As this installment grew to be quite lengthy - am breaking it up into two parts ...
3. William Gaunt
Bond (William Gaunt) and Ariadne (Alexandra Bastedo) in 'Colonel Sun' (1973)
Time in Role: 1973 - 1980
Life: 1937 - Present
First Film: Colonel Sun (1973)
Last Film: You Only Live Twice (1980)
How He Got The Role:
Producers went into the audition process to find Bond #3 determined not to make a mistake. This time they wanted an actor, preferably one with pedigree in action films or one of the popular spy series of the sixties. A wishlist was drawn up and then whittled down - at the end there were two finalists: Roger Moore, who had starred as Simon Templar in The Saint and William Gaunt, who had starred in the short lived The Champions about secret agents who gained abilities after they survived a plane crash.
Both shone in screen tests with a stand-in actress, recreating scenes from 'For Your Eyes Only' between Bond and Claudia, both had shown themselves physically capable. If either were unpopular with audiences, it wouldn't be because of lack of ability, acting skills or genre experience.
In the end, the decision was made by one studio executive who saw the promo shots that the production team had taken of both actors.
"Don't you think that Roger is too pretty to be a spy?" they commented. In that moment, William Gaunt became Bond and his casting was announced to the world in 1971.
The Gaunt Era:
'Colonel Sun' would be Gaunts first film, the first not to be based, at least vaguely, on a Fleming title. Published in 1968, it had been intended to be filmed earlier in 1970 as the second film to star Robert Campbell before the reception to Campbells debut in 'Diamonds are Forever' had forced plans to change to film 'Moonraker' instead. Despite the initial reluctance of Ian Fleming Publications to permit the adaptation of continuance novels, they eventually permitted it after insisting on heavy involvement in the scripting process. Despite his absence on the previous film, Len Deighton had been heavily involved in the drafting of the early screenplays and as such it remains relatively faithful to the novel - relatively being a matter of perspective as events are moved around, locations are altered and a secondary female lead, Agent Fields (Wanda Ventham with a red wig), a representative of the British consulate in Istanbul, is added to the plotline.
M (Bernard Lee) is abducted, along with his KGB counterpart, from a peace summit in Morocco. Bond tracks the two down across Turkey and Greece with the aide of a Soviet operative, Ariadne (Gaunt's former co-star from The Champions, Alexandra Bastedo), and finds himself involved in an alliance between a fugitive Nazi and a rogue Chinese soldier who hope to extort money from Britain and Russia, whilst simultaneously having each country blame it on the other in order to destabilise any friendly relations between the two powers.
It would be via M's Russian counterpart, General Morzeny (Barry Morse) that they would address the recasting with Morzeny looking up at Bond from his KGB file (in which the audience see the picture is of Campbell), and commenting:
MORZENY
You look a little different
to the photo in your file -
BOND
(dryly)
Well, they do say that the
camera adds ten pounds.
Although the villains were a Nazi and a Communist, the movie continued the last films trend of the villain not being connected to a specific country. Bond had, in essence, become apolitical. This would be a running thread of Gaunt's run as Bond, the second of which would be an adaptation of Robert Markham's second Bond continuation, 'Per Fine Ounce', in 1974.
'Per Fine Ounce' shares common elements with 'Diamonds are Forever' in that it is about smuggling - albeit gold and not diamonds. Bond is sent to investigate the crash of a plane that was secretly carrying gold bullion back from Hong Kong (where the bullion had been hidden during WW2). The gold bullion is missing when Bond arrives at the crash site, and he follows the trail to South Africa with the help of CIA operative, Cherry Johnson (Carole Cole), where he confronts the Afrikaner mining magnate Anton Van Rhyn (Ed Bishop, following his UFO colleague Wanda Ventham into the Bond universe) who intends to use the stolen gold to buy weapons (including a nuclear weapon) and cause a revolution in South Africa in order to solidify white minority rule under Van Rhyn.
The commentary that the movie made on the apartheid situation proved to be quite controversial, given that it was openly critical of the South African government. Cherry was presented as Bonds equal and Van Rhyn as typical of a section of the South African population. Bishop added to the criticism when he discussed how he had modelled his portrayal of Van Rhyn on the pro-apartheid Prime Minister BJ Vorster.
In turn, Bond and Cherry discover that Van Rhyn had learned about the shipment from a Member of Parliament, clearly modelled on the infamous Enoch Powell.
After being to be apolitical for both 'Moonraker' and 'Colonel Sun', the studio had produced the strongest political commentary in the eight movies so far.
South Africa banned the film, and then the sale and import of the Markham novel, but the country was such a small factor into the box office or novel sales, it didn't worry the studio who repeated the maxim that 'no publicity is bad publicity.
Gaunts hiring was proving to be a great decision and the next film - and the third in Gaunt's initial contract, was announced to be 'Octopussy'. When production began, the producers knew that this might be his last appearance as Bond should he refuse the option on the fourth film so they went to him with an offer of an increase in his fee, should he not only exercise the option of a fourth film but sign a new contract to take him up to a fifth.
Gaunt agreed.
George McDonald Fraser, writer of the well known Flashman novels, was invited to submit a treatment for the film. It had been decided, before the plot had even been determined, that the movie would be set at least partly in India. Fraser was seen as somewhat of an expert but the first draft of his treatment would have led Octopussy to an expected run time of over two and a half hours.
Richard Maibaum and Christopher Wood (who novelised the eventual screenplay) were brought in to revise the treatment and draft the script.
The short story of 'Octopussy' could not stretch to a full movie, so instead it provided tentpoles on which to hang the new plot: A man called Dexter Smythe is implicated in the murder of Hans Oberhauser, an old friend of Bond, and the sinister reason for the murder is revealed. In the story, Smythe is a war hero and the movie makes him a former Double-Oh (explicitly Bonds predecessor as 007) whilst his reason for Killing Oberhauser is no longer that they had discovered a cache of Nazi gold, but that the two had entered into a criminal enterprise and Oberhauser was going to expose Smythe.
Smythe's death by Octopus(sy) is lifted almost wholesale from the story but Bond shoots him with a tranquilizer dart as opposed to Smythe 'accidentally' dosing himself with scorpion fish venom.
An early stunt sequence would see Bond chasing an assassin on the Isle of Man after Oberhauser is shot. A footchase leads the two to the Isle of Man TT and the chase then proceeds on motorbikes, ending with the assassin revealed as a beautiful woman (Sybil Danning) before she gets away.
A sequence later in the film saw Bond escaping from being held captive at an airstrip, stealing a plane and then landing it on a public highway.
In the course of his adventure, Bond teams up with an agent of the Indian Secret Service (called Rani in early drafts but Padma when filmed) in order to track down Smythe and bring down his criminal enterprise. The role went to former Miss India (and Miss Universe competitor), Persia Khambatta, who would later find fame in Star Trek: Phase II as Lieutenant Illia, in 1978.
The movie would simultaneously introduce audiences to Paul Eddington as the new (but similar to his predecessor, never named) M after Bernard Lee had retired following 'Per Fine Ounce' and introduce the idea of SPECTRE with Smythe being revealed to have connections to the mystery organisation and being the organisation between the abduction of M and Morzeny in 'Colonel Sun' and the smuggling of gold bullion in ' Per Fine Ounce'.
The connection to SPECTRE had been absent from early drafts of 'Octopussy but was added in shortly before shooting when producers had settled on a plan of action for Gaunts new contract.
In 1977, producers decided that the world was ready for an adaptation of 'On Her Majesties Secret Service' ...