For Your Eyes Only (17 page)

Fleming knew the value of a plot twist, but nothing could have prepared him for the change in Bond's fortunes that would occur when 007 finally transferred to the movie screen. In October 1962, Fleming attended the film premiere of
Dr No
, the first instalment in what would become the most valuable cinematic franchise in history. Bond, for better and for worse, would never be the same again. Nor would he ever again be solely the product of Fleming's imagination. For many people, James Bond is a film character (or several film characters), but his path to the screen had not been simple or swift. Fleming had always intended that his creation should transfer to film or television, and as with the books, he worked hard to bring about the transformation.

This was less easy than, with hindsight, might have been
expected. The rights to
Casino Royale
were sold to CBS in 1954 for $1,000 and later adapted into a television play as part of a series entitled
Climax
, now almost wholly forgotten. Sir Alexander Korda, the great Hungarian-born producer, toyed with the idea of making
Live and Let Die
, but the idea came to nothing. In 1958, Fleming was commissioned to write a thirteen-part Bond series, again for CBS in the US. Once again, the project foundered, but much of the material Fleming had written would be recycled in different forms in the later books. Like many writers, Fleming was frustrated by Hollywood's capacity for encouraging talk and no action: ‘hollow bonhomie combined with ultra-sharp horse-trading' was how he put it. Yet he persevered, and set out to create a film project of his own. Through Ivar Bryce, he met an up-and-coming filmmaker, Kevin McClory, and together (along with screenwriter Jack Whittingham) they set about writing a treatment for an underwater Bond adventure set in the Caribbean. Once again, the project foundered, mainly for lack of financial backing, but as usual Fleming was unwilling to see hard work go to waste and adapted the idea into the novel
Thunderball
. This time, however, the recycling got him into serious trouble, when McClory and Whittingham claimed the book was based partly on their work and sued in the High Court for breach of copyright. The resulting legal wrangle was bitter, intensely complex and, for Fleming, quite debilitating; it would not be resolved for a further thirty-seven years. At one point in the process, he was
reduced to drawing up a list of the ideas, details and inspirations that he had put into the book, in order to back up his claim to sole authorship. This legal document again demonstrated both the depth and eclecticism of Fleming's research: the specifications for the
Disco Volante
, for example, had been obtained from the Italian boat manufacturer Leopoldo Rodriguez;the title
Thunderball
came from a conversation in which Fleming had heard this term used to describe an American atomic test; and so on. For later archaeologists of the Bond phenomenon, such details are fascinating; for Fleming, forced to pick apart his own writing in order to prove ownership, the entire legal experience was hellish. His first heart attack came just two weeks after the court action was launched. ‘I do not think James Bond would be at home in the Chancery Division,' Fleming observed morosely as the case dragged on.

Film salvation arrived in the somewhat unlikely double act of Albert Romolo ‘Cubby' Broccoli, an experienced Italian-American Hollywood producer, and Harry Saltzman, a Canadian former circus performer and intelligence agent turned movie impresario. Saltzman had acquired the film rights to all the Bond books (save
Casino Royale
), and in partnership with Broccoli he founded EON Productions – standing for Everything Or Nothing – which was a good motto for their high-stakes gambling style. United Artists signed up to make six films, with Fleming earning an impressive $100,000 per film and 5 per cent of producer's
profits. Broccoli and Saltzman decided to open the franchise with
Dr No
, which has arguably the most filmic of the Bond villains. Bond was about to hit the big time on the big screen, but Fleming's control over the character, inevitably, would begin to diminish.

It is said that Fleming initially wanted the part of Dr Julius No to be played by Noël Coward, his old friend and neighbour in Jamaica, a prospect that would have been hilarious, and probably disastrous. He also suggested that David Niven, another friend, should play Bond, or Richard Burton, whom he much admired, or else a young actor named Roger Moore. Ian's suggestions were politely ignored, though in private Broccoli could be less than flattering about the novelist's work:
Dr No
, he allegedly said to one potential director, was ‘full of nonsense'. Cary Grant was initially offered the part of Bond, but at fifty-eight he declined, reportedly saying he was too old for the role. Eventually Broccoli decided to cast Sean Connery, an almost entirely unknown Scottish actor who had previously worked as a truck-driver, life-class model, milkman, coffin polisher, sailor, boxer and lifeguard. Fleming had lunch with Connery at the Savoy, but wondered if this Scottish working-class ‘overgrown stuntman' was quite right for the part. His doubts were allayed when an attractive woman at the same lunch assured him that Connery had ‘it', the indefinable sex appeal that would work on screen. Even if he had objected, it is doubtful whether Fleming's opinion would have made much difference: under the terms
of the contract, he had no influence over or input into the scripts. In any case, as screenwriter Richard Maibaum conceded, there was an ‘untransferable quality' in the novels. Fleming's role was restricted to scouting film locations in Jamaica, but there is no evidence he minded: like many sensible authors, he decided to bank the cheque, stand in the wings and watch the action from a discreet distance.

Even so, Fleming became predictably fascinated by the mechanics of film-making, and he had a clear notion of how Bond should be presented on screen. As in the books, he believed Bond should be depicted as a ‘blunt instrument wielded by a government department', a cog in a ‘tough, modern organisation', and not particularly appealing ‘until [the audience] get to know him and then they will appreciate that he is their idea of an efficient secret agent'. In the end, however, the screen Bond was very different from Fleming's version. For a start, he was a great deal more promiscuous, and substantially more bloodthirsty. The literary Bond is prey to doubts and occasional uncertainty: life as a licensed killer ‘is a confusing business', he admits on paper, but never on screen. In print form, Bond is capable of introspection, even as he goes about his hard-hearted business. ‘I never intended him to be a particularly likeable person,' Fleming wrote, but in the films Bond is not only instantly and enduringly attractive, but charming and, above all, amusing. The one-liners became a staple feature of Bond in his film incarnation (the less funny his quips, paradoxically, the
better), but in the books the brooding Bond is almost entirely devoid of humour. Fleming himself could be witty and wry, but deliberately did not pass on those qualities to Bond, the better to preserve the ‘ironical, brutal and cold' character within. Fleming's Bond, unlike his film counterpart, is capable of fear, mistakes and pain. When his plane is tossed by a storm in
From Russia with Love
, Bond retreats, in his terror, into the impregnable ‘hurricane room' at the centre of his personality. (Once again, Fleming himself had experienced the raw terror of flying through a storm in a plane in the 1950s.) On screen, Bond never suffers from such human frailties.

There have been six Bond actors to date, and each successive Bond has evolved the character in different, sometimes contradictory, directions. Connery (1962–7, 1971 and 1983) was determined, rugged, effortlessly sexual; George Lazenby (1969) laconic, humourless and perhaps closest to Fleming's Bond; Roger Moore (1973–85) was jocular, suave and playful almost to the point of parody; Timothy Dalton (1987–94) gritty, serious and occasionally reluctant to accede to the demands of the job; Pierce Brosnan (1994–2002) witty, charming, athletic; Daniel Craig (from 2005) blond, humane and remarkable in swimming trunks. Countless arguments, several fights and no doubt a number of serious doctoral theses have been devoted to the issue of which actor made the best Bond. Indeed, the debate has been going on so
long that it has become one of those cultural signifiers: if you are over fifty, and used to smoke, you are likely to be a Connery-Bond fan; if you are between forty and fifty and have ever worn a car coat unironically, then you will plump for Roger Moore; if you were born after the fall of the Berlin Wall, then Daniel Craig is, for you, the only true Bond. It may be a cliché to say that every age gets the Bond it deserves, but to an extraordinary extent the character has proved a cultural weathervane, reflecting the evolution of fashions, mores, and political and criminal enemies. Today we have a Bond who weeps and bleeds, who does not smoke and does not care whether his cocktail is shaken or stirred; Connery, let alone Fleming, would never have seen him that way.

In addition to the actors there have been a small army of producers, directors and co-stars helping to mould the changing roles of Bond, his allies and enemies. Cubby Broccoli was central among these, setting out to ‘fix' what he perceived as the filmic flaws in the books. The inspired, semi-futuristic set designs by Ken Adams placed Bond in an extraordinary new world. Another key influence was Terence Young, the director of the first two Bond films, whose part in shaping the screen Bond is seldom fully acknowledged. Young had served as an army intelligence officer, and both before and after the war the film-maker cut a swathe through Soho in a succession of fast cars and expensive suits, with a parade of beautiful women on his arm. Young to some
extent modelled his suave lifestyle on that of Eddie Chapman – aka wartime double agent ‘Zigzag' – a professional criminal who had been a close friend before the war. When he was picked to direct
Dr No
, Young is said to have used himself as a model for the part. The late Lois Maxwell (the first Miss Moneypenny) observed that ‘Terence took Sean under his wing. He took him to dinner, showed him how to walk, how to talk, even how to eat.' Connery biographer Robert Cotton writes that ‘some cast members remarked that Connery was simply doing a Terence Young impression.' Here is yet one more testament to the strange blending of fact and fiction: the definitive film Bond is based on a director who modelled his own lifestyle on that of a spy who was almost certainly known to Ian Fleming in his wartime role in naval intelligence. With pleasing circularity, the film adaptation of Bond may even have impinged on the books Fleming wrote after Connery had taken on the role: in
You Only Live Twice
, published in 1964, Bond seems to have developed a sense of humour, and some Scottish ancestry to go with his new-found accent. Even for his creator, Bond is a changeable, malleable quality.

With great good sense, Fleming observed the film transformation of Bond from a wry distance, though he found the whole process an intriguing ‘riot'. In March 1961, he decided to observe it at first hand, arriving on the set of
Dr No
in Jamaica just as Terence Young was filming the moment when Ursula Andress erupts from the sea in her bikini.
Accompanied by Ann, Stephen Spender and the writer Peter Quennell, Fleming blithely walked up just as the cameras were about to roll. Young shouted at them to lie down, and all four obediently hurled themselves into the hot sand. Half an hour later, the creator of Bond and his distinguished literary friends were still lying there, immobile, because no one had told them to get up. I can no longer watch the Ursula Andress bikini scene without also hearing Fleming, giggling in the sand, just out of camera shot.

Fleming attended the premiere of
Dr No
in London on 5 October 1962 (he had already seen the film at a private screening). With the Cuban Missile Crisis hotting up, the threat of nuclear Armageddon struck an immediate chord, and the film was a success, if not yet a smash. A year later, Fleming was present at the premiere of the second Bond movie,
From Russia with Love
, a box-office triumph. On watching the film, John Betjeman wrote to the author, congratulating him on creating a fictional world as complete and absorbing as that of Sherlock Holmes: ‘This is real art.' Fleming was unfailingly complimentary about the films, as well he might be, for their success had a galvanising effect on his book sales. Bond expert Henry Chancellor has calculated that in 1960 Fleming was selling an impressive 6,000 paperbacks a week; four years later, with the two films and John F. Kennedy's endorsement of
From Russia with Love
as one of his favourite books, sales had leapt to 112,000 a week, and Fleming was enjoying a tenfold increase in his
income. By the end of 1963, in the UK and the US alone, some seventeen million Bond paperbacks had been sold.

Fleming once remarked that he wrote ‘chiefly for pleasure, then for money'. The money began to pour in, just as the pleasure was waning. As his body began to fail, crunching out the words, once so easy, became increasingly taxing, a painful chore. To Plomer, he confided that he was ‘terribly stuck with James Bond . . . I used to believe – sufficiently – in Bonds & Blondes & Bombs. Now the keys creak as I type & I fear the zest may have gone . . . I shall definitely kill off Bond with my next book.'

He never did, of course. Bond is immortal, but Fleming was not. Typically, he both mocked and trumpeted his own phenomenal success. ‘My contribution to the export drive is simply staggering,' he said. ‘They ought to give me some sort of medal.' Yet, as he admitted, and his friends knew, he was ‘running out of puff'. With one last, courageous effort, in January 1964 he tapped out the first draft of
The Man with the Golden Gun
. Where once he stormed through two thousand words a morning, he was now writing painfully, for a little over an hour a day, and then staggering to an exhausted halt.