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.

Two 007 fan magazine offers

Skyfall’s poster image

Two competing 007 fan magazines have new offers.

MI6 Confidential has a new issue, No. 20, out. It features a cover with a Daniel Craig image and features include a look at 007 title designer Daniel Kleinman (responsible for every Bond main titles since 1995 with the exception of 2008′s Quantum of Solace); some artwork developed for the ad campaign for A View To a Kill; a look at Skyfall special effects; and a story about the Everything Or Nothing documentary.

The publication’s price is 7 British pounds, $11 or 8.50 euros. For more information about ordering, CLICK HERE.

Meanwhile, Graham Rye’s 007 Magazine and 007 Magazine Archive Files are offering back issues at half price, 4.99 British pounds, for a limited time. That includes an issue devoted to Skyfall. For more details and information on ordering, CLICK HERE.

Mendes tells Empire he won’t direct Bond 24

Sam Mendes

Sam Mendes told Empire magazine IN AN INTERVIEW he has opted not to direct Bond 24.

An excerpt:

“Directing Skyfall was one of the best experiences of my professional life, but I have theatre and other commitments, including productions of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and King Lear, that need my complete focus over the next year and beyond.”

Skyfall had worldwide ticket sales of more than $1.1 billion. Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, the co-bosses of Eon Productions, had been courting Mendes to return for the next 007 film, which is being scripted by John Logan, one of the three Skyfall scribes.

No director has worked on consecutive Bond films since John Glen helmed For Your Eyes Only through Licence to Kill in the 1980s. Since 1995, only Martin Campbell has directed more than one and his two (GoldenEye and Casino Royale) were more than a decade apart.

Last month, Baz Bamigboye of the Daily Mail, who had a number of Skyfall scoops that were proven correct, said, “Mendes hasn’t firmly made up his mind about directing another Bond, but I’m reliably told he’s ‘75 per cent’ of the way towards doing it.” Evidently, the 25 percent won out.

For the full Empire story, CLICK HERE.

UPDATE: There’s a short STATEMENT on the official 007.com Web site. It repeats Mendes’s quote in Empire. It adds this from Wilson and Broccoli which was also in the Empire story:

Bond’s next director has yet to be decided, but producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli had nothing but praise for Mendes: “We thoroughly enjoyed working with Sam. He directed our most successful Bond movie ever, SKYFALL. We would have loved to have made the next film with him but completely respect his decision to focus on other projects and hope to have the opportunity to collaborate with him again.”

The M of two worlds

Judi Dench as M — or one of them.

For the past seven years, there’s been a recurring debate: If the 007 film series started all over with Casino Royale, how can Judi Dench’s M still be around?

One possible answer is this: The Bond movies starting with Casino comprise a separate fictional universe from the other 007 films. The Judi Dench M of 1995-2002 (the Pierce Brosnan films) is different than the Judi Dench M of 2006-2012 (Daniel Craig’s first three films). They just look remarkably alike and are obviously played by the same actress.

Recently, the ComingSoon.net Web site had AN ARTICLE ABOUT SKYFALL’S PROPS. There was this excerpt:

As we looked at the porcelain bulldog M bequeaths Bond, the archive assistant read the inscription on the box it is presented to him in – “Olivia Mansfield bequeaths James Bond.” We’ve searched around, and as far as we can see this is the first and only time anyone’s ever revealed M’s ‘real name.’ It may not have been spoken, but if you were watching on a big enough screen it could have been visible, so we’d argue it’s now canon.

Earlier, during the Brosnan era, the Dench M was incorporated into Raymond Benson’s 007 continuation novels. One of them name gave her the name Barbara Mawdsley. That’s certainly not canon for the film series (which avoids Bond continuation novels like the plague). But it has been adopted by some fans.

What’s more, as many fans have noted, the two Ms seem to have different backgrounds. The Brosnan era M had been promoted from the analysis section and, in GoldenEye, said Bond was a relic of the Cold War. The Craig era M yearns for a return to the simplicity of the Cold War. Also, she’s rather adept at helping Bond prepare booby traps at Skyfall Lodge, skill sets she learned somewhere besides the analysis section. Not conclusive by any means, but all of that can be cited in making the case the characters are different.

The concept of different universes is hardly new and predates the Bond film series. It was a staple of science fiction and comic books.

DC Comics embraced the idea in 1961 with “The Flash of Two Worlds.”

The cover to Flash No. 123, “The Flash of Two Worlds.”

Five years earlier, DC had come out with a new version of the Flash, a hero who could move at super-speed. Instead of simply reviving the original Flash, DC came out with a different character with a different costume. The new Flash became popular and DC proceeded to produce new version of other Golden Age characters such as Green Lantern, the Atom and Hawkman.

The 1961 story has the two Flashes meeting when the new Flash manages to cross into the universe of the original character. (CLICK HERE to read more details.) This, too, was a hit with readers and DC further expanded on the alternate universe concept.

Now some fans say this is ridiculous, science fiction concepts have no place in the Bond films. To each their own. You could also argue the 2006 reboot would have been cleaner had M simply been recast at that time. But Judi Dench was popular and, with a new Bond, Eon opted to keep her even as characters such as Miss Moneypenny and Q were absent from Casino.

It was certainly understandable from a marketing perspective, if nothing else. So perhaps it really is, “The M of Two Worlds.”

John Logan hired to write Bond 24, Daily Mail says

Skyfall co-scripter John Logan

And so it begins. Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond film, opens in the U.K. on Oct. 26 (Nov. 9 in the U.S.) and we’ve already had the first major report about Bond 24. The Daily Mail in a story you can read BY CLICKING HERE says Eon Productions has hired John Logan to write Bond 24.

An excerpt:

Bond 24 is already in pre-pre-production and the plan is for it to start shooting at Pinewood Studios around this time next year and be ready for cinemas in the autumn of 2014.

Screenwriter John Logan has been hired to write Bond 24…(snip) On Skyfall, he was brought in by director Sam Mendes and producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli to re-write the existing Skyfall screenplay that had been created by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade.

The writer is Baz Bamigboye, who has had a number of scoops about Skyfall that panned out. The Daily Mail has a trashy reputation in general but Bamigboye had a decent track record for accuracy for Skyfall. We’ll see if it’s true.

If the Daily Mail writer is accurate, that would indicate there is a serious effort to get Bond 24 out in two years’ time. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer wants it (the studio said in court papers filed during a 2010 bankruptcy it wanted to get the 007 series back on an every-other-year schedule). Sony Pictures wants it (an executive has already told theater executives it plans to release Bond 24 in 2014). Eon Productions co-boss Barbara Broccoli hasn’t publicly committed to it.

Meanwhile, 007 movies have a bit of mixed history with screenwriters delivering late drafts who won acclaim along the way.

Bruce Feirstein did the final drafts of 1995′s Goldeneye but had a rough time with 1997′s Tomorrow Never Dies. Feirstein was the only credited writer on Tomorrow but his first draft was drastically revamped by a number of other writers before Feirstein was brought back. Feirstein’s final 007 film credit was 1998′s The World Is Not Enough, where he rewrote the initial Purvis-Wade effort.

Paul Haggis got a lot of good press for 2006′s Casino Royale, where he revised a Purvis-Wade script. Haggis’s follow up effort for 2008′s Quantum of Solace (where he shared credit with Purvis and Wade) weren’t nearly as well received.

Meanwhile, if you CLICK HERE you can read a 2002 interview Purvis and Wade gave to HMSS about Die Another Day, one of the five 007 movies they’ve worked on.

Good-bye, old friend (Skyfall spoiler)

RIP classic 007 gunbarrel, used in the classic way (1962-2002)

This is a spoiler, just like the headline says. So if you don’t want spoilers, leave now. If you stick around, see the Oct. 28 update at the end of the post.

So, the reviews are in and Skyfall, at least among reviewers who attended an Oct. 12 media preview, is a one of the best Bond films ever. (Examples: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, DIGITAL SPY, and VARIETY.)

But the reviews pass over one thing: the film’s gunbarrel logo once again isn’t at the start of the movie. A few who’ve seen the preview showing HAVE MADE NOTE OF IT ON THE INTERNET. As a result, there is already a debate on the message boards of IMDB.com (Examples: HERE, HERE and HERE.)

All of this began with 2006′s reboot of Bond in Casino Royale. He wasn’t *really* James Bond yet, so the traditional gunbarrel wasn’t used at the start. A much different logo was used just before the main titles. Then, in 2008′s Quantum of Solace, the rationale evidently was Bond wasn’t *really* Bond yet but he was at the end of the movie so it was dropped off at the end, just before the end titles.

There has been no official explanation (or even acknowledgment) that Skyfall repeats the strategy of Quantum. Perhaps Bond was really Bond, but stopped being *really* Bond but he eventually gets it back, so the gunbarrel again appears at the end.

Or maybe the explanation is even simpler.

In 2005, Michael G. Wilson said he and his half-sister Barbara Broccoli needed “to generate something new, for ourselves” (emphasis added).

The classic 007 gunbarrel of 1962-2002, created by Maurice Binder, ran at the start of the movie because the intention was to get the audience’s attention immediately. It got an updated look in GoldenEye (courtesy of Daniel Kleinman) and a CGI bullet was added with Die Another Day. On the extras of the Die Another Day DVD, composer David Arnold says something to the effect that the 10 seconds or so of the logo can make a member of the audience think they’re going to see the best James Bond movie ever.

That was a different day, a different era. The gunbarrel will get tossed in, but somewhere along the line, Eon Productions has decided the classic gunbarrel (used in the original way) is obsolete. It may be included simply to protect the trademark (lest someone claim it from disuse) at the end of a movie, in a poster or a video game.

Skyfall may be, at the reviews say, a great Bond movie, even (as some say) the best Bond movie. But an era has passed, nevertheless.

There are some fans who take the position there are no “classic” Bond movies, only old Bond movies. For them, this is no big deal, something swept out with the trash. Yesterday’s news, as it were, and part of yesterday’s newspapers put in a recycling bin.

For other fans, though, it’s the end of something. The classic gunbarrel used to be a little distinctive touch about the 007 films. At least it used to be.

UPDATE (Oct. 28): Barbara Broccoli in THIS INTERVIEW says Eon will put the gunbarrel logo where it feels like it works. The Key excerpt:

The gun barrel is at the end of the movie again. Is that the way it’s going to be from now on?
BARBARA: It will vary from film to film. In this film there wasn’t really a place to put it at the beginning. I know that sounds kind of funny, but we looked at putting it at the beginning and we discussed it with Sam, and we just felt it was better suited for this particular film at the end. We also thought it would be a nice way to mark the fiftieth anniversary, by having our 50th anniversary logo up there, just to mark this extraordinary event of fifty years.

UPDATE (Nov. 6): Mendes said he really did want to put the gunbarrel but that it “looked ridiculous” when paired with the first shot. You can CLICK HERE to read more and see a video.

HMSS talks to Jon Burlingame about his 007 music book

Image of the cover of The Music of James Bond from the book’s Amazon.com page (don’t click it won’t work here; see link at bottom of this post).

Jon Burlingame, who has written extensively about film and television music, is coming out with a new book, The Music of James Bond. He’s come up with some research that should intrigue 007 fans. Example: one of the singers of Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, originally intended to be Thunderball’s title song was involved in a lawsuit to try to stop release of the fourth James Bond film.

We did an interview by e-mail. He provided a preview of his book. The author didn’t want to give away too much in our interview, including identifying which Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang singer was involved. Both Shirley Bassey and Dionne Warwick performed the song before Eon Productions went with Tom Jones singing Thunderball.

Anyway, the interview follows:

HMSS: Did you come across information that you found surprising? If so, what was it?

BURLINGAME: I was able to piece together the chronology of what happened with “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” — the unused theme for THUNDERBALL — which had always eluded previous writers and researchers. And I discovered that one vocalist was so incensed about the failure to use her recording that her company sued the producers to attempt to stop distribution of the film in late 1965. (She didn’t succeed, of course.) It was a stunning new discovery and, to me, one of the most fascinating stories in the book.

I also got Paul Williams to recall many of his unused lyrics for MOONRAKER and Johnny Mathis to confirm that he recorded that song, which no one has ever heard. I successfully unraveled the story of the missing Eric Clapton recordings for LICENCE TO KILL and the sad and unfortunate tale of why John Barry was ready to score TOMORROW NEVER DIES and how studio politics derailed it. I obtained new details about the aborted Amy Winehouse song for QUANTUM OF SOLACE and finally got to the bottom of the story involving “No Good About Goodbye,” which has always been rumored to be an unused QoS song.

HMSS:How long did it take to prepare The Music of James Bond? How many of the principals were you able to interview directly?

BURLINGAME: It took eight months to write — and about 45 years of intense interest before that. I signed the contract with Oxford in May 2011 and delivered a final manuscript in December. Like any film-related history that covers several decades, it required considerable research as well as interviews with those key players who were still with us. I had interviewed John Barry often since the late 1980s, so I had material from him prior to his passing.

New interviews included Monty Norman, Vic Flick, Leslie Bricusse, Don Black, Hal David, producer Phil Ramone (OHMSS), engineers Eric Tomlinson and John Richards, Sir George Martin, Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager, Paul Williams, Bill Conti, Tim Rice, Michel Legrand and Alan & Marilyn Bergman, Maryam d’Abo, Narada Michael Walden and Diane Warren (LICENCE TO KILL), Eric Serra (GOLDENEYE), David Arnold, conductor Nicholas Dodd (the Arnold films), and Madonna (DIE ANOTHER DAY), among others. {plus extensive, previously unused interviews I had done with Michael Kamen (LICENCE TO KILL) and Michel Colombier (DIE ANOTHER DAY) before each passed away.

HMSS: What is your view of the disputes related to the creation of The James Bond Theme? To some laymen, it really does sound like Barry at the very least added a lot to Monty Norman’s work.

BURLINGAME: He did. The story is very, very complicated, as anyone who followed the London court case should understand. The creation of a piece of music for a film — whether in 1962 or in 2012 — can be a complex process involving a melody line, the addition of rhythm and countermelodies, bridges, etc., and performance issues related to what instruments are being used and how. So it started with Monty Norman and an unused song from an unrealized production; passed through the hands of his own orchestrator; reached John Barry, who undertook what one expert witness at the trial called an “extreme” arrangement; and when Barry called in guitarist Vic Flick, he added his own special touches before the theme was recorded for the first time. To his credit, Norman — despite his differences with Barry over the years — continues to credit Barry with the definitive orchestration of his theme.

I would urge Bond fans to read my first chapter very carefully before drawing, or modifying, their own conclusions. I believe it is as complete a chronicle of the creation of the “James Bond Theme” as is possible at this date.

HMSS: Harry Saltzman almost killed the title songs to Goldfinger and Diamonds Are Forever and while liking the Live And Let Die song didn’t want Paul McCartney to perform it. Are there any other examples of this sort of thing (not restricted to Saltzman)?

BURLINGAME: From the beginning, it’s always really been a kind of crap shoot to try and create a song that would serve the film but also reach the pop charts to serve the broader promotional needs of the film and be successful on its own. There has always been second-guessing, from the examples you cited to the rush job on MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, the last-minute decision to change lyricists and singers on MOONRAKER, the involvement of record-company people on the songs for A VIEW TO A KILL, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS and LICENCE TO KILL, and finally the deep involvement of the studio music department on films like TOMORROW NEVER DIES, DIE ANOTHER DAY and the 2006 CASINO ROYALE. I detail all of these in the book.

For a long time, no composer not named John Barry did a second turn as a 007 film composer, until David Arnold came along. What did he bring to the table that the likes of Bill Conti, Marvin Hamlisch, etc., didn’t?.

BURLINGAME: I don’t think it’s fair to compare David Arnold with Conti and Hamlisch. Each composer tried to do his best with the film he was given. The circumstances were different in each case. All three attempted to “modernize” the Bond sound in their own way, with Hamlisch and Conti applying the pop rhythm sounds of their day (1977, 1981). Arnold came along at a time when the largely electronic (Eric) Serra
score for GOLDENEYE proved problematic for the filmmakers and they were eager to return to a more “traditional” sound. Arnold’s TOMORROW NEVER DIES score took the classic Barry sound and “updated” it with contemporary synth and rhythm-track sounds that proved just right for that film. He delivered what was needed and thus was retained — especially in a time of risk-averse studio thinking that often says, “that worked, that movie made money, let’s have more of that.”

HMSS: What qualities make James Bond scores different than scores of other movies?

BURLINGAME: One of the main points of the book is the assertion that these composers invented a new kind of action-adventure scoring for the Bond films. Partly pop, partly jazz, partly traditional orchestral scoring, the 007 films demanded music that could be variously romantic, suspenseful, drive the action, even punctuate the humor.

It was a tall order, and John Barry, especially, delivered what was necessary and helped define James Bond in a way that wasn’t possible with the visuals alone.

John Barry

HMSS: John Barry won five Oscars for his film work but never for a Bond movie. Meanwhile, Marvin Hamlisch got nominated for his score for The Spy Who Loved Me, and three title songs where Barry was absent (Live And Let Die, Nobody Does It Better and For Your Eyes Only) got nominated. Why was that?

BURLINGAME: This is a sore point with me. “We Have All the Time in the World” and “Diamonds Are Forever” are two of the greatest movie songs of their time, and both should have been nominated. But the reality is that the Bond films were not taken seriously as artistic achievements at the time, and neither song was a big hit (while record sales helped to drive Barry’s “Born Free” into Oscar territory, and the Bacharach-David “The Look of Love” from (1967′s) CASINO ROYALE was from a very popular, L.A.-based hitmaking team and so was an obvious choice for Oscar attention).

“Live and Let Die,” “Nobody Does It Better” and “For Your Eyes Only” went to no. 2, no. 2 and no. 4 on the American charts, respectively, and thus could not be ignored at Oscar time on the basis of their commercial success alone.

I think you could make a case that “You Only Live Twice,” “We Have All the Time in the World,” “Diamonds Are Forever,” “All Time High” and “Surrender” from TOMORROW NEVER DIES could and should have been nominated for Oscar. Maybe even “You Know My Name” from CASINO ROYALE, which has grown on me over the years. Changing Oscar rules in recent years hasn’t helped, but this year, with five nominees for Best Song assured because of a rule change, I think it’s quite likely that we may have a Bond song in contention.

HMSS: What do you think is the best Bond film score? What do you think is the most underrated?

BURLINGAME: You can’t ask a guy who spent six months listening to nothing but Bond
music to choose just one!

I love every note of both GOLDFINGER and ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE. I think FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER are terrific scores in every way. And the fact that I grew up in that era may influence my passion for the early Bond scores, when the Barry concept and sound
was so fresh and exciting. I believe THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS may be the most underrated score. There is so much original melodic and rhythmic material there, and a very contemporary sound for 1987; I feel that Barry went out on a very high note with his last Bond score. I also think there is much to admire in Arnold’s first two Bond scores, TOMORROW NEVER DIES and THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, and I think his unused song from the latter, “Only Myself to Blame” (with Don Black lyrics) ranks with “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” as another of the unsung masterpieces of Bond music.

HMSS: What do you think Thomas Newman brings to Skyfall?

BURLINGAME: I very much look forward to the SKYFALL score. Every few years there is a new voice in Bond music — this year we have two, in Adele and Thomas Newman — and it’s always a good thing to reexamine what makes Bond music work. Arnold tried to do that with each new Bond score, but I think Newman will offer a fresh musical point of view and I can’t wait to hear what he brings.

For information about ordering the book, CLICK HERE to view Amazon.com’s Web site. You can look at some pages on the Amazon site BY CLICKING HERE.

UPDATE (Sept. 28): Jon Burlingame passes on the following about “rejected” James Bond title songs:

One of the book’s appendices is a chronicle of “would-be” Bond songs. There is a widespread notion out there that these were “rejected” (Johnny Cash for THUNDERBALL, Alice Cooper for GOLDEN GUN, etc.) when in fact most were, at best, unsolicited demos that never even reached the producers, who were not in the habit of entertaining song suggestions from outsiders.

The idea that Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman were sitting round their offices listening to these and giving them serious consideration is the height of lunacy.

There really was a “cattle call” for songs for TOMORROW NEVER DIES, but that was done by the studio, not the producers, and I detail the unhappy results in the book.

The dog days of Skyfall

It’s under a month before Skyfall’s world premier and about six weeks before the 23rd James Bond movie comes out in the U.S. At this point, it’s all over but the shouting. Still, perhaps because it’s the 50th anniversary of the first 007 movie, there are few more things to be endured for the dog days of Skyfall. No. 1 example: speculation about who will perform Skyfall’s title song.

Endured? That may seem an odd phrase, but in some ways appropriate. Various Web sites have had breathless stories about how they’ve confirmed that Adele will perform Skyfall’s title song.

One of the most persistent has been a Web site called Showbiz 411, which has run multiple stories saying Adele is the title song performer. The most recent was THIS ONE which not only repeated Adele would sing it but provided what is says are lyrics from the song. Meanwhile, on Twitter, a number of proprietors of 007 fan Web sites (including OUR TWITTER FEEDhave noted nothing has been “confirmed” (a word used in most of the title song stories) because no actual announcement has happened.

Then it hit us: at this point, it doesn’t really matter. Adele do the song? “That’s nice.” Jack White is back for a second time? “That’s nice.” The cast of 2012′s The Three Stooges? “That’s nice.”

Why such a tepid response? Because it’s not really going to affect the movie. After all, the title songs of 2006′s Casino Royale, 2002′s Die Another Day, 1999′s The World Is Not Enough, 1997′s Tomorrow Never Dies, 1995′s GoldenEye, 1987′s The Living Daylights, 1983′s Octopussy, etc., etc., etc. didn’t have a massive impact on those movies.

There’s a handful of “classic” Bond title songs. For argument’s sake, let’s call Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, Live And Let Die, Nobody Does It Better and For Your Eyes Only classic title songs. And not everybody would agree on all of those. Some people, for example, will discuss why, Goldfinger, is a musically challenged song. And some Bond fans say there’s absolutely nothing redeeming about any 007 film with Roger Moore.

Meanwhile, the composer of the movie’s score (Thomas Newman in Skyfall’s case) will either enhance or detract from scenes in the movie.

In fact, TWO OF THE TOP THREE 007 movies in a vote by readers of 007 Magazine, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and From Russia With Love, didn’t have songs in their main titles (while having songs later in the film). Dr. No, the first movie, led off with The James Bond Theme, some Jamaician-sounding music courtesy of Monty Norman and a short song called “Three Blind Mice.”

But the entertainment Web sites soldier on as if the selection of a title song performer represented the second coming of Shirley Bassey or Nancy Sinatra. Still, the 50th anniversary (Oct. 5 to be precise) is more than a week away. A title song announcement would be natural for the occasion. Then again, it might be anti-climatic. Anyway, until then, the dog days of Skyfall continue.

Who were the 007 women standing with a clipboard?

Barbara Broccoli, co-boss of Eon Production, which produces 007 movies, gave an interview that generated a long story in the London Evening Standard. Many of Broccoli’s quotes have been chewed over. One passage caught our eye:

Barbara Broccoli

We can also credit Broccoli with tackling the sexism of 007. “Fortunately, the days of Bond girls standing around with a clipboard are over,” she says drily.

The writer, Liz Hoggard, doesn’t appear to have pressed Broccoli for specific examples of “clipobard” Bond girls. The Eon co-boss gives a pass in general to 007 heroines of the early movies: “Actually, when you read the early books, and watch the early films, the women were very interesting, exotic, complicated people. I always get into such an issue when I talk about these things. But they were pretty strong in their own right.” (emphasis added)

Broccoli specifically exempts Ursula Andress’s Honey Rider and Honor Blackman’s Pussy Galore. But that still begs the question — who were the “clipboard” Bond heroines?

For argument’s sake, let’s skip the first six Eon Bond films (five of which were relatively faithful adapations of Ian Fleming novels) and survey the possibilities. We’ll also skip the Casino Royale-Quantum of Solace reboot because Broccoli and her half-brother, Michael G. Wilson, remolded the franchise as they wished. Without further ado:

Tiffany Case (Jill St. John): Tiffany starts out Diamonds Are Forever as a tough, shrewd character but does engage in some slapstick before the 7th Eon 007 film ends.

Solitaire (Jane Seymour): Virginal with apparent supernatural powers (prior to having sex), Solitaire didn’t show a lot of self-defense skills.

Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland): Played mostly for laughs in The Man With The Golden Gun.

Major Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach): Top agent of the KGB, the female lead of the Spy Loved Me was the first “Bond’s equal” character.

Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles): An astronaut *and* a CIA agent. Another “Bond’s equal” character. Bond needs her to fly a Moonraker shuttle to Drax’s space station.

Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet): Young woman seeking revenge for her slain parents and carries a mean crossbow.

Octopussy (Maud Adams): Successful businesswoman and smuggler.

Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts): A professional woman (a geologist) but not always very self-aware (a noisy blimp sneaks up on her).

Kara Milovy (Maryam d’Abo):A talented musician but has a tendency to be manipulated by men.

Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell): One-time CIA agent and skilled pilot.

Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco): Russian computer programmer, Bond can’t defeat the former 006 without her help.

Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh): Ace Chinese secret agent, another “Bond’s equal” character.

Dr. Christmas Jones (Denise Richards): Another professional woman (skilled in dealing with nuclear weapons), though many fans felt casting of Richards undercut that.

Jinx Johnson (Halle Berrry): Operative for the U.S. NSA, yet another “Bond’s equal” character.

Martin Campbell’s other Casino Royale disclosure

Earlier this month, two-time 007 director Martin Campbell gave an interview to The Express newspaper in the U.K. that drew attention from Bond fans for two items: 1) Campbell describing how Daniel Craig won the role in a tight competition with Henry Cavill; 2) How Quentin Tarantino sought the screen rights to Casino Royale, Ian Fleming’s first 007 novel.

Martin Campbell, director of GoldenEye and Casino Royale.

Campbell served up a third disclosure that didn’t get as much attention. Based on the director’s comments, the 21st James Bond movie may have been a reboot even if Eon Productions hadn’t made it as Casino Royale.

The key excerpt:

“Casino Royale was not going to be the next film. They were developing another script but then, after a long battle, the Broccolis [the family behind the Bond franchise] suddenly got the film rights to the first Bond novel Casino Royale, despite Quentin Tarantino bidding against them.

“The script being developed, he says, was an original story in which James Bond isn’t the character we know today but someone younger and more screwed up. Pierce (Brosnan) was getting on for 49 or something, and clearly too old to play the younger Bond so they decided to go in a different direction.” (emphasis added)

If the director’s memory is accurate (and he was accurately quoted), producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli were going to do a reboot no matter what, featuring Bond at the start of his career. Bond wasn’t a rookie agent in Fleming’s Casino Royale. The novel was set in 1951 (according to 1959′s Goldfinger, when Bond encounters a minor character from the first novel) and Bond had been involved in intelligence work in one for or another since World War II. One of the two kills that got him 00 status was a Japanese cypher expert in New York.

Michael G. Wilson, working with Richard Maibaum, had pursued an “origin of Bond” story for the movie that ultimately become 1987′s The Living Daylights. Then-Eon boss Albert R. Broccoli vetoed the idea, according to the Inside The Living Daylights documentary on the film’s DVD. Campbell’s recent comment raises the possibility that Wilson dusted off the concept almost 20 years later and it got folded into the plot of the film Casino Royale.

Still, Campbell (who also directed 1995′s GoldenEye) was only one of the participants involved and thus his comments are only one piece of what happened. Perhaps there’s yet more of the story to be told. Meanwhile, you can CLICK HERE
to view a timeline put together by the MI6 James Bond fan Web site of Quentin Tarantino’s attempt to film Casino Royale.