Financial behind the scenes of Dr. No, Part III

Terence Young

Adapted from a 2016 post.

Film Finances Inc. had agreed to provide a “completion bond” for Dr. No and supply contingency funding to ensure the first James Bond film would be finished.

However, because of continuing cost overruns, Film Finances under its agreement with Eon Productions and United Artists, exercised its right to take over responsibility for the production as it began post production.

According to the 2011 book, A Bond for Bond, published by Film Finances, such an option was supposed to be a last resort. In 1962, Film Finances would end up doing it three times on United Artists movies, including Tom Jones, another film plagued by overruns.

Dr. No producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman and director Terence Young would retain responsibility for creative decisions. Film Finances, however, now controlled the purse strings, author Charles Drazin wrote. The book reproduces documents in the archives of Film Finances.

Post-production included some additional film shooting to complete the movie, including shots of Bond (Sean Connery) in a shaft in Dr. No.’s headquarters, the agent laying on his hotel bed when a tarantula arrives and two men exiting a hatch from the “dragon” that patrolled Crab Key.

Originally, these shots were to be performed over two days. With Film Finances now in control, they were done in a single day, April 26, 1962.

Other matters needed to be resolved. There had been 7,000 pounds (almost $20,000 at an exchange rate of $2.80 to the pound) in cost overruns for sets — overages that production designer Ken Adam had anticipated and informed Saltzman about.

Film Finances agreed not to force repayment of the set overruns. In return, Danjaq SA, the holding company for Eon Productions, agreed on April 10, 1962 to grant 5 percent of Dr. No’s profits to Film Finances.

However, Danjaq had the option to buy back Film Finances’ profit participation for the sum of the 7,000 pounds (for the set overruns) plus an additional 2,500 pounds after Film Finances recovered all money advanced to finance the production. Danjaq ended up exercising the option, Drazin wrote. A copy of the agreement is on page 94 of the book.

Another issue was Terence Young’s compensation. The director had agreed to defer as much as 10,000 of his 15,000 pound fee. More than 8,600 pounds was to be withheld from Young until it “had been earned back at the box office,” Drazin wrote. (page 85)

This didn’t  make Young happy.

“But I do feel, and I feel this most strongly, that Film Finances have behaved very shabbily to put it mildly,” the director wrote in a letter to his lawyer (pages 95-98).

“When I got back from Jamaica, I expected to get a medal for what I had accomplished,” Young wrote. “I have never in my life worked so hard, I have never on any location film had to put up with so many difficulties, and at the end I got no thanks whatsoever but was told Cubby and Harry made a mistake in ever taking me.”

On page 99 and 100, there’s a copy of a memo by Film Finances executive Robert Garrett about Young.

“I do not dispute that Terence Young probably worked very hard on location, but I do suggest he is a director who seems quite incapable of ever making compromises when things do not go smoothly.”

In the end, Dr. No’s final budget was more than 392,022 pounds (almost $1.1 million), according to a copy dated Jan. 11, 1963 filed by associate producer Stanley Sopel to Film Finances (pages 103-106). The sources of the money were 322,069 pounds from a Bank of America loan (the budget before overruns), 10, 063 pounds from United Artists and 59,890 pounds from Film Finances.

Film Finances, in a letter to Eon dated Jan. 21, 1964, said as of Dec. 31, 1963, it had been paid back with interest. From that point forward, author Drazin wrote, Eon would not utilize Film Finances’ services for Bond films.

 Thanks to Gary J. Firuta for loaning the blog his copy of A Bond for Bond.

Financial behind the scenes of Dr. No Part II

Jack Lord, Ursula Andress and Sean Connery relaxing on the Dr. No set

Adapted from a 2016 post.

The first day of filming on Dr. No had a bad omen.

Principal photography began Jan. 16, 1962 at the Kingston, Jamaica, airport. Jack Lord, playing CIA agent Felix Leiter, had been scheduled to arrive Jan. 14 and report for work at 8:30 a.m., Jan. 16.

Because of travel complications, Lord couldn’t get to Kingston until 12:20 p.m. on Jan. 16 and didn’t arrive on the set until 2:45 p.m. Sean Connery, playing Bond, and John Kitzmiller, playing Quarrel, had arrived at 8:30 a.m.

“Because of the sun angle, we lost his first shots,” production manager L.C. Rudkin wrote on a unit progress report on Jan. 16, referring to Lord. The Dr. No crew would have to return to the airport the following day, putting the production of the first James Bond film one-half day behind schedule on its very first day.

That report is one of the various documents in the 2011 book A Bond for Bond, describing the travails of Dr. No’s production. The book, by Charles Drazin, focuses on the contributions of Film Finances Inc., the company that provided the “completion bond,” ensuring the movie would be finished.

Nor was that the only delay the Dr. No unit would see.

Day 4: “Bad light and generator breakdown,” according to a summary of location shooting after principal photography concluded. “Nearly day lost yet we shot -” Day 6: “Rough seas made abandonment necessary. Had to move over to location 15 miles.” Day 17: “Rough seas and two locations with retakes.” Day 20: “Rained nearly all day – shot in rain.” Day 24: “Whole beach had to be rebuilt because of hurricane in night, yet we shot.” Day 25: The “dragon” broke down and a safety winch also broke down, causing another half-day delay.

By the end of location shooting, according to this summary, 10 to 12 days of work had been lost and two sequences (“Interior Hotel Foyer” and the interior of Playdell-Smith’s office) would have to be filmed when the production moved to Pinewood Studios in England.

The report also contained this passage: “It is questionable if any other major film, with a similar budget, had ever accomplished the feat of shooting on 22 major different sets in 23 days. This practically Television or ‘B’ picture scheduling, but on this film it was necessary, and had to be done.”

Trouble was also brewing at Pinewood. Production designer Ken Adam had written a letter to Film Finances that the budget for sets was adequate. It wasn’t.

In a Feb. 1, 1962, letter to co-producer Harry Saltzman, and cc’d to his partner Albert R. Broccoli, Adam said set construction, props and set dressing would be more than budgeted. “This is merely a note to make quite certain you have realised this,” Adam wrote Saltzman.

On Feb. 18, Saltzman wrote Film Finances executive Robert Garrett to reassure him about cost overruns — which were exceeding the financing for contingencies that Garrett’s company had provided.

“I must say that (director) Terence Young has behaved tremendously well, despite all our misgivings and I honestly must say that none of the hold-ups have been due to his proclivity from procrastination,” Saltzman wrote. At the same time, the producer wrote that Young still has a “grande seigneur” lifestyle. “He has spent money personally like water.”

Saltzman added, “In spite of all the ulcer-making frustrating situations and the invasion of a good part of our contingency fund, the stuff we have shot here is tremendously impressive and I think well worth our troubles.”

Garrett wasn’t reassured. In a March 16, 1962 letter to Saltzman, the executive outlined budget overruns for publicity, music, studio rentals, insurance and other expenses and said it appeared the pace of production had slowed during filming at Pinewood.

“I must ask you and Cubby to take all possible measures of economy and above all, to see that the schedule position does not deteriorate further,” Garrett wrote. “From the progress to date in the studio we had the impression Terence Young has lost his earlier sense of urgency.”

According to author Draznin, Dr. No had exceeded its budget by 57,027 pounds (almost $160,000) for the week ending March 23, 1962. Principal photography finally ended April 3. By that time, Film Finances took an action it normally considered a last resort.

Thanks to Gary J. Firuta for loaning the blog his copy of A Bond for Bond.

NEXT: Film Finances takes control of Dr. No.

Financial behind the scenes of Dr. No Part I

Dr. No poster

Adapted from a 2016 post.

Squabbles over money, production delays and the exchange of terse words.

SPECTRE, the 24th James Bond film? Or No Time to Die, the 25th?

No. Dr. No, the first.

In 2011, Film Finances Inc., which specializes in “completion bonds” that ensure movies get finished, published A Bond for Bond. The book presented the company’s history with Dr. No, including reproducing memos and production budgets.

For a fee, Film Finances, founded in 1950, guarantees completion of a movie, including providing contingency financing. With Dr. No, Film Financsz ended up taking financial control of the film as principal photography ended and post-production began. That meant all expenditures from that point forward had to be approved by Film Finances.

According to the book, written by Charles Drazin and reprinted in 2014, Film Finances had previously provided completion bonds to earlier movies produced separately by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. While the new partners had a distribution deal with United Artists, Film Finances would provide the completion bond for the first film Bond.

As Film Finances considered the project, executives were enthusiastic but had concerns.

A Dec. 16, 1961 memo analyzing the movie’s budget questioned whether shooting schedule was too optimistic and whether director Terence Young could meet it.

John Croydon, a consultant for Film Finances, wrote, “I must confess to alarm at the combination of Broccoli, Saltzmann (sic) and Young in charge of the picture, especially as (L.C.) Rudkin, although a good PM (production manager) is probably not the strongest controller of people of this type.”

Croydon wrote from first-hand experience. He had been associate producer on the 1960 Saltzman-produced film The Entertainer.

Dr. No had an initial budget of 317,399 pounds (almost $889,000 at an exchange rate of $2.80 per pound), later revised to 322,096 (almost $901,800), with 23,199 pounds in contingency funds.

Various crew members, including Young and production designer Ken Adam, wrote brief letters to Film Finances saying the budget was adequate for the movie. Harry Saltzman wrote a similar but more detailed letter.

Young was slated to receive a fee of 15,000 pounds ($42,000), but agreed to defer 10,000 pounds of it into an escrow account. This would cause tension later.

The pre-production documents in A Bond for Bond also show the distinguished British director of photography Geoffrey Unsworth worked on Dr. No for a day. On Dec. 21, 1961, Unsworth photographed screen tests of four actresses contending for the role of Miss Taro, including eventual winner Zena Marshall.

In January 1962, principal photography on Dr. No began. Before it was over, executives at Film Finances would make a move the company rarely made because of financial concerns.

Thanks to Gary J. Firuta for loaning the blog his copy of A Bond for Bond.

NEXT: Dr. No falls a half-day behind schedule on its first day.

If Twitter existed in the early days of 007 films

Twitter logo

Twitter, founded in 2006, drives a lot of the conversation on social media.

When it comes to movies and TV shows, Twitter often is a medium for fans to express themselves about movies and TV shows. It’s also a way for various media outlets to blast out headlines before publishing stories.

With that in mind, here are some of the tweets that could have been posted in the earliest days of the James Bond film franchise.

Sean Connery’s casting as James Bond is announced.

–They cast WHO? The guy is balding and he has bad teeth!

Production on Dr. No begins

–Dr. No is a half-day behind schedule after its first day of filming! This movie is doomed!

–I hear the reason for the delay was Jack Lord was late. Bloody American!

–Rumor has it the fourth day of shooting was almost a total loss. Does this production know what it’s doing?

–The Dragon keeps breaking down! Lousiest machine I’ve had to work on!

Things get serious when the movie goes to post-production.

–Film Finances, the company that provided the completion bond for Dr. No, has taken over control. This production is doomed!

–Word is Film Finances has impounded a big chunk of Terence Young’s salary until it gets its money back. What a messed up production this is!

The movie comes out

–Felix Leiter?! He wasn’t in the book!

–Hey! They changed the ending! What happened to Dr. No being buried under guano?!

Eon makes From Russia With Love as the second film in the series

–Call Me Bwana? It was Niagara in the book! And it was Marilyn Monroe, not Anita Ekberg!

–I must say Lotte Lenya is far too glamorous to play Rosa Klebb!

–Pedro Armendariz just committed suicide. How tragic! I wonder if they got all the Darko Kerim footage they needed.

–Terence Young was almost killed in a helicopter accident! Is this production jinxed?

–There’s a rumor that they set off explosions for what was intended as run-through. Do these jokers know what they’re doing?

–Hey! They changed the ending! Bond went all the way to Paris in the book!

–I still don’t know about this Connery guy.

Financial behind the scenes of Dr. No, Part III

Terence Young

Film Finances Inc. had agreed to provide a “completion bond” for Dr. No and provide contingency funding to ensure the first James Bond film would be finished.

However, because of continuing cost overruns, Film Finances under its agreement with Eon Productions and United Artists, exercised its right to take over responsibility for the production as it began post production.

According to the 2011 book, A Bond for Bond, published by Film Finances, such an option was supposed to be a last resort. In 1962, Film Finances would end up doing it three times on United Artists movies, including Tom Jones, another film plagued by overruns.

Dr. No producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman and director Terence Young would retain responsibility for creative decisions. Film Finances, however, now controlled the purse strings, author Charles Drazin wrote. The book reproduces documents in the archives of Film Financing.

Post-production included some additional film shooting to complete the movie, including shots of Bond (Sean Connery) in a shaft in Dr. No.’s headquarters, the agent laying on his hotel room when a tarantula arrives and two men exiting a hatch from the “dragon” that patrolled Crab Key.

Originally, these shots were to be performed over two days. With Film Finances now in control, they were done in a single day, April 26, 1962.

Other matters needed to be resolved. There had been 7,000 pounds (almost $20,000 at an exchange rate of $2.80 to the pound) in cost overruns for sets — overages that production designer Ken Adam had anticipated and informed Saltzman about.

Film Finances agreed not to force repayment of the set overruns. In return, Danjaq SA, the holding company for Eon Productions, agreed on April 10, 1962 to grant 5 percent of Dr. No’s profits to Film Finances.

However, Danjaq had the option to buy back Film Finances’ profit participation  for the sum of the 7,000 pounds (for the set overruns) plus an additional 2,500 pounds after Film Finances recovered all money advanced to finance the production. Danjaq ended up exercising the option, Drazin wrote. A copy of the agreement is on page 94 of the book.

Another issue was Terence Young’s compensation. The director had agreed to defer as much as 10,000 of his 15,000 pound fee. More than 8,600 pounds was to be withheld from Young until it “had been earned back at the box office,” Drazin wrote. (page 85)

This didn’t  make Young happy.

“But I do feel, and I feel this most strongly, that Film Finances have behaved very shabbily to put it mildly,” the director wrote in a letter to his lawyer (pages 95-98).

“When I got back from Jamaica, I expected to get a medal for what I had accomplished,” Young wrote. “I have never in my life worked so hard, I have never on any location film had to put up with so many difficulties, and at the end I got no thanks whatsoever but was told Cubby and Harry made a mistake in ever taking me.”

On page 99 and 100, there’s a copy of a memo by Film Finances executive Robert Garrett about Young.

“I do not dispute that Terence Young probably worked very hard on location, but I do suggest he is a director who seems quite incapable of ever making compromises when things do not go smoothly.”

In the end, Dr. No’s final budget was more than 392,022 pounds (almost $1.1 million), according to a copy dated Jan. 11, 1963 filed by associate producer Stanley Sopel to Film Finances (pages 103-106). The sources of the money were 322,069 pounds from a Bank of America loan (the budget before overruns), 10, 063 pounds from United Artists and 59,890 pounds from Film Finances.

Film Finances, in a letter to Eon dated Jan. 21, 1964, said as of Dec. 31, 1963, it had been paid back with interest. From that point forward, author Drazin wrote, Eon would not utilize Film Finances’ services for Bond films.

 Thanks to Gary J. Firuta for loaning the blog his copy of A Bond for Bond.

Financial behind the scenes of Dr. No Part II

Jack Lord, Ursula Andress and Sean Connery relaxing on the Dr. No set

The first day of filming on Dr. No had a bad omen.

Principal photography began Jan. 16, 1962 at the Kingston, Jamaica, airport. Jack Lord, playing CIA agent Felix Leiter, had been scheduled to arrive Jan. 14 and report for work at 8:30 a.m., Jan. 16.

Because of travel complications, Lord couldn’t get to Kingston until 12:20 p.m. on Jan. 16 and didn’t arrive on the set until 2:45 p.m. Sean Connery, playing Bond, and John Kitzmiller, playing Quarrel, had arrived at 8:30 a.m.

“Because of the sun angle, we lost his first shots,” production manager L.C. Rudkin wrote on a unit progress report on Jan. 16, referring to Lord. The Dr. No crew would have to return to the airport the following day, putting the production of the first James Bond film one-half day behind schedule on its very first day.

That report is one of the various documents in the 2011 book A Bond for Bond, describing the travails of Dr. No’s production. The book, by Charles Drazin, focuses on the contributions of Film Finances Inc., the company that provided the “completion bond,” ensuring the movie would be finished.

Nor was that the only delay the Dr. No unit would see.

Day 4: “Bad light and generator breakdown,” according to a summary of location shooting after principal photography concluded. “Nearly day lost yet we shot -” Day 6: “Rough seas made abandonment necessary. Had to move over to location 15 miles.” Day 17: “Rough seas and two locations with retakes.” Day 20: “Rained nearly all day – shot in rain.” Day 24: “Whole beach had to be rebuilt because of hurricane in night, yet we shot.” Day 25: The “dragon” broke down and a safety winch also broke down, causing another half-day delay.

By the end of location shooting, according to this summary, 10 to 12 days of work had been lost and two sequences (“Interior Hotel Foyer” and the interior of Playdell-Smith’s office) would have to be filmed when the production moved to Pinewood Studios in England.

The report also contained this passage: “It is questionable if any other major film, with a similar budget, had ever accomplished the feat of shooting on 22 major different sets in 23 days. This practically Television or ‘B’ picture scheduling, but on this film it was necessary, and had to be done.”

Trouble was also brewing at Pinewood. Production designer Ken Adam had written a letter to Film Finances that the budget for sets was adequate. It wasn’t.

In a Feb. 1, 1962 letter to co-producer Harry Saltzman, and cc’d to his partner Albert R. Broccoli, Adam said set construction, props and set dressing would be more than budgeted. “This is merely a note to make quite certain you have realised this,” Adam wrote Saltzman.

On Feb. 18, Saltzman wrote Film Finances executive Robert Garrett to reassure him about cost overruns — which were exceeding the financing for contingencies that Garrett’s company had provided.

“I must say that (director) Terence Young has behaved tremendously well, despite all our misgivings and I honestly must say that none of the hold-ups have been due to his proclivity from procrastination,” Saltzman wrote. At the same time, the producer wrote that Young still has a “grande seigneur” lifestyle. “He has spent money personally like water.”

Saltzman added, “In spite of all the ulcer-making frustrating situations and the invasion of a good part of our contingency fund, the stuff we have shot here is tremendously impressive and I think well worth our troubles.”

Garrett wasn’t reassured. In a March 16, 1962 letter to Saltzman, the executive outlined budget overruns for publicity, music, studio rentals, insurance and other expenses and said it appeared the pace of production had slowed during filming at Pinewood.

“I must ask you and Cubby to take all possible measures of economy and above all, to see that the schedule position does not deteriorate further,” Garrett wrote. “From the progress to date in the studio we had the impression Terence Young has lost his earlier sense of urgency.”

According to author Draznin, Dr. No had exceeded its budget by 57,027 pounds (almost $160,000) for the week ending March 23, 1962. Principal photography finally ended April 3. By that time, Film Finances took an action it normally considered a last resort.

Thanks to Gary J. Firuta for loaning the blog his copy of A Bond for Bond.

NEXT: Film Finances takes control of Dr. No.

 

Financial behind the scenes of Dr. No Part I

Dr. No poster

Squabbles over money, production delays and the exchange of terse words.

SPECTRE, the 24th James Bond film? No. Dr. No, the first.

In 2011, Film Finances Inc., which specializes in “completion bonds” that ensure movies get finished, published A Bond for Bond. The book presented the company’s history with Dr. No, including reproducing memos and production budgets.

For a fee, Film Financing, founded in 1950, guarantees completion of a movie, including providing contingency financing. With Dr. No, Film Financing ended up taking financial control of the film as principal photography ended and post-production began. That meant all expenditures from that point forward had to be approved by Film Financing.

According to the book, written by Charles Drazin and reprinted in 2014, Film Finances had previously provided completion bonds to earlier movies produced separately by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. While the new partners had a distribution deal with United Artists, Film Finances would provide the completion bond for the first Bond.

As Film Finances considered the project, executives were enthusiastic but had concerns.

A Dec. 16, 1961 memo analyzing the movie’s budget questioned whether shooting schedule was too optimistic and whether director Terence Young could meet it.

John Croydon, a consultant for Film Finances, wrote, “I must confess to alarm at the combination of Broccoli, Saltzmann (sic) and Young in charge of the picture, especially as (L.C.) Rudkin, although a good PM (production manager) is probably not the strongest controller of people of this type.”

Croydon wrote from first-hand experience. He had been associate producer on the 1960 Saltzman-produced film The Entertainer.

Dr. No had an initial budget of 317,399 pounds (almost $889,000 at an exchange rate of $2.80 per pound), later revised to 322,096 (almost $901,800), with 23,199 pounds in contingency funds.

Various crew members, including Young and production director Ken Adam, wrote brief letters to Film Finances saying the budget was adequate for the movie. Harry Saltzman wrote a similar but more detailed letter.

Young was slated to receive a fee of 15,000 pounds ($42,000), but agreed to defer 10,000 pounds of it into an escrow account. This would cause tension later.

The pre-production documents in A Bond for Bond also show the distinguished British director of photography Geoffrey Unsworth worked on Dr. No for a day. On Dec. 21, 1961, Unsworth photographed screen tests of four actresses contending for the role of Miss Taro, including eventual winner Zena Marshall.

In January 1962, principal photography on Dr. No began. Before it was over, executives at Film Finances would make a move the company rarely made because of financial concerns.

Thanks to Gary J. Firuta for loaning the blog his copy of A Bond for Bond.

NEXT: Dr. No falls a half-day behind schedule on its first day.