THE BOOK
Year: 1962
Author: Ian Fleming
THE PLOT
A Canadian woman, Vivienne Michel, is left in charge of a remote New England hotel overnight when two thugs arrive on orders by the Mafioso owner to burn the place down for the insurance money. The thugs intend to kill Michel in the morning and pin the arson on her, but MI6 agent James Bond arrives by accident to save the day.
THE COMMENTARY
For the first half of the book, we learn about the protagonist's two love affairs, both of which are kinda shabby. According to Wiki, the Glasgow Herald review called it "the sorry misadventures of an upper-class tramp, told in dreary detail." I wouldn't call her a tramp, but is dreary.
Then the thugs arrive and Michel is terrorized for a bit. That could be riveting reading, except for the plot holes (the thugs threaten rape and murder constantly, but never do either) and the bad dialogue. (Fleming's American gangsters speak in a strange, alien patois that has never left the lips of any living human being.)
Eventually Bond shows up, randomly. He's on a road trip between missions and just drops by.
You'd think not being under orders and operating almost anonymously would make him more lethal, dangerous and interesting. Instead, he's bad at his job. He even apologizes to Michel several times for being bad at his job. And well he should.
- He becomes aware of his situation early on, but does nothing to mitigate the advantage his "hosts" have over him and Michel.
- He freely offers the information that he is a "police officer" to two men he's already pegged as violent, homicidal criminals. And then does nothing, apparently waiting for them to kill him.
- He gets the drop on the thugs when they are carrying TVs, and they react in a predictable manner — whereupon Bond loses his advantage, because he apparently didn't expect them to do what anybody over the age of 6 would expect them to do. (They throw the TVs at him.)
- He tells the girl to do dumb things, and hide in bad places, which very nearly gets both of them killed on multiple occasions. I kept thinking of the Geico TV commercial which wonders why teens in a horror movie don't just get in a nearby truck and drive away. Bond and Michel keep acting like teenagers in a horror movie, idiots who can't tumble to the idea of simply running away from danger when the bad guys leave them to their own devices overnight.
- Bond doesn't make sure his foes are dead after they appear to be. After what we've seen him learn in nine books, he should know better.
I could go on, but I won't bother.
SUMMARY
To serve the plot, Fleming writes the girl as a sad sack. To serve the plot, Fleming writes Bond as incompetent. This is not a good or fun book.
RANDOM BULLETS
- This is the only Fleming book told in first person. (The first half is narrated by Michel.)
- Andrew Lycell's 1996 biography Ian Fleming calls The Spy Who Loved Me Fleming's "most sleazy and violent story ever." Can't disagree.
- According to Wiki, Paul Simpson's The Rough Guide to James Bond (2002) says the book was serialized in Stag magazine under the title "Hotel Nymph."
- According to Wiki, "Due to the reactions by critics and fans, Fleming was not happy with the book and attempted to suppress elements of it where he could: He blocked a paperback edition in the United Kingdom and only gave permission for the title to be used when he sold the film rights to Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, rather than any aspects of the plot." However, The James Bond Movie Encyclopedia says, "It's the one novel the late author had never intended to sell as a film project. But by the mid-1970s, producer Albert R. Broccoli was running out of 007 titles to adapt, so he went to the Fleming estate and requested permission to use only the novel's title." I don't know which story is true.
THE MOVIE
Year: 1977
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Writers: Christopher Wood, Richard Maibaum
Starring: Roger Moore (James Bond), Barbara Bach (Major Anya Amasova), Curd Jürgens (Karl Stromberg), Richard Kiel (Jaws), Caroline Munro (Naomi), Walter Gotell (General Gogol), Geoffrey Keen (Minister of Defence), Bernard Lee (M) George Baker (Captain Benson), Michael Billington (Sergei), Olga Bisera (Felicca), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Edward de Souza (Sheikh Hosein), Vernon Dobtcheff (Max Kalba), Valerie Leon (Hotel Receptionist), Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny), Sydney Tafler (Liparus Captain), Nadim Sawalha (Fekkesh)
Famous Music: The theme song, "Nobody Does It Better," was composed by Marvin Hamlisch, written by Carole Bayer Sager and performed by Carly Simon. It was the first theme song in the James Bond movie series with a different title to that of the film. I remember hearing it on the radio a LOT.
THE PLOT
James Bond investigates the hijacking of British and Russian submarines carrying nuclear warheads, allied with KGB agent Anya Amasov. They are initially attracted to each other, but later the KGB agent learns Bond killed her lover.
COMMENTARY
The movie begins with a snow-ski chase very much like the one in the later A View to a Kill. I don't know why View basically repeated it.
Speaking of fights: I'm watching the films out of order, but I think Oddjob established the Invulnerable Henchman Who Shrugs Off Bond's Punches, unless you count Robert Shaw's Grant in From Russia with Love. But many movies since have used the trope. In this movie, there are two: Sandor (former wrestler Milton Reid) and Jaws (Richard Kiel). Sandor is gone pretty fast (Bond can't punch him out, so he drops him off a roof), but the film gives the metal-toothed Jaws a lot of, ahem, scenery to chew, and makes sure we know he survives (he returns in Moonraker). The movie makes Jaws out to be ridiculously superhuman, surviving lethal scenarios that would kill anyone without plot armor, able to push a vehicle in Drive backwards, and able to lift the front end of said vehicle off the ground. He literally rips apart that metal vehicle to get at Bond and Amasova (although why he doesn't just go through the windows or windshield is unexplained).
I'm not the only one who thought Jaws was a bit cartoonish. "Although the Jaws character contributed greatly to the film's success ... it meant that they had to make the character effectively unkillable," says Steven Jay Rubin in The James Bond Movie Encyclopedia. "This took the film too far into comic book territory; Jaws became Wile E. Coyote to Bond's Road Runner."
Bavarian-born actor Curd Jürgens (aka Curt Jurgens) plays Karl Stromberg, whose plan is to steal British and Soviet submarines and use their missiles to nuke New York and Moscow. This will ... somehow make everyone live underwater? Which is good? I guess?
It seemed to me as I watched the film that the character could easily have been Ernst Stavro Blofeld. He has an army of goons in jumpsuits, just like SPECTRE always does, but SPECTRE is not mentioned. And stealing nukes is Blofeld's calling card.
I found out after I watched the movie that my instincts were spot on. According to the The James Bond Movie Encyclopedia, Stromberg and his organization were at one time in the screenwriting process written as Blofeld and SPECTRE, but by the time SWLM was filmed, Thunderball screenwriter Kevin McClory had asserted rights over both concepts. Thus, Blofedl became Stromberg and SPECTRE became an unnamed army of henchmen.
Which is too bad. The director and screenplay give Jürgens plenty of room to make Stromberg memorable, and lots of scenery to chew, but he leaves little impression. To paraphrase the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, "I knew Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Ernst Stavro Blofeld was a friend of mine, and you, sir, are no Ernst Stavro Blofeld.".
Stromberg operates out of "Atlantis," a seagoing base that looks like the Legion of Doom's headquarters in Super Friends. Which debuted a year later. I don't think that's a coincidence
Stromberg also operates the "Liperus," a ship so big it can swallow multiple late 1970s submarines at once. Given that the Soviet Typhoon class of the era displaced 48,000 tons (or "tonnes," I should probably say), and the British sub was probably of similar size, the "Liperus" would have to be so big to house them both it could probably be seen from space .
German-born actor Walter Gotell makes his first appearance as Gen. Gogol, the head of the KGB. It's the first time of six where Gotell plays the role, the other five being Moonraker (1979), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983), A View to a Kill (1985) and The Living Daylights (1987). As noted in previous commentaries, the Broccoli films went out of their way to NOT make the Soviets the bad guys, and instead assigned all the Soviet treachery in the Fleming books to SPECTRE. This movie does the same, using a SPECTRE stand-in, and even invokes the word "detente."
Geoffrey Keen makes his debut as "Minister of Defence." This is the first of six times he plays the role, a character later identified as "Sir Frederick Gray." The other five times Keen plays Gray are the same movies where Gotell appears as Gogol. Gray is sometimes played as a comic foil to Bond, a starched-shirt bureaucrat whose blinkered viewpoint is revealed by Bond's practicality as ridiculous. But here he does very little.
We're introduced to "Soviet Agent XXX" (no double-entendre there!) in a scene showing a man and woman in bed. Evidently, when the call comes in for Agent XXX, we're supposed to be surprised that it's the woman who answers the phone. Yeah, it's 1977, so maybe that would normally be the case. But would it have been, really? Even allowing for sexism, there was only one famous person in that bed, and it was actress/model Barbara Bach. She was probably already dating Ringo Starr by then.
Barbara Bach was gorgeous in 1977 (maybe still is, for all I know), and the cinematography goes out of its way to showcase her face and figure. But the more it did so, the more it seemed to me she had only two expressions and very little acting skill.
To be fair, I also don't think Roger Moore is much of an actor, either. And this is the first movie — his third as Bond — where I feel comfortable saying that.
Prior to this project I had only seen Moore in one or two Bond movies, and while I thought he wasn't very good, I didn't have a lot of context. For all I knew, his frequent "I'm an extra standing here without any lines" look wasn't what it appeared to be, but was somehow a serious effort at demonstrating some sort of internal conflict for Bond. And maybe that smirky, cringe-inducing line delivery when he was supposedly flirting was ironic. He was in seven James Bond movies and starred in six seasons of The Saint, so somebody thought he was good, so what did I know?
But now I've seen enough of him to make a relatively objective evaluation. And my assessment is he's not very good, even at the stuff he's supposed to be good at, which is light romance/comedy. He and Bach were well-matched, IMHO, in that both were pretty people who were not very good at acting.
Incidentally, all of the we're-not-SPECTRE goons are spectacularly bad shots. I don't know why everyone snickers at Star Wars. Look at any Roger Moore Bond movie, and none of the bad guys can hit a barn door from the inside. In this movie, during a single car chase, Bond's car is shot at and missed by A) an armed motorcylist with a missile/rocket-sled, B) two cars with multiple armed henchmen, including Jaws, and C) a helicopter piloted by "bad" Bond Girl Naomi, armed with machine guns. I think even a Death Star Storm Trooper might hit the car at least once with all that fire power.
And "What about Naomi?" I hear you say.
Well, she's played by a gorgeous English actress named Caroline Munro, one I was certain I recognized. I couldn't put my finger on where I recognized her from, though, so I looked it up. And it turns out I've seen her in a lot of movies, including The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, Dracula A.D. 1972 and — believe it or not — an unnamed bit role in Casino Royale (1967).
She does a great job, establishing a rivalry for Bond's affections with Amasova without saying a word, and playfully winking at Bond from the helicopter before trying to kill him.
The movie makes a bad hand-wave at Bond's multi-lingual talents from the books. No, Bond doesn't have a "smattering" of every language in existence, like Conan the Barbarian. He knows certain languages, which Fleming spells out, and knows other languages not at all. In this movie, Bond speaks pidgin Arabic and Italian. I say "pidgin," because he didn't say much more than "hello" and "thank you" in both languages. Saying "belliisimo" does not an Italian-speaker make.
Bond is also an expert on fish in the movie, demonstrating encyclopedic knowledge of a random, exotic specimen that Stromberg selects. I found that hard to swallow. Maybe he boned up before pretending to be a marine scientist?
The idea that Bond had killed Amasova's lover in the opening ski chase was deliberately left hanging over the budding romance between Bond and Agent XXX like the Sword of Damocles, but when they finally get to the reveal, Amasova agrees to put aside her revenge until after the mission. By then she has a change of heart, and that's that. But she then becomes, from Bond's POV — wait for it — The Spy Who Loved Me. Of course, many chicks could describe Bond that way, but this is a neat reversal.
I wish they'd done more with the "you killed my boyfriend" angle, maybe even stretching it over a couple of movies. Like, the next movie could be The Spy Who Once Loved Me, But Boy, Is She Pissed at Me Now. But alas, not to be.
SUMMARY
A silly little piece of fluff which, sadly, is not the silliest the Roger Moore movies would get. It has great scenery and does some cool globe-trotting, which alone made it worthwhile for me. I could have done with less of Jaws, and most of the fight scenes altogether, but I might be in the minority there.
RANDOM BULLETS
- According to The James Bond Movie Encyclopedia, "The Spy Who Loved Me single-handedly revived the sagging Bond series in the mid-1970s." It has a 77% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes from viewers and 82% from critics even today.
- Also according to the Encyclopedia, a long line of screenwriters worked on the script, the first one being DC Comics writer Cary Bates.
- The book had a character with metal dental work called Horror which could be seen as an inspiration for Jaws, if you squint just right.
- I have often said that the 1970s should be condemned for men's clothes alone. This movie is a testament to that opinion, with wide ties, wider lapels, bell-bottom pants and other horrors that make the men look so silly that even if they were good actors, you'd still think they were bad ones.
- The fight scenes are similarly dated. I might not have thought they were bad in 1977 (if I had seen the movie then), but from a 2023 perspective they're pretty lame.
- Actor Walter Gotell, who is German, plays Gen. Gogol, who is Russian. But he speaks English with Received Pronunciation, so he seems more British than either.
- Gogol's surname likely comes from Nikolai Gogol, a 19th century Russian novelist. I read Gogol's Dead Souls in college.
- M (Bernard Lee) addresses Gogol as "Alexis," but in subsequent movies he's named Anatoly.
- Gogol calls M "Miles." Is that consistent across the board? I don't remember, but it might be.
- Near the end, Stromberg uses a gun with a cartoonishly long barrel strapped to the bottom of a table. This is straight out of the novel To Live and Let Die, where it was used by Mr. Big. I found it preposterous and contrived in the book, and seeing it in live action has not improved my opinion.
- Deadly, dangerous Soviet Agent XXX falls asleep twice on mission with Bond, once on his shoulder. When she and Bond first face Jaws, he has a gun, and she doesn't. No wonder the USSR fell apart.
- Stromberg's supertanker is named "Liperus." That was an Italian king of little note in Greek myth. I have no idea why that name was chosen.
- Amasova says Bond is a Cambridge man. In the books, he went to the University of Geneva.
- Amasova calls Q "Major Boothroyd," which I appreciated.
- Bond uses the pseudonym "Sterling" when he checks into a hotel, which immediately made me think of Sterling Archer. I wonder if the Archer writers lifted that.
- Both Bond and Amasova are after a microfilm in the first half of the film. I remember when microfilms were a thing in movies and TV shows! They were everywhere! Post-Internet, the MacGuffins are thumb drives.
- At one point in the Egyptian desert, the soundtrack plays a little bit of the theme from Lawrence of Arabia. The Spy Who Loved Me isn't a bad movie by any means, but producers should avoid reminding the audience of better ones.
Replies
I AM POSTING THIS RESPONSE BEFORE READING YOUR INITIAL POST.
The Spy Who Loved Me is generally considered to be Fleming worst James Bond novel, but I disagree. Or rather, it may not be a very good "James Bond" novel, but it is a passingly entertaining pulp novel (that happens to be written by Ian Fleming and features James Bond). It hasn't been just too long since I read the movie novelization (by Christopher Wood) and watched the movie. what follows are my thoughts on the paperback and the movie which I posted in 2021.
THE NOVELIZATION:
JAMES BOND, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (by Christopher Wood): This may well have been the first James Bond book I ever read. I think it is safe to say that, in junior high school, the kind of literature I read most often was "movie tie-ins." I'd go see a movie and, if I liked it, I would then read the paperback adaptation to glean more details before I would go to see the movie again. Many such adaptations were strictly hack-work, but quite a few (the Rocky ones, the Star Trek ones, the Star Wars ones) were quite entertaining and often offered additional scenes not included in the movie and/or "left on the cutting room floor" (as it were).
It would not have been too long after reading James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me by Christopher Wood (the writer of the movie version's screenplay), that I went on to read all of Ian Fleming's originals. The Spy Who Loved Me (the movie) was unique at the time in that it was the first one which wasn't ostensibly based on one of Fleming's novels. [Yes, there was a book with the same title, but the plot of the movie had nothing to do with the plot of the book.] By the time I had finished all of the Fleming ones, I became quite snobbish about my James Bond books.
The Spy Who Loved Me happened to be the first James Bond movie I saw in the theater, and it was something of a disappointment. The James Bond I was familiar with (from TV, starting with Goldfinger), was a hard-edged spy (played by Sean Connery). This new Bond, Roger Moore, played the role strictly for laughs. I was disappointed that "Jaws" was a pale and obvious imitation of such classic henchmen as "Oddjob." By the time I completed my collection of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, I got rid of the two by Christopher Wood (including James Bond and Moonraker). From that point on, I stopped buying "movie tie-ins" of James Bond movies.
But I recently reconsidered when I came across a battered paperback of James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me in a used bookstore. My original copy had the movie poster as a cover, but this one had a close-up photograph of Roger Moore. (I just made sure to avoid looking at the cover as I read it.) The Spy Who Loved Me is my third least favorite of all the James Bond movies. Even as a 13 year-old kid I recognized that the movie was aimed to appeal to children in a way that none of the previous James Bond movies I had seen (I had not seen them all at that point) were.
I was really very pleasantly surprised to discover that the movie adaptation was far better than the movie it was based on. If I didn't know better, I would almost guess that the movie was based on this book. Wood's writing style is nearly indistinguishable from Fleming's, and this book is even better than some of Fleming's later, lesser novels. All of the slapstick from the movie have been eliminated, including Anya Amatsova's ridiculaous code name. Wood even provides a plausible backstory for "Jaws." It just goes to show (if further proof be needed): I didn't know everything when I was 13 years old.
Addendum: I just finished watching the movie (and will be posting shortly to the "movie" thread), but a couple of more things occurred to me about the book. For one thing, Wood is obviously knowledgeable and respectful of the Fleming books, peppering his with references to Tracy Draco, Rosa Klebb and the like. Also, not only has all slapstick been removed, but it has been replaced with more explicit scenes of sex and torture. Details vary throughout, notably the final fate of Stromberg (which is more gruesome in the book) and the fate of Jaws (which is more final).
THE MOVIE:
THE SPY WHO LOVED ME was the first James Bond movie I saw in the theater. I've seen every subsequent one in the theater as well, except for The Living Daylights (because I procrastinated too long). The Spy Who Loved Me is my third least favorite James Bond movie, and now, after having read the novelization and watched the movie back-to-back, I think I can articulate why. Back in the mid-'90s I re-read all of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and re-watched all the movies (up to that time) in a set which I had just bought in widescreen VHS. (Oooh.) I watched all the movies again with my new wife shortly after we were married. So it's been, like, 20 years since I last saw The Spy Who Loved Me.
I used to think the James Bond series underwent a change when Roger Moore replaced Sean Connery in Live and Let Die, but that's not it. The real change happened with The Spy Who Loved Me. For one thing (despite the title), this is the first movie not based on an Ian Fleming novel. More importantly, perhaps, this is Cubby Broccoli's first movie without co-producer Harry Saltzman. [For years, I blamed the decline in quality on Roger Moore, but truthfully, they would have been just as bad had Connery stayed.] Starting here, the movies began recycling thinly disguised plot elements, stunts and locations in a constant effort to "one up" themselves.
The Spy Who Loved Me is little more than a pastiche of previous films in the series, but it at least gets off to a good start with a memorable stunt (skiing off a mountain and popping a parachute, lifted from a print ad for Canadian Club) and segueing into the title song sung by Carly Simon. Unfortunately, the rest of the soundtrack is reprogrammed electronic disco. But worse is yet to come. The end credits foreshadow that "James Bond will return in For Your Eyes Only," but the next movie is actually Moonraker. The paperback adaptation of The Spy Who Loved Me follows the same basic plot as the movie, but its basic approach is so much better. Don't watch the movie; read the adaptation.
The Spy Who Loved Me isn't a bad movie by any means, but producers should avoid reminding the audience of better ones.
Ha! A line very like that was a riff in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
This is the print ad I mentioned in my previous post that the movie's teaser sequence is based on:
"... actress/model Barbara Bach. She was probably already dating Ringo Starr by then."
Coincidentally, Barbara Bach's 1980 spread for Playboy magazine appears in the same issue as the John Lennon interview.
"M (Bernard Lee) addresses Gogol as "Alexis," but in subsequent movies he's named Anatoly."
His full name is Robert Bruce Alexis Anatoly Gogol.
"Gogol calls M "Miles." Is that consistent across the board? "
Yes. M is Sir Miles Messervy.
For what it's worth - The Spy Who Loved Me is the only Fleming Bond novel I have never re-read. Maybe Fleming had an urge to write a trashy pulp novel and included 007 in order to make it saleable.
And damning with faint praise - The Spy Who Loved Me is the best Roger Moore Bond film.
Maybe Fleming had an urge to write a trashy pulp novel and included 007 in order to make it saleable.
FWIW, I believe that that is exactly the case (although I have no evidence to back it up).
And damning with faint praise - The Spy Who Loved Me is the best Roger Moore Bond film.
"What is the best Roger Moore James Bond film?" would be an interesting topic to debate.
I was really very pleasantly surprised to discover that the movie adaptation was far better than the movie it was based on. If I didn't know better, I would almost guess that the movie was based on this book.
IMDb.com lists Christopher Wood as one of two screenwriters (actually three, because they include Ian Fleming for some reason). He was the last of what the Bond movie encyclopia describes as a "parade" of writers, among them Cary Bates and Anthony Burgess (of A Clockwork Orange). But Wood was the final screenwriter. He adapted his own work!
For one thing, Wood is obviously knowledgeable and respectful of the Fleming books, peppering his with references to Tracy Draco, Rosa Klebb and the like.
I don't recall a Rosa Klebb reference in the movie, but it did reference Tracy indirectly. At one point, Anya is running down what she knows about Bond, and mentions "numerous liaisons, but married only once, to ..." Bond interrupts and says something to the effect of "some subjects don't need to be discussed."
For completeness, I'll mention what everybody reading this already knows, that The Spy Who Loved Me the novel came out before Bond met Tracy in On Her Majesty's Secret Service the novel, but the movies came out in reverse order. Not that it matters, since book and movie have nothing to do with each other. It just reminds me of the mess with Felix and the Shark, and the Son of Quarrel. And, of course, the movie Tracy was married to the George Lazenby Bond. (The movies to that point counted Connery, Lazenby and Moore as the same character, but it did give me a second or two of cognitive dissonance.)
I was really very pleasantly surprised to discover that the movie adaptation was far better than the movie it was based on.
I would be verrrrrry interested in which of the tie-ins you think are worth reading, and which to avoid.
Even as a 13 year-old kid I recognized that the movie was aimed to appeal to children in a way that none of the previous James Bond movies I had seen ... were.
A canny insight. I think it obvious to everyone that the Moore Bonds were played more for laughs than the Connery ones, which is why I dropped the series like a hot rock after To Live and Let Die. But I had never considered why the Bond movies had become sillier. (I was in high school and had better things to do!) Yes, kid-friendly makes sense, as it broadens the potential audience. I guess the argument could be made that the Moore vehicles lifted Bond out of genre and opened him to general audiences, which arguably made the character the enduring household name he is now. I'd be curious to see audience breakdowns for the Bond movies through the Connery-to-Moore transition.
This is the print ad I mentioned in my previous post that the movie's teaser sequence is based on.
I must have seen that ad enough times for it to make an impression, because I half-expected the British-flag parachute when I was watching the other night -- 50 years later.
The end credits foreshadow that "James Bond will return in For Your Eyes Only," but the next movie is actually Moonraker.
I assume the switch was made to capitalize on Star Wars.
Ha! A line very like that was a riff in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
I am honored to be mentioned in the same breath.
The Spy Who Loved Me is my third least favorite James Bond movie.
And damning with faint praise - The Spy Who Loved Me is the best Roger Moore Bond film.
I still have two Moore Bonds to go -- Golden Gun and Octopussy -- but I found Spy less objectionable than the other Moores I've seen. I don't like thinking too hard on ranking, because it forces me think of -- oh no, I did it! I thought about Moonraker for a nanosecond! Now I've got to beat my head into a wall until it goes away!
For years, I blamed the decline in quality on Roger Moore, but truthfully, they would have been just as bad had Connery stayed.
This strikes me as a convincing assessment. Connery quit, according to contemporary accounts, because he found the scripts to be getting silly and self-mocking, and he wanted to play Bond straight. Diamonds Are Forever was the final straw -- well, until he was offered tons of money and creative control with Never Say Never Again. But yeah, not even Connery could have saved To Live and Let Die and Moonraker.
Coincidentally, Barbara Bach's 1980 spread for Playboy magazine appears in the same issue as the John Lennon interview.
Playboy is one of my blind spots. I never paid attention to it, boy or man, so when people refer to milestones in it ("the John Lennon interview") I have to guess what the reference is. Is that the one where he says The Beatles are more popular than Jesus? I imagine that would price the back issue out of my range, even if I were motivated to find out what Barbara Bach looked like naked 50 years ago. Which seems to me a weird thing to want to do.
His full name is Robert Bruce Alexis Anatoly Gogol.
This made my day.
Yes. M is Sir Miles Messervy.
I thought so. I wasn't sure it was consistent across all movies and books, so thanks for the confirmation. (Except for the graphic novels, where there's both a new M and a new Moneypenny.)
The Spy Who Loved Me is generally considered to be Fleming's worst James Bond novel, but I disagree. Or rather, it may not be a very good "James Bond" novel, but it is a passingly entertaining pulp novel (that happens to be written by Ian Fleming and features James Bond).
Maybe Fleming had an urge to write a trashy pulp novel and included 007 in order to make it saleable.
This is worth a discussion. (As usual, the Horse Races Tag applies, so I encourage differing opinions and perspectives and hope everyone will be free with them.)
For my part, I buzzed through the book in a single evening, despite life having slowed my reading speed considerably. That wasn't due to interest, but because I'd lost power due to a thunderstorm and not much else was possible. (I had the book downloaded to my iPad, which had sufficient juice for me to read it.)
As I mentioned in my commentary, I didn't particularly enjoy it, but not because of the pulpy nature. I generally enjoy pulpy stuff, as I imagine all veteran comics fans do, to one degree or another. I didn't care for it because Bond wasn't up to snuff; he and Viv basically survived due to luck, more than any cleverness or skill on Bond's part. Bond's role could easily have been played by an average police officer who ended up at the hotel just as randomly, and if that had been the case, I'd have enjoyed it more -- a random police officer could actually die, so the drama would have been heightened. And besides, I expect more out of Bond than what an average police officer can do. But Bond was extremely, disappointingly average in the book.
I don't actually agree with all the critics who were upset by the sex (as were critics in some countries where the book was banned). I smugly enjoyed their disdain for a book I didn't enjoy, but I disagree with their reasons why. Viv was no "tramp," nor was she particularly "upper class," as the Glasgow Herald would have it. Nor did I think it particularly sleazy, as some said. As the book made clear (I thought), she floated at the edges of upper class but was never part of it, always on the outside looking in. She was at the hotel in the first place because she was NOT landed gentry, and did NOT have a fortune to fall back on.
This is an important consideration. I expect her relationship with the boy who eventually took her virginity (and then dumped her) was a standard approach for girls at the time, to achieve social mobility through marriage (or at least dalliance). In the world that Fleming grew up in, the only hope a girl had was to marry well, otherwise she was sentenced to a crappy life in the lower classes -- still basically owned by her husband, but without money to mitigate the misery. Marriage was everything, and Viv's Oxford boy was an entry to the upper class -- if she could land him, which she didn't. Then she was damaged goods with no expectations, and let herself be used by her German boss, probably out of depression and self-loathing.
That's reading a lot into a book that Fleming probably tossed off in a week (and probably a drunken week at that), but a lot of Fleming's appeal for me is him subconsciously channeling his world into the books, a world which no longer exists. I joke about it frequently in my commentaries -- Fleming, after all, had a rarified view that allowed him free lattitude with opinions that would get him punched at a blue-collar pub -- but I also find it fascinating to get a visceral understanding of that POV, one which, after all, had a major role in shaping our world.
At any rate, I don't agree with the blue-nose critics who sniff at the hint of sex outside of marriage, which was no doubt due to the time and place of the criticism. (I imagine they had their middle-class audience in mind when they pooh-poohed any hint of improper behavior by a female.) I align more comfortably with a female critic from The Spectator, who wrote "Surprisingly Ian Fleming's new book is a romantic one and, except for some early sex in England (rather well done, this) only just as nasty as is needed to show how absolutely thrilling it is for ... the narrator to be rescued from both death and worse – than by a he-man like James Bond." I don't really agree that it was all that well written. But I do think Viv's actions fell perfectly in line with the behavior of a girl in her circumstances in 1962, and I felt more pity for her than condemnation. Fleming got that part right, I thought, even if I don't find it particularly riveting reading. As the critic for The Listener said, "the worst thing about it is that it really is so unremittingly, so grindingly boring."
Overall, I find it a bit silly for these high-minded critics to be reviewing Bond anyway. Fleming wasn't trying to write great literature, and it wasn't. We critique it, of course, but we're genre fans. They are not.
Anyway, I guess I fall in line with both Jeff's and Doc's opinions, that Fleming churned out a pulpy potboiler (and, according to one critic, rehashing how Fleming himself had lost his virginity) and then thought, "Oh, I better change the cop's name to James Bond so the damn thing will sell."
I would be verrrrrry interested in which of the tie-ins you think are worth reading, and which to avoid.
Here is what I had to say about the novelization James Bond and Moonraker in November of 2021:
JAMES BOND AND MOONRAKER (by Christopher Wood): Last week, I re-read James Bond, the Spy Who Loved Me (the movie tie-in) for the first time in 44 years and was quite impressed by how closely Wood hued to Fleming's style and that he basically eliminated all the slapstick comedy so prevalent in the movie. It was with renewed hope that this week I re-read the "Moonraker" tie-in for the first time in 42 years. Unfortunately, those hopes were dashed. I thought the "Spy" novelization read very much like a 15th Ian Fleming novel (truly I did), but presumably someone at some point in the chain of command instructed Wood to hew closer to screenplay of the movie itself than to Fleming. Consequently, the tie-in is just as I remember it, nearly identical to the movie itself, with all the silly bits intact.
I assume the switch [from For Your Eyes Only to Moonraker] was made to capitalize on Star Wars.
No doubt.
I still have two Moore Bonds to go -- Golden Gun and Octopussy
For months now I've been teasing my least favorite James Bond book and movie but have been reluctant to name them lest I inadvertantly color your opinion. Here are the hints I have dropped so far...
MY 3 LEAST FAVORITE JAMES BOND MOVIES:
Third Least Favorite: The Spy Who Loved Me
Second Least Favorite: Moonraker
Least Favorite: ???
MY 2 LEAST FAVORITE JAMES BOND NOVELS
Second Least Favorite: The Spy Who Loved Me
Least Favorite: ???
FINAL HINT: You haven't gotten to either of these yet.
Playboy is one of my blind spots.
The cliché is, "I only buy it for the interviews," but I actually did buy this issue for the interview. The interview was later published standalone in paperback form for those who wanted to read the interview but avoid the stigma of buying Playboy. And to make a buck cashing in on Lennon's death.
Is that the one where he says The Beatles are more popular than Jesus?
Oh, heavens no! that was during the height of Beatlemania.
"...even if I were motivated to find out what Barbara Bach looked like naked 50 years ago."
The pictorial was very "soft-focused." What stands out in my mind are the shots taken in a running shower while wearing a man's hat and holding a newspaper. Who does that?
This is worth a discussion. (As usual, the Horse Races Tag applies, so I encourage differing opinions and perspectives and hope everyone will be free with them.)
Actually, Kevin and I aren't that far apart. He considers Spy to be the worst Fleming Bond novel and I consider it to be second worst. He considers Spy the best of the Moores, but I consider it the third worst overall, so perhaps there's some room for discussion there. I don't know what I would consider Roger Moore's "best"; seems like an oxymoron to me.
I generally enjoy pulpy stuff, as I imagine all veteran comics fans do, to one degree or another.
I went througha phase, about 20 years ago, inwhich I read a succession of 1950s-era pulp novels, the more lurid the cover/title the better. Half Price Books has a "Nostalgia" section crammed with them, most priced at $2 or $3 apiece. If I couldn't find anything else I wanted to read, I'd buy one of those and read it in a day or two. Most of them are highly forgettable (supported by the fact that I have forgotten most of them). You may think you know "hack writers" but you ain't seen nothin' if you ain't read some of these. Fleming's The Spy Who Loved Me is a masterpiece in comparison, not a good James Bond novel, but "a passingly entertaining pulp novel."
If you want to read good detective pulp, though, stick with Mickey Spillane.
The [Moonraker] tie-in is just as I remember it, nearly identical to the movie itself, with all the silly bits intact.
Avoid Moonraker. Got it. That's an easy one to remember to forget.
FINAL HINT: You haven't gotten to either of these yet.
But I have a 50% chance of guessing correctly! Actually, I have a better chance than that, because when I have a 50/50 chance to get it right, I get it wrong almost 100% of the time. So all I have to do is listen to my gut, and then go the opposite way. (This applies to push/pull doors as well.)
The cliché is, "I only buy it for the interviews."
I didn't even buy it for that.
The pictorial was very "soft-focused."
Hunh. Well, if you're a big enough star in Hollywood, you can dictate just how much skin you're willing to show. Maybe that applies to magazine spreads as well.
What stands out in my mind are the shots taken in a running shower while wearing a man's hat and holding a newspaper. Who does that?
Lois Lane, when Clark is on a space mission and she's lonely and very, very drunk.
I don't know what I would consider Roger Moore's "best"; seems like an oxymoron to me.
Ha! Yes, good point. But "best" is such a low bar in this scenario that Spy managed to trip over it. At least Spy made a stab at a decent storyline between the action set-pieces, with the "opposite number from the USSR" bit, compounded by the "will she discover that Bond killed her boyfriend?" bit. These elements were so badly executed that they barely qualify as subplots, but I managed to figure out their intent because they hit me over the head with it (by naming the movie after it).
Now I'm thinking the sequel should have been named My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is KGB. That would sell a ticket or two.
Fleming's The Spy Who Loved Me is a masterpiece in comparison, not a good James Bond novel, but "a passingly entertaining pulp novel."
I was being very literal about pulp, referring to stories that appeared in pulp magazines like Detective Story Magazine, Doc Savage Magazine, Super Science, Argosy, Weird Tales, All-Story, etc. Since most people here are familiar with Conan, The Shadow, Doc Savage, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, etc., I was being sincere when I said most of us are probably pulp fans to one degree or another. But if we're using the more general description of low-quality literature in cheap packages -- which I acknowledge most people do -- then I surely would stick to the likes of Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane and, in a pinch, Don Pendleton.
This made my day.
Lois Lane, when Clark is on a space mission and she's lonely and very, very drunk.
Repaid in full.
Incidentally, a pre-Superman Margot Kidder also posed for Playboy (in 1976).
But "best" is such a low bar in this scenario that Spy managed to trip over it.
I just can't get past "Jaws"; he's so silly. The novelization, at least, provides him with a plausible backstory and a more final fate (excuse the redundancy).
I don't know what I would consider Roger Moore's "best"; seems like an oxymoron to me.
Aye, and therein lies the problem. Still, I'd be interested in further discussion on how each of us rates them.
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