THE BOOK: THUNDERBALL
Year: 1961
Author: Ian Fleming
THE PLOT
A new criminal organization named SPECTRE, led by career criminal Ernst Stavro Blofeld, steals two nuclear weapons and blackmails the West. Every NATO intelligence operative, including James Bond and Felix Leiter, are called on the transnational search for the weapons, called Operation Thunderball.
THE COMMENTARY
The Hangover
The book begins with Bond dealing with a hangover.
Bond ruminates on smoking too much the night before. He notes that overindulging in tobacco tends to go hand in hand with overindulging in alcohol, and as a former smoker, I can attest to this phenomenon.
Bond's usual secretary is down with the flu, and he complains that the substitute is a "silly, and, worse, ugly bitch." Yes, God forbid a woman in Bond's orbit be unattractive! How dare she?
Bond notes that when he coughs, he sees black spots before his eyes. I've never experienced that from drinking — concussive head blows, yes, but not drinking. How much do you have to drink before that happens?
We get an idea from this:
"The one drink too many signals itself unmistakably. His final whiskey and soda ... had been no different from the ten preceding ones, but it had gone down reluctantly and had left a bitter taste and an ugly sensation of surfeit."
This is another aspect of drinking I've never encountered. The one-too-many has never announced itself to me. It only appears in embarrassing hindsight. Maybe Fleming had drinking down to a science more than I do.
Anyway, Bond has 11 whiskeys that we know of. Since he agreed to another rubber of bridge — a minimum of two hands (if both make game), but usually a sequence of smaller ones — he probably drank more.
Speaking of which, it's not a proper hangover without regret for words spoken or actions taken the night before. Bond has his: "Card Sense Jimmie" lost at bridge! And also lost, he informs us, of a not-inconsiderable sum of money.
All in all, this is a hangover description by an expert.
The "Cure"
And it gets better! M is on a health kick! And wouldn't you know it, Bond's medical report has come in.
"Despite many previous warnings, he admits to smoking sixty cigarettes a day," the Medical Officer's report reads. "When not engaged upon strenuous duty, the officer's average daily consumption of alcohol is in the region of half a bottle of spirits of between 60 and 70 proof."
For non-smokers, 60 cigarettes translates to three packs, which is bad. Worse, as the M.O. report points out, Bond favors high-tobacco, non-filter brands, which is very, very bad.
On the alcohol front, "proof" is measured differently in England than in the U.S., then and now, but it’s a safe bet Bond was drinking too much.
M gets to explaining his newfound enthusiasm for health food. Honestly, his speech here could almost be written today. He says modern medicine just disguises the ill effects of the modern diet. He castigates sugar, milk and white bread for having all the roughage and nutrients cooked out.
"How much stone-ground whole wheat do you eat?" M asks Bond. "How much yoghurt? [sic ] Uncooked vegetables, nuts, fresh fruit?"
"Bond smiled. 'Practically none at all, sir.' " Like any rebellious little boy, Bond is proud of not eating his vegetables. And he wonders about M, "Is all this the first sign of senile decay?"
But no, M is in the pink of health, and packs Bond off to "Shrublands," a health facility, to clean up all of Bond's bad habits. Bond is horrified, and takes it out on Moneypenny.
She, in turn, says of M, "You know he thinks the world of you — or perhaps you don't." This is subtext made text.
Then she chides him for his terrible lifestyle.
He responds: " 'It's just that I'd rather die of drink than of thirst. It's really only that I don't know what to do with my hands.' He heard the stale hangover words fall like clinker in a dead grate."
I don't know what a "clinker in a dead grate" is, but I understand the meaning from context. Bond's self-awareness took me by surprise here, because it made me wonder how self-aware Ian Fleming was of his overindulgences. I've read that toward the end of his life, when doctors told him to cut back on drinking and smoking, he refused. But that doesn't tell me anything of his state of mind. Perhaps Thunderball is his acknowledgement of his own bad habits.
Bond, of course, is still Bond. He thinks: "What [I] need is a double brandy and soda." That cracked me up. His response to all this health talk is to reach for a drink. It's not just the alcoholic's general response to a problem, it's hair of the dog! Too fun.
The Cab Ride
Bond takes a cab from Regent's Park to Shrublands, and has an interesting exchange with the young cabbie. When the youth runs a comb through his duck-tail, Bond interprets this as posturing:
"It was typical of the cheap self-assertiveness of young labor since the war. This youth, thought Bond, makes about twenty pounds a week, despises his parents, and would like to be Tommy Steele. It's not his fault. He was born into the buyers' market of the Welfare State and into the age of atomic bombs and space flight. For him, life is easy and meaningless."
This is such old-man thinking. Specifically, it seems to me, it's Old Man Fleming thinking. Fleming was 52 or 53 when he wrote Thunderball (published 1961), and he would only live to 56. No doubt Fleming looked askance at These Kids Today (tm), with their Tommy Steele (a teen idol), rock 'n' roll and Beatniks. And the "Welfare State" reference — in caps, yet — is a dead giveaway of the conservative mindset generally assigned to the older generation by Baby Boomers during the '60s. If Fleming had lived into the late '60s — hippies, mods, rockers, "Summer of Love," etc. — his head would probably have exploded. Some heads did, I think.
As to Bond, he would probably have been young enough to have recognized his own teen rebelliousness in the boy. He was, according to canon, closer in age to the cabbie than to M. And we know he doesn't like to eat his veggies.
Maybe that's why Fleming allows Bond to warm up to the boy. Or maybe it was just the need for exposition. Anyway, the young cabbie begins to discuss, of all things, how the health-joint patrons have lured away the local hooker with more money.
"She started most of us off, if you get my meaning," the cabbie says, "Quid a go, and she knows a lot of French tricks. Regular sport."
Aside from the fact that this is absolutely hilarious dialogue — one wonders if the local boys in France speak of "English tricks" by the local call girls — it's amazing this voluble young man would speak so openly to a complete stranger about consorting with prostitutes. I doubt it was any more legal then than now, and I imagine a lot about Bond suggests "policeman."
But leaving that aside as well, my main question is: How much truth is there in this? Did small-town English boys in 1961 lose their virginity to local tarts as a regular thing? Or is this just how Ian Fleming imagines it happens among the lower classes in England, while he lives thousands of miles away in a colonial home in Jamaica, where he only consorts with other well-to-do, generally middle-aged expats?
I suppose it could be true. But there's a whiff of elitist snobbery.
Shrublands
At Shrublands, Bond's "Myrtle Room" is described as "a room-shaped room with furniture-shaped furniture." Wish I'd written that. Told me all I needed to know.
Dr. Wain sees evidence of a bad fall. Bond thinks, "The 'bad fall' had probably been when he had to jump from the Arlberg Express after Heinkel and his friends had caught up with him around the time of the Hungarian uprising in 1956."
I love this sort of thing, where the hero references a heretofore unknown adventure, leaving room for that story to be told later, or just leaving it to the reader's imagination. And we know that Bond was involved in every major historical event from World War II to the Suez crisis, don't we? We just haven't been told about these adventures yet.
Next we meet Bond Girl #1, Patricia Fearing, whom Bond saves from getting run over by Bad Guy #1, Count Lippe.
"His right hand held the memory of one beautiful breast," the narrator informs us. Geez, come on, man. How old are you?
Bond notes Patricia's athletic build. He also notes her "hint of authority that would be a challenge to men." And that she's not wearing much underwear. And he watches her rear end as she walks away. Man, I thought Bond was suave, but he's just a hound dog. Maybe Fleming thought that was suave.
Also, I think we're to infer a lack of interest on her part, at least in the initial meetings, which would likely annoy the ultra-masculine Bond. In fact, this becomes literally true and we don't have to guess any more. In the traction episode, she examined him "with eyes that showed nothing but professional interest."
A few lines later, here it is: "Bond felt a kind of resentment at the neutrality of the relationship between an attractive girl and a half-naked man."
To younger me in the dating pool, this would be a display of disinterest, a signal that advances are unwanted. Instead, Bond forces a kiss on her. I assume this was considered manly and sexy in 1961. I hope so, because it would have been infuriating to girls when I was dating, and is considered sexual assault in 2023.
Do I need to mention the murder-by-traction attempt? It was pretty heavily foreshadowed, so I expected it. Probably every other reader did, too.
Next: "Bond loathed and despised tea, that flat, soft, time-wasting opium of the masses." This is not the first time Bond has mentioned that he dislikes tea, but I don't remember which book it was we first learned it. Did Fleming also hate tea, or did he add this to Bond's character for some other reason? Personally, I'm glad to see Bond flout an English cliche, just because he shouldn't be an ordinary Englishman.
Finally, Bond gets out of the treatment, and most of this segment is pretty much tossed away. He gets (non-lethal) revenge on Bad Guy #1. He has sex with Bond Girl #1, "on the squab seats of her bubble car." (Bond couldn't pop for a hotel room? This feels like a tawdry end to a tawdry dalliance, which I doubt was the intent.)
The bubble car.
The set-up
Time for the actual story to begin!
We learn of S.P.E.C.T.R.E., whose cover is a missing/displaced-persons nonprofit named FIRCA (Fraternite Internationale de la Resistance Contre l'Oppression) in Paris. There are 21 members of its board of directors, who meet at a large table. I suspect this is the first time Evil Men Around a Table has been thrust upon an unsuspecting public in a book. If I am wrong, I trust the Legion to correct me.
This scene has entered the pop culture lexicon, and was parodied in Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery.
We meet Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the leader of the organization, and learn his background as a lifelong European master criminal. He is currently referred to as "No. 2," which is meaningless, as the numbers of the board rotate every month.
S.P.E.C.T.R.E. stands for Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion, and is made up of members of the Gestapo, SMERSH, Yugoslavia's secret police, the Italian Mafia, Corsican organized crime and a Turkish heroin-smuggling operation. It was introduced in the movies straightaway in Dr. No, and used in From Russia with Love and Goldfinger before its canonical use in Thunderball. (Fleming writes it as SPECTRE after the introduction, and so will I.)
I have noted before that Fleming treated SMERSH as if it continued to exist through the first seven Bond books (there was no mention in the eighth), whereas in the real world it was subsumed into other Soviet intelligence organizations in 1946. Fleming finally acknowledges in this book, the ninth Bond book, that SMERSH doesn't exist any more.
The Gestapo, of course, ceased to exist in 1945, and Fleming never pretended otherwise.
Fleming glamorizes Blofeld as a natural leader, but unfortunately he repeats some of his Goldfinger descriptions. And he uses many of the same tropes again for Emilio Largo ("No. 1"). All of them are big men with big hands with animal magnetism.
Blofeld electrocutes No. 9, punishment for embezzlement. The narrator mentions this isn't the first time Blofeld has executed a member of the executive council, and that the members trust Blofeld's judgment on this. This scene was included in Austin Powers, although the executed members were thrown into flaming pits instead of being electrocuted.
The plan is explained for the reader. Two atomic bombs will be stolen, and the West extorted for one million dollars a lot of money.
Scene shift to Bond's flat. We get a scene with Bond's Scottish housekeeper, and this has also entered the pop culture lexicon, although I'm not sure Fleming invented it. Someone popularized the fussy, disapproving Mother Hen housekeeper with the almost incomprehensible Scottish (or Cockney) accent. (Sherlock Holmes had one, too.) If anyone has any thoughts about the origin of this trope, I'm all ears.
Bond is down to 10 cigarettes a day and has quit drinking. Moneypenny advises Bond's secretary Leona (who is exasperated by Bond's high energy level) that if she is to judge by M, the "cure" won't last beyond the first crisis. Which, of course, turns out to be true in this very book.
Action at last
You'll be relieved to know I have less to say about most of these sequences, because Fleming writes them well, does his homework on the technology and gear, and keeps the pages turning. And there's less characterization to analyze.
SPECTRE has bribed an Italian pilot named Giuseppe Petacchi, who murders the crew of a NATO plane with two nukes aboard. He takes the plane to the Caribbean and turns the bombs over to Emilo Largo.
And is promptly killed. I wondered all along how Petacchi planned to stay alive and spend his money after he gave SPECTRE what it wanted, but it turns out he's just an idiot.
When SPECTRE attempts to extort the NATO countries, all agents are called in all over. Bond is informed of "Operation Thunderball" (name drop!), and gets his assignment: Nassau. Why Nassau? Because M has "a hunch."
A HUNCH. Anything to get Bond back to the Caribbean, eh? M explains his reasoning, but it goes beyond extended speculation right on into writer's fiat. There's no evidence whatsoever that the bombs are in the Bahamas, but that's where Bond is sent. That makes this at least the fourth time that Bond has been in the Caribbean in nine books. (Live and Let Die, Dr. No, "Quantum of Solace" and now Thunderball. And Goldfinger begins in Mexico and shortly after the Miami airport, which is close.)
It could be argued — and M does, actually — that M is getting into the mind of his opposite number at SPECTRE, because M is so bodacious as a counter-intelligence guy. All well and good, except that M doesn't know anything about Blofeld, including his name. And Bond catches on to Largo almost by happenstance, not because of M's clever machinations. This is a stretch.
Anyway, from there we launch into an attempted assassination of Bond by Bad Guy #1 in a car chase in London. It's gripping, and Lippe dies spectacularly. Splendid!
Down in Nassau, we meet Bond Girl #2: Dominetta "Domino" Petacchi, the kept woman of Bad Guy #2, rich "treasure-hunter" Emilio Largo. There's some good, some bad here.
When Bond meets Domino and she drives him somewhere, he thinks:
"Women are often meticulous and safe drivers, but they are very seldom first-class. In general Bond regarded them as a mild hazard and he always gave them plenty of road and was ready for the unpredictable. Four women in a car he regarded as the highest danger potential, and two women as nearly as lethal. Women together cannot keep silent in a car, and when women talk they have to look into each other's faces. An exchange of words is not enough. They have to see the other person's expression, perhaps in order to read behind the other's words or to analyse the reaction to their own. So two women in the front seat of a car constantly distract each other's attention from the road ahead and four women are more doubly dangerous, for the driver not only has to hear, and see, what her companion is saying but also, for women are like that, what the two behind are talking about."
Fortunately for Bond, Domino "drives like a man."
This doesn't age well, but I remember that "women are bad drivers" was accepted wisdom when I was growing up, so it is not all surprising or out of step with the times in which it was written. I read it with amusement, mainly. I assumed many of today's readers would take offense, but my wife also found it amusing enough to read aloud.
Also, Bond thinks some nice things about Domino (a comparison to Brigitte Bardot, for example) but he also thinks that she's from a "healthy peasant strain." Then there's this:
"The general impression, Bond decided, was of a wilful, high-tempered, sensual girl — a beautiful Arab mare who would only allow herself to be ridden by a horseman with steel thighs and velvet hands, and then only with curb and saw-bit — and then only when he had broken her to bridle and saddle."
Or, you know, a rider with money, like Largo. Regardless if his hands were velvety or whatnot.
"Bond thought that he would like to try his strength against hers. But that must be for some other time. For the moment another man was in the saddle. He would first have to be unhorsed."
Wow, that analogy went on, ah, a bit too long. As in, it should never have been made. Let's hope Bond never compares a woman to a horse aloud, especially if the woman is in earshot.
But the things Bond does say out loud are a great improvement over Fleming's previous attempts to write flirtation. Bond even acknowledges his pick-up line to Domino, which is the sort of self-deprecation that allows one (usually) to get away with terrible pick-up lines. I wonder if Fleming had been watching some Audrey Hepburn movies for pointers, because I definitely got a Breakfast at Tiffany's vibe here and was picturing Hepburn in my head during the dialogue.
I should also mention that Fleming makes it clear that sex is definitely part of Domino's job description as Largo's companion, or niece, or whatever. Bond doesn't judge, of course — he really can't, given how often he engages in transactional sex, which he in fact does with Domino — but it's pretty racy stuff for 1961, it seems to me. And, fallen woman or not, she joins the good guys when Bond reveals that A) Largo killed her brother, and B) has nuclear bombs. (But mainly A.)
However, Felix Leiter is back at the CIA, so all is forgiven.
Here's an interesting thing: Before Bond knows the CIA man he's been sent to meet is Leiter, we get this: "Bond hoped he wouldn't be a muscle-bound ex-college man with a crew-cut and a desire to show up the incompetence of the British, the backwardness of their little Colony, and the clumsy ineptitude of Bond, in order to gain credit with his chief in Washington."
This is not the first time in the book that Fleming writes defensively of Britain's smaller stature vs. that of the North American colossus — it happens at the launch of Project Thunderball, too. I appreciate this bow to reality, but at the same time, it makes me a little sad.
I enjoy Leiter's presence though, as it gives Bond someone to talk to, and Leiter usually does prove useful. Especially with equipment, which Bond acknowledges is top-notch. Makes me proud to be an American!
While Leiter is described as a Texan, Fleming doesn't attempt a Texas dialect, which I appreciate. (Given how he handles other American dialogue, I doubt he'd do it well.) Weirdly, though, Leiter occasionally uses British expressions. I can only assume that's because Fleming was unaware the expressions were specifically British.
Finally, at the end, we get after the bombs. They're underwater, so Fleming once again trots out the same barracuda-and-shark, underwater-world commentary he's used every other time he's sent Bond to the Caribbean (and in "Hildebrand Rarity"). It's actually getting a little tiresome now.
And it should be noted that Largo has elaborate plans involving frogmen and electric sleds to plant Bomb #1 close to a military base, and Bomb #2 in the Miami yacht basin. Once again, this demonstrates how poorly understood nukes were in this era.
The thing about nukes is, you don't have to place them right on the target. Even if you miss your specific target, the blast and fallout is still going to do the job, plus destroy the surrounding area. As the expression goes, " 'Almost' only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and atomic bombs." Largo could have just dropped Bomb #1 out of the Disco Volante's underwater hatch well outside the military base's security perimeter and/or radar without slowing down. No frogmen needed.
But we do have frogmen, on both sides, which results in combat. It's gripping at first. The bad guys have curare on their spear-gun bolts, which, strangely, is mentioned at the beginning of the set-up and then ignored, until a throwaway line in the after-action chit-chat. How fast does curare work, anyway?
The good guys are mildly outnumbered, but win anyway. Which I'd expect, as Bond's men are professional military and Largo's men are not.
And why Largo's men don't immediately surrender when the U.S. military shows up is because this is a story and we need fighty-fight as the climax. In real life, I'd expect every henchman to throw down his spear gun and put up his hands at the first sight of a U.S. Marine. It could be one Marine or a dozen or an army, but whatever, it means the jig is up, and why should they die for Largo? They're there for money, and they can't spend it if they're dead. The mental calculus isn't difficult.
Anyway, fighty-fight. Leiter's a sidekick, and can't be allowed to overshadow Bond, so he's out of action pretty quickly. And Bond goes after Largo, so the main fight is left to our imagination.
But then Bond starts to tire, and Largo gets the upper hand, and I thought "What is this? The hero is tuckered out? He needs a nappie?" But then Domino shows up to saves him, and gets the kill because Largo tortured her, I thought, "OK, that what writers do in stories, and it's a satisfying end."
Leiter tells Bond in the hospital that they did learn the name of the top bad guy. Some fella named Blofeld. I wonder if we'll hear from him again.
SUMMARY
The extended hangover/Brushlands intro is my favorite open for a Bond book yet. While the book does have some moments that made me wince (Domino compared to a horse, for example), the plot is still timely, plausible, well-written and engaging. The Caribbean setting and big men with animal magnetism are becoming tired Bond tropes, but the Big Concept overcomes many flaws.
STRAY BULLETS
- The book begins with Bond philosophizing that "all life was a heap of six to four against." I assumed that meant something to the effect that the odds are against us, and when I looked it up, that's pretty much what it means.
- Bond takes Phensic, which the Internet tells me was a British product with aspirin and caffeine, and Eno, which contains sodium bicarbonate, citric acid and sodium carbonate. In other words, Alka Seltzer, orange juice and coffee. Sounds like a hangover cure to me.
- The cabbie conversation about the Washington sex worker finally made me look up the word "quid," which in previous contexts I have mentally substituted "dollar" or "buck" and it worked. Turns out that's about right. Quid is a synonym for the pound, which is currently worth about $1.26. Oh, and the name comes from "quid pro quo," which I did not know.
- The cabbie references Rosemary Clooney's "Too Old to Cut the Mustard," a 1952 duet with Marlene Dietrich about impotence. I am not making this up.
- Largo is an Italian musical term that translates to "play slowly and broadly."
- Chapter 18 is titled "How to Eat a Girl." I'm not making that up, either.
- World War II Connection: Giuseppe Petacchi, the Italian who betrays NATO to SPECTRE, had flown Focke-Wulf 200s for the Germans. He betrayed them, too.
- I laughed every time I read the name of Largo's ship, the "Disco Volante," because "Stayin' Alive" would flash through my mind. But it's just Italian for "flying saucer." Which is also kinda funny.
THE MOVIE: THUNDERBALL
Year: 1965
Director: Terence Young
Writers: Richard Maibaum, John Hopkins, Jack Whittingham
Starring: Sean Connery (James Bond), Claudine Auger (Domino), Adolfo Celi (Largo), Luciana Paluzzi (Fiona), Rik Van Nutter (Felix Leiter), Guy Doleman (Count Lippe), Molly Peters (Patricia), Martine Beswick (Paula), Bernard Lee (M), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny), Roland Culver (Foreign Secretary), Earl Cameron (Pinder), Paul Stassino (Palazzi), Rose Alba (Madame Boitier), Philip Locke (Vargas), George Pravda (Kutze), Michael Brennan (Janni)
Significant music: "Thunderball" was written by John Barry and Don Black and performed by Tom Jones. The original theme song was "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," written by Barry and Leslie Bricusse, and performed by Shirley Bassey, with a longer version by Dionne Warwick when it was discovered the Bassey version didn't last as long as the credits did. But concern that a theme song without the movie's title in it shelved both versions in favor the new song with Tom Jones. The Bassey and Warwick versions of "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" were released in the '90s, if Wiki is to be believed.
THE PLOT
James Bond heads to the Bahamas to recover two nuclear warheads stolen by S.P.E.C.T.R.E. agent Emilio Largo, who is engaged in an international extortion scheme.
THE COMMENTARY
Opening action sequence
The movie's opening action sequence — a tradition that began in From Russia with Love — is entirely original to the movie. Bond attends a funeral in France of enemy agent Col. Jacques Bouvar, who "murdered two of my comrades." Bond is accompanied by French agent Mlle. LaPorte, who is inexplicably played by a Chinese actress.
There is only one mourner at the funeral, the dead man's widow, who turns out to be the dead man himself in disguise. Bond tips to this because Bouvar opens his own car door while in drag. Apparently in 1965 (at least in the screenwriter's mind), women didn't open their own car doors. A convincing fight to the death ensues.
Is there anything like this in later books? Because this scene seems to suggest more than what is on the screen. It seems significant that Bond mentions two "comrades," who are almost certainly 00 agents, which, if assassinated, would be a big deal. There are only nine of them, after all.
Alas for me and my speculations, the movie offers no more on this score. Instead we get a scene where Bond escapes on a Bell Rocket Belt, which was a real thing.
That leads to Bond’s Aston-Martin DB5, which shoots out water jets. This scene was poorly done, as it's clear the bad guys are obviously walking into the water so it looks effective. It's a dumb anti-personnel weapon (guns would be more effective), and the director and actors can't save it.
More new stuff
The actual opening of the book — Bond's excessive drinking, M sending him to get cured, Moneypenny getting some words in, the cabbie — are erased in the movie. Bond is introduced already in Shrublands, with no explanation.
Bond discovering Count Lippe's tong tattoo is also compressed here — Bond noticing, Lippe noticing Bond noticing. When Bond calls it in (like in the book) Bond already knows what it is (unlike the book, where he has no idea, and must depend on "Records"). Bond is always more knowledgeable, independent and heroic in the movies than in the books.
In the movie, Bond talks to Moneypenny instead of Records. Just like in the book, Bond threatens to take Moneypenny over his knee, and just like in the books, she has a rejoinder referencing his inability to do so due to his meager Shrublands diet. It makes sense in the books (and is kinda funny), but comes out of nowhere in the movie.
Bond forces a kiss on Patricia Fearing, like in the book, and it still doesn't age well. But as she eventually surrenders to his charms (again), at least the sex takes place in a bed in the hospital and not on the back seat of a car.
Patricia Fearing, played by Molly Peters. She initially resists Bond's advances but eventually makes it look consensual, like Pussy Galore in Goldfinger.
Largo is played by Adolfo Celi, who is a big man like in the book, but has white hair instead of a black pomade, which makes him seem a bit old for a supposed man of action.
Largo has an (unexplained) eyepatch. Maybe in 1965 "eyepatch = evil." Robert Wagner, who plays No. 2 in Austin Powers, also sports an eyepatch.
The numbers for the executive council are assigned instead of rotated monthly, and reflect the hierarchy. Blofeld is No. 1 and Largo No. 2, reversing the book. The guy Bond killed in the open is No. 6, which is unique to the movie.
The movie gives us a bonus Bond Girl, a femme fatale named Fiona Volpe. (Volpe means "fox" in Italian, although she's more of a vixen.) She has no counterpart in the book.
Fiona Volpe, played by Luciana Paluzzi. This scene doesn't actually appear in the movie, so it's probably a lobby card or publicity photo.
The movie also gives us "Francois Derval" in the Giuseppe Petacchi role. In the book, Petacchi's motives and actions are pretty straightforward — he's betrayed everybody he's every worked for, and he's greedy, so betraying NATO for money is perfectly in character. But in the movie there's a complicated "man gets plastic surgery to replace the pilot" scheme, that Fiona is there to facilitate. (Evidently using sex to do so.) That serves to get Fiona (and the breathtaking Luciana Paluzzi) into the movie, but otherwise I see no point to it. Well, aside from introducing the poison gas concept into the movie earlier than in the book. (Cyanide gas in the book, "gamma gas" in the movie.)
Francois turns out to be more of an idiot than the book's Giuseppe. He wants to be paid more ... at the end of the caper.
Dude! You're part of a ruthless, murderous, international criminal organization, and you demand more money to be given to you after you've already given them what they want?
Needless to say, he doesn't survive any longer than his counterpart in the book.
During the NATO briefing, 007 takes his seat with his high chair back to the camera ... along with eight others. This is our first look at, and count of, the other 00 agents.
Bond is sent to Nassau, because the briefing mentions that Francois Derval was on the missing flight — and Bond had seen Francois, already dead, at Shrublands. Derval's sister is in Nassau, so Bond asks to go there. It's a slim lead, but better than M's "hunch" in the book.
The movie gives us yet another character not found in the book, Bond's colleague Paula Caplan. I think she's meant to be attached to the Nassau station (Station B?). I don't call her a Bond Girl, because as far as we know Bond doesn't sleep with her. (She gets killed anyway.)
Paula Caplan, played by Martine Beswick.
Bond meets Bond Girl #2 (actually #3, as Bond has sex with Volpe), who is named Dominique Verpal instead of Dominetti Petacchi. Both are nicknamed Domino, though.
The movie gives us a chief henchman for Largo named Vargas. I got the impression he was supposed to be German. He lurks ominously a lot, but when the time comes, is dispatched rather easily.
The movie gives us a new actor for Felix Leiter, Rik Van Nutter. I find nothing memorable about him except for his healthy head of hair, of which I am jealous.
The underwater scenes are cool and wondrous at first. By the end of the movie I had tired of them. With the sensawunda worn out, it became more obvious that sometimes I couldn't tell what was going on. (The "underwater theme" music, as I thought of it, used over and over again, reinforces this.)
Bond uses a "rebreather" that shows up in O'Neil/Adams Batman comics in the early 1970s. O'Neill treated it as if it was a real thing, and Adams drew it exactly as in the movie. In real life, it doesn’t exist and wouldn’t work as it did without a CO2 bag.
An example of good dialogue not found in the book:
Bond looking at Largo's gun: This looks more fitting for a woman.
Largo: You know a little about guns, Mr. Bond?
Bond: No, I know a little about women.
An example of bad dialogue not found in the book:
Felix: Where is 007?
Underling: That's a question.
Yes. Yes it is. It is unquestionably a question.
After Bond tells Domino about her brother, she agrees to help. It’s awful in the book, where he has sex with her before telling her about her brother, because he knows she won’t have sex with him after. This scene echoes the book scene, with some of the same emotional interplay, with minor differences. But Bond isn't as much of a cad.
Domino agrees to Bond's method to signal from the Disco Volante, that in the book was her idea.
Bond gets stranded in some sort of reef trench. That doesn't happen in the book. I don't know why it happens in the movie, because it makes Mr. Masculine look sort of helpless. At least Leiter gets to look good rescuing him.
At the climax, the U.S. airdrops a bunch of frogmen to fight Largo's frogmen. In the book, it's explained why the U.S. military can't bring enough resources to bear in time to overwhelm Largo, but in the movie we're left wondering why it's just frogmen jumping out of airplanes and not, you know, the whole Fourth Fleet.
SUMMARY
This was a good but not great movie, that follows the bare bones of the book's plot with fidelity. Connery, of course, is great as Bond. It would have been better for the narrative had they used fewer underwater scenes, which grew tiresome and confusing toward the end. Also, throwaway bits that reference the books, like in the first three movies, come and go so fast as to almost not make sense, Better to have just left them out.
STRAY BULLETS
- Thunderball was planned as the first Bond film, and was originally written as a screenplay called Longitude 78 by Fleming, Jack Whittington and Kevin McClory. When that fell through as a movie, Fleming turned the screenplay into a novel. McClory sued and won, gaining all the Thunderball rights, so Dr. No became the first Bond movie. After Goldfinger, Eon Productions paid McClory for a 10-year window to film rights (and gave him a producer credit), with the rights reverting back to McClory after the 10 years. Which is how McClory was able to make his own version of Thunderball in 1983, Never Say Never Again.
- Similarly, the rights to Blofeld and SPECTRE reverted to McClory in 1971, which is why Blofeld stopped appearing after Diamonds Are Forever. Rights to Thunderball, Blofeld and SPECTRE (along with Casino Royale) finally made their way to Eon in 2006.
- A very Blofeld-esque character was used in the opening action sequence of For Your Eyes Only, but he was never named or explained. This can be assumed to be Eon's subtextual farewell to the character (until 2006).
- Thunderball was enormously successful, and accounting for inflation, remains the biggest moneymaker in the Bond canon (according to Wiki).
- Fiona Volpe was originally Fiona Kelly in the screenplay, and Irish. The character's nationality was changed when Luciana Paluzzi was cast.
- Similarly, Domino was Italian in the script but became French when Claudine Auger, a former Miss France, was cast.
- Befitting her nickname, Domino nearly always dresses in black and white.
- Volpe drove the famous 1965 Ford Mustang.
- John Stears won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for Thunderball. He later co-won the Oscar for Star Wars.
- Mlle. LaPorte was played by Maryse Guy Mitsouko, but voiced by Catherine Clemence. Emilio Largo was played by Adolfo Celi, but voiced by Robert Rietty. Blofeld is played by Anthony Dawson, but voiced by Eric Pohlman. Domino was played by Claudine Auger, but was voiced by Nikki van der Zyl. You'd think it would be cheaper to hire actors who can do their own voices.
- I never noticed this before, but Lois Maxwell vaguely favors Majel Barrett.
- Largo describes his "Golden Grotto" sharks the way we all describe great whites after Jaws. That movie, obviously, changed the way the world thinks and talks about sharks.
- When Bond and Fiona have sex, she grabs the bed's headstand in a way that looked like a similar scene in American Flagg! I wonder if a young Howard Chaykin was affected by the Bond scene and did homage 20 years later.
THE MOVIE: NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN
Year: 1983
Director: Irvin Kershner
Writers: Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham
Starring: Sean Connery (James Bond), Kim Basinger (Domino Petachi), Klaus Maria Brandauer (Maximilian Largo), Max von Sydow (Blofeld), Barbara Carrera (Fatima), Bernie Casey (Felix Leiter), Alec McCowen (Q), Edward Fox (M), Pamela Salem (Miss Moneypenny), Rowant Atkinson (Small-Fawcett), Alec McCowen ('Q' Algy), Edward Fox (M), Valerie Leon (Lady in Bahamas), Milos Kirek (Kovacs), Pat Roach (Lippe), Anthony Sharp (Lord Ambrose), Prunella Gee (Patricia), Gavan O’Herlihy (Jack Petachi), Ronald Pickup (Elliott), Robert Rietty (Italian Minister)
Significant music. None, really. There was a "Never Say Never Again" theme song but it was forgettably generic.
THE PLOT
James Bond heads to the Bahamas to recover two nuclear warheads stolen by S.P.E.C.T.R.E. agent Emilio Largo, who is engaged in an international extortion scheme.
THE COMMENTARY
Opening action sequence
This movie gives us yet another introductory action scene, this one a training exercise where Bond is attempting to rescue a kidnapped heiress who has fallen prey to Stockholm Syndrome (See: Patty Hearst). He fails — she "stabs" him — and is sent to Shrublands to get back in form.
More new stuff
There's a new M here (Edward Fox), one that is a shrill, penny-pinching bureaucrat instead of the weathered old admiral we're accustomed to. He wants to sack the whole 00 section as a waste of money.
Q is played by Alec McGowen instead of Desmond Llewyllen, which is jarring. He's also called Algernon instead of Boothroyd. I guess Eon had the rights to "Boothroyd."
M and Q both bring up money, or the lack of it, which reflects the times. Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, and had instituted serious austerity measures throughout the British government.
At Shrublands, Bond immediately beds Patricia Fearing (Prunella Gee), the third time the character has done so, and the second time Sean Connery has done so. This is the fastest and most convincing of the Patricia Fearing Seductions. Practice makes perfect.
Through a window, Bond witnesses a man who has had eye surgery being beaten by a woman who gives the man heroin after he performs a ritual with a retina scanner. Later, when being briefed about how the nuclear bombs were stolen, Bond realizes that the man he saw could have been the missing Jack Petachi (Gavan O'Herlihy), with eye surgery to fake the U.S. president's retinal signature.
The woman in the scene is the sadistic and bloodthirsty Fatima Blush (Barbara Carrera), who doesn't appear in the book and is a sort-of amped-up version of Fiona Volpe. She is SPECTRE's No. 12. She sends this movie's version of Lippe (Pat Roach), a beefy assassin, after Bond.
Fatima Blush, played by Barbara Carrera.
Unlike either the book or the previous movie, Petachi's job here is to mimic the president's retinal signature, in order to surreptitiously replace fake nukes with real ones on two cruise missiles during a test, allowing SPECTRE to steal them. (The cruise missile flights look very similar to those in Superman: The Movie, five years earlier.)
In the book, the turncoat pilot is motivated by greed. In the movie, greed and sex. In Never, it's apparently a sadomasochistic relationship with Blush, combined with a heroin addiction. The names are all different, too: Giuseppe Petacchi in the book, Francois Verpal in the movie, Jack Petachi in Never.
He's no smarter here than in his previous incarnations, and is killed by Blush as soon as he is no longer useful. She uses a pet snake as part of the assassination (and kisses it), a Movie Indication That She Is Bad.
Blofeld is played by Max von Sydow, and may be the best Blofeld of all. He has the Persian cat, which is an Eon thing, so I wonder how McClory got away with it.
Bond goes to Nassau because he saw Petachi alive at Shrublands (as opposed to dead in Thunderball), and once again he is in pursuit of the sister. Once again, this is a slim lead but still better than M's hunch.
Crack off the boat Bond meets "Lady in Bahamas" (Valerie Leon), whom he ends up seducing. (But not before ending up in denim overalls, which is an amusing visual.) "Lady" has no book or previous movie counterpart.
"Lady in Bahamas," played by Valerie Leon.
Bond sleeps with four women in Never (Patricia, Domino, Fatima, Lady), whereas he only beds three in Thunderball the movie (Domino, Patricia, Fiona) and two in Thunderball the book (Domino, Patricia). Is four a record? Probably not.
Largo (whose first name has been changed to Maximilian) is played by Klaus Maria Brandauer, in a manner I can only describe as "louche Eurotrash." I kept expecting him to say "ciao" and give an insouciant wave whenever he left a room. Eventually he did! (My wife found it amusing.)
In Nassau we meet Nigel Small-Fawcett, invented for the movie, who is played by a very young Rowan Atkinson (Blackadder, Mr. Bean).
Bond follows Largo to Nice, France, where we meet our new Felix. Played by Bernie Casey, he is far more memorable than whoever the guy was in Thunderball. Casey brings a serious grit to the role instead of being comedy relief, and is physically convincing in the action scenes.
We also meet Nicole (Saskia Cohen Tanugi), on station in France for MI6. She's this movie's version of Thunderball's Paula. Just like her predecessor, she's killed by the movie's femme fatale (Fatima, instead of Fiona).
Maximilian Largo, played by Klaus Maria Brandauer.
Instead of playing baccarat with Bond (book and movie), Largo plays a video game of his own devising. The scene is pretty awful to contemporary eyes, but was probably novel and hip in 1983. In fact, there are a lot of video games in this movie (even at high-class casinos), and a lot of computer screens and computer voices. It brings to mind WarGames, a movie released the same year. None of it ages well.
We end up in Ethiopia, where Largo captures Bond and leaves Domino (Kim Basinger) for anachronistic, horse-riding Arab slavers straight out of Lawrence of Arabia. Largo brags that Bomb #1 is in Washington, D.C., "right under the president's feet." When Bond escapes (because of course he does) that is somehow sufficient information for the CIA to find it.
The climactic battle between the U.S. military and Largo's men for Bomb #2 takes place in an underground Egyptian temple instead of underwater. That would be pretty cool, if it wasn't obvious all the "ancient" Egyptian stuff was made out of plaster sometime last week.
SUMMARY
Never Say Never Again doesn't stray far from the Thunderball script, and would be a pedestrian remake except for Sean Connery. He fully inhabits the role as never before, perhaps because of, rather than despite of, his age. The "James Bond Theme" is really obvious in its absence.
STRAY BULLETS
- When asked in 1971 if he would ever play James Bond after Diamonds Are Forever, Connery replied "Never again." This served as inspiration for the movie's title.
- Jack Petachi is played by Gavan O'Herlihy, who played Ritchie Cunningham's older brother Chuck in the first season of Happy Days.
- Much is made of Sean Connery being 52 in this movie. Roger Moore, who starred in Octopussy the same year, was 55.
- The lack of the Bond theme really hurt this movie. It didn't help that the "Never Say Never Again" theme and score were kinda generic.
- Kim Basinger, who plays Domino, was 29-30 in this movie (although her naivete makes her seem younger). This was six years before she played Vicki Vale in Tim Burton's Batman and hits many of the same beats.
- As this movie was made post-disco, Largo's yacht is never referred to by its Italian name, Disco Volante. Instead, the English translation, Flying Saucer, is used.
- We get to hear "Largo" said with a Scottish accent in two movies!
- One of the hands involved in the script at some point was Lorenzo Semple Jr. You may remember his credit from the Batman TV show (1966-68).
- Domino kills Largo three times, in both movies and the book.
- In Thunderball the movie, Bond famously flies a jet pack. In Never Say Never Again, Bond and Leiter fly the "TX7B," a sort-of jet pack that comes out of rocket. Going one better, I guess.
Replies
"Clinker" is sometimes used for the residue from a coal fire.
Good to know!
And here I've been concerned that my posts to the "Silver Age superman" discussion have been too lengthy. Sheesh. As usual, posting as I read. Let's meet back at the end and see if there's anything else I wanted to say that you didn't cover.
"...and as a former smoker..."
I didn't realize you managed to kick the pernicious weed. Congratulations!
"All life was a heap of six to four against." \
This doesn't have anything to do with James Bond, but I used to watch the Dick Tracy cartoon when I was a kid, and he used to sign off with the phase "six, two and even," which I took to mean "A-OK" or "10-4" or something like that. Now, in the age of "The Google," I know it refers to a horse that carries odds of 6-to-1 to Win, 2-to-1 to Place, and even money to Show. It was popularized by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon (which i already knew).
"Oh, and the name comes from 'quid pro quo,' which I did not know."
I knew a quid was a pound but I didn't know it came from quid pro quo.
"The cabbie references Rosemary Clooney's 'Too Old to Cut the Mustard,' a 1952 duet with Marlene Dietrich about impotence."
Here it is if you want to listen to it.
"The original theme song was 'Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang'..."
"Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is how the Japanese referred to James Bond back in the '60s.
"The Bassey and Warwick versions of "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" were released in the '90s, if Wiki is to be believed."
That's true. (They're on an anniversary soundtrack compilation.) Shirley Bassey seems to have difficulty pronouncing "Bang Bang" (which sounds more like "Ban Bans" to me). Here, you can listen to that, too.
"There are only nine [00 agents], after all."
Actually, there were only five (in the books, anyway): 006, 007, 008, 009 and 0011.
"The movie gives us a chief henchman for Largo named Vargas."
Perhaps named for the famous painter of girls...?
"The underwater scenes are cool and wondrous at first."
There is a well-known blooper in which Bond's face mask inexplicably changes from orange to black back to orange again.
"It’s awful in the book, where he has sex with her before telling her about her brother, because he knows she won’t have sex with him after."
Hey, c'mon! You criticized Francois Derval for demanding more money from SPECTRE after he had completed their mission.
"This was a good but not great movie..."
The first three were the best (IMO).
"Instead of playing baccarat with Bond (book and movie), Largo plays a video game of his own devising... but was probably novel and hip in 1983."
No. No, it wasn't.
"Jack Petachi is played by Gavan O'Herlihy, who played Ritchie Cunningham's older brother Chuck in the first season of Happy Days."
I hadn't realized that but I totally see it!
"The lack of the Bond theme really hurt this movie."
Agreed.
There are alternate explantions for this. One is that the first pound notes were printed at a place called "Quidhampton". There are Quidhamptons in Wiltshire and Old Hampshire, but personally, I suspect this of being "folk etymology".
Another is that it is derived from the Irish Gaelic word "chuid", which can mean "part" or "portioon" or "share", and is said to have been used by Irishmen serving in the British Army to refer to their pay. This is more plausible to me than the Quidhampton thing, but I don't insist on it.
Jeff of Earth-J said:
I suspect this of being "folk etymology".
So noted.
In Thunderball the climactic underwater battle was very exciting when viewed on the big screen in a theatre. Its just not the same watching on TV.
In Never Say Never Again there is a scene of 007 searching through a house, a perfect point for the classic Bond theme, without it it no longer had the feel of a James Bond movie.
The Thunderball novel is the first book in what is considered the Blofeld trilogy. Although he stays in the shadows in this book, Blofeld becomes the primary baddie in On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice.
The rights issues to Thunderball were deeply tangled. Here's an article that goes into far more detail than anybody (at least me) wants to know: "Battle for Bond".
But the part that I want to bring to everyone's attention is that Sony acquired Kevin McCrory's rights to Thunderball in 1997. Sony also had rights to Casino Royale and with those, made plans to launch its own James Bond franchise starring Liam Neeson (although I don't know that anybody ever asked Liam Neeson if he was interested in participating).
Naturally, MGM went to court to shut Sony's plans down. Sony was prepared to argue that it could take the rights it had to Thunderball and build out its own James Bond universe -- and even if didn't, had every right to make as many remakes of Thunderball as it wanted. It even drafted scripts for TEN different versions of Thunderball.
In the end, MGM and Sony settled, and MGM prevailed. MGM gained the rights to Casino Royale AND got Sony banned from making any James Bond movies. See here: "License to Copyright: The Ongoing Dispute Over the Ownership of James Bond"
And here I've been concerned that my posts to the "Silver Age Superman" discussion have been too lengthy.
I had a lot to say!
I didn't realize you managed to kick the pernicious weed.
Back around 2007.
Congratulations!
Thanks!
Bassey and Warwick versions ... are on an anniversary soundtrack compilation.
Also good to know!
There were only five [00 agents] (in the books, anyway): 006, 007, 008, 009 and 0011.
I always thought there were nine, which I now know got lodged in my head by the nine chairs in Thunderball.
There is a well-known blooper in which Bond's face mask inexplicably changes from orange to black back to orange again.
I'm not all surprised. Those scenes were probably hard to shoot.
Hey, c'mon! You criticized Francois Derval for demanding more money from SPECTRE after he had completed their mission.
Yeah, but he's a bad guy!
The first three [movies] were the best (IMO).
As far as Connery goes, I agree.
I suspect this of being "folk etymology".
Understood. I'll stick with the Latin explanation until I see evidence to the contrary.
In Thunderball the climactic underwater battle was very exciting when viewed on the big screen in a theatre. Its just not the same watching on TV.
No doubt. I'm pretty sure I saw Thunderball on the big screen when it came out, but I was pretty young and don't remember my reaction.
The Thunderball novel is the first book in what is considered the Blofeld trilogy.
The "trilogy" was interrupted by The Spy Who Loved Me in publishing order, which suggests to me that Fleming wasn't really thinking long term when he wrote Thunderball. I guess he got tired of making up new villains. And fortunately, all the movies based on books with Blofeld were filmed within the 10-year window when Eon had the rights, so we didn't have to endure a Thunderball, On Her Majesty's Secret Service or You Only Live Twice movie with a substitute villain.
In the end, MGM and Sony settled, and MGM prevailed. MGM gained the rights to Casino Royale AND got Sony banned from making any James Bond movies.
With that agreement, Eon got all the Bond rights it had been missing -- Casino Royale, Thunderball, Blofeld, SPECTRE, the lot. Plus, if Wiki is to be believed, Sony got some important rights in return, for a certain wall-crawler. Which turned out pretty well for them, I think.
I think Thunderball the movie was the tipping point for the Bond series. The formula that would be followed for the next three decades was now set and there was no need to take any further chances with story or production. On the other hand Thunderball the novel set the stage for two more top notch books - not counting The Spy Who Loved Me of course.