Battle for Bond Redux: Robert Sellers’s Thunderball Book Returns
By Wesley Britton
To put my proverbial cards on the table, since 1995, I
didn’t think any book in print matched Andrew Lycett’s Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond for providing authoritative
history, biography, and background into how 007 came to be. Then, in 2007, Robert Sellers gave us The Battle
for Bond: The Genesis of Cinema’s Greatest Hero. It became the second most
important book in my Bond collection. Drawing from many previously unknown
primary sources, most notably court records held by Sylvan Whittingham Mason, Sellers
shared how the idea of bringing Bond to film began and the unexpected and
complex sequence of events that followed. Not a perfect book by any means, but
one belonging in every film lover’s library.
Perhaps it was appropriate that publishing a book dealing so
much with legal twists and turns ended up mirroring its subject. Because
anything associated with Ian Fleming is closely controlled by various heirs of
the legacy, some publishers wanted nothing to do with Battle for Bond. Then small British publisher
Tomahawk took up the challenge, and Battle
for Bond enjoyed deserved critical praise for telling a story that had been
clouded in myth and speculation for decades. Then the Ian Fleming Will Trust
stepped in.
In an interview for James
Bond Magazine (The Battle for Bond Rages On),
Sellers noted, “Pretty quickly after the
book was published the Ian Fleming Will Trust, through their London lawyers, took great exception to our
publishing, in full, copies of a number of letters by Ian Fleming, to which the
Trust owned copyright. They really were not best pleased, and notified us that
we had infringed their copyright and were liable for damages.â€
The letters in question were copies of court documents
involved in the first lawsuits filed by Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham regarding
ownership of Thunderball and the
creation of the cinematic 007. “We, that’s the publisher and I,†Robert told
007 Magazine, “claimed that we had every right to reproduce these documents in
the book without infringing copyright as they were used as part of the
prosecution case in the 1963 Ian Fleming plagiarism trial. We also believed
ourselves to be protected by law, since section 45, subsection 2 of the
Copyright Designs and Patents Act of 1988 states that it is not an infringement
of copyright if the publication of documents occurs within the context of
reporting legal proceedings, which clearly is the case with this book.â€
Whatever the legal merits, historians and small-presses
don’t have the resources to defend themselves against such suits, so in March
2008 Sellers and Tomahawk agreed to allow the Fleming Trust to pulp the
remaining 300 copies of the book in England. This didn’t affect the first
edition in the U.S. where copies quickly became something of a new 007
collector’s item. Just as quickly, Sellers announced a new edition would be
coming out without the offending photographs in mid-June 2008.
What will readers lose in the new edition? According to
Tomahawk Press, the main changes will be:
All images are now consigned to a 16 page photo section in
the centre of the book, rather than throughout.
The selling price and page size of the book have been
reduced.
There is a new introduction called “Quantum of Toleranceâ€
covering the banning of the first edition. There is a new foreword (Raymond
Benson’s has been removed) by Len Deighton.
With the removal of the Fleming letters, perhaps a nugget or
two might not be carried over as well. For example, Sellers repeated much of a
letter Fleming wrote to William Plomer about the latter’s critique of a draft
of the novel version of Thunderball.
But only in the reproduced letter can readers see a Fleming comment that gives
insight into his creative approach: “I gratefully note all your cuts and digs
and accept them all with the exception of 'mimosaic', a word which I saw
somewhere and have taken to my heart. Do please let me leave this in if only to
make my readers read at least one of my words twice over.â€
But, in the main, the offending letters were only a small
part of the first third of the book, the section tracing the beginnings of
Fleming’s involvement with various producers vying for the rights to bring
James Bond to the large screen. Without question, the chapters leading up to
the plagiarism trial of 1963 are the most important and revelatory portions of
the book. In particular, the disjointed desires of various participants led to
both deceit and miscommunication in the process of shaping the literary 007 for
film. The major thread of this saga deals with Ivor Bryce and Kevin McClory who
were alleged partners in Xanadu productions, the company that thought it would
produce the first Bond epic. But these “partners†split into two camps
operating against the other. In one, Bryce and Fleming wanted to distance
themselves from McClory whose abilities became more and more doubtful; the
other camp was McClory and scriptwriter Jack Whittingham who invested
considerable time and effort shaping what would become the script for Thunderball.
Here, Sellers details both the creative and legal processes,
combing through a very tangled web of relationships in which few hands were
clean. While there’s little question the plagiarism trial hastened the death of
Ian Fleming, the one true victim was certainly writer Jack Whittingham—whom
Sellers dubs “The Forgotten Manâ€â€”who contributed so much to the final script,
notably the film’s set-up in the stealing of the atomic bombs. In addition,
after a 1959 visit to Nassau
with other participants, Whittingham found inspiration for his script from
local settings that ended up being locations used in the 1965 film. Then, in
the 1963 court proceedings, with little potential gain as he’d sold his rights
to McClory, Whittingham supported his friend in court despite extremely poor
health. One stain on the legacy of McClory is that he didn’t return the favor
when Whittingham went to court for compensation for his work. In subsequent
years, McClory looked to Whittingham’s heirs for support in his relentless
pursuit of a piece of the Bond pie, but was never willing to share any tangible
rewards he might have earned. A glaring example was the script for the 1983 Never Say Never Again which drew from
Whittingham’s concepts—but not a dime for the work went to the writer’s family.
Imagine their reluctance to aid McClory in his increasingly quixotic quest.
If one suspects the launching of Sean Connery’s James Bond
took place in a shark tank full of torn tissue and blood, Sellers provides the
evidence of the sad and tragic road that lasted decades. But beyond the legal
sparring, readers gain valuable insights into the creative work in molding an
icon. For but one somewhat strange example, if Fleming had had his way, Felix
Leiter would have died in action; it was the American MCA that wanted more CIA
and leiter to appeal to U.S. audiences. In one letter, Fleming shared one
insight into his vision of who James Bond was, largely repeating the words of
Rene Mathis in the closing moments of 1953’s Casino Royale:
“. . . Bond is a blunt instrument wielded by a government
department. He is quiet, hard, ruthless, sardonic, fatalistic, Audiences will
tend to dislike him until they get to know him and then they will appreciate
that he is their idea of an efficient agent.â€
For Fleming, the “greatest danger to be avoided in this
series†is too much stage “Englishnessâ€. So monocles, moustaches, bowler hats,
Bobbies on the beat and other “Limey gimmicks" were out. Fleming didn’t want
use of blatant English slang and a minimum of public school ties and accents.
And the Secret Service was to be presented as a tough, modern organisation.
"Above all, they should not slap each other on the back or call each other
'old boy.'" Fleming believed the failure of English thriller writers and
the film presentation of their works had always been a lack of sophistication
and toughness and a desire to gain the sympathy of the audience "by the
use of what I can best describe as English hamminess." (Sellers 53)
Then, after discussing the outcome of the plagiarism suit,
the tone and depth of Battle for Bond
changes. Once Kevin McClory and EON Productions agreed to join forces to create
Thunderball, the next grouping of
chapters in Battle
is essentially a “behind the scenes†overview of the making of the film.
Fleshing out what Sean Connery described as “10 weeks of swimming, slugging,
and necking,†Sellers drew from both previously available and new interviews
with supporting cast members and some of the crew. For many readers, this
material offers little they didn’t already know. Then the story picks up 10
years later, covering the legendary Bond movie that never was--the McClory,
Connery, and Len Deighton collaboration, Warhead.
While much of this material is also well-trodden ground, Sellers added a good
summary of the Warhead script which
has only recently begun to circulate around Bond circles.
Then, as with his Thunderball
discussion, Sellers’s overview of the history of Never Say Never Again is another behind the scenes overview of the
film replete with cast biographies and mini-interviews. In addition, Sellers
illustrated this section with photographs of Connery scouting locations with
story boards of prospective scenes, visuals presumably retained for the photo
gallery in the new edition. Again, no surprises, but certainly there is
considerable value in having the whole story told under one cover, from a dream
to the final curtain, at least for Kevin McClory.
After the quasi-success of Never, the story of McClory is one of a man obsessed with obtaining
credit, and compensation for, the entire Bond film canon. Readers who might
have felt sympathy for McClory, as he was, in fact, forced out in the cold by
his partner, Ivor Bryce, will end up puzzled by his fate. Focused on creating
his own 007 franchise, both a fortune and career slipped away, decade by
decade. Again, this denouement is based on familiar sources, but Sellers does
add new material that is, in some cases, a bit odd. Sellers provides a long
description of what happened to one young actor, Andrew Taylor, whom McClory
commissioned to fly to Bermuda and look into some property he had there. In
vivid detail, Taylor recounts how he found the estate in considerable disrepair
with no heat, running water, electricity, nor phone. On the grounds, Taylor
spotted two valuable Thunderball
props, including the underwater sled, left to rust. For six weeks, Taylor tried
to accommodate mcClory’s wishes despite the fact he could not get in contact
with him. Ultimately, he left to resume his normal life with but the memory of
an eccentric adventure.
While this anecdote does shed some light into the
personality of a producer now himself going to seed, the length of this passage
seems as much digression as insight. Likewise, while Jack Whittingham deserved the
considerable attention that’s long overdue for him, the long description of his
post-Thunderball interest in yachts didn’t contribute to the scope or flow of
events of Battle for Bond.
Despite such side paths, Sellers provides two valuable
services for his readers: giving us the first and most authoritative analysis
of the origins of the cinematic James Bond and offering the first book-length
history of the spider’s web of projects associated with Thunderball. The book also includes a series of appendices of
various script drafts that demonstrate how the original conception of James
Bond evolved in the hands of three writers.
After all this, a few
questions remain, such as what did the Ian Fleming Will Trust benefit by
quashing the first edition?
Certainly, unlike all the potential uses of the Bond
universe in literature or film, non-fiction histories are not cash cows,
especially when issued by small presses with print runs of perhaps 2,000
copies. Most likely, the protection of copyright can be seen as a matter of
legal precedent, as when Disney prosecuted T-shirt vendors displaying Mickey
Mouse and other protected characters. While no shirt vendor is likely to reduce
Disney’s coffers, it is a matter of American law that in order to prosecute one
violator, all known infringements must be prosecuted equally. A similar
principle may be in play with the Fleming Trust.
However, as Sellers noted, the documents were not private
correspondence never before seen in public, but were rather documents of record
used in court. They were evidence, in fact evidence McClory wanted to use again
as he’d lost his own copies and wanted the Whittingham family to provide him
these documents for his later attempts to wrest control of the Bond film
franchise. Well, the shark tank is now open—researchers wishing to see these
photocopied pages can still do so by looking for second-hand first editions of Battle for Bond. For most readers, the
publicity might call their attention to a book they missed the first time
around and decide to pick up a copy of the new version. Few will be
disappointed.
To make one final point—Battle
for Bond is a tale full of might-have-beens. James Stewart, Richard Burton
as James Bond? Who would have picked up the mantle if Kevin McClory had had his
way, and a new franchise had been born? In an interview for me for Spywise.net
(“Beyond Thunderball: Robert Sellers
Talks about Bond and other Britsâ€), Robert offered one insightful observation:
“Writing The Battle
for Bond, one thing was obvious to me, thank god Kevin McClory never got
his hands on the Bond films. I really believe that only the combined talents of
Broccoli and Saltzman could have made the Bond films into the success they
were.â€
I concur. So the victors in the 40 year clash ended up
being—us. The battle over The Bond for
Bond had the same victors—general readers who might have missed out on a
tale of clashing film titans if not for the unexpected opportunity to get a new
edition adding—ironically—yet another discussion about yet another battle over Thunderball.
(The new edition of the book is not yet available for pre-order. We will be posting the order links as soon as it is. The original edition is still available from Cinema Retro's James Bond 007 Amazon U.S.A. store. To order, click here.)
Click here to see BBC coverage of the Battle for Bond legal controversy.
Wesley Britton is the author of three books on espionage in
television, film, and literature. His fourth, The Encyclopedia of TV Spies, is scheduled for a 2008 release by
Bear Manor Media. Many of his articles on James Bond and other spies can be
found at
WWW.Spywise.net
(In the “James Bond Files†section, author Ron Payne
recounts his hunt for Kevin McClory and how he obtained a rare script of Warhead. In the “Untold Tales of 007,â€
Payne also summarizes the Warhead storyline.)