The James Bond Bedside Companion

by Benson, Raymond

  The diamond smuggling articles ran in the Sunday Times that autumn. They were published in book form by Jonathan Cape in November under the title THE DIAMOND SMUGGLERS. Fleming said that he personally felt it was a good story until all the possible libelous material was cut out. There had nearly been an injunction brought against him and the Times by De Beers. The book received mixed reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. Most critics lauded Fleming's skill with words, but found the book "sketchy." Nevertheless, it proved to Ian Fleming that he could write something besides James Bond. And with the sales of his books beginning to skyrocket, Ian Fleming found that the Bond phenomenon was now snowballing on its own—he no longer had to push it himself.

  GOLDFINGER was written at Goldeneye in January-February in 1958. This is the longest of the Bond novels, with an original typescript of 270 pages. Its working title was THE RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD, and the first draft was only moderately changed.

  Ian Fleming suddenly became controversial that March when DOCTOR NO was published in England. The book was subjected to a vicious attack by Paul Johnson in the New Statesman:

  The nastiest book I have ever read. . . By the time I was a third of the way through, I had to suppress my strong impulse to throw the thing away, and only continued reading because I realised that here was a social phenomenon of some importance. . . Fleming deliberately and systematically excites, and then satisfies the very worst instincts of his readers.

  Bernard Bergonzi, in Twentieth Century magazine, also objected to the "sex, snobbery, and sadism" in the book. But Simon Raven in the Spectator defended the novel:

  . . . Commander Fleming, by reason of his cool and analytical intelligence, his informed use of technical facts, his plausibility, sense of pace, brilliant descriptive powers and superb imagination, provides sheer entertainment such as I, who must read many novels, am seldom lucky to find.

  The Times Literary Supplement noted that a lesser writer couldn't have pulled the story off. Controversy always helps, and DOCTOR NO began outselling the previous Bond novels.

  The jacket, the last designed by Pat Marriott, featured a silhouette of Honeychile Rider standing among tropical plants on a brown background. It was the first novel to actually show Glidrose Productions as copyright holders as a result of the 1956 copyright act DOCTOR NO was released in the United States in June. (In Britain the title was written DR NO, in the United States it was DOCTOR NO.) James Sandoe of the New York Herald Tribune Book Review said that it was the most artfully bold, dizzyingly poised thriller of the decade. You'd much better read it than read about it." L. G. Offord of the San Francisco Chronicle said, "This reviewer must admit that it strikes her as so wildly funny that it might almost be a leg-pull, and at the same time hair-raising in a loony way." True to form, Anthony Boucher continued his tirade against Fleming by saying, ". . . it is 80,000 words long, with enough plot for 8,000 and enough originality for 800."

  In April 1958, Fleming flew to Bombay to investigate a treasure hunt in the Seychelles islands for a Sunday Times article. There, the French pirate Levasseur supposedly had hidden £120 million worth of gold and other booty. The treasure hunt turned out to be disappointing, but Fleming retained his impressions of the islands for the setting of a future James Bond short story entitled "The Hildebrand Rarity." From there, Fleming flew to Rome to meet Anne, and the couple spent a holiday in Venice and the Lido peninsula, which provided the background for another short story, "Risico."

  When Fleming returned to London, he discovered that CBS had made him a lucrative offer to write thirty-two James Bond episodes for television over the next two years. Fleming accepted the offer and began working on the first few outlines.

  At about this time Fleming and his friend Ivar Bryce began talking about making a James Bond movie themselves. Bryce had recently gone into film production, and had formed a partnership, Xanadu Productions, with young writer/director Kevin McClory. McClory had been associate producer and foreign location director for Around the World in Eighty Days, and had also worked with director John Huston. He was at that time directing and producing a film called The Boy and the Bridge, which he had also co-scripted. Ivar Bryce had put up the money for the production.

  McClory met Fleming in late winter of 1958. Bryce had asked Fleming to preview a rough cut of The Boy and the Bridge in his absence. Fleming liked the film very much, only complaining a bit about the sentimentality of the story. As he and McClory saw more of each other they began talking about a James Bond film. Bryce had given McClory some of Fleming's novels to read, and the writer/director, immediately grasping the cinematic potential of a character like James Bond, became excited about making a 007 picture after The Boy and the Bridge was completed. McClory, keen on oceanography, had written a screenplay to an underwater picture he had always planned to make someday. It followed that the Bahamas was suggested for a setting for the Bond film, especially since McClory knew the area well, and the production could also benefit from the Eady Subsidy Plan, which allowed the making of a film on a British base with American actors. It was finally agreed that Fleming and McClory would collaborate on a new story rather than adapt one of the author's existing novels. But these dreams of making the first James Bond film resulted in an unnecessary and catastrophic chapter in the lives of all parties concerned.

  In January and February of 1959, Fleming took an easy route with his Bond effort, adapting to short stories four of the television outlines he had prepared for CBS. He added a fifth story which he had written the previous summer, and planned to turn in this anthology, provisionally titled THE ROUGH WITH THE SMOOTH, to Jonathan Cape that year. The original manuscript of "From a View to a Kill" was 23 pages. "For Your Eyes Only" originally titled "Man's Work," and later changed to "Death Leaves an Echo," was 34 pages. "Quantum of Solace," the story he had written after returning from the Seychelles, was 21 pages. "Risico" (originally spelled "Risiko") and "The Hildebrand Rarity" were both 31 pages. All were corrected only moderately. In "For Your Eyes Only," for example, the name of the slain Jamaican couple was Wilson, and halfway through the manuscript it was changed to Havelock. This collection, subtitled "Five Secret Occasions in the Life of James Bond," was ultimately published a year later as FOR YOUR EYES ONLY.

  In March of that year, GOLDFINGER was published. Dedicated to Fleming's "gentle reader, William Plomer," the book featured another attractive jacket design by Richard Chopping—a picture of a skull with gold coins in its eye sockets and a red rose entwined in the teeth. The Times said: "A new Bond has emerged from these pages: an agent more relaxed, less promiscuous, less stagily muscular than of yore. . . the story, too, is more relaxed." Indeed, GOLDFINGER is the most introspective of all the Bond novels. In the United States, reviewers began to take notice. Even Anthony Boucher, this time, stated that "the whole preposterous fantasy strikes me as highly entertaining." And James Sandoe of the New York Herald Tribune called it a "superlative thriller from our foremost literary magician."

  That spring Fleming made the decision to change both agents and publishers in the United States. He hadn't been happy with the way Curtis Brown, Ltd. handled his film rights, and wanted another agency with more Hollywood connections. Naomi Burton, his friend, agent, and reader, was also leaving the agency, so Fleming made the switch to Music Corporation of America. Phyllis Jackson represented the literary side of his work and Laurence Evans the film side. Evans immediately began working on film deals, and one of his first accomplishments was buying back the rights to MOONRAKER from the Rank Organization, which had done nothing with the property. His new American publisher was Viking Press.

  Talks resumed about the production of the future James Bond film. The Boy and the Bridge had been selected as the official British entry to the Venice film festival, and eventually won several awards at other European festivals. Its premiere was set for July. With that promise of success, it looked as though a Bond film directed by McClory, and scripted by Fleming and McClory, would indeed be a lucrative undertaking
. In May, during a weekend at Moyns Park, Bryce's home in Essex, followed by other meetings in McClory's home in London, Fleming, Bryce, McClory, and Ernest Cuneo came up with ideas for a story. It was basically a collaborative process. The first treatment featured the Russians as villains, but it was McClory who came up with the idea of using an international gang of terrorists, instead. This group was eventually called SPECTRE, the Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion. Cuneo added the idea for a spectacular underwater battle at the story's climax. Over the coming months, the original outline changed and there were no fewer than ten outlines, treatments, and scripts. They had various titles, including SPECTRE, James Bond of The Secret Service, and Longitude 78 West. Henceforth, these treatments shall be collectively referred to as "The Film Scripts."

  In July, when The Boy and the Bridge premiered, critical reaction was unfavorable, and as a result, the film did not do well at the box office. At this point, Fleming's excitement and hope for the Bond film must have begun to diminish. MCA was hinting that other production companies were interested in James Bond, and the CBS deal was still being worked out. Hubbell Robinson had made a $10,000 bid for a 90-minute TV "spectacular" of FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE, sponsored by the Ford Motor Co., with James Mason as Bond. (But this never came to pass.) There were, perhaps, other possibilities, and relations between Fleming and McClory began to cool. Nevertheless, on July 8, Fleming wrote to Bryce saying that in exchange for $50,000 worth of shares in "the new company," the company would have the right to make "the first full-length James Bond feature film." Fleming added that he would write a full suggested treatment which could be altered if the company wished, and that he would be on hand to provide "editorial and advisory services." In September, Fleming made the suggestion of bringing in another director, with McClory acting as producer. McClory suggested Hitchcock, but the director eventually declined the offer.

  Another thing worrying Fleming was the cost factor. The projected James Bond film was going to be very expensive. Bryce had lost a fair amount of money on The Boy and the Bridge, and would need strong backing in order to finance the film. (According to Bryce, The Boy and the Bridge eventually recouped its costs.) Fleming had been advised by MCA that a more experienced director would attract the needed money from investors. By October, Fleming was spending less and less time with the project; screenwriting was not particularly his fancy, and he was becoming increasingly busy at the newspaper office. McClory, with Fleming's approval, brought in another writer named Jack Whittingham to complete the screenplay.

  Fleming was also preoccupied with changes at Kemsley House. Lord Kemsley had sold the newspapers to Roy Thomson, a Canadian, and Fleming was apprehensive he might not have the same freedom and opportunities for adventure he'd had in the past He found, however, that his new situation at Thomson Newspapers would be just as favorable if not better. Thomson and the future Sunday Times editor, Denis Hamilton, asked Fleming to take a five-week trip around the world and record his impressions of several famous cities for a series of articles in the Sunday Times. They would later be reprinted in a book to be called THRILLING CITIES. Fleming had always filled the Bond novels with what could be called "travelogue material" which added to their exotic quality. Thus, at the end of October, 1959, Fleming began his world tour in Hong Kong. He covered Macao, Tokyo, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, New York, Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna, Geneva, Naples, and Monte Carlo. In the New York article, he also included a brief short story entitled "007 in New York," which described James Bond's impressions of and feelings about New York.

  In December, Fleming met with McClory and Whittingham for more script conferences about the James Bond film. Fleming was impressed with the work Whittingham and McClory had done, but still had reservations about the film's projected budget Nevertheless, plans for the film continued. McClory and Whittingham sent the latest script, now called Longitude 78 West, to Fleming from the Bahamas. At this point, Fleming changed the title to Thunderball.

  The fifties drew to a close. The Cold War was reaching a peak. Now more than ever before, the time was ripe for James Bond. In eight short years, Ian Fleming had created a character which would soon become internationally famous. His popularity in America was rising and Fleming felt that nothing could go wrong.

  THE SIXTIES

  The sixties is the decade with which James Bond is most closely associated. The films, debuting in 1962, brought Ian Fleming and James Bond into the lives of millions of people in almost every country in the world. The novels' sales rose rapidly as a result, and James Bond, by the middle of the decade, was big business. The James Bond "image" was appealing and the media were quick to catch on to the fact Playboy magazine began serializing Fleming's novels very early in the decade, and later featured pictorial spreads from the films. (In many ways, the Playboy image was fed by James Bond and vice versa.) Millions of dollars were made by merchandisers of James Bond toys and novelties in the mid-sixties. "Bondmania," as it was called, reached a peak in 1966 and remained high throughout the decade. Many books and articles were written attempting to analyze the cult and why the phenomenon existed. Ian Fleming would actually be "studied" in university sociology and psychoanalytical courses. Parodies of the Bond books even began cropping up. The most notable of these were Alligator by I*n Fl*m*ng, published by the Harvard Lampoon (it was actually written by Michael K. Frith and Christopher B. Cerf), and Cyril Connolly's "Bond Strikes Camp," which appeared in the April 1963 issue of London Magazine. In this latter short story, Bond is forced to dress in drag to catch a Russian spy.

  At the beginning of 1960, Ian Fleming may not have realized the tremendous scope with which his creation would become a cult figure. Kevin McClory, however, somehow sensed the James Bond potential. That January, McClory visited Fleming at Goldeneye in order to find out what was happening with the film project. As reported in John Pearson's biography of Fleming, Fleming told McClory he wanted to hand the screenplay to MCA with his and Bryce's joint recommendation for McClory to produce the film. But if a studio rejected the film on the basis of McClory as producer, then it was up to McClory to sell himself to the studio, back out, or go to court. McClory, feeling rejected and betrayed, left Goldeneye only hours after he had arrived. For Fleming, the film project completely died in the next few months. But the Xanadu Productions experience would return to haunt him.

  Ian Fleming's new novel that year, the ninth James Bond book, was THUNDERBALL, based on the screenplay, Longitude 78 West, that had been written by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and himself.

  John Pearson suggested a possible reason for Fleming's not acknowledging the story's source. He was accustomed to using discarded film or TV scripts as bases for novels. DOCTOR NO was originally a film script written for producer Henry Morganthau III. Four of the short stones in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY were adapted from his television scripts. The consequences, however, were not revealed until THUNDERBALL was published a year later in the spring of 1961.

  In March of 1960, Ian Fleming met an important fan of his books. Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy was a good friend of Mrs. Marion "Oatsie" Leiter, with whom Fleming was well acquainted. Mrs. Leiter happened to be dining with the Kennedys on March 13 and Fleming had come by to see her in Washington on his way back from Jamaica. He had come to the city on the invitation of Henry Brandon, the Sunday Times correspondent there. While Mrs. Leiter and Fleming were driving through Georgetown, they saw the senator and his wife walking down a street. Mrs. Leiter stopped the car and asked if she could bring a visitor to dinner. When Kennedy learned that the visitor was Ian Fleming, he connected the name with James Bond and replied, "By all means." The men took to each other, and Fleming soon also came to know Robert Kennedy and Eunice Kennedy Shriver. In the future, Fleming sent them all signed copies of his books.

  In April, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY was published. The jacket, again by Richard Chopping, featured an eye looking through a hole in an unpainted wooden door. The book received fair
notices, and the story "Quantum of Solace" was compared to the work of Somerset Maugham. The London Times said, ". . . the Bond ambience is pervasive and there is lots of sunshine." Francis Iles in Guardian found the anthology better than the novels. But Christopher Pym (Kingsley Amis) in the Spectator complained that each new Bond adventure got less probable and more preposterous and was losing the "zing." The book was published in America by Viking Press in August. Fleming's kindest critic in the United States, James Sandoe, said that the book featured "urban savagery and mighty smooth tale-spinning." Anthony Boucher again praised Fleming's readable and "smooth" prose, but complained about the weakness of the stories.

  In November, Fleming was invited to spend two weeks in Kuwait as a guest of the Kuwait Oil Company. He had been requested to write a book about the country's way of life and how the oil industry affected it. It was a condition of the deal that the book should have the approval of the oil company before publication. Fleming wrote the book with zest, because the adventurous past of the country naturally fascinated him. The book was called STATE OF EXCITEMENT—IMPRESSIONS OF KUWAIT. When it was finished, the Kuwait Oil Company approved the book but felt it was their duty to show the manuscript to the Kuwait Government. The sheikhs didn't particularly take to some of Fleming's comments and criticisms referring to the country's history of pirating and bloodshed. They wanted to project a more "civilized" image to the world, and banned the publication of the book. As a result, the only bound copy belonged to Fleming. (It is now in the Lilly Library at Indiana University.)