Some Kind of Hero

The Remarkable Story of the James Bond Films

Ajay Chowdhury, Matthew Field

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780750969772, 9780750964210
• eBook ISBN: 9780750966504
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film History & Criticism

For over 50 years, Albert R. Broccoli's Eon Productions has navigated the ups and downs of the volatile British film industry, enduring both critical wrath and acclaim in equal measure for its now legendary James Bond series. Latterly, this family run business has been crowned with box office gold and recognised by motion picture academies around the world. However, it has not always been plain sailing.

Changing financial regimes forced 007 to relocate to France and Mexico; changing fashions and politics led to box office disappointments; and changing studio regimes and business disputes all but killed the franchise. And the rise of competing action heroes has constantly questioned Bond's place in popular culture.

But against all odds the filmmakers continue to wring new life from the series, and 2012's Skyfall saw both huge critical and commercial success, crowning 007 as the undisputed king of the action genre. Some Kind of Hero recounts this remarkable story, from its origins in the early '60s right through to the present day, and draws on hundreds of unpublished interviews with the cast and crew of this iconic series.

Ian Fleming had always wanted his James Bond novels to be filmed. He understood that commercially more books were sold as a result of films being made from them – cinema reached larger audiences than libraries. In an amusing article titled ‘How to Write a Thriller’ Fleming admitted that he wrote ‘unashamedly, for pleasure and money’.¹ The writer elaborated, ‘You don’t make a great deal of money from royalties and translation rights and so forth and, unless you are very industrious and successful, you could only just about live on these profits, but if you sell the serial rights and film rights, you do very well.’²

In correspondence to a friend in October 1952, months before the publication of his debut novel casino royale, Fleming stated, ‘What I want is not a publisher, but a “factory” that will shift this opus of mine like ‘Gone with the Naked and the Dead’. I am not being vain about this book but simply trying to squeeze the last dirty cent out of it.’³ Fleming’s blending of two of the biggest selling novels of the age – GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell and THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer – was an example of his sly, often overlooked, humour that is to be found throughout his writing. However, it was also a sign of his ambition.

A further indication of Fleming’s aspirations was the bespoke typewriter he had specially made before finishing his debut novel: a Royal Quiet Deluxe model, but this one was gold-plated at a 1952 cost of $174.⁴ It represented a sizeable investment in his proposed future career and was a perfect example of Fleming’s style to complete the manuscript of a first novel with such a luxurious machine in his possession.

Fleming also purchased a small theatrical agency, Glidrose Productions Limited. Named after its principals, John Gliddon and Norman Rose, the company served primarily as a corporate vehicle for Fleming to assign the literary copyright of his novels. If royalties were to run to riches this shrewd act would save Fleming huge sums in taxes. This was in November 1952, five months before publication of his first novel.⁵ Undoubtedly this was a writer preparing for success.

Ian Fleming was born on 28 May 1908 at 27 Green Street in London’s exclusive Mayfair.⁶ His father, Valentine, was the son of Robert Fleming, a native Scot from Dundee, who had started work aged thirteen as an office boy with a local merchant.⁷ Robert Fleming went on to make a fortune by investing in the railways of the United States of America.⁸ He subsequently founded an eponymous merchant bank, which the Fleming family ran privately for generations to come.⁹ Robert’s actions certainly spoke louder than words in keeping with the Fleming clan motto – ‘Let the Deed Shaw.’¹⁰

Ian was dealt a severe blow early in life when his father was killed in action during World War I. Valentine’s widow, Eve, was left to raise her four sons – Peter (the eldest), Ian, Michael and Richard – on her own. While Valentine had left them financially comfortable it was on the condition that Eve did not remarry, and this branch of the family was effectively disinherited from the banking fortune.

While his eldest brother, Peter, was dutiful and diligent, Ian’s disrupted childhood made him more daring and dangerous. Having been educated at Eton and then in Kitzbühel, Austria, Fleming excelled at athletics, winter sports and foreign languages. He formed a deep love of motorcars and an even deeper love of women – his time at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst came to a discreet end after he contracted a ‘social disease’. After various attempts at a City career Fleming finally found firmer footing as a journalist, a career which allowed him to travel the world and meet extraordinary characters.

During World War II he served as the assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence, Admiral Sir John Godfrey. Working in the Admiralty’s Room 39 in Whitehall Fleming was privy to many secret meetings and events; he gained first-hand experience of weapons and underwent specialist training. Fleming met tough commandos and German spies, and was frequently asked to come up with ingenious intelligence ideas to thwart the enemy.¹¹

In particular Fleming had dealings with the Political Warfare Executive run by Denis Sefton Delmer; this unit was responsible for sending black propaganda to the Germans via radio communications. As part of a psychological war programme, the idea was to sap German morale, and Fleming’s language skills made him ideally suited for this task.¹²

All these experiences would find their way into his later work; Fleming brushed with the Establishment but was not quite part of it. As a restless, errant second son, Fleming enjoyed living on the edge of life. His Scottish background, his Etonian and Continental upbringing, womanising and observational journalism, as well as his close proximity to the intelligence world would all inform what many saw as his fantasy alterego: James Bond.

Ian Fleming began his book on the morning of ‘the third Tuesday in January’¹³ in 1952. On this day, he sat down to write what he called ‘the spy story to end all spy stories’.¹⁴ Working from Goldeneye, his holiday home in Jamaica, Fleming wrote quickly and with almost no notes. CASINO ROYALE drew upon experiences and extrapolations from his gambling days in Le Touquet and Deauville in France. The nub of the novel was based upon a real-life failed attempt to gamble away Nazi resources in Estoril, Portugal.¹⁵ Fleming’s first adventure was more a tone novella – incorporating exciting action on the green baize battlefield, as well as the streets of the fictional French seaside resort of Royale-les-Eaux and its environs. It was a tale of cheating and chance in life, love and death evoking strong sensations and the moral relativism of the Cold War.

Fleming saw James Bond as a modern anti-hero. His very name was a statement about how Fleming viewed his character. In a television interview shot at Goldeneye on 5 February 1964 Fleming recounted:

When I started to write these books in 1952, I wanted to find a name which wouldn’t have any of the romantic overtones, like Perriguine Carruthers. I wanted a really flat, quiet name. One of my bibles out here is James Bond’s BIRDS OF THE WEST INDIES and I thought, ‘James Bond, well now, that’s a pretty quiet name,’ so I simply stole it and used it.¹⁶

By chance, on the same day as that television interview, Fleming met the American ornithologist whose name he had stolen. Fleming inscribed a copy of his latest Bond novel ‘To the real James Bond, from the thief of his identity’.¹⁷

CASINO ROYALE is not strictly an origin story, exploring how James Bond came into being. By the time Bond enters the narrative, he is already a Double-0 (the prefix to his code number designating his licence to kill). Bond is chosen for the mission in the story because he has already displayed a penchant for gambling and high-risk situations. M is set up as the chief of the Secret Service – a stern father figure who happened to have been an admiral. Miss Moneypenny occupies a sentence or two and Q Branch is referred to tangentially in a technical capacity. Bond forms firm friendships with a variety of people, such as philosophical French agent René Mathis, a man from the CIA who resembles a blonde Frank Sinatra, Felix Leiter and, back in London, Bond’s best friend in the Service and M’s Chief-of-Staff, Bill Tanner. Fleming also offered from the outset a high-toned insider’s view of Bond’s world: his preferred car, an Amherst Villiers supercharged Bentley, the potent martini – shaken, not stirred – and a beautiful companion, in this case, the hard-nippled Vesper Lynd.

CASINO ROYALE was published in the UK on 13 April 1953 by Jonathan Cape Limited.¹⁸ Not one to miss a trick, Fleming had known the book would be published a couple of months before Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, so had deliberately titled the book to cash in on royal fever and the modest first pressing of 4,750 copies sold out quickly.¹⁹ Meanwhile Fleming set about creating Bond’s second adventure, LIVE AND LET DIE, on his golden typewriter. Author and friend Paul Gallico predicted after reading CASINO ROYALE that Bond would be perfect for the silver screen, but it would take some time getting there.²⁰

The American agency Curtis Brown fielded initial enquiries about the possibility of adapting the novel for the screen. Normally when a book is adapted to screen any potential adapter first purchases an option. An option is an agreement to lease the rights to that book for a period of time. During this time the producer will try to get certain elements together. These elements could be to hire a writer to pen a workable screenplay, get the commitment of stars and a director and to raise the funds for a production and secure distribution (generally in that order). Once the film goes into production a further, more substantial, sum is usually payable. An option is commonly a smaller percentage for the eventual sum payable if the film gets made. Once the option period has expired, the rights usually lapse and the author keeps any sums paid regardless of whether a film has been made. Throughout the fifties the option price on the Fleming books gradually rose as they increased in sales and visibility.

In 1953 early interest came from a number of parties. Associated British Pictures were interested in Bond, but wanted to only use the character as a springboard on which to base another film.²¹ The massive Music Corporation of America (MCA) enquired but this too came to naught.²²

That same year veteran mogul of the British film industry, Sir Alexander Korda, expressed an interest in LIVE AND LET DIE, which, at that point, was still unpublished. Fleming was flattered by the interest, but Korda subsequently bo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Authors’ Note –Studio Logo
• Introduction – Gun Barrel
• Preface to Paperback Edition – Pre-title Sequence
• Foreword –The Other Fella
• 1 Showbiz is a Ghastly Biz – Ian Fleming
• 2 A Sublime Hustler – Harry Saltzman
• 3 Optimism and Apprehension – Albert R. Broccoli
• 4 There They Go – Dr. No
• 5 I Must Return – From Russia With Love
• 6 The Midas Touch – Goldfinger
• 7 Winner Who Takes All – Thunderball
• 8 Pity If It Grieves ’Em – Bondmania
• 9 Don’t Think of the Danger – You Only Live Twice
• 10 Nothing More, Nothing Less – On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
• 11 All I Need To Please Me – Diamonds Are Forever
• 12 Give the Other Fella Hell – Live and Let Die
• 13 Just Before the Kill – The Man With the Golden Gun
• 14 Two Scorpions In a Bottle – Broccoli vs Saltzman
• 15 Some Kind of Magic – The Spy Who Loved Me
• 16 That Moonlight Trail – Moonraker
• 17 Read Between the Lines – For Your Eyes Only
• 18 Two of a Kind – Octopussy
• 19 No Matter Your Attitude – Never Say Never Again
• 20 Phoenix For the Flame – A View to a Kill
• 21 Down To the Wire – The Living Daylights
• 22 In the Blink of an Eye – Licence to Kill
• 23 Change My Mind Forever – Passing the Bond Baton
• 24 From the Shadows as a Child – GoldenEye
• 25 Not the Only Spy Out There – Tomorrow Never Dies
• 26 Know How To Survive – The World Is Not Enough
• 27 Break the Cycle – Die Another Day
• 28 Through Harder Men – Casino Royale
• 29 Slick Trigger Finger – Quantum of Solace
• 30 Stand Tall Together – Skyfall
• 31 Been Here Before – Spectre
• 32 Futures Tricked by the Past – The Road to Bond 25
• Epilogue – Far Behind Us
• Afterword – By Heaven Above Me: Sir Roger Remembered
• Acknowledgements - Crawl, End Crawl
• Bibliography – Thank You, Moneypenny
• Notes – Better Than a Computer
• Picture Section