Posted 21 July 2011 - 05:34 AM
I enjoyed reading it. I bought the first edition. (With the 44 extra pages!) Quite a lot about the script development, all the way back to the late 1950s. They had some "interesting" ideas - most unusual being having ex-US President Harry S. Truman appear at the start warning about the dangers of atomic bombs. I suppose the idea was that since he authorized their use in anger, he would be able to speak from experience.
The "images" - a lot, as you would expect, of Messrs Fleming, Bryce, McClory and Whittingham, as well as scenes from TB and NSNA. Quite a few, for some reason, of Jack Whittingham's daughter Sylvan, both in her career as a would be pop star and then as a photographer. I got the impression that the author relied on her knowledge of the legal dispute, given that her family friend, the solicitor Peter Carter-Ruck, had acted for the McClory/Whittingham side in the 1963 court case and bequeathed certain archives about it to her.
As I say, a good and interesting read, particularly to see how the story developed from a "screen treatment" to a novel, to a film, another film, and several films that never were!