You would have thought that virtually every conceivable aspect of the James Bond phenomenon has been covered in book form by now. It seems the only remaining angle to write about is Ian Fleming's laundry list. However, Cinema Retro contributing writer Robert Sellers has managed to breathe new life into the literary world of 007 with his highly-anticipated new book The Battle for Bond (Tomahawk Press, UK). This is an exhaustively researched volume that covers one of the few remaining aspects of Bond lore that has not been written about extensively: the long-simmering legal battles between producer Kevin McClory and Eon Productions over control of the rights to the novel Thunderball and subsequent screen adaptations. Bond scholars have long been acquainted with this fascinating aspect to the 007 legacy, but the average movie fan will find these facts new to them.
McClory was a producer who had teamed with Ian Fleming and writer Jack Whittingham in the 1950s in an unsuccessful attempt to interest movie studios in bringing the Bond novels to the screen. Fleming ultimately ended up using elements of their collaborative efforts as the basis of his novel Thunderball. This set in motion a series of seemingly endless, high profile lawsuits that would extend from the early 1960s through the 1990s as McClory tried to exploit screen rights to Thunderball that he acquired in a legal settlement with the ailing Fleming. The courtroom battle was enough to dissuade Bond movie producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman from pursuing their plans to make Thunderball the first 007 big screen adaptation of Fleming's work. Instead they went with the legally "clean" Dr. No. McClory ultimately ended up being signed as a producer on Thunderball by Eon Productions to prevent him from making a rival production in 1965. One would have thought the smashing success of the film would have kept all parties happy, but ten years later, McClory attempted to mount a remake of the movie - with a script partially conceived by Sean Connery and mystery writer Len Deighton.
The Battle for Bond examines in great detail the complex and often surrealistic elements of how this long troubled project ultimately came to fruition as the 1983 film Never Say Never Again. Author Robert Sellers has uncovered never-before-seen documents, photos and manuscripts that shed new light on one of the ugliest and longest-running legal battles in Hollywood history. To McClory's supporters, he was always cheated out of his share of the Bond Golden Fleece through endless legal challenges from Eon Productions that also prevented him from mounting a James Bond TV series. To others, McClory was a gadfly producer with a thin resume who lived off the efforts of more talented people. He went to his grave attempting to exploit rights he claimed he still had to the Bond franchise, but ultimately lost his case in a high profile legal battle several years ago.
The original title of McClory's proposed 1970's Thunderball remake was James Bond of the Secret Service which was one of the titles of the project he collaborated with Fleming on. It was later retitled as the equally uninspiring Warhead. McClory ran some cheesy trade ads in Variety over the years promising the film would be made and that Connery was involved. However, every attempt was stalled by legal action from Eon Productions until producer/lawyer Jack Schwartzman managed to get Never Say Never Again made. The 1983 film was a critical hit and did substantial box-office, but it was a troubled film to make and fans have always considered it to be a weak effort considering the enthusiasm for Connery's return to the role of Bond.
What Robert Sellers has uncovered is a wealth of inside information about the legal battles that raged behind the scenes and evidence that the plan to bring Warhead to the screen had progressed to the point where Connery and Deighton scouted locations in New York City. Connery, who was supposed to only co-author the script, apparently intended to play Bond as well, though this was never announced publicly. Paramount was behind the project and was set to allocate the (then) sizable budget of $22 million. Alas, the only Bond released in the summer of '77 was Roger Moore's The Spy Who Loved Me. The Eon and United Artists legal machine had succeeded in stopping production of Warhead from going forward.
Was Kevin McClory a victim who went to his death having been denied the opportunity to exploit what were legally his rights to James Bond - or was he simply an overzealous opportunist trying to capitalize on the franchise that Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman had painstakingly built? On a personal note, I worked as a consultant for MGM and Eon Productions in the mid-1990s to investigate the merits of McClory's legal standing. In the course of the case, I was literally inundated with copies of fascinating personal documents between McClory and Fleming as well as other interested parties in the aborted attempt to bring Bond to the big screen in the 1950s. I studied many files and letters, including Fleming's own attempt to write a script based on Bond (suffice it to say, he was a better novelist than screenwriter.) What struck me was that in all the documents I studied, I did not see any substantial contribution from McClory beyond his abilities to bring celebrities into a project and find suitable locations. This may be an unfair judgment, as there may have been many other documents that I did not have access to. I do believe he and Jack Whittingham did deserve the settlement they got in their favor from Fleming, who perhaps naively believed he could ignore his partnership with these men and use elements of stories they had discussed as the basis of the novel Thunderball. However, with all due respect to Mr. McClory, the facts speak for themselves: if he were such a creative mind, why did he never get another film project made during the course of his life?
Bond fans can make up their own minds by reading Robert Sellers' The Battle for Bond. You can also read more details about what he uncovered by reading an in-depth article on the MI6 web site by clicking here. - Lee Pfeiffer
The Battle for Bond is only available in the U.K. To order this book, click here.