(This Never Happened To) The Other Fella ...

Bond 1. Stanley Baker (1962 - 1966)
  • A little experiment on my part ...

    1. Stanley Baker


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    Bond (Stanley Baker) and Mathis (Giorgio Albertazzi) in 'From A View To A Kill' (1962)

    Time in Role: 1962 - 1966
    Life: 1928 - 1976

    First Film: From A View To A Kill (1962)
    Last Film: Thunderball (1966)

    How He Got The Role:

    Stanley Baker was an unexpected lead contender for the role of James Bond in 1962. Producers had offered the role to Cary Grant, who provisionally accepted but would only commit to a single film and the studio insisted on a contract for three. A competition in a newspaper saw the top two contenders as Sean Connery and Peter Anthony - but the latter was more model than actor and the former was scruffy when turning up for a screencast.

    In the end, the producers turned to Baker who had recently had a minor role in The Guns of Navarone. He was avaliable, not unrealistically expensive and would agree to a three movie contract, with options on a fourth.

    The Baker Era:


    Baker would debut in 1962's 'From A View To A Kill'. Based on the short story of the same name from the 1960 short story collection 'For Your Eyes Only'. The story was expanded upon by Ian Fleming himself - set primarily in France and Greece, it saw Bond team up with Mary-Ann Russell (Julie Christie, aged 22) an agent from Station F, to thwart a Russian plan to steal secret documents from an MI6 motorbike courier in France and deliver them to the traitorous Colonel Rattray (Laurence Harvey, who also starred in that years The Manchurian Candidate) in Greece.

    The follow-up to 'A View To A Kill' was 1963's 'For Your Eyes Only' which had, like the first film, been adapted by Ian Fleming from another short story. The two adaptations had been written simultaneously when the producers were unsure which movie would be the first produced.

    'For Your Eyes Only' would see Bond travel to Cuba and Brazil to track down a Nazi hitman called Von Hammerstein (James Mason) who has killed a British diplomat, Sir Timothy Havelock. In a twist of fate, when Bond eventually tracks him down, he has already been murdered by the diplomats daughter Claudia (a relatively unknown Jane Fonda, renamed from the short story's Judy) and the pair team up to track down the Soviet mastermind who had ordered the assassination.

    The final movie in Baker's original contract would be 1964's adaptation of 'Casino Royale' - but unlike the previous two films, this had not been adapted by Fleming himself but by his fellow writer, Len Deighton. It was the first to combine two Fleming tales - with elements from the short story 'Risico' combined with the plot of 'Casino Royale'.

    Le Chiffre (Anthony Dawson) was revealed to be the financier for the Soviet organisation behind Rattray's attempted theft of documents in 'A View To A Kill' and the assassination of Sir Timothy Havelock in 'For Your Eyes Only' who had invested vast sums of money in a drug smuggling operation run by one of two men. When Bond, aided by his old friend Rene Mathis (Giorgio Albertazzi, returning to the role) and Vesper Lynd (Daniela Bianchi), determines which of the two - Kristatos or Columbo - is behind the drug smuggling, he demolishes their operation and then moves on to ruin Le Chiffre .

    With the release of 'Casino Royale' in 1964, Baker's initial contract had run its course. There remained an option for him to agree to a fourth, but producers were keen to sign him on a second three picture deal. Baker agreed to a fourth but refused a second three movie contract - his terms for staying in the role? An increased salary and his choice of adaptation.

    He selected 'Thunderball' which would be released in 1966 from a script by Ian Fleming, Jack Whittingham and Kevin McClory, and revised by Len Deighton, who grounded the plot in order to match the first three films. A hastily filmed scene was attached to the end of the cinema release of 'Casino Royale', introducing the character of Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Charles Grey), it saw the villain being informed of the passing of Le Chiffre and their income stream having been eliminated.

    BLOFELD
    Next time we meet, I expect Mr
    Bond to kindly die ...

    Even with several drafts by Len Deighton and a pass by Roald Dahl, 'Thunderball' was a marked contrast to the previous three films. It saw Bond trying to stop Blofeld from using stolen nuclear material to hold the NATO countries hostage. It combined the characters of Count Lippe and Patricia into a femme fatale called The Countessa (Luciana Paluzzi), had Angelo Palazzi steal the material after undergoing hypnosis and removed the familial connection between Angelo and Domino (Faye Dunaway) to make her a colleague sent to help Bond instead.

    The villains plot to detonate containers of radioactive water during a NATO conference in the Bahamas would later inspire the group, "Days of Omega" to make a similar threat in Spokane, Washington, ten years after the films release. At the conclusion of the movie, Bond appears to die and the audience watch his funeral - but this is a plot to fool Blofeld (Charles Grey, returning to the role) and the Soviets, as Bond is shown to be watching his own funeral with Domino from a nearby clock tower.

    The credits roll. The Baker Era comes to an end, but a final surprise for the audience - a title card at the end of the credits, promising that James Bond would return in 'Diamonds are Forever'.


    Succeeded By Robert Campbell
     
    Last edited:
    Bond 2. Robert Campbell (1968 - 1970)
  • A little earlier than planned - partly because I have work tomorrow ...

    2. Robert Campbell


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    Bond (Robert Campbell) and Martine (France Anglade) in 'Diamonds are Forever' (1968)


    Time in Role: 1968 - 1970
    Life: 1927 - 2000


    First Film: Diamonds are Forever (1968)
    Last Film: Moonraker (1970)


    How He Got The Role:

    Negotiations with Stanley Baker had continued up to a few months before the release of 'Thunderball' in 1966. As a result, producers knew that the next movie would see the debut of a new actor in the role of James Bond. Robert Campbell was one of five actors on the list of contenders which also included George Lazenby, Hans De Vries, Anthony Rogers and John Richardson. It came down to a crucial series of test scenes in late 1966, with Campbell and Lazenby coming out in the lead after shooting scenes with actress France Anglade wearing a blonde wig. Anglade would later feature in 'Diamonds are Forever' in the minor role of Martine.

    The producers voiced a preference for Campbell's physicality over Lazenby's whilst his detractors pointed out that Campbell was from America. Some thought that whilst Lazenby was Australian, he was at least from the Commonwealth and therefore the more appropriate choice.

    The choice would not change. Robert Campbell was announced to the world as the new James Bond in 1967 with a three movie contract (and an optional fourth). It was a decision that some would later regret.

    The Campbell Era:

    After his redraft of 'Thunderball', Roald Dahl was asked to draft the first version of the 'Diamonds are Forever' screenplay. Under the direction of the producers, as this was the fifth film but the first with a new Bond, the script would be a Greatest Hits - the plot structure was evocative of 'For Your Eyes Only' with Bonds investigation of a diamond smuggling operation in the South China Sea leading to him teaming up with the heroine and following a trail to the big villain.

    Here the heroine was a revised version of the novels Tiffany Case (Raquel Welch) who finds herself exposed as part of the smuggling operation by Bond and hung out to dry by the villain - he takes out a hit on her, employing the mute hitman, Mr Tree, and she teams up with Bond to seek revenge, leading to a climactic boat chase on Lake Mead, with Bond and Tiffany pursuing the villain, the secretly-Communist billionaire Willard Whyte (Christopher Plummer, playing largely against type), who Bond figures out is connected to Blofeld.

    It had passing similarity to the novel it was based on, but the most controversial plot element of the movie was wholly original. Producers designed an opening sequence in which Bond is given plastic surgery in order to continue the ruse he had died at the end of the previous film.

    This provided drama within the movie as Bond figured out the connection between Whyte and Blofeld and worried that Whyte would see through his Peter Franks pseudonymn and expose his survival to the Russians.

    In the end, Bond reveals himself to Whyte moments before he shoots the millionaire and saves Tiffany.

    WHYTE
    Only one man could have made
    that shot, and Number One had
    him killed ...

    When the credits rolled at the end of the movie, audiences seemed unanimous that whilst the movie was enjoyable and both Welch and Plummer were acceptable, the new Bond was arguably the weakest element. Newspapers around the world ran reports about Campbell - that not only was he American (the plot contrived a reason for him to retain his real accent as part of Bond being undercover) but he was also a writer with virtually no acting experience. Had producers mistaken him for his actor brother William Campbell?

    Behind the scenes panic set in, with the people who voiced opposition to Campbell's casting being undeniably smug. Campbell had signed the same contract as Baker - three films, with an option on a fourth. But Campbell had only made one film, and to buy him out of the contract would have cost the studio a ridiculous sum.

    Several concepts were floated - a loose adaptation of 'The Spy Who Loved Me' in which Bond barely appears was front and centre. But Campbell's agent quickly vetoed that - he knew that he might be able to squeeze the full fee from the studio.

    In the end, an agreement was reached with Campbell. The studio would buy him out of his contract after he starred in a second film - they would fail to exercise the option on a fourth, which meant they were only buying him out of his contract for a single movie.

    And it would be one with a lower budget more in line with that of 'From A View To A Kill' and 'For Your Eyes Only' than 'Thunderball' and 'Diamonds are Forever'.

    Abandoning plans to adapt Kingsley Amis' Bond novel, 'Colonel Sun', 'Moonraker' would debut in 1970 with a treatment penned by John Gardner, whose sixth Bond pastiche Boysie Oakes novel would come out the same year, and a script by Richard Maibum who had been the bridesmaid but never the bride for the past eight years.

    'Moonraker' as a novel was set entirely in England, but as a film this wouldn't be conceivable with the travelogue element being of increasing importance in the first five films. After visiting locations as diverse as France, Brazil, Hong Kong, Miami and Las Vegas, Bond would visit Monaco (recreated on a sound stage) and Spain (or, at least, the Canary Islands, the only actual international filming) where he would encounter the villain, Hugo Drax (Omar Sharif). Given that the previous film had the villain being a secret Communist, and For Your Eyes Only had seen the villain, Von Hammerstein, being a Nazi living under an assumed identity, the producers and writers considered that the novels backstory for Drax essentially copied both and were reluctant to do that - so his backstory would change. The villains of the previous five movies had been Blofeld and the Soviets in some form or another - so why didn't they, someone suggested, make Drax an avaricious capitalist who intended to use the missile defence system of the novel to hold London and New York hostage.

    The change was made - Blofeld and the Soviets were nowhere to be seen, other than Bonds initial suspicion that Drax might be working for his nemesis and eventual surprise that he isn't whilst Bond continues to use the Peter Franks alias handed to him in the previous installment.

    American actress Jaclyn Smith, who would later find fame with her part as Kelly Garrett in the tv show 'Charlie's Angels' would take the part of an Americanized Gala Brand, a CIA plant in Drax's organisation, reporting to Felix Leiter (David Hedison) who would be appearing in the Bond films for the first time despite appearing in both novels of 'Thunderball' and 'Diamonds are Forever'.

    With the release of 'Moonraker' in 1970, producers were surprised that audience reception to Campbell had moved from lukewarm to acceptable in a film that was designed to play to his strengths - looking good and fighting with a minimal amount of 'acting' required. But payments had already been made, contracts had been severed and Campbell was out.

    A new actor was on the way in, but the world would have to wait three years for his debut.


    Succeeded By William Gaunt
     
    Bond 3. William Gaunt (1973 - 1980) Part 1
  • As this installment grew to be quite lengthy - am breaking it up into two parts ...

    3. William Gaunt

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    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' ...
     
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