a supercharged Bentley – and to those we can add a Ronson lighter, Pinaud’s Elixir shampoo, a Chemex coffee maker, Tiptree’s Little Scarlet strawberry jam, to name but a few.

Some of these, like the cigarettes, were Fleming’s own brands of choice, which he simply gave to Bond, since the products were already familiar. Others Fleming chose for Bond to add a measure of reality in an otherwise fantastic world. As Fleming remarked, the use of products made the adventures seem more valid and truthful. Readers not only read about Bond, they could be him by using the same shampoo or consuming the same jam. If a few items were out of the ordinary reader’s reach (the Bentley notably), well that merely reflected the cultural environment in which Fleming lived.

We should be careful, however, not to exaggerate Bond’s dependency on branded goods, which remain in the background of his adventures, or confuse the literary Bond with the cinematic Bond, who is much more particular about the correct products. A staple of the films, the demonstration of arcane knowledge (‘I prefer the '53 myself’ (as opposed to a Dom Perignon '55)), never appears in the books. And the literary Bond recognises snobbery when he sees it – snobbery is, after all, the ‘hairy heel of Achilles’ that traps Blofeld in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1963).

In any case, an alternative interpretation can be offered: Bond is discerning. Products vary in quality. Bond has tried other brands but did not like them. He eats Little Scarlet jam because it is the tastiest, and he uses a Ronson lighter because it is the most reliable. Once the selection has been made, the trial-and-error process has been completed, and the use of the product is maintained by force of habit.

Is Bond a snob? Probably to no greater extent than most of us are. We have all settled on particular products and throw brand names about with no more meaning than to indicate a generic product. Bond is, as Fleming intended, one of us.

From Gold to Golden

As I watched the other month the 1974 film Gold, starring Roger Moore and Susannah York and directed by OHMSS director Peter Hunt, I couldn’t help thinking that Roger Moore should have played Bond the way he played Rod Slater, the lead character in Gold. Slater, the general manager of the southern African Sonderditch gold mine, uncovers a plot hatched by the mine’s owners to flood the mine and drive the price of gold upwards. Moore’s Slater is a forceful and gritty character, and these traits become more prominent as the film progresses. In his determination to save the miners and expose his paymasters, Slater is angry and on the edge of violence. In other words, a dangerous man. Film-goers would have to wait until Licence to Kill (1989) starring Timothy Dalton to get a Bond like Rod Slater.

I must admit, however, that the argument is rather unfair to Roger Moore, as it places too much expectation on the actor’s ability to determine the how a character is to be played. After all, like most actors, Moore acts in accordance with the script and the instructions of the director. Gold was filmed in between Live and Let Die (1973) and The Man With The Golden Gun (1974), and the traits of those films were set on a different path that began before Roger Moore’s Bond tenure.

Live and Let Die was written by Tom Mankiewicz and directed by Guy Hamilton. Both were also responsible for the previous film, Diamonds Are Forever, released in 1971 and starring Sean Connery. The Man With The Golden Gun retained the writing and directing team of Tom Mankiewicz and Guy Hamilton. It is little wonder that all three films, creatively (and memetically) linked, were similar in tone and style – lighter and humorous with family-friendly violence and action. The chances that the Bond of The Man With The Golden Gun would acquire the traits enjoyed by Rod Slater were low.

That said, Roger Moore writes in his autobiography that Guy Hamilton wanted him to toughen up his portrayal of Bond for The Man With The Golden Gun, which, though Moore was reluctant, we see in the scene where Bond slaps Andrea Anders, played by Maud Adams. The influence here, though, is Ian Fleming’s (and probably a measure of Sean Connery’s Bond), rather than Roger Moore’s Rod Slater.

Still, Rod Slater is reminiscent of Fleming’s Bond to the extent that if James Bond had chosen a career in mining rather than spying, then he would have become Rod Slater. Gold is one of Roger Moore’s best non-Bond films. Possibly Wilbur Smith, the author of the original novel, Gold Mine, had Bond in mind when he wrote the character of Rod Slater.

Reference:
Roger Moore, 2008 My Word is My Bond, Michael O’Mara Books, London

Bond's rivals

James Bond emerged in 1953 as an amalgam of an American private detective, a World War II commando and a British club-land hero, but in turn inspired a range of Bond-like characters that for a time, especially in the 1960s, sought to steal the crown of the toughest, handsomest, and most exciting secret agent. We are more familiar with the cinematic rivals – Derek Flint, Charles Vine, Matt Helm, and latterly Austin Powers – but there was no shortage of pretenders in the literary world. Let’s meet a few of them.

The American spy Nick Carter works for the Axe organisation, an ultra-secret organisation that takes orders direct from the president of the United States. Like Bond, he has a licence to kill, and takes the epithet of killmaster. Nick Carter was heralded as ‘the American answer to Ian Fleming’s James Bond’ and the inheritor of Bond’s mantle in his first spy adventure, Run, Spy, Run, published in 1964. In fact, the character was much older, originally appearing in a crime novel, ‘The Old Detective’s pupil’ in 1886, and subsequently featuring in detective magazines, crime novels and radio stories until the 1950s. Various authors contributed stories, which were all credited to Nick Carter. Run, Spy, Run marked a significant change to the character in an attempt to emulate Bond’s success.

Hammerhead was also published in 1964. Called the ‘toughest of post-Bond thrillers’ by the Spectator, this was the first adventure for Charles Hood, an art dealer and secret agent, written by James Mayo, a pseudonym of Stephen Coulter. Four more adventures followed, the last being The Man Above Suspicion in 1969. Charles Hood is tough (‘Hood freed one hand and before the man could move, scooped a fistful of ash down the open throat’), urbane, fond of the ladies, and a traveller. The fourth novel, Once in a Lifetime (also available as Sergeant Death), takes Hood to Iran in an archaeological-themed story.

James Leasor was a prolific writer who turned his attention to the spy genre in 1964 with the publication of Passport to Oblivion (also known as Where the Spies Are). The hero was Dr Jason Love, a country GP turned secret agent, and ‘heir apparent to the golden throne of Bond’, according to the Evening Standard. He certainly has the right qualities – a love of fast cars (a supercharged Cord roadster), and fondness for martial arts (judo), and exotic places (Iran again). There were nine Jason Love adventures, the last, Love Down Under, published in 1992.

Hugo Baron was another an adventurer who first appeared in 1964 in Diecast. ‘How like Bond and just as good’, said the Daily Express. Like Love and Hood, he combines his secret-agent life with his day-job, this time a barrister. Diecast was written by John Michael Brett, a pseudonym of Miles Tripp. Hugo Baron is less a spy than a ‘man-of-danger’ hired as a tough problem-solver. In Diecast he is hired to extricate a millionaire and head of an organisation called DIECAST out of blackmail trouble.

Not all Bond’s rivals were born in 1964. Philip McAlpine arrived in 1967 in The Dolly Dolly Spy, by Adam Diment. The character was compared with Bond, but the contrasts were also noted. While he likes fast cars, women, and violence, McAlpine is younger than Bond (23), is part of the swinging London scene and smokes marijuana. This updating of the Bond model had its fans, but the character, like many of the others, didn’t last. The final novel, Think, Inc, was published in 1971.

This brief survey of Bond’s rivals raises some points. 1964 was a good year for the competition. It was the year that Ian Fleming died, and with the prospect of no further Bond novels, writers saw the opportunity to bring out their secret agents to fill the niche. All these characters took to various extents James Bond’s traits and were identified with Bond. They were not identical, though, and could be regarded as Bond re-imagined and adapted by writers other than Fleming. In evolutionary terms, the memes from which James Bond developed evolved in a form of speciation. The memes or traits were isolated in other writers’ minds and new species of secret agents – Jason Love, Nick Carter, Charles Hood and others – evolved along different, though similar, trajectories.

Where did Ian Fleming get his ideas?

I was listening to Raymond Chandler and Ian Fleming in conversation – the recording is part of the BBC’s archive on James Bond – and was struck by a number of Chandler’s statements that reminded me of passages that appeared later in Fleming’s novels.

The conversation was originally broadcast in 1958, and Fleming was about to publish Goldfinger. In the programme, Chandler asks Fleming why he included torture scenes in all his novels. Fleming disputed this, but then admitted that this was a product of growing up with Fu Manchu and Bulldog Drummond novels (evidently the influence of these earlier English thrillers cannot be dismissed altogether). Chandler said, ‘Next time try brainwashing’. Fleming did not try brainwashing in his next book (For Your Eyes Only), but it does appear in his final full-length novel, The Man With The Golden Gun. After losing his memory in Japan at the conclusion of You Only Live Twice, James Bond travels to Russia and into the hands of the KGB, which brainwashes him into assassinating M.

Then, during a conversation about gun crime in America, Chandler says, ‘The first thing you do after being struck on the head [with a gun] is vomit’. Fleming used this idea rather sooner. In the short story Risico (published in For Your Eyes Only), Bond is struck on the head with a Luger by one of Colombo’s men. Fleming writes, ‘When you come to from being hit on the head the first reaction is a fit of vomiting’.

In the broadcast, Fleming refers to Chandler’s latest novel, Playback. Chandler mentions that at the end of it, the hero Philip Marlowe proposes marriage. Chandler speculates that marriage and Marlowe’s job – a private detective – are incompatible, and that it would cause a problem in subsequent novels. Fleming said, ‘I don’t think my character’s going to get married’. Well, of course he does, to Tracy in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. But, like Chandler, Fleming was aware that marriage and Bond’s job cannot be reconciled, and he (actually Blofeld) kills the marriage as the couple speeds off from the ceremony.

As Goldfinger says: ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action’. The obvious conclusion to draw from the broadcast is that, rather than these similarities being coincidence, Fleming took or ‘inherited’ Chandler’s ideas, stored them away in his mind, and recalled them (whether remembering the original source or not) to use in his writing. So, to answer the question posed in the title, in some cases the ideas came from Raymond Chandler.

What's in a name?

It’s official. MGM has given the go-ahead for the next James Bond film, which will be released on 9th November 2012. The film is as yet untitled, but fan websites are feverish with speculation about the name. If the titles of the last two films set a trend, then Daniel Craig’s third film will use the name of an Ian Fleming short story. And there are a few to chose from: The Hildebrand Rarity, Risico, The Property of a Lady, and 007 in New York. I add to the speculation below, but before I do, it is worth thinking about Bond titles. What makes a title memorable? Or, to take a meme’s eye view, what gives a title, itself a meme, its survival value, or ability to be reproduced and remain active in popular culture?

It is reasonable to say that original film titles are more likely to be forgotten than those directly taken from Fleming. The titles Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is not Enough, and Die Another Day are as bland as Pierce Brosnan’s portrayal of Bond, and I expect occasional Bond watchers have trouble remembering them, let alone recall the films’ narratives. (The other day I was asked by a colleague to settle a debate had in a pub concerning the number of Brosnan’s Bond films. Out of a group of, I guess, four or five people, my colleague was alone in claiming four films; his friends, however, maintained that there had been only one or two, and he couldn’t convince them otherwise because he couldn’t remember the titles.)

The exceptions to the non-Fleming title rule are GoldenEye and Licence to Kill, which are probably more firmly imprinted in people’s minds, not least because the films’ titles are helped by other memes to give them improved penetration in cultural space (that is, they are replicated often and accurately, for example by the films being viewed or discussed in pubs). Goldeneye was helped by the six year gap between it and its predecessor, drawing a lot of interest before and after its release. The film also spawned a highly successful computer game, and the fact that Goldeneye was the name of Fleming’s Jamaican house was advantageous too. And Licence to kill was a well-known phrase before the film of that name was released in 1989.

Generally, Fleming’s titles, thanks to the success of the books and the films, are well embedded into popular culture. However, some are more successful than others. As with Licence to Kill, some titles have greater chance of replication, as their currency lies beyond the films, for instance often being used in or adapted for newspaper headlines (From Russia, With Love and The Spy Who Loved Me), becoming the soubriquet of politicians (Dr No), or existing as general figures of speech (Diamonds Are Forever and For Your Eyes Only).

In other cases, notably Goldfinger and Live and Let Die, the titles have been given increased prominence as a result of being attached to well-known and well-played songs. Few people will hear the word Goldfinger without recalling Shirley Bassey’s powerful rendition of the theme song’s opening lines, while Paul McCartney’s Live and Let Die is a regular number at his concerts, and has been covered by other artists (Guns ‘n’ Roses among them) or featured in numerous non-Bondian contexts (for example the films Shrek the Third and Grosse Point Blank). These factors increase the chances of the titles’ replicative success as they enter people’s minds and are passed on in conversation or other media, and ultimately not forgotten.

What makes a successful title, then, is one that comes directly from Fleming, accompanies a good film or related products, or can be adapted and used in non-Bond connotations. So, which Fleming title would I recommend to the producers of Bond 23? Risico. It’s short, which makes it memorable and good for a song (I recommend Brian May – let’s finally bring the Queen sound to Bond), and the word could enter common usage similar to the way that Fleming introduces it (‘In this pizness is much risico’). However, it is known that Michael G Wilson dislikes Risico because the word is Fleming's invention (or perhaps more likely a rarely written down word that conveys a dialect he may have heard on his travels), and so my second choice is The Hildebrand Rarity. It has less potential to be adapted, but it is a more interesting title than The Property of a Lady.

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.