Some unanswered questions about an U.N.C.L.E. movie

Tom Cruise

Talk about a movie version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. isn’t going away. If anything, there are signs this project is, at the very least, inching ahead. So, naturally, there are questions begging to be asked, even if the answers aren’t forthcoming.

Is this thing actually going to happen? One sign the answer is yes was the news that a female lead may be cast. According to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, an actress has emerged as the female lead. An excerpt:

Rising Swedish actress Alicia Vikander is in negotiations for the female lead opposite Tom Cruise and Armie Hammer in Warner Bros.’ Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie.

(snip)

Vikander will play a British agent who has a thing for cars. The character did not appear in the TV series nor the short-lived spinoff, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., and is a new creation.

Why is that significant? Because during the long soap opera about a possible U.N.C.L.E. movie two years ago, when Steven Soderbergh was hired to direct, there was a lot of trouble casting the leads. For the past couple of months, reports from a variety of outlets have been consistently saying Cruise and Hammer would be the leads. During the Soderbergh project, you never heard about other parts.

Will this project use the Scott Z. Burns script that Soderbergh’s project was based on? Or is it another story entirely? That is one of the biggest of the unanswered questions. Burns’s script was a 1960s period piece that had some common elements to the 1965 007 film Thunderball.

Any red flags? A few. Warner Bros. hasn’t made an official announcement, though often lots of things leak out before a movie is announced. Meanwhile, Cruise is 50 (and turns 51 on July 3) and Vikander is 24 (turning 25 in October). May-December pairings can work. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were a quarter-century apart while Gary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn were 28 years apart, to cite two examples. But will it work in U.N.C.L.E. or just lead to some sarcastic humor among fans?

A natural speculation among fans is that Cruise’s Napoleon Solo (presuming he does play Solo and not a new character) will intentionally be older than the Solo of the show. Robert Vaughn, the original Solo, turned 31 while filming the U.N.C.L.E. pilot. He was 50, the same age Cruise is now, when he played Solo in the 1983 television movie, The Return of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

If it gets made, when would this movie come out? Cruise seems to have a lot on his plate, including A FIFTH MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE MOVIE. Even a workaholic like Cruise can squeeze so many projects in a year’s time. It would seem to be 2014 at the earliest, perhaps even 2015 or 2016.

EARLIER POST: The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: the long and the short and the tall

Ian Fleming’s gift to copy editors

The gift that keeps on giving

For copy editors, From Russia, With Love, the title of Ian Fleming’s fifth James Bond novel, is the gift that keeps on giving.

Since the 1957 publication of the book, and its 1963 movie adaptation, From Russia, With Love (with or without comma) has proven irresistible to those who edit copy, lay out pages and write the headlines that accompany stories. Tools of the copy editor’s trade include puns and movie and books titles. They’re ways to grab the attention of readers, to entice the audience to invest their precious time.

As a result, anytime a story concerns anything Russian, copy editors have been known to channel their inner Ian Fleming. A few examples:

– Sports Illustrated, May 6, 2013 issue: The NHL Playoff review includes a feature story about Alex Ovechkin, the Russian-born star of the Washington Capitals professional hockey team. The headline? From Russia With Love.

– The New York Times, MARCH 30, 2003: The paper carries a ballet review written from St. Petersburg, Russia. The headline? From Russia With Love.

– The New York Times, July 4, 2004: The paper carries A TWO-PARAGRAPH LETTER TO THE EDITOR complaining about a monument on the Jersey City waterfront. The headline? From Russia With Love: A Teardrop Memorial.

– The Washington Post, July 27, 2008: The paper has a story about NASTIA LIUKIN, A RUSSIAN-BORN GYMNAST COMPETING FOR THE U.S. The headline? From Russia With Love.

– The Washington Post, Jan. 20, 2006: The paper has a story about “resplendent Siberian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky” performing in Washington. The headline? From Russia With Love and Patriotism.

– Time magazine, Dec. 6, 2010: The publication has a story about a scandal involving a Russian-born aide to a member of Parliament. The headline? From Russia With Love: Could a British Aide Have Been a Spy? Double bonus: it carries a publicity still of Daniel Craig from Casino Royale.

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.

Armie Hammer may join U.N.C.L.E. film, Deadline says

Armie Hammer

Armie Hammer may join the cast of a movie version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and play Illya Kuryakin, according to A STORY on the Deadline Hollywood Web site.

An excerpt from the story:

EXCLUSIVE: Armie Hammer, who plays the title character opposite Johnny Depp in the Gore Verbinski-directed The Lone Ranger for Disney, is set to star with Tom Cruise in The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the remake of the classic TV series that Guy Ritchie will direct for Warner Bros.

(snip)

Hammer would play a version of the role originated by (David) McCallum, an NCIS regular who strangely doesn’t seemed to have aged since the ’60s.

This story raises a few questions. Deadline’s PREVIOUS STORY on the subject said Tom Cruise was in talks but made it sound like nothing had been settled. The new story almost makes it sound like it’s a done deal. Is it? Or are there some more twists in store?

Also, Deadline has never said if Cruise, should he join the project, play Napoleon Solo, the character played by Robert Vaughn in the original television series. The character was co-created by Norman Felton and Ian Fleming with the rest of the series, including the U.N.C.L.E. organization and the Kuryakin character, devised by Sam Rolfe.

What if Fleming hadn’t exited U.N.C.L.E.?

The cast of Checkmate

We’re coming up on the 50th anniversary of Ian Fleming crying U.N.C.L.E. and opting to end his participation in the television series that would become The Man From U.N.C.L.E. But would have happened if he had stuck around?

It might have been similar to Checkmate, a 1960-62 crime drama on CBS.

Checkmate featured two dashing private detectives (Anthony George and Doug McClure), aided by an academic (Sebastian Cabot). Two things stood out about the show: it was produced by a production company owned by Jack Benny and it was billed as having been created by novelist Eric Ambler (1909-1998), a contemporary of Ian Fleming. In fact, in the novel From Russia, With Love, Fleming’s James Bond has an Ambler novel with him on his journey to Istanbul. Amber in 1958 also married Joan Harrison, an associate of Alfred Hitchcock, who oversaw production of the director’s television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

According to IMDB.com, Ambler never wrote an episode of Checkmate. According to the IMDB.com information, he sometimes got a creator credit and sometimes didn’t during the two seasons of the show. (From a few episodes we’ve seen, the “Created by Eric Ambler” credit appears in the main titles during the first season and shows up in the end titles in the second.)

Ambler’s participation (or lack of it) in Checkmate mirrors what was shaping up with the television project originally named Solo: it was originally to have billed Ian Fleming’s Solo, but the heavy lifting of devising a pilot episode story was done by writer Sam Rolfe. Once Fleming signed away his U.N.C.L.E. rights for 1 British pound, Rolfe still only got a “developed by” credit instead of a “created by” credit for the 1964-68 series.

Based on a sampling of episodes, Checkmate is entertaining. One episode (The Human Touch) featured Peter Lorre as the villain. Also, the series, including its theme music, was an early credit for composer John Williams (who called himself Johnny Williams at the time). Still, Ambler didn’t do the heavy lifting in terms of coming up with stories. That was left to others.

As a result, we suspect had The Man From U.N.C.L.E. come out as Ian Fleming’s Solo, the author would have been a kind of front man (even if he had lived past August 1964) while executive producer Norman Felton, Rolfe (who produced the show’s first season) and others done most of the work of devising story lines.

Anyway, (as long as YouTube doesn’t yank it) you can check out The Human Touch episode of Checkmate for yourself:

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.

RE-POST: Happy 60th anniversary, Mr. Bond

Casino Royale’s original cover

Originally posted April 1. Reposted for the actual anniversary.

Sixty years ago, readers sampled the start of a novel by a new author. “The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning,” it began. The world hasn’t been quite the same since.

The novel, of course, was Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, published April 13, 1953. About 5,000 copies of its first edition were printed and it sold out quickly. Fleming combined the skills and experiences of two lives: his work as an intelligence officer during World War II and his experience as a journalist in spotting the right, and telling detail.

Casino Royale was a short novel. But it had an impact on readers. The story’s hero, British secret agent James Bond, first loses and then wins a high-stake game of cards with Le Chiffre, the story’s villain. Later, Bond is helpless, the victim of torture by Le Chiffre. But before Le Chiffre can finish the torture, he is dispatched by an operative of Smersh for being “a fool and a thief a traitor.” The Smersh operative has no orders to kill Bond, so he doesn’t. But he carves up the back of Bond’s right hand. “It would be well that should be known as a spy,” the killer says.

What seems to be novel’s climax happens less than three-quarters of the way through the story. But the new author had some other ideas to keep readers turning the pages until the real resolution. Bond is betrayed Vesper, a woman he had fallen deeply in love with. She commits suicide by taking a bottle of sleeping pills.

Bond, after all this, doesn’t collapse. He emerges more resolute, determined to “attack the arm that held the whip and the gun…He would go after the threat behind the spies, the threat that made them spy.”

Writer Jeremy Duns in an essay PUBLISHED IN 2005 argued “there’s a strong case to be made for it being the first great spy thriller of the Cold War.” Toward the end of his article, Duns writes, “Before Casino Royale, the hero always saved the damsel in distress moments before she was brutally ravaged and tortured by the villain; Fleming gave us a story in which nobody is saved, and it is the hero who is abused, drawn there by the damsel.”

For Fleming, Casino Royle was just the start. More novels and short stories followed. He lived to see two of his novels, Dr. No and From Russia With Love, turned into movies in 1962 and 1963 (following a CBS adaptation of Casino Royale in 1954). The author visited the set of the third film, Goldfinger, but died in August 1964, just before 007 became a phenomenon, spurring a spy craze.

Six decades later, the 23 movies of the Eon Production series (plus a couple of non-Eon films) are what most people think of when the name James Bond is mentioned. 2012′s Skyfall had worldwide ticket sales of $1.1 billion.

Oh, the Fleming books remain in print. Ian Fleming Publication hires a continuation novel author now and then (William Boyd, the latest continuation author, is scheduled to disclose his novel’s title on April 15). Periodically, there’s a new book about some aspect about the film series.

Fans can fuss and debate about Bond (and do all the time). But there is one certainty: without Casino Royale’s publication six decades ago, none of that would be possible.

UPDATE: Other 007 blogs and bloggers are noting the anniversary today, including THE JAMES BOND DOSSIER, BOND BLOG, MARK O’CONNELL, JAMES BOND BRASIL, FROM SWEDEN WITH LOVE and THE BOOK BOND You can also read an article in the Express newspaper by CLICKING HERE.

Finally, Spy Vibe, part of the COBRAS group of blogs, has a post including a graphic of various Casino Royale covers. You can check it out by CLICKING HERE.

RE-POST: Univesity of Illinois kicks off 007 celebration

Casino Royale’s original cover

Originally posted March 17. Re-posted ahead of events scheduled April 12 and 13 at the University of Illinois.

We’ve written before about how the University of Illinois will have exhibits related to the 60th anniversary of the Casino Royale novel. Here’s a list of events in April that will kick off that celebration.

3 p.m. central time, April 12: Michael VanBlaricum, co-founder of the Ian Fleming Foundation, delivers a talk about items on display and how his collection of Ian Fleming novels evolved. Location: Room 66 Library, 1408 West Gregory Drive, Urbana, Illinois.

7 p.m., April 13: Concert featuring music from James Bond films by the University of Illinois concert jazz band. Location: Spurlock Museaum Knight Auditorium, 600 South Gregory, Urbana, Illinois.

April 26-28: James Bond film festival. Besides movies being shown, there will be discussions about the films. Those talks will be led by John Cork, who made a series of documentaries about the making of the 007 films that are on DVDs as extras. Schedule of films and activities will be available at http://www.spurlock.illinois.edu (you can also try THIS LINK; no titles or times are listed yet). Location: 600 South Gregory, Urbana, Illinois.

The university is at Urbana-Champaign, in the east-central part of Illinois near where I-57 and I-74 intersect. You can view a map of the University of Illinois campus by CLICKING HERE.

If you want to go the April 12-14 weekend, expect to stay well outside the Urbana-Champaign area. There are other university events that weekend and hotels are booked.

Happy 60th anniversary, Mr. Bond

Casino Royale’s original cover

Sixty years ago, readers sampled the start of a novel by a new author. “The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning,” it began. The world hasn’t been quite the same since.

The novel, of course, was Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, published April 13, 1953. About 5,000 copies of its first edition were printed and it sold out quickly. Fleming combined the skills and experiences of two lives: his work as an intelligence officer during World War II and his experience as a journalist in spotting the right, and telling detail.

Casino Royale was a short novel. But it had an impact on readers. The story’s hero, British secret agent James Bond, first loses and then wins a high-stake game of cards with Le Chiffre, the story’s villain. Later, Bond is helpless, the victim of torture by Le Chiffre. But before Le Chiffre can finish the torture, he is dispatched by an operative of Smersh for being “a fool and a thief a traitor.” The Smersh operative has no orders to kill Bond, so he doesn’t. But he carves up the back of Bond’s right hand. “It would be well that should be known as a spy,” the killer says.

What seems to be novel’s climax happens less than three-quarters of the way through the story. But the new author had some other ideas to keep readers turning the pages until the real resolution. Bond is betrayed Vesper, a woman he had fallen deeply in love with. She commits suicide by taking a bottle of sleeping pills.

Bond, after all this, doesn’t collapse. He emerges more resolute, determined to “attack the arm that held the whip and the gun…He would go after the threat behind the spies, the threat that made them spy.”

Writer Jeremy Duns in an essay PUBLISHED IN 2005 argued “there’s a strong case to be made for it being the first great spy thriller of the Cold War.” Toward the end of his article, Duns writes, “Before Casino Royale, the hero always saved the damsel in distress moments before she was brutally ravaged and tortured by the villain; Fleming gave us a story in which nobody is saved, and it is the hero who is abused, drawn there by the damsel.”

For Fleming, Casino Royle was just the start. More novels and short stories followed. He lived to see two of his novels, Dr. No and From Russia With Love, turned into movies in 1962 and 1963 (following a CBS adaptation of Casino Royale in 1954). The author visited the set of the third film, Goldfinger, but died in August 1964, just before 007 became a phenomenon, spurring a spy craze.

Six decades later, the 23 movies of the Eon Production series (plus a couple of non-Eon films) are what most people think of when the name James Bond is mentioned. 2012′s Skyfall had worldwide ticket sales of $1.1 billion.

Oh, the Fleming books remain in print. Ian Fleming Publication hires a continuation novel author now and then. Periodically, there’s a new book about some aspect about the film series.

Fans can fuss and debate about Bond (and do all the time). But there is one certainty: without Casino Royale’s publication six decades ago, none of that would be possible.

EARLIER POST: CLICK HERE to read a March 17 post about events at the University of Illinois to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the publication of Casino Royale.