"Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure—an anonymous, blunt instrument wielded by a government department."—Ian Fleming  

 

Dear Barbara Broccoli,

 

I understand you dislike having your picture taken, or being on camera, however visitors to this website should not regard you as an abstract figure about whom much will be said. Your brother, Michael G. Wilson, revealed that work has begun on the next Bond film for a 2011 release. As your company prepares the 23rd outing for 007 ahead of the 60th anniversary of James Bond’s creation (1952) and the 50th anniversary since the release of DR. NO (1962) my question is this:

 

Will the storyline continue with Bond hunting down “Mr. White” and the Quantum organization (more dark than light) or will we start seeing a return to the Bond of old?

 

I grant you, it’s a burning question. But as a dyed-in-the-wool fan of Ian Fleming’s novels and 007 on screen, I am not keen on either choice.

 

How might I express awe and admiration inspired by EON Productions sustaining a firm franchise that is a constant and accomplished fact, a charter that has been in service now for nearly half a century?

 

Perhaps by suggesting something bold—as daring as casting actor Daniel Craig in the role of the British secret agent—that might refresh the enterprise in ways that are both familiar and different…all at once.

 

So much do I admire your courage and resolve in staying the course upon selecting Craig to play the Bond character (and braving the anachronism of Judi Dench staying on in the role of “M”) that my proposition here is equally audacious:

 

Remake every Bond film that features Roger Moore.  A prime example, “The Spy Who Love Me”—however, this time the story as written by Fleming (and not the 1977 screenplay or its novelization by Christopher Wood) to set the tone and direction of the franchise.

 

In addition to rehabilitating Moore’s financially successful input—but disappointing oeuvre in the Bond canon—the retelling of “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” starring George Lazenby, “Diamonds Are Forever” starring Sean Connery, and the untouched short story by Ian Fleming, “The Hildebrand Rarity” would reinforce the foundation for the franchise to withstand natural forces of the marketplace in the decade ahead.

 

Is such a scheme any further “over the moon” than when the film series began; when your father and his producing partner showed considerable bravery (re: “Pussy Galore”) that went well beyond the obvious?

 

As the entertainment industry’s most successful female producer in history, you’ve earned the office, despite the six year hiatus (due to litigation) from filming; you and your producing partner got the franchise back on the rails in facing the challenges of bringing Bond back to the screen, earning our deepest respect for being tough in a business preclusive of women and minorities.

 

 Future productions have benefited mightily from Cubby Broccoli’s legacy of innovative filmmaking. My hope is that QUANTUM OF SOLACE has gotten us past “The Bond Identity” (and three cuts per second). But there is a deeper concern that involves the character of “Strawberry Fields”—a sexually attractive British bureaucrat naked under a trench coat, a woman from the consulate in Bolivia whom “M” describes as a file clerk assigned to turn Bond away from the field and put him on a plane to London…of course, all by herself. “If you attempt to flee,” Fields cautions, “I will arrest you, drop you off at the jail and take you to the plane in chains, understand?” Bond disobeys and seduces her in their hotel suite. It’s noteworthy that Strawberry Fields first name is never actually uttered on screen, as if there was some last minute chagrin; when Bond asks for it, she merely replies, "Just Fields." She’s later murdered, drowned in crude; her oil-covered body sprawled across the bed EXACTLY like Jill Masterson’s, gilded with gold paint for her betrayal in GOLDFINGER—the most iconic part of that movie.

The oily death, here, as “homage” to the 1960s Bond girls to show how oil has replaced gold as most precious …homage? Is this where the franchise should be going? It's the sort of duty, as presented in DIE ANOTHER DAY, that leaves a permanent stain.

Simply bringing back “Q” and the gadgets will not make for a more exciting “new” Bond; neither is going back to the “old” 007 with plenty of “Bond girls” and a sleek automobile.

 

For the answer, one need only to look back at the preceding film, together with your comments to David Giammarco of the Globe & Mail published March 27, 2006: “Casino Royale is the definitive Bond story. It was always an ambition of theirs [your father and Harry Saltzman] to be able to make this story, but sadly, they were never able to. So when it finally became available to us, we leaped at the chance. I like to think that I'm doing this for my dad.”

 

As a deeply committed fan of Ian Fleming’s character, I’ll go further. CASINO ROYALE is the definitive Bond film on an epic scale and among the top 100 movies of all times—which means it does not need a strenuous “trilogy” to tie things up neatly and see where 007 goes from here. Bond has been humanized, becoming less exotic since the series' advent.

 

Cubby Broccoli and company re-imagining Bond has always been counter-intuitive of what Ian Fleming intended, however, eventually winning the author over by casting Sean Connery in the role.

 

 A sketch of James Bond as perceived by Ian Fleming  whose notion of 007 was modeled after Hoagy Carmichael (pictured).  

 

However, audiences are getting used to this new style Bond, and any disgruntle rumblings about Daniel Craig is at best sophomoric. As long as the story is dramatically important, failure will be with the plot, not over casting an actor.

Whether or not the plot of Bond 23 put the “Quantum” organization behind 007, hardcore fans would very much like to see in the future what had been promised: Bond as a young man—the origin story.

 

Daniel Craig is understandably anxious to get going on “Bond 23” in fulfilling his 4-picture deal, yet hedging about his availability for “Bond 24”. No one is asking that Craig pass the torch to a younger Bond; but the franchise has in the past enjoyed exponential commercial success over an extended period before interest declined (after Roger Moore stayed too long in the role).

 

Before the next nadir (and, of course, it will come) the Bond character could be refreshed with a storyline that gives the audience much needed perspective, which Fleming’s freshman novel—the beloved Casino Royale—simply didn’t do.

 

Few writers compose outside the currency of their times. Ian Fleming lived in the age of gangsters and goons, Nazis and World War II, followed by the Cold War, CIA and KGB along with other assorted foreign spies and hoods. So what the author has written exposes Bond’s roots planted in pulp fiction of the 1930s, nurtured throughout the Golden Age of comic books in the 1940s, then finally coming of age under a nuclear cloud during the 1950s.

There is a point of atrophy beyond which a “dinosaur” is unable to survive.

 

Barbara, by creatively updating then weaving together two Fleming story-lines and plot points into a coherent event horizon, common themes and shared geographical locations could meld under the steady hand of an imaginative scriptwriter.

From boyhood to manhood, forming a dramatic arc and presenting a decent villain, something old wedded to something new about James Bond could be fashioned into a proper narrative with an impressively smart denouement.

To film the origin of James Bond, using material originally written by Ian Fleming for the novels is not to honor the creator so much as it is to see the character as a product of his times. That is to say …however Fleming’s creation may have arrived, whoever this creature might be, whatever Bond is to become remains no longer the foresight of Cubby Broccoli to make movies, or hindsight of Ian Fleming to tack on elements of the back-story, but our trust is in you, Barbara, to do the right thing.

 

What follows is a chronicle that I have outlined. What it isn’t is my own creation; rather it represents the un-constructed back-story that Fleming himself made up after the fact about James Bond through piecemeal, sketch information; “biographical” bits of data that occasioned his storytelling and adding up to 007’s personal narrative that frames family history, military record, as well as his professional résumé with MI6—before he became 007.

And since every story should have a title, let’s call this one…

 

“Love Me, Dangerously”

 

THE STORY: Across the Highlands of Scotland into the tiny village of Glencoe, we find Little Jimmy Bond spending his early childhood growing up in a region known for its natural beauty and tranquility. Born in 1924 to Andrew Bond, a Scotsman, and Monique Delacroix from Canton de Vaud, Switzerland, his family motto is Orbis non sufficit (the world is not enough). Young Bond grows up headstrong and glowingly handsome. Not to say that the boy has had an easy go of it. As the only child of a traveling businessman, Jimmy at the age of eleven is suddenly orphaned by natural misfortune when his parents die in a climbing accident. This heartbreak, however, fills the boy with resolve, self-reliance and independence—yet painfully so. Still, he doesn’t cry. That’s not how he grieves. He stands strong, unwept. He lets others cry. What he feels is anger…guilt, perhaps…but whatever he’s feeling, and whenever he thinks about his loss, the sadness torturously returns and Jimmy gets angry all over again. In these desperate straits, his grief simply won’t go away. So you have to wonder: What’s the psychological damage here?

A devoted maiden aunt, a woman oddly serene with a smile that sparkles, assumes custody of Young James and fosters his upbringing. But his world has changed. Utterly devoted to the boy, she alternately understands of his deep melancholia and despair while constantly annoyed by his manic behavior. James appears forever on edge in a way that is hard to ignore. Incessantly gnashing his teeth in denial about the death of his parents, eventually he tries to accept the fact: They’re gone forever. Acceptance…it’s a start. And he’s a man who can’t go on mourning. He must be made of tougher stuff. Okay, not a man, not just yet, but we can see his skin growing thick like elephant hide. He’s as tough as they come. And with the aid of his foster parent, James is determined to turn misfortune to his advantage, when his aunt enrolls him into Eton College, a public school for boys.

At school, his blood up and unbowed, Young James possesses the kind of maturity conspicuously absent in his classmates. His fellows don’t understand him. But how can they, when he refuses to open up to anyone? Who knows what’s going on inside his head? Despite his enormous charm, James finds himself expelled in his first year for taking sexual advantage of a servant girl. However, this precocious loss of innocence is a thrilling indication of the man he is…and the one he will become.

Eventually, he is graduated from a college in Edinburgh where, although intellectually facile, he distinguishes himself only in the martial arts and pugilism. Nonetheless, it would be reasonable to assume that he has changed his life for the better. At the very least, his education has imparted some sense of hope beyond tragedy.

A few years now have gone by…when Young Bond makes a break from his past by lying about his age in order to fly the Union Jack in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy. In service to Queen and country, he sees action as a commando during World War II then meritoriously rises to the rank of Commander—when Commander James Bond after a curiously brief naval career, including a short stint with the Naval Intelligence Division of the Admiralty, inexplicably returns to England for civilian life.

He takes a small flat off King’s Road in the middle-class neighborhood of Chelsea, where he becomes as steel gray and conventionally dull as his neighbors. Utterly anonymous, Mr. James Bond is distinguished only by an errant strand of his black hair habitually falling over his right eyebrow. In his profession he presents an innocent-looking business card, UNIVERSAL IMPORT & EXPORT, a job which takes him all around the world—from London to Paris, Rome to Bombay, Hong Kong to Tokyo, New York to Rio de Janeiro. But as it would turn out, these activities are to conceal the fact that James Bond harbors a secret: He is in reality a bureaucrat with the British government.

Through the back door he goes to work for a branch of the Ministry of Defense, nerve center of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) more commonly known as MI6, doing his duty as an “investigator” Under the assumed profession of exporter/importer and with his secretary, Mary Goodnight, he reports to “M”, director of the British secret service. (He has yet joined the “00” elite corps of government-sanctioned assassins.)

Respectful toward women but heedless of them, Bond has his own notions of feminine perfection, as evidence when encountering M’s secretary and fellow bureaucrat, Miss Moneypenny. At first blush, she is captivated by his extreme intelligence and amused by his dark sense of humor. But when he makes love to her (if love it can be called) with such incredible power, she is appalled yet titillated by his light touches of sadism. But she also realizes that he’s numb—and out of touch with his emotions. He doesn’t feel anything. Moneypenny has seen this “numbness” turn men into killers. And now James has been given two sanction-kills, the first one in New York, toward earning his “00” status.

THE PLOT: James Bond's career is fading after the wedding-day murder of his wife, Tracy. “M” had been planning to offer Bond a dismissal from the secret service, later changed his mind as a last chance opportunity for Bond to shape up. Instead, Bond is promoted to a special branch of MI6, subsequently re-numbered as “7777” and assigned an impossible mission: convincing the head of Japan's secret intelligence service, Tiger Tanaka, to provide information about an informant within the Soviet Union referred to as Magic 44. In exchange, Tanaka asks Bond to kill Dr. Guntram Shatterhand who operates a politically embarrassing "Garden of Death" where people go to commit suicide—whether they later decide they want to or not. Bond discovers that Shatterhand is his nemesis who murdered Tracy and gladly takes the mission, while keeping secret his motive to exact revenge for the death of his his wife. Aided by former Japanese movie star Kissy Suzuki (and makeup plus training with the samurai sword) Bond attempts to live and think as the Japanese in order to penetrate Shatterhand's castle—and ultimately exacts revenge on his enemy in a sword fight, killing then strangling Shatterhand; but upon escaping, suffers a head injury, afflicting him with amnesia. Now living as a Japanese merchant-fisherman with Kissy, the rest of the world believes James Bond is dead. Then as his health improves, Kissy conceals Bond’s true identity so as to keep him forever to herself. Kissy eventually sleeps with Bond and becomes pregnant and hopes that he will propose marriage after she finds the right time to tell him. Bond browses through some of Kissy's personal papers and finds a newspaper article about Vladivostok, making him wonder if the far-off Russian city is key to his missing memory. (story not used from Ian Fleming’s “You Only Live Twice”)

A year after James Bond disappeared during a mission in Japan, he has been presumed dead, when a man claiming to be Bond appears in London, demands to meet with “M”, and after much scrutinizing and interrogation, this man's identity is confirmed that of secret agent 007. But during his debriefing interview, Bond attempts to kill M with a cyanide pistol; the attempt fails. The Secret Service soon learns that after destroying Shatterhand’s castle in Japan, 007 suffered a head injury and subsequent amnesia. And having lived as a Japanese fisherman for several months, Bond traveled north into the Soviet Union to learn his true identity. While there, he was brainwashed and assigned to kill M on returning to England. (story element not used from Ian Fleming’s “The Man with the Golden Gun”)

THE DENOUEMENT: It's learned that Andrew Bond, traveling salesman was not only a businessman but one deeply involved with the Russian operative who had sent James Bond to murder "M". That mountain climbing accident which years ago had killed Bond's parents was not “death by misadventure” but a sanctioned kill with collateral damage. (story element not of Ian Fleming's creation, but one of my own conceit to illustrate closure for the narrative ...and for Bond.)

To this point, Miss Moneypenny has been in and out of Bond's life and knows she mustn't dwell too much on the ugly events through which 007 goes about earning his daily bread; that all men involved in crimes of espionage, regardless of which side they’re on, are dangerous and that she should avoid falling in love with him. This is richly troubling, because she has already fallen for James. And there’s only one way to love such a man…very dangerously.

Frederick Louis Richardson

July 1, 2009

 

“There is no greater mistake than the supposition that a true originality is a mere matter of impulse or inspiration. To originate is carefully, patiently, and understandingly to combine.”—Edgar Allan Poe