1981: Albert R. Broccoli discusses the 007 films

Albert R. Broccoli

A 1981 Los Angeles radio interview of long-time 007 producer Albert R. Broccoli has surfaced on YouTube. It’s an interesting time capsule about the film series, which was about to come out with its 12th entry, For Your Eyes Only. What follows is a sampling.

The rising costs of making 007 movies: “I’ve learned not to worry because it doesn’t help matters. Costs have risen tremendously in the years. It’s not only Bond that costs money, other pictures have cost a lot of money….The inflation is tremendous….It’s not possible to make a Bond picture for less than 20-, 25-, 30-million dollars.”

Where the series drew its inspiration: “We were preceded by, I think, the master of all suspense and that was Mr. Alfred Hitchcock. He taught us all we know….He inspired us a lot in making a Bond film with his technology and his know-how of getting characters and putting them in these suspenseful situations.”

On his backgammon games with Roger Moore: “There was a stupid rumor that he and I had played…and I had lost $250,000 to Roger Moore. First, number one, I would not play for a lot of money in backgammon. Mere pennies, that’s all we play for. Number two, it offended me that to think Roger Moore could win $250,000 from me.” With the latter remark, Broccoli and the interviewer laugh.

It should be noted that IN 2011 that Moore said he and the producer play for more than “mere pennies.”

On Moore and Sean Connery: Moore “is a very amusing man, he’s a lovely guy. I’m very fond of Roger and I was very fond of Sean too. Sean was very amusing and a good guy to work with. Roger is as well. He keeps the crew all laughing and that helps….Roger keeps things going.”

On the shift in tone with For Your Eyes Only compared with Moonraker: “There isn’t terribly much gadgetry in this picture…We’ve gone back more or less to the more adventurous, more dramatic picture like (From) Russia With Love was….The reason is we felt it was time we reverted back to more of a story and more of an adventure picture. Not through criticism or anything but through intuition.”

On his work habits: “I guess I am a workaholic….I go to this cinema every time…I sit and listen to the reaction from the audience, and know where we might have goofed or where we have done a really good job by their reactions. I listen to what they say, good or bad. That’s my pleasure, to analyze my own operation, analyze the picture….Very gratifying thing, to me.”

His reaction to being described as “the man” behind the films: “No, there’s more than one man behind 007. I’m one of many. We started this picture with my partner Harry Saltzman, he was one of the men behind Bond. He’s doing other things now. It’s a team. It’s not just one man.”

May 1963: Ian Fleming cries U.N.C.L.E.

Ian Fleming

May 1963 was an eventful month for James Bond author Ian Fleming.

It was THE MONTH that Dr. No finally reached the U.S. market after a slow rollout that began the previous October in the U.K. At last Americans, who’d heard about how President John F. Kennedy was a fan of Fleming’s books, could sample the first film adaptation. Meanwhile, a second Bond film, From Russia With Love, was in production.

It was also the month that things were coming to a head with the television project that producer Norman Felton had wanted to title Ian Fleming’s Solo.

In the middle of the month, things were picking up steam. Here’s an excerpt from CRAIG HENDERSON’S FOR YOUR EYES ONLY WEB SITE:

Tuesday, May 14, 1963
New York entertainment lawyer Ronald S. Konecky, in a letter to Fleming, delivers his legal opinion that Solo is not an infringement on Eon’s James Bond film rights.

Tuesday, May 14, 1963

Sam Rolfe delivers five-page memo to Norman Felton outlining in print for the first time the Solo format developed to date — with an organization known as U.N.C.L.E., headed by a Mr. Allison, employing Solo and agents of all nationalities, “even Russians,” and recurrent encounters with an international criminal group called Thrush. Rolfe eliminates Doris Franklyn, who’s both a secretary to Solo’s boss and a part-time actress in the Fleming-Felton notes, adding Allison’s secretary Miss Marsidan, “who is fat, fifty and somewhat on the motherly side.”

According to the timeline compiled by Henderson, writer Rolfe agreed a few days later “to rewrite the existing Solo format, develop story ideas and make further contributions to the format.”

Meanwhile, Fleming was getting cold feet under pressure from 007 film producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman and their company, Eon Productions. In the early 1990s. Rolfe said at an event called Spy Con that Felton told him that Fleming was scared of Saltzman in particular. (Rolfe’s talk is on a YOUTUBE VIDEO but the sound is very feint; the Saltzman anecdote is around the 17:57 mark.)

The truth of this story is hard to determine. All concerned (Fleming, Felton, Rolfe, Broccoli and Saltzman) are dead and Rolfe was told about it second hand. In any event, on May 28, Fleming’s 55th birthday, the author wrote to the Ashley-Steiner Agency, where Phyllis Jackson, his U.S. agent worked, according to the Henderson timeline. The message: Fleming didn’t want to participate in Solo after all.

It was the beginning of the end for Ian Fleming’s Solo. Less than a month later, the author would sign away his rights to the show. Meanwhile, the James Bond films were gaining momentum and steps were being taken that would result in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. emerging in the place of Ian Fleming’s Solo.

The family model (Eon) vs. the corporate model (Marvel)

Family model: 2012′s Skyfall

In some ways, the Marvel Studios operation of Walt Disney Co. is like a machine. It has a movie coming out early next month in the U.S. (Iron Man 3), has another slated for November (a sequel to 2011′s Thor), has another filming for 2014 (a sequel to 2011′s Captain America) and has the script written for a 2015 sequel to a big hit last year (Marvel’s The Avengers). Marvel is one of the more successful examples of what we’ll call the corporate model.

Last year, was also a triumph for what we’ll call the family model, Eon Productions, owner of half of the James Bond franchise and run by the family of the late Eon co-founder Albert R. Broccoli. Skyfall was by far the biggest financial success (not adjusted for inflation) for the 007 film series ($1.11 billion in worldwide ticket sales) and, by some estimates, even adjusted for inflation.

Yet, for the moment, it’s not known when the next Bond film adventure, Bond 24, will come out. 2014? 2015? Maybe even 2016? Some executives at Sony last year said 2014, while Eon co-boss Barbara Broccoli said not so fast. The latest word from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the other co-owner of the franchise was sometime in the next three years. Not exactly precision scheduling.

OK, just to get this out of the way. If you’re not inclined to like movies based on comic book characters on principle, or you were a DC Comics guy as a kid rather than Marvel fan, the success of the Marvel movies will not impress you. For that matter, if you’re not a James Bond fan (not exactly the target demographic of this blog), Skyfall’s success won’t mean much either.

Corporate model: 2012′s The Avengers

Once upon a time (1962-1965, to be precise), Bond adventures came out like clockwork on an every-year schedule. But that was a much-simpler time. Still, since 1989, the 007 films have been produced with more erratic timing: a six-year gap, followed by three films on an every-other-year schedule. followed by a three-year gap, four years, two years, four years. Not all of that was Eon’s fault (MGM’s financial troubles have contributed), but it hasn’t been something to set your calendars by.

In the early 1990s, there was talk of getting the 007 series back on an yearly schedule but that never developed. With 1995′s GoldenEye, the future of the series was riding on the movie and Eon concentrated its efforts on that film. In later years, Michael G. Wilson, the other Eon co-boss who’s now in his 70s, has spoken of the personal strain of making Bond movies. While Eon has its own organization, it’s still largely driven by the half-siblings, Broccoli and Wilson.

Once upon a time, Marvel was a more family-like company (Smilin’ Stan, King Kirby, Sturdy Steve, Jazzy Johnny, Gene the Dean and all that) but that disappeared a long time ago — and went away entirely once Marvel was acquired by Disney. Kevin Feige, one of the lead bosses at Disney’s Marvel Studios operation, talks about this or that but rarely (if ever) about how hard being a producer is. He has a movie assembly line to keep going and, so far, has been doing it.

The 2012 box office results showed when done well, both models can be successful: The Avengers was No. 1 worldwide while Skyfall was No. 4 in the U.S. But the models are different. The corporate model prefers predictability, especially with schedules. But for fans of the family model, the lesser predictability is a strength, not a weakness. Vive le la difference.

You Only Live Twice not forgotten in Japan

You Only Live Twice marker in western Japan. Click on the photo to see a larger image.

You Only Live Twice is still remembered in Japan.

In the western part of the country, used as a location in the 1967 James Bond film for the Ama fishing village, there is a stone marker in honor of the movie.

Masatoshi Masuda took a photograph of it and a friend of his let us know. It’s reproduced here with Mr. Masuda’s permission.

“Our James Bond film, You Only Live Twice, was filmed on location here at Akime,” the marker reads. It bears the signatures of producer Albert R. Broccoli, star Sean Connery and co-star Tetsuro Tamba, who played Tiger Tanaka, head of the Japanese Secret Service.

You can look up other You Only Live Twice filming locations BY CLICKING HERE.

Open Channel D: William Boyd’s Fleming research gap

William Boyd

For more than a year now, fans of the literary James Bond have been told how William Boyd is the right man to do a new James Bond continuation novel.

For example, an APRIL 12, 2012 story in the U.K. newspaper the Telegraph had this passage:

Corinne Turner, managing director of Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, said: “William Boyd is a contemporary English writer whose classic novels combine literary elements with a broad appeal.

“His thrillers occupy the niche that Ian Fleming would fill were he writing today and with similar style and flair. This, alongside his fascination with Fleming himself, makes him the perfect choice to take Bond back to his 1960s world.” (emphasis added).

Apparently the author’s fascination with Ian Fleming himself didn’t extend to titles. Boyd said April 15 that his 007 novel will be called Solo. In a written statement, Boyd said that Solo is “also a great punchy word, instantly and internationally comprehensible, graphically alluring and, as an extra bonus, it’s strangely Bondian in the sense that we might be subliminally aware of the “00” of “007” lurking just behind those juxtaposed O’s of SOLO…”

Of course, many people who are fascinated with Ian Fleming know he used the very same title — but for a television series, not a novel. While Fleming left the heavy lifting to others (principally writer Sam Rolfe), there were title pages for scripts and presentation materials that said “Ian Fleming’s SOLO,” featuring a character named Napoleon Solo, co-created by Fleming and producer Norman Felton.

The series, of course, became The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which ran from September 1964 to January 1968. The reason it wasn’t called Solo was 1) Fleming, under pressure from 007 film producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, pulled out of the TV project, selling his interest in the series for 1 British pound; 2) Broccoli and Saltzman unsuccessfully attempted to shut down production of the TV show, claiming their rights to Goldfinger (including a minor villain named Mr. Solo) had been violated but settling for the title being changed.

The Solo that William Boyd forgot

This is not an especially hard piece of information to find. Andrew Lycett, one of Fleming’s biographers, reminded his Twitter followers of the connection in a POSTING ON THE SOCIAL NETWORK SERVICE.

Andrew Lycett‏@alycett1
#IanFleming discussed Bond style tv series in US with producer Norman Felton, then backed out. Sold name Napoleon SOLO to Felton for £1.

Apparently, Corinne Turner also forgot about Solo and Ian Fleming (or, for that matter, the Mr. Solo character in Goldfinger). Here’s a Turner quote from the official PRESS RELEASE (VIA THE BOOK BOND WEB SITE): “Ian Fleming had a great aptitude for naming his books and his Bond titles have become true classics. Solo is a simple yet striking title which fits perfectly alongside the other books in the Bond canon.”

Now you might say, “Hey, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. hasn’t been broadcast for 45 years now.” True. “Hey, that’s just a footnote in Ian Fleming’s career.” Not really. Fleming was involved with the TV show from October 1962 to June 1963. It wasn’t just a passing fancy. He was seriously interested for a time. More importantly, it’s not just the name of an old television series. It was the name of an old television series that Ian Fleming was a participant. Some people might even find that fascinating.

William Boyd’s new 007 novel to be titled, ironically, Solo

No! Not that Solo

William Boyd, the newest James Bond continuation author, said today at the London Book Fair that his 007 novel will be called Solo.

Boyd’s presentation began about 6:30 a.m. New York time and VARIOUS PEOPLE TWEETING FROM THE FAIR have put it out. Here’s the text of a Tweet from VINTAGE BOOKS:

Bond will travel to America and Africa in the new @jonathancape book, Solo #Bond #LBF13

Also this:

Follow

Vintage Books
‏@vintagebooks
#Bond will be ‘a mature age’ in Solo, just do y’all know #LBF13

No surprise on the latter point. Boyd in interviews has said Bond will be about 45 in the novel and that it will be set in 1969.

Boyd probably didn’t intend this but the title is ironic because Ian Fleming helped create the character Napoleon Solo in the 1964-68 television series, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.. The author sold out his interest in the series for 1 British pound because he was under pressure from Bond film producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman to exit the project.

The show was to have been called Solo. Eon Productions sued trying to stop the series from going into production. The movie production company wasn’t successful, but Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer agreed to change the title.

UPDATE: Ian Fleming Publications has a STATEMENT ON ITS WEB SITE about William Boyd’s Solo. It has a quote from Boyd:

‘Titles are very important to me and as soon as I wrote down Solo on a sheet of paper I saw its potential. Not only did it fit the theme of the novel perfectly, it’s also a great punchy word, instantly and internationally comprehensible, graphically alluring and, as an extra bonus, it’s strangely Bondian in the sense that we might be subliminally aware of the “00” of “007” lurking just behind those juxtaposed O’s of SOLO…’

Closing Channel D.

EARLIER POST: March 1963: Ian Fleming caught between two worlds.

Michael France, an appreciation

The James Bond film franchise wasn’t in a good place in 1994.

There had been no 007 film in five years. Eon Productions co-founder Albert R. Broccoli had been in a legal fight with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Broccoli had put Eon up for sale before taking it off the market. The producer wasn’t in great health. He had decided that 007 veterans John Glen and Richard Maibaum would not continue laboring on Bond.

In short, everything was up for grabs.

Broccoli yielded primarily responsibility for overseeing Bond 17 to his stepson, Michael G. Wilson, and his daughter, Barbara Broccoli. But if the cinematic Bond was going to make a comeback, somebody had to step up.

That somebody was screenwriter Michael France, who died last week at the age of 51.

“I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was watching Goldfinger,” France was quoted by Steven Jay Rubin in his The Complete James Bond Movie Encyclopedia’s updated 1995 edition. “When I was a kid, I wanted to be Richard Maibaum, not Bond.” According to Rubin’s account, he was given the chance to come up with a script in March 1993.

“We had meetings twice a week for several months with Michael, Barbara, Cubby and Dana,” France told Rubin, referring to Wilson, Barbara Broccoli as well as Albert R. Broccoli and his wife Dana. “We also wanted a villain on the level of Goldfinger — with an elaborate, unsinkable plot. At the same time, we also want him to be credible as a threat — that all of the story elements were based in reality, that these things could happen.”

In 1994, France delivered a first-draft script. It took a real-life event, a 1993 attack on the World Trade Center in New York, and went from there. There was no way to know it at the time but France’s script was prescient because on Sept. 11, 2001, the towers were brought down by a terrorist attack.

France’s script wasn’t the last word. Other writers revised his draft. France only got a “story by” credit while Jeffrey Caine and Bruce Feirstein got the “screenplay by” credit. Only Feirstein was invited by Wilson and Barbara Broccoli back for the next Bond film. Feirstein’s FIRST DRAFT also got revised, much the way France’s GoldenEye initial draft was. Still, Feirstein got the sole screenwriting credit for Tomorrow Never Dies. That’s show business.

The fact remains that the cinematic Bond was dead in the water until Michael France delivered his script. By that time, Richard Maibuam, the dean of 007 scriptwriters, was dead. Cubby Broccoli was in failing health. And the future of the cinematic Bond was far from assured. The work was far from complete. But Michael France gave everybody a starting point. For that alone, his contributions to the film franchise are huge.

`She’ll have our guts for garters!’

“Really, Mr. Bond….”

Margaret Thatcher, the first woman British prime minister, died April 8 at the age of 87. Her passing revived a debate about her political career and impact on the U.K.

Us? Besides all that we were reminded about her sort-of-appearance as a Bond woman in the person of actress Janet Brown (1923-2011).

The Bond movies, when producer Albert R. Broccoli was at the helm, avoided politics generally. We’d occasionally hear references to “the P.M.” or “the Prime Minister” for the U.K. or “the President” for the U.S. But you never saw the person holding the office, even from a rear or obscured view.

That changed in a big way with 1981′s For Your Eyes Only, which came out early in Thatcher’s tenure. After Bond (Roger Moore) wasn’t able to bring in a Cuban hitman alive for questioning, the Defence Minister proclaims, referring to the P.M., “She’ll have our guts for garters!” Few in the audience needed an additional explanation, given Thatcher’s reputation as a tough leader.

But the film’s ending, with 007 having successfully keeping a critical device out of Soviet hands, went where no Bond film had gone before.

Q sets up a satellite call between the P.M. to congratulate Bond herself. 007, after a rough mission, would prefer spending some quality time with heroine Melina (Carole Bouquet) and leaves his watch/communications device with Melina’s parrot.

Then, we see what’s supposed to be the exterior of No. 10 Downing Street. But this time, there’s no obscurred view. We see Janet Brown as Thatcher on the phone, thinking she’s congratulating Bond. For an added bonus, actor John Wells shows up as Thatcher’s husband, Denis.

It’s a slapstick sequence that stands out in a movie that made a concerted effort to be a “back to basics” 007 story after 1979′s Moonraker. The film’s long climatic sequence had been tense, so evidently Broccoli & Co. felt a longer laugh was called for. In any event, no Bond movie ever tried anything like this since involving an actual politician.

Anyway, here it is (at least until it gets yanked from YouTube):

March 1963: Ian Fleming caught between two worlds

Ian Fleming

Fifty years ago this month, Ian Fleming was a busy man. Maybe too busy. He would soon be caught between the worlds of movies and television.

Dr. No, the first movie based on one of his 007 novels, had gotten off to a promising start. But as March 1963 began, it still had yet to debut in a number of major markets, including the U.S. Production would begin a month later on From Russia With Love. That was good news for the author. But Bond still wasn’t a phenomenon.

Meanwhile, Fleming had another iron in the fire. According to Craig Henderson’s U.N.C.L.E. For Your Eyes Only Web site:

March 1963
Ian Fleming, passing through New York on his way home to London after his annual stay at Goldeneye, discusses Solo with Phyllis Jackson.

She starts negotiations with MGM for Fleming’s participation in the series. NBC reconfirms that it will put an Ian Fleming TV series on the air without a pilot. At the same time, (producer Norman) Felton, realizing Fleming will not devote the time necessary to actually creating a concept ready for weekly production, enlists Sam Rolfe to develop a full series presentation.

Jackson was Fleming’s agent in the U.S. and was with the Ashley-Steiner Agency.

Presumably, Fleming had a copy of his You Only Live Twice novel manuscript in either his briefcase or luggage. The year before, in early 1962, Fleming had penned On Her Majesty’s Secret Service while in Jamaica and he had visited the Dr. No set. Readers wouldn’t discover for more than a year that Fleming has surprise in mind for the literary 007.

By early March 1963, it had been more than four months since Fleming had his first meetings in New York during late October 1962 with producer Felton to discuss a proposed television series to be called Solo that would feature a lead character named Napoleon Solo. Fleming hadn’t done the heavy lifting but his March ’63 meeting would seem to indicate he still remained interested in the project.

Within a few months, that would change. Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, the producers of the 007 series, weren’t happy about Fleming’s potential new venture. According to the U.N.C.L.E. For Your Eyes Only site, Fleming was making counterproposals for his Solo deal as late as May 8. But on May 28, Fleming’s 55th birthday, he writes to Ashley-Steiner Agency to indicate he wants out of the television project.

Saturday, June 8 – Wednesday, June 12, 1963

Jerry Leider of Ashley-Steiner travels through London and meets with Fleming, who tells Leider that Saltzman and Broccoli have pressured him to drop out of Solo.

Fleming’s final exit occurs June 26. He signs away his interest in the television show for one British pound. By that time, filming on From Russia With Love was well underway, with a world premier scheduled for the fall of 1963.. Meanwhile, Fleming wouldn’t live to see debut of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the television’s show new title, debut on Sept. 22, 1964.

For more, CLICK HERE to see the U.N.C.L.E. For Your Eyes Only Web site for significant 1962 dates. CLICK HERE for significant 1963 dates.

Comparing 1982 and 2013 Oscars from a 007 view

The Oscars on Oct. 24 had the biggest 007 presence since 1982. So how did the two nights compare?

For 007 fans, this year’s Oscars were a mixed bag. Skyfall won two Oscars, breaking a 47-year Oscar drought. But a promised Bond tribute seemed rushed and some fans grumbled that Skyfall should have come away with more awards.

Skyfall came away with the Oscar for Best Song after three previous 007 tries (Live And Let Die, Nobody Does it Better from The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only) as well as best sound editing in a tie with Zero Dark Thirty. But neither director of photography Roger Deakins or composer Thomas Newman scored an award, continuing their personal Oscar losing streaks.

Anyway, the 1982 and 2013 Oscars shows had one thing in common: Each had a montage of James Bond clips. In ’82, it was presented just before Eon Productions co-founder Albert R. Broccoli received the Irving R. Thalberg Award, given to a producer for his or her body of work. That montage included dialogue, including different actors getting to say, “My name is Bond, James Bond.”

Thirty-one years later, there was another montage, a little snappier but clips still familiar to most 007 fans. The clips were accompanied by The James Bond Theme and an instrumental version of Live And Let Die.

The 1982 show had a big production, with Sheena Easton performing For Your Eyes Only (nominated for Best Song, but which lost) along with a Moonraker-themed dance number that included appearances by Richard Kiel as Jaws and Harold Sakata as Oddjob. In 2013, the clip montage led to Shirley Bassey singing Goldfinger and drawing a standing ovation. And then….well, the 007 tribute was over. Adele performed Skyfall separately as one of the Best Song nominees.

In 1982, Roger Moore introduced Cubby Broccoli. In 2013, no Bonds appeared. Supposedly, that wasn’t the original plan, according to Nikki Finke, editor-in-chief of the Deadline entertainment news Web site. In a “LIVE SNARK” FROM THE OSCARS, she wrote:

The Academy and the show’s producers hoped to gather together all the living 007 actors. But Sean Connery refused to come because he hates the Broccoli family. Something about how he thinks they cheated him out of money he was owed. Then Pierce Brosnan refused to come because he hates the Broccoli family as well. Something about how he thinks they pulled him from the role too early. Roger Moore was dying to come because, well, he’s a sweetheart. And Daniel Craig would have come because he does what he’s told by the Broccoli family’s Eon Productions whose Bond #23 Skyfall just went through the box office global roof. So there you have it.

Finkke didn’t say how she came by this information. In mid-February, her site ran an interview with the producers of the Oscars show and that story said the six Bond film actors wouldn’t appear at the show and referred to “rampant media speculation” concerning such a joint appearance. Still, her Web site was the first to report that Sam Mendes was likely to direct Skyfall, so it can’t be disregarded completely.

In any case, the 1982 show had something not available to the producers of the Oscars show this year: Cubby Broccoli. He gave a particularly gracious speech when accepting his Thalberg award. He acknowledged both of his former partners, Irving Allen and Harry Saltzman, despite substantial differences of opinion he had with them in the past.

In the end, that speech sets the 1982 show apart from a 007 perspective despite the record two 007 wins for Skyfall. We’ve embedded it before, but here it is once more: