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A Letter from Ian Fleming


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#1 Revelator

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Posted 26 February 2013 - 10:39 PM

The October 26, 1962 issue of The Spectator contains an amusing letter to the editor from Ian Fleming:

 

BONDAGE (The Spectator, October 26, 1962)
 

Sir,—Since James Bond has had the honour of being mentioned in three separate departments of your issue of October 12, and since Bond is at present away in Magnetogorsk, I hope you will allow me to comment on his behalf.


‘Spectator's Notebook’: Queequeg asks what happened to the crabs in the film Dr. No. Alas, they went the way of the giant squid, despite urgent representations from me and from one of the producers. The black crabs had not started ‘running’ in Jamaica last February when the Jamaican scenes were being shot, but on my return to London in March I received an excited invitation to
visit Pine­wood and inspect a consignment of spider crabs obtained from Guernsey. A large tank was unveiled. All the crabs were dead. I asked if they had been preserved in sea water and was told that, since none was available, they had been put in fresh water with plenty of salt added! After that the crab faction gave up.


Letters: Mr. Snell suggests that my serial biography of James Bond is 'a barrier to international understanding.’ He seems not to have noticed that since Thunderball the international organisation ‘SPECTRE’ has taken over as enemy Number One from SMERSH, the murder apparat of the then MWD, dissolved, as I wrote in Thunderball, by Khrushchev. As the recently concluded spy trial in Karlsruhe, involving the liquidation of two Ukrain­ians by a Soviet assassin with a cyanide gas pistol, shows, the machinery of cold-blooded murder by the, now, KGB is again in business and I cannot promise that Bond may not be called upon in the line of duty to involve himself with these new ambassadors for ‘international understanding’ sent out into the world by Moscow.


Cinema: Mr. Ian Cameron, with a fastidious stamp of his grey suede winkle-pickers, scrunches the Dr. No film, while describing James Bond as ‘every intellectual's favourite fascist.’ James Bond's politics are, in fact, slightly left of centre.

 

IAN FLEMING

c /o Jonathan Cape Ltd.

 

 

Some notes:

* Besides giving another reason why Fleming's letters deserve to be collected and published in a book, this letter also shows Fleming's eagerness to promote the Bond films and his concern for their reputation. The anecdote makes me wonder which producer was part of "the crab faction." I think the giant squid was a bigger loss than the crabs, but special effects of 1962 would have probably resulted in a hokey-looking sea monster.

 

*Magnetogorsk (actually spelled Magnitogorsk) is a city in Southwest Russia. Was Fleming already thinking forward to Bond's amnesiac Russian holiday in You Only Live Twice?

 

* True to his word, Fleming did indeed have Bond get back to fighting the Soviets. Future Bond novels might have had him matching wits with more KGB operatives.

 

* One has to commend Fleming for his charming way of knifing critics--"a fastidious stamp of his grey suede winkle-pickers" suggests the film reviewer is both petulant and has bad taste in shoes (and, by extension, films).

 

* Fleming would repeat that Bond's politics were slightly left of center in his later Counterpoint interview. I don't know if there's much evidence for this, mostly because Bond doesn't have many political opinions (Fleming himself was a Tory). Bond likes Kennedy and has sympathy for Castro--that's about all I can think of. Some modern readers would probably place Bond more on the right, given Bond's imperialist nature.

 

On second thought, perhaps I shouldn't wish for a book of Fleming's letters, since it would probably be published by Queen Anne's Press and retail for three hundred dollars.



 


Edited by Revelator, 26 February 2013 - 10:40 PM.


#2 Dustin

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Posted 26 February 2013 - 11:20 PM

Some notes:

* Besides giving another reason why Fleming's letters deserve to be collected and published in a book, this letter also shows Fleming's eagerness to promote the Bond films and his concern for their reputation. The anecdote makes me wonder which producer was part of "the crab faction." I think the giant squid was a bigger loss than the crabs, but special effects of 1962 would have probably resulted in a hokey-looking sea monster.

 

I think letting the crabs go was the right thing to do. In the book they are only mentioned but never appear on-stage. Honey mentions that they weren't a danger to her and 'didn't even smell bad' or something to the effect.

 

 

* Fleming would repeat that Bond's politics were slightly left of center in his later Counterpoint interview. I don't know if there's much evidence for this, mostly because Bond doesn't have many political opinions (Fleming himself was a Tory). Bond likes Kennedy and has sympathy for Castro--that's about all I can think of. Some modern readers would probably place Bond more on the right, given Bond's imperialist nature.

 

Politics, something of a tricky topic with Bond, when there is actually so little evidence given in the oeuvre. I suspect Fleming by then already saw Bond no longer as his alter ego (as Bond clearly was supposed to be in the early books) but a younger version, a next generation. Reading about Fleming himself he seems to have harboured some downright shockingly naive political views and ideas, especially for somebody who spent his nation's crucial years close to the centre of power and on top of his own experience knew many of the political figures of his time. To me it all boils down to Fleming's lack of interest in the details of what political ideas of his day meant in particular. He probably viewed 'left-of-centre' as something mostly appealing to younger people and may actually have felt it would be the 'to-do' thing for Bond, would Bond actually spend much thought on it. 

 

On the other hand we have another of Fleming's letters concerning environment and public transport and such ( if I'm not mistaken brought to our attention by you, Revelator? ) where Fleming himself expressed a number of views that can only be called prophetic and decades ahead of his time, locating Fleming closer to the Greens. Perhaps Fleming himself was by then no longer a Tory in more than name. Being 'conservative' in itself has gone through a series of quite radical metamorphoses and it's in no way guaranteed somebody born in 1908 and bred as a Tory would have been happy about what was called 'conservative' at the end of the last century.  

 

Great find there, thanks for sharing!


Edited by Dustin, 26 February 2013 - 11:25 PM.


#3 Major Tallon

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Posted 27 February 2013 - 12:37 PM

A wonderful find, Revelator.  I was particularly intrigued by Fleming's statement that he had made "urgent representations" regarding the climax of the filmed version of "Dr. No."  It makes me wonder as to any other views he might have expressed to the producers regarding the cinematic versions of his work.  We'll obviously never know, but I can hardly imagine what representations he might have made about "You Only Live Twice."



#4 Dustin

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Posted 27 February 2013 - 03:22 PM

I'm not sure Fleming really was that concerned with the product as long as it was entertaining enough. Supposedly he initially wasn't a fan of the idea to have Connery as Bond, yet no major arguments between Fleming and Broccoli/Saltzman are reported. I'm sure Fleming wanted to have the closest possible adaptation to his work. But he had little influence contractually - none we are aware of at least - and if that had been a concern Fleming wouldn't have signed. As it was he was probably far too happy to see his books finally made into films than to argue a lot with the people doing them. I believe somewhere on the forums there is a general outline, kind of a writer's bible, that laid down the basics of the series, supposedly by Fleming (though I don't remember, if he teamed up with Maibaum perhaps). This is most likely as far as his influence went.

#5 Revelator

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Posted 27 February 2013 - 10:35 PM

Fleming was not initially enthusiastic about Connery, but apparently accepted him after a couple women he knew gave their vigorous approval (according to Lycett and the documentary on the TLD DVD). And  meeting Connery also helped Fleming change his mind. The latter has repeatedly insisted that Fleming was a snob but very good company--I hope someone will get Connery to elaborate on this, and on his time with Fleming.

 

The standard line on Fleming's involvement with the films is that after the Thunderball debacle he was happy to hand over all the moviemaking duties and not be involved. It's probably true that he had little control over the films, but I think he was more concerned about them than we tend to presume. The fact that he was invited to Pinewood for a matter as minor as the crabs suggests that he kept tabs on the production. That is also suggested by his accompanying the FRWL film crew on location. We also know that he looked over the script of Goldfinger and visited the set. I also remember reading somewhere that Fleming said that the film of Dr. No would be a terrible disappointment to those who knew the book, but a wonderful film for anyone who hadn't--this suggests that he had some concern over the fidelity of the films to their sources. But the entire area is definitely one that requires further research.



#6 Dustin

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Posted 28 February 2013 - 06:22 AM

Hm, this makes me wonder indeed...

My usual argument re Fleming vs. Eon's films is in fact the one you mention, the years of struggle to get a project - any project - going, the frustrating experience with film producers and script writers who often questioned the adaptability of his work, all that had its effect on Fleming. Over the years he must have been told several times how the industry optioned and bought potential material in bulk, but the fact either didn't register with Fleming or he just refused to believe such could happen to his books.

When the Thunderball project fell through and the subsequent court case costed him years as well as a good deal of his health, that finally was the straw that broke the camel's back. Fleming got his fingers badly burned with this business, right at the time when Eon was willing to option all his books and made way to adapt them as a series, not just one single film.

But perhaps at that moment Fleming was willing to keep himself out of the actual machinations of the films and later resented not playing a more active role? We know how he often denied any pretentiousness about his work, yet time and again tried to temper with his recipe to gain acknowledgement by those literary figures whose contempt for Bond rankled so bitterly; many of those friends of his wife and regular guests at his own home. I suppose if Eon had granted him active status within their team he would have taken the chance to become more involved no doubt. If such ardour had survived the inevitable frustrations of day-to-day filmmaking is another question. It's a team activity after all, one with the final say lying with the producers. Whereas Fleming was used to have his own way. Extended arguments about 'creative differences' were out of the question, something Fleming must have been aware of by then. It seems while he wasn't a very amiable chap with most strangers, he also was much too well-behaved to publicly say anything against his and Eon's common product. But he would no doubt have had his own ideas about every single film, we just never will learn about them any more.