IFP says Bond story alterations in line with Fleming’s wishes

Ian Fleming, drawn by Mort Drucker, from the collection of the late John Griswold.

Ian Fleming Publications, in a statement issued Feb. 27, said alterations in new editions of the author’s stories are “something Ian Fleming would have wanted.”

IFP specifically said changes to Live And Let Die, the second Bond novel, were in line with changes made in the original 1950s U.S. edition.

“We consulted with a number of external parties but ultimately decided that, rather than making changes in line with their advice, it was instead most appropriate to look for guidance from the author himself,” IFP said.

Live And Let Die, featuring a Black villain with part of the story taking place in New York City’s Harlem, has various racial issues. The title of chapter five in the original British edition contains the n-word. It was changed to “Seventh Avenue” in the U.S. edition.

“The original U.S. version of Live And Let Die, approved and apparently favored by Ian, had removed some racial terms which were problematic even in mid-1950s America, and would certainly be considered deeply offensive now by the vast majority of readers,” IFP said.

IFP said it would apply similar standards to other Fleming stories.

“We thus decided to apply the sensibilities of the original U.S. edition of Live And Let Die consistently across all the texts,” IFP said. Racial words “likely to cause great offense now, and detract from a reader’s enjoyment, have been altered, while keeping as close as possible to the original text and period.”

IFP said changes are “very small in number.” Some books, including Casino Royale, Fleming’s first novel, have not been changed.

IFP has taken over the publishing of Fleming novels and short stories. New e-books are out now and new paperbacks are to be issued in April for the 70th anniversary of the publication of Casino Royale.

Fleming’s “books deserve to be read and enjoyed as much now as when they were written,” IFP said. “We believe the new Bond editions will extend their pleasure to new audiences.”

UPDATE: Andrew Lycett, a biographer of Ian Fleming, weighed in via a commentary in The Independent.

“I feel strongly that what an author commits to paper is sacrosanct and shouldn’t be altered,” Lycett wrote. “It stands as evidence of that writer’s – and society’s – attitudes at a particular moment in time, whether it’s by Shakespeare, Dickens, or Ian Fleming.

“But there’s no way Bond’s character in the Fleming books can be modified to make him politically correct. Fleming created a sexist, often sadistic, killer, with anachronistic attitudes to homosexuals, and to a range of people of different nationalities. These stand as evidence of how Britons (or at least some of them) thought at a particular moment in time.”

Bond stories being edited for racial issues, Telegraph says

Cover to a U.S. paperback edition of Live And Let Die

Some Ian Fleming novels and short stories are being edited and altered to address racial issues, The Telegraph reported.

According to The Telegraph, Ian Fleming Publications “commissioned a review by sensitivity readers of the classic texts under its control.”

Many of the examples cited by The Telegraph concern Live And Let Die, Fleming’s second novel, which has sequences set in New York City.

An excerpt from The Telegraph article:

In the sensitivity reader-approved version of Live and Let Die, Bond’s assessment that would-be African criminals in the gold and diamond trades are “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought, except when they’ve drunk too much” becomes – “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought.”

Another altered scene features Bond visiting Harlem in New York, where a salacious strip tease at a nightclub makes the male crowd, including 007, increasingly agitated.

The Telegraph said other changes are being made:

The ethnicity of a barman in Thunderball is similarly omitted in new editions. In Quantum of Solace, a butler’s race now also goes unmentioned.

This all comes after The Guardian reported, some of author Roald Dahl’s children’s books have been changed “to remove language deemed offensive by the publisher Puffin.” (Dahl was also a screenwriter on the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice.)

“Puffin has hired sensitivity readers to rewrite chunks of the author’s text to make sure the books “can continue to be enjoyed by all today”, resulting in extensive changes across Dahl’s work,” the Guardian said.

Various forms of entertainment have dealt with related issues for decades. In the 1990s, a cable TV version of a Bugs Bunny cartoon abruptly lopped off the end where Bugs, Elmer Fudd, and various Canadian mounties did a song in blackface.

Today, on TV and streaming services, there are disclaimers/warnings that appear ahead of a film.

Reminder: Eon said Bond films wouldn’t come out as often

Eon Productions logo

Consider this an epilogue to the recent buzz about Bond 26 and the lack of news. Go back into events of the past decade (and longer) and you’ll see that Eon Productions signaled James Bond films wouldn’t be out as often.

Eon boss Barbara Broccoli said the following in a November 2012 interview with the Los Angeles Times:

“Sometimes there are external pressures from a studio who want you to make it in a certain time frame or for their own benefit, and sometimes we’ve given into that,” Broccoli said. “But following what we hope will be a tremendous success with ‘Skyfall,’ we have to try to keep the deadlines within our own time limits and not cave in to external pressures.”

Context: While 2006’s Casino Royale was wrapping up, Sony Pictures (which released Bond films at the time) announced that Bond 22 (the eventual Quantum of Solace) would be released on May 2, 2008. That would be less than two years after the release of Casino Royale. (Sony used to have the release online but it has been yanked from the company’s website.)

Eventually, Quantum of Solace would be pushed back to the fall of 2008. Even so, there was a lot of tension to meet the fall 2008 date, including a Writer’s Guild strike.

To be sure, in the 2012 LA Times interview, Broccoli didn’t provide details about giving into studio pressure. But given what happened between 2006 and 2012, it’s not a big leap to conclude the Quantum of Solace experience was an influence.

Undoubtedly, in the 2020s, there are more considerations in play with Bond 26. But it’s always useful to review the record of past events.

Ying and the yang about entertainment

Image for the official James Bond feed on Twitter

The past few weeks have demonstrated the yin and the yang about entertainment.

The pro-artist side:

–Actors owe fans only their best performance,

–When it comes to Bond films, the Bond producers don’t owe anything to fans. Fans can accept what the producers come out with or no.

The pro-fan slide:

— Without fans, nothing much else happens.

Regardless, the entire enterprise is complicated. There are (potentially) millions of dollars at risk.

Still, producers are as subject to fan reviews as actors. When you get into “the arena,” your efforts” are subject to fan reviews and comments.

It has been like this since the earliest days of movies and more recently with TV shows. Audience reactions for both movies and TV shows have had an impact for decades.

Broccoli seeks to cool down Bond 26 speculation

Barbara Broccoli, boss of Eon Productions

Barbara Broccoli, the boss of Eon Productions, has again tried to cool down temperatures related to Bond 26.

Last week, the LAD Bible website carried some comments from Broccoli that Bond 26 isn’t that far along.

“No, we haven’t even started casting yet,” she said. “There isn’t even a script.”

In past months, there have been stories from British tabloids such as The Sun that Eon has gotten hot and bothered about Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Eon’s Bond No. 007 to succeed Daniel Craig.

Some Bond fans have bitten on such reports. They figure there’s something behind such smoke.

Over the past year (or longer), there’s a notion that Eon is coming up with a long-range plan.

IF that’s true, that would be a change.

During the Daniel Craig era (2006-2021), Eon said Skyfall (2012) had nothing to do with Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008).

But, with 2015’s SPECTRE was suddenly talked about part of an extended storyline (especially after Eon regained the rights to the character of Ernst Stavro Blofeld). That was extended with No Time to Die.

Eon *never* envisioned a five-part arc. But, as the movies unfolded, the talking points changed.

Now, we’re told that Eon is trying to come up with an extended plan for a post-Craig era. Maybe yes, maybe no.

But, as the saying goes, when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

A Hawaii Five-O scribe dies

Hawaii Five-O logo in the main title

Robert Janes, who wrote several of the late episodes of Hawaii Five-O, has died at age 82, according to the Writer’s Guild of America website.

Janes’ association with the series began with the first episode of the 1977-78 season, Up the Rebels. That would be the final acting credit for actor Stephen Boyd. Boyd played an Irish terrorist who disguised himself as a priest.

Janes would be one of the main writers for Five-O’s 10th and 11th seasons. That included the final episode of season 10, when long-time character Chin Ho Kelly was killed off in A Death in the Family. Janes also penned a two-part story in the 11th season concerning an organized crime fight for control of Hawaii’s disco industry.

Janes also wrote a two-hour episode, A Lion in the Streets, that led off Five-O’s final season.

Janes died Feb. 1, according to the WGA website.

A generation confronts its mortality

Dean Martin as Matt Helm with Stella Stevens in The Silencers.

The Baby Boomer generation is confronting its own mortality.

Just this month, the obituary pages included entries for Burt Bacharach, Raquel Welch, Stella Stevens and Gerald Fried. As this is being written, former President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) has entered hospice care.

The Boomers, roughly born from 1946-1964, have already seen many of their icons pass away. But in February 2023, the toll has come fast and heavy.

The post-World War II generation caused many disruptions: A surge of children after World War II disrupted public schools. A generation that had an impact with protests during the Vietnam War. Etc., etc.

The broader social issues associated with the Boomers can’t be examined in detail here. Nevertheless, the Boomer impact was felt in a serious way in the 1960s and ’70s. That impact still is felt a half-century after the Boomer peak.

Things move on. Boomers are moving to the long goodnight. The Spycraze was driven by Boomers. We probably won’t see anything quite like the Spycraze.

That’s how life works.

Gerald Fried, Emmy-winning composer, dies

Gerald Fried

Gerald Fried, an Emmy-winning composer who had a big impact on spy television series, has died at 95. His death was announced on Twitter by Trek Long Island, a Star Trek convention organization.

Fried won an Emmy for the 1977 miniseries Roots, based on the book by Alex Haley. It was an enormous popular and critical hit, and Fried was a major contributor.

However, Fried was incredibly versatile. He could score slapstick comedy (the Sherwood Schwartz-produced comedies Gilligan’s Island and It’s About Time) as well as serious science fiction and adventure (Star Trek).

The composer frequently won assignments to score spy TV shows. Among them: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (starting in the second season into the early part of the fourth)  as well as Mission: Impossible.

With U.N.C.L.E., Fried became the show’s go-to composer. His first effort, the two-part Alexander the Greater Affair, was extremely energetic. Fried carried the composing burden for the show’s second and third seasons. That included providing the third-season arrangement of Jerry Goldsmith’s U.N.C.L.E. theme.

Fried said in a 2003 interview for the Archive of American Television that U.N.C.L.E. was a challenge.

“They didn’t have much money for an orchestra budget,” Fried said. “Sometimes you had to do an hour TV show with like six or seven musicians.” His solution was “using a lot of percussion” to generate a “full sound” for the audience.

In the show’s campy third season, Fried did a score for one episode (The Hot Number Affair with Sonny and Cher as guest stars) where the music was played by kazoos. He was asked about it in the Archive of American television interview and lit up. “You remembered,” he told the interviewer.

Gerald Fred’s title card for Part Two, Alexander the Greater Affair

Things took an abrupt turn in the fourth season. The new producer, Anthony Spinner, opted for a more serious tone.

Fried produced another arrangement of the theme but it was rejected. A Fried score for The Deadly Quest Affair also was rejected. He scored one more episode, The Test Tube Killer Affair, which sounded more serious than most of his third-season efforts.

Regardless, Fried ended up doing one more U.N.C.L.E. score for the 1983 television movie, The Return of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Fried also scored the Star Trek episode Amok Time, which involves a Vulcan mating ritual. Things get complicated and Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock get into a battle to the death.

Fried’s music was so memorable that others referenced it over the years, including the Jim Carrey film The Cable Guy. Carrey would actually “sing” Fried’s music.

Fried’s IMDB.COM ENTRY lists more than 100 composing credits, going back to the 1950s.

The composer’s break came with scoring a 1951 short documentary directed by Stanley Kubrick, Day of the Fight. It showed a day in the life of a boxer. Fried scored other Kubrick films including The Killing and Paths of Glory.

In the Archive of American Television interview, Fried recalled how he met Kubrick. According to the composer, the director said Fried was the only musician that Kubrick knew.

In their early collaborations, Kubrick deferred to Fried on music. As they worked more often, Kubrick asserted more control. Eventually, Fried said, there were “knockdown battles.” With Paths of Glory, “I had to justify every note.”

In 2014, Fried was one of the guests at The Golden Anniversary Affair, a fan event for the 50th anniversary of U.N.C.L.E. Fried was among those who watched musicians perform music from the series, including some of Fried’s compositions.

Stella Stevens dies at 84

Matt Helm and Gail Hendricks (Dean Martin and Stella Stevens) in Matt’s Mercury station wagon equipped with a bar.

Stella Stevens, a versatile actress whose many credits included the first Matt Helm movie, has died at 84, according to Variety.

Variety cited actor Andrew Stevens, son of Stella Stevens. Andrew Stevens said his mother was suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease.

The Silencers (1966) was the start of the Matt Helm film series. The movies were based on serious novels by author Donald Hamilton.

Producer Irving Allen, Albert R. Broccoli’s one-time partner, turned the Helm stories into comedies. Allen made star Dean Martin into a partner for the Helm films. As a result, Dino made more money than Sean Connery got for Bond films such as Thunderball.

Stella Stevens’ IMDB.COM ENTRY lists more than 100 acting credits, including the likes of The Poseidon Adventure, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, and The Nutty Professor

New e-book versions of Fleming stories released in U.K.

New digital versions of Ian Fleming books and short stories have been released in the U.K., according to Ian Fleming Publications. The release includes the non-fiction titles, Thrilling Cities and The Diamond Smugglers.

The release occurred on the 71st anniversary of when Fleming, while in Jamaica, began working on Casino Royale, the first James Bond novel.

CLICK HERE to see an Amazon listing of the e-books.

Footnote: Thrilling Cities was actually the catalyst for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Television producer Norman Felton was approached about whether Thrilling Cities could be turned into a TV show. That led to an October 1962 meeting between Felton and Fleming about a possible TV show. Some Bond and U.N.C.L.E. fans do their best to forget that.