5 replies to this topic

[Qwerty]

Now on the CBn main page...

'The Man Who Would Be Bond'

Kevin McClory documentary on RTE One, 25 May

[Bonita]

We can only hope the documentary has better information and accuracy than the press release. Oh, it was McClory's idea to have an original story, eh? The usual blather. "McClory held the rights to this screenplay." Uh, no. Even the ever-eager to smudge the facts Robert Sellers doesn't seem to go this far.McClory won those rights in the settlement. If he already had the rights, he wouldn't have had to have asked for them in the lawsuit.

And despite the fact that the Sellers book is an unadulterated crock, which itself plagiarizes liberally from Raymond Benson (or shall we say, lifts a lot of material without attribution - maybe Raymond gave his blessing when he wrote that first introduction - the one that mysterious disappeared in the second edition), it does at least make it clear that McClory was at best a con man of sorts, cutting out Jack Whittingham - a real writer - from the spoils of the lawsuit settlement and failing to play his lawyer the money given to him as "legal fees."

It is a shame that Sellers was not up to the task of telling the story properly, even with his access to the papers. I fear that the crappola in this press release makes it clear that this will add all too little to the real story.

Keep dancing,

[Dekard77]

Yes this all sounds rather silly and pointless. Best is to steer away.

[TheSaint]

I'd love to see this. Shame it's only airing in Ireland.

[Safari Suit]

I'm amazed they've actually made a documentary about this. Not that I wouldn't watch it you understand. Will it ever come out on DVD?

[Bonita]

I should add that, of course, I'd watch the documentary (and hopefully will). I also hope that there is good info in the finished piece, a better, more complex portrait of McClory, and a bit more depth than the all-too-frequent McClory party line on what happened from 1959-1963, because sadly, McClory was very good at re-writing history, convincing people to work for him whom he never paid, and threatening to sue (and suing) people who angered him. And despite my deep misgivings about the Robert Sellers book, it does at least document some (but certainly not all) of McClory's issues with reality.

So, it would be great if any Bond fans from Ireland can let us know if this will be the manufactured story of the plucky Irishman who battled the stuffy British author, or if it is the story of a complex, ambitious man who had a long history of falling out with his collaborators, who had a self-destructive streak, and left behind after his death a list of creditors stretching back well over 40 years.

But that story has been one McClory suppressed for most of his life.

Keep dancing...