WARHEAD (1977)
Sean Connery IS James Bond
FATIMA: "I can read you like a book, James.”
BOND: "This must be the Braille system you’re using.”
(
Warhead’s final shooting script, 1976)
Fresh from winning a controversial court case against Ian Fleming in 1963 over plagiarism charges surrounding the Bond novel Thunderball, Kevin McClory had been at the same time gratified and bothered by the instant popularity of the EON Bond films.
With its first three entries proving such a success with audiences and critics – a worldwide sensation even – it was clear there was a market for Bond, but the prospect of competing with EON and Connery seemed immensely difficult. Still, McClory had made sufficiently public moves to produce his own film so as to raise the alarms at EON, persuading producers Saltzman and Broccoli to drop plans to adapt On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and strike a mutually advantageous deal with the rowdy Irish filmmaker. Alongside a generous upfront payment, the status of main producer, and even a hefty share of the eventual – and colossal – profits, McClory was only forbidden from producing his own separate version of Thunderball for a decade. Flush with cash after the subsequent and resounding box office success, he simply waited. Saltzman and Broccoli may have well thought it would be the last they’d see of his would-be competitor.
As luck would have it, the second half of 1975 and the expiration of the ten-year period found the Bond franchise at a particularly vulnerable moment. With Thunderball remaining the box office peak, the franchise had been weakened by a revolving door of actors – Connery, Lazenby, Connery again, then Moore –, critical disdain and anemic box office returns, culminating in the disappointment of The Man with the Golden Gun and the collapse of the personal and professional relationship between Broccoli and Saltzman, the latter of which was forced to his share of the rights to United Artists on December 1975, haunted by crippling financial debts.
For his own part, McClory started his efforts with a visit to Sean Connery himself, taking advantage of being on very friendly terms with the Scottish actor. Aware that he was never going to entice Connery into assisting the project by merely offering to return to the Bond role, McClory took a different route: he asked him to help write a script and assist in production. An intrigued Connery – having long wanted to have more creative agency – immediately took him up on his offer, and alongside thriller novelist Len Deighton, the trio alternated between Ireland and Marbella as they wrote a number of treatments, finally completing a script by the end of the year. Sensing vulnerability at EON and confident of his own chances, McClory struck the first blow with as much dramatic bluster as he could: he announced his company, Paradise Film Production, would bring 007 back to the big screen in James Bond of the Secret Service, a Thunderball remake.
EON and Broccoli, to put it mildly, went ballistic. McClory, having caught wind that Broccoli’s upcoming project The Spy Who Loved Me included SPECTRE, doubled down by suing EON, arguing he had the exclusive rights both to the organization and even the Blofeld character. Broccoli was not intimidated, countering with a legal offensive of his own to limit the scope of what McClory could do with a remake. The legal infighting may have gone on for months and forced McClory to back down, were it not for an unexpected development. Connery, having long insisted he was done with the role, had been reenergized by writing the new script – privately derided by some as incredibly outlandish – and made the decision to return to the role Bond he had once resented so much. The project’s stock and reputation immediately shot up with the news that Connery had been signed up to play 007 again, prompting Paramount Pictures to pre-empt any competition in Hollywood by acquiring the rights on June 1976.
With Paramount’s finances putting a legal army behind McClory and his legal position, the developing court case soon confirmed both McClory’s rights to SPECTRE and to make a Thunderball remake, while keeping him under moderate creative constraints. Placing a major bet behind the Irishman by delivering a budget of $25 million and Richard Attenborough on the director’s chair, McClory and Connery set to the task of assembling the cast and putting the film together. With the convoluted script demanding a surprisingly large cast, McClory enticed Orson Welles and Trevor Howard to come on board in key roles, and almost recruited Gian María Volonte as Largo before Paramount forced him to reduce the size of the final cast. With Charlotte Rampling set to be Connery’s co-star once again (Zardoz), this time as the Bond girl, the cast was rounded with Ronny Cox as the new Felix Leiter, and Jim Kelly as the intimidating SPECTRE henchman Bomba (whom the script, rather infamously, describes as making Muhammad Ali look like a ***).
Although Paramount was delighted with the script – featuring ambitious special effects and a larger than life plot -, McClory and Attenborough clashed over the director’s wish to tone down some of the more excessive aspects, including the concept of sharks carrying nuclear weapons to the sewers of New York, and an attempt to make Fatima Blush and Domino twins. Although Attenborough prevailed on those two points, the final script remained very close to Connery’s original vision. For his part, the lead actor approached the project with unyielding optimism – it helped that he was shielded from the press -, staying in shape and, according to most observers, looking far better than he did in Diamonds are Forever.
Filming on Nassau, New York City and Ireland – posing as England – during early 1977, post-production proved to be particularly difficult endeavor for legal reasons, as EON’s attorneys did everything possible to force McClory and Paramount to avoid infringing any copyright aspects. Thus the film was denied use of the James Bond theme, the gun barrel sequence, and even the original title, which EON argued was a clear infringement. Forced to improvise, McClory decided on “Warhead” as a suitable replacement. Paramount’s fascination with the success of Star Wars also led them to double down on the usage of special effects, with McClory then frantically trying to promote his film to the press as “Star Wars underwater”. Thus, after a heavy marketing campaign promoting Connery’s return – “the real 007 is back”, as they put it -, Warhead was released to theaters on October 1977.
Warhead starts with the hijacking of a seaplane carrying the UN General Secretary near the Bermuda Triangle, to be then carried by mysterious divers into Arkos, an enormous superstructure submerged beneath the sea. There, powerful and sinister SPECTRE Chairman Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Orson Welles), holds a meeting with the high ranking members of his organization, including operative Fatima Blush (Marthe Keller) and mute bodyguard Bomba (Jim Kelly). Giving a histrionic speech, Blofeld asserts SPECTRE’s intention to take possession of the seas, and save “Planet Ocean” by putting an end to rampant human pollution. Meanwhile, in England, James Bond (Sean Connery) is spending time recovering from a difficult mission at the Shrublands clinic, alongside CIA agent and close friend Felix Leiter (Ronny Cox) and CIA pilot Hellinger. Interrupted while romancing Shrubland’s masseuse Justine Lovesit, Bond is informed by MI6 not only of the kidnapping of the General Secretary, but also of the mysterious sinking of three Russian, American and British submarines.
Hellinger, who is supposed to investigate the missing American submarine, is betrayed by Blush, who has been manipulating him as his lover. While the sensual Blush flirts outrageously with Bond, she has the pilot replaced with identical double and fellow operative Petacchi. Petacchi subsequently sabotages the American rescue operation of the submarine and allows SPECTRE to retrieve several nuclear warheads, only to be brutally killed by Bomba. Shortly afterwards, Blofeld – whilst hiding his identity - has a message delivered to the leading powers of the world, taking responsibility for the kidnappings and the hijack of the warheads. The SPECTRE Chairman then threatens to destroy a major city if his demands are not met. Shortly after being briefed at the MI6 HQ by M (Trevor Howard) on the developing situation, Bond is ambushed by Blush on his own apartment, as the SPECTRE agent tries to kill him with an explosive trap. Turning the tables on his enemy, Bond successfully deceives Blush and kills her with her own bomb.
Finding a clue that appears to incriminates Blofeld, only known to MI6 as a successful businessman, Bond and Leiter fly to the Bahamas, picking up on his trail after Bond meets and seduces Domino (Charlotte Rampling), Blofeld’s disenchanted lover. Domino leads both men to Shark Island, a SPECTRE base of operations, and the group is captured. Blofeld arrives at the scene and harshly interrogates Bond, only to be interrupted by the arrival of British and American reinforcements. Realizing that Domino has betrayed him, Blofeld kidnaps her and takes her to Arkos, which starts rapidly moving underwater towards the intended target. Released by the troops, Bond and Leiter identify the target with Q’s help as New York City. Flying there, they eventually realize SPECTRE is planning to detonate the weapons from inside the Statue of Liberty. Confronting Blofeld and Bomba, Bond barely prevails in a fierce battle with the bodyguard, and Leiter disables the weapons.
As Blofeld escapes to Arkos, Bond chases all the way to the submerged Arkos whilst battling against SPECTRE’s trained sharks. Successfully rescuing Domino, Bond confronts and kills Blofeld. In a final act of revenge, Blofeld actives the Arkos’s self-destruct mechanism, forcing the couple to flee at the last moment in Blofeld personal submarine. Reaching the surface, they prepare to spend some time in private. The movie ends with Rule Britannia blaring alongside the credits.
Paramount’s risky gamble on McClory – perhaps the main reason the film was made at all against Broccoli’s opposition – appeared to have paid off handsomely as audiences clearly responded to Connery’s return, resulting in one of the strongest opening weekends for a Bond film at the time. Despite having to compete with Star Wars’s unprecedented streak at the number one place in the box office, the film had been released late enough to be spared from facing a more direct competition, thus allowing it to net the studio – as well as Connery and McClory – a very healthy profit, the most financially successful Bond project since, in a twist of irony, Thunderball itself. Although a very vocal minority of critics harshly criticized the plot as absurd, most welcomed Connery’s charismatic return to the role as well Welles and Keller’s performances, praise which was also extended to Aretha Franklin’s “Warhead” theme song.
For his own part, and with The Spy Who Loved Me temporarily derailed by the McClory court case, Broccoli had been forced to do major surgery to the original plot, first replacing Blofeld with Stromberg, another sea-obsessed villain, and then returning to a script previous to the inclusion of SPECTRE to have the mysterious Zodiak as Bond’s new antagonist. Enjoying comparative advantages over McClory’s production – which had to be assembled from scratch as opposed to EON’s well-oiled machine -, Broccoli pulled no stops as he brought Guy Hamilton back to the director’s chair, with the mission to defeat Warhead in the upcoming battle. With Moore delivering a confident, more amicable performance and an efficient direction, The Spy Who Loved Me came out shortly after Warhead, delivering EON a much needed success even as Moore lost the so called “Battle of the Bonds”.
Heralded on its moment as a fun, exciting adventure amidst a backdrop of underwhelming Bond films of the 70’s, Warhead has puzzlingly lost a great deal of its charm for modern audiences and fans, many of which can’t seem to get past the plot issues. Although Connery’s return to the role remains very well received, many argue Warhead goes too far to be taken seriously, veering at times into self-parody. Whether the self-parody tones were intentional or not is also a matter of contention, with Connery’s later comments justifying the more fantastical elements of the film as a recognition of Bond’s lack of realism being perceived a more of an ex post facto justification. Highlights of the film include the Arkos and its effects (which hold up well to this day), the underwater sequences, Bond’s rapport with Blush, and Welles’s menacing performance.
Author’s Notes: Yes, the infamous proto-Never Say Never Again with sharks carrying nuclear warheads. The plot comes from two different scripts from the 1970’s, which I’ve tried to reorganize and tone down just a bit, with an earlier and stronger commitment by Connery and Paramount helping the project to survive. I originally conceived Warhead as an utter failure because I couldn’t take the plot seriously, but since Never Say Never Again was so well received by critics at the time – in spite of its painful flaws – it felt interesting to explore such an insane script becoming an actual success. A trend in these scenarios will be the notion that, based on a specific context, audiences will not always love the Bond films one expects them to in the first place, and vice versa.
THE DEATH COLLECTORS will return in
“TOMORROW NEVER LIES”
