James Bond, the Doctor Who fan

Thunderball poster in 1965

As it turns out, James Bond was a bit of a Doctor Who fan.

The Writing Bond feed on Twitter (@BondWriting) posted a Sept. 19 tweet with an image from the script of Thunderball dated Jan. 19, 1965.

The image is from the scene where Bond (Sean Connery) returns to MI6 and goes to M’s office. Moneypenny tells Bond that M isn’t in the office and that every 00-agent in Europe has been rushed in and are in the conference room.

In this version of the script, Bond replies: “The Daleks have taken over!”

The Daleks (per Wikipedia) are ” a fictional extraterrestrial race of mutants principally portrayed in the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. The Daleks were conceived by science-fiction writer Terry Nation and first appeared in the 1963 Doctor Who serial The Daleks, in the shells designed by Raymond Cusick.”

Admittedly, this slipped by me at the time I first read the script years ago. So I consulted my copy of the 1965 Thunderball script.

On that copy, the Bond-Moneypenny exchange is dated March 3, 1965. But the Daleks line from Bond is still there.

In the final film, Connery’s line appears to be dubbed and becomes, “Somebody’s probably lost a dog!” Look around the 0:14 mark of the clip below.

The Thunderball script is credited to American writer Richard Maibaum and English writer John Hopkins. My guess (and it’s only that) is that Hopkins supplied the Dalek reference.