19 replies to this topic

[Bon-san]

Just finished reading Wood's novelization for TSWLM. After reading a post on this board which commended Wood on a job well done, I decided to finally read his books. I'd resisted for years, thinking they would be garbage. I was wrong. I found his TSWLM to be the best written Bond book since Colonel Sun. His vocabulary seems to be boundless, and he's got a nifty turn of phrase. He also writes "sexy" quite well.

I'm now in the midst of his Moonraker novelization, which is much less inspired. It adheres almost directly to the screenplay (whereas TSWLM took some nice departures), and there's much less description. It's very much more like your standard soulless movie novelization.

I think Wood would have been a better choice than John Gardner, when it came to picking the Continuation novelist.

[DLibrasnow]

I totally agree Bon-san, I have always thought Woods TSWLM was a great Bond novel. I actually rread it in the late 1970s so its entirely possible that I read that novel before I had ever seen a 007 movie.

[Qwerty]

I would have liked to see a regular Bond novel right from Wood as well, to compare with his two novelizations of my two favorite Bond films.

[Blofeld's Cat]

I'll be reading the Wood novelisations after I finish the FLemings, Colonel Sun and Pearson's Bond biog.

[[dark]]

Yeah, I read the Wood novelisations before the Pearson book, because I didn't have it at that point.

I'd also agree that James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me is the superior of the two, a real good read. Not to say James Bond and Moonraker was poor, but it didn't top his first effort.

James Bond: The Authorised Biography of 007 is also superb. Very unique.

[David Schofield]

Wood's Spy is the only Bond continuation to feature Fleming's Bond other than Colonel Sun. Period.

Moonraker, sadly, doesn't aim to deal with th Drax dilema and therefore is a bit difficult to handle. For all that, though, and the fact it simply follows the movie, its still better written than anything since. And the story is better than most.

Why Glidrose/IFP didn't simply appoint Wood in 1981 is beyond me!

[Qwerty]

I'll be reading the Wood novelisations after I finish the FLemings, Colonel Sun and Pearson's Bond biog.

You won't be dissapointed.

[Turn]

After reading Wood's adaptations of his own screenplays a couple years ago it again confirms how much of the films are delegated by committee. I wonder how much of his stuff actually got cut out of his TSWLM and MR screenplays or was rewritten by Maibaum and Mankiewicz?

[David Schofield]

After reading Wood's adaptations of his own screenplays a couple years ago it again confirms how much of the films are delegated by committee. I wonder how much of his stuff actually got cut out of his TSWLM and MR screenplays or was rewritten by Maibaum and Mankiewicz?

Absolutely. SPY, the movie, is classic cinema Bond BUT how much better would it have been if it had retained the elements Wood keeps in the novel? A Bond movie to rival Goldfinger, I'd say.

[Blofeld's Cat]

After reading Wood's adaptations of his own screenplays a couple years ago it again confirms how much of the films are delegated by committee. I wonder how much of his stuff actually got cut out of his TSWLM and MR screenplays or was rewritten by Maibaum and Mankiewicz?

This from a Maibaum interview in the March 1983 Starlog issue:

His original [The Spy Who Loved Me] screenplay opened with a group of terrorists, comprised of everyone from the Red Brigade to the Weathermen, breaking into an ultra-modern SPECTRE lair.

“They level the place, kick Blofeld out, and take over,” explains Maibaum. “They’re a bunch of young idealists. In the end, Bond comes in and asks, ‘All right, you’re going to blow up the world. What do you want?’ They reply ‘We don’t want anything. We just want to start over – the world is lousy. We want to wipe it away and begin again. So, there’s no way we can be bribed.’

“I never had Stromberg – or whoever the hell it was in that movie – or that interminable thing which went on in the tanker.”

Maibaum’s draft was rewritten by Christopher Wood, who would later pen Moonraker, and polished by Tom Mankiewicz. “Rightly or wrongly, Cubby thought it was too political,” he recalls. “So many young people in the world support those people that we would have scrambled sympathies in the picture. Cubby is a very astute man. He knows…”

Jaws, the steel-toothed mercenary, also lurked in Maibaum’s draft, though he feels the producer later “made a schlemiel out of him in Moonraker. In Maibaum’s original script for The Spy Who Loved Me, Jaws met his death in a furnace.

[superado]

I actually owned MR for years, since it came out but never read it until a couple of years ago. Then, it was a nice treat to finally get my hands on TSWLM, the superior novelization of the two. Never have I been more captivated by a literary Bond girl as I've been with Anya Amassova, and Wood's adult novel experience certainly fed into her rich and sensuous characterization. I liked the detailed and plausible backstories for Sigmund Stromberg and Jaws too. I also liked the "realistic" additions to sequences from the film, such as the PTS and Anya's KGB training in connection to what I've mentioned before.

For MR, I remember how Wood's version of the rainforest river sequence was very realistic such as how Bond gets infested with mosquito bites, which you will never see in the films.

[Donovan]

I recall reading in a magazine (I think it might have been "Bondage"--from the JB fan club. I believe hmss.com has it online) that Mankiewicz wrote a first draft or a treatment for "Moonraker", not polished a Wood script for that film. And Cubby Broccoli claims in his autobiography that he and Dana took what they felt were the best elements from everyone's "The Spy Who Loved Me" scripts, and organized it into something very close to the final screenplay. Things like Jaws biting the shark were Michael Wilson's idea. The character of Jaws was loosely inspired from the novel "TSWLM" on Horror character, who had some bizarre metallic dental work (was it simple braces? don't remember).

Coincidentally, Alejandro Bracho had claimed in an interview that he modelled his portrayal of Perez ("Licence To Kill") on Fleming's description of Horror, particularly with the wardrobe and hair style.

[zencat]

I recall reading in a magazine (I think it might have been "Bondage"--from the JB fan club. I believe hmss.com has it online) that Mankiewicz wrote a first draft or a treatment for "Moonraker", not polished a Wood script for that film. And Cubby Broccoli claims in his autobiography that he and Dana took what they felt were the best elements from everyone's "The Spy Who Loved Me" scripts, and organized it into something very close to the final screenplay. Things like Jaws biting the shark were Michael Wilson's idea. The character of Jaws was loosely inspired from the novel "TSWLM" on Horror character, who had some bizarre metallic dental work (was it simple braces? don't remember).

Coincidentally, Alejandro Bracho had claimed in an interview that he modelled his portrayal of Perez ("Licence To Kill") on Fleming's description of Horror, particularly with the wardrobe and hair style.

Interesting stuff, Donovan. Would love to read that Mank Moonraker.

I always liked the name "Horror" for a henchman. Shame they never used it.

[Tanger]

Perhaps they could have Horror and Terror - henchman twins.

[DLibrasnow]

The original TSWLM drafts were also covered extensively in the Steven Jay Rubin book THE JAMES BOND FILMS: A BEHIND THE SCENES HISTORY.

I also think Horror was a great name for a henchman, and also agree that they messed up the Jaws character in Moonraker. That example of pandering to the fans wishes is a prime example why EON should totally ignore fan suggestions.

[Donovan]

HERE is that interview with Tom Mankiewicz.

Speaking of Mankiewicz, the script I'd love to read more than anything is the original serious draft of "Casino Royale" Bond veteran Wolf Mankiewicz did for Charles Feldman before the unfortunate decision was made to go insane with it.

(I refer to him as a Bond veteran because he was the guy that introduced Cubby to Harry, and wrote the first draft of "Dr. No"--he had his name taken off the picture because he thought it'd tank)

[DLibrasnow]

Blame CASINO ROYALE for going insane because Sellars walked off the lot. He was so upset with Orson Welles that he refused to finish his scenes. That left the producers with only half a movie.

The whole fiasco is covered extensively in an old issue of BONDAGE.

[marmaduke]

I have just finished reading the two Christopher Wood continuation novels
(James Bond)

[Qwerty]

[Mods Note: Topics merged.]

[Napoleon Solo]

HERE is that interview with Tom Mankiewicz.

Speaking of Mankiewicz, the script I'd love to read more than anything is the original serious draft of "Casino Royale" Bond veteran Wolf Mankiewicz did for Charles Feldman before the unfortunate decision was made to go insane with it.

(I refer to him as a Bond veteran because he was the guy that introduced Cubby to Harry, and wrote the first draft of "Dr. No"--he had his name taken off the picture because he thought it'd tank)

Mankowitz also devised the idea of having one of the gangsters crushed to death in the car. He sold the idea to Broccoli and Saltzman for 500 British pounds. (Source: Adrian Turner's 1998 book on Goldfinger, which drew extensively from Richard Maibaum's papers.)