Limited edition Thunderball prints for sale

007 Magazine reports that several ultra-rare James Bond prints created for Kevin McClory’s ill-fated Thunderball project are now available for sale.

The prints are being sold and presented on canvas by local photographer Sylvan Mason (who was interviewed by CommanderBond.net in 2006), daughter of screenwriter Jack Whittingham.

Her website carries the following information:

In 1959, an Irish entrepreneur called Kevin McClory, envisioned the making of a movie with Ian Fleming featuring James Bond.

At a time when the first seven Fleming novels had been turned down by the top film studios of the day, for being too violent, sadistic, and unbelievable, successful novelist, Ian Fleming had wearied of writing; was ‘bereft of new ideas’, and wanted to kill Bond off and go travelling.

British screenwriter, Jack Whittingham who had just gone freelance from the Ealing Studios team, was commissioned to write a film that would be acceptable to the British public and, with Ian Fleming’s permission, took the character of James Bond and created the very first original 007 screenplay entitled Thunderball.

Thunderball, therefore, was the very first screenplay of the movie series, and should have been the first produced film, however, the making of it was halted and held up by long drawn out legal complications, and, eventually, it came out as the fourth Bond film, and the biggest in box office terms.

The series of unique pre-production storyboard drawings by Steven Grimes, John Huston’s Art Director, that adorn the walls of Fulham’s newest ‘In Place’, The Fulham Grill, were originally created for Thunderball. They are presented on canvas by local photographer Sylvan Mason, Jack Whittingham’s daughter and are a represention of the ‘First Imaginings’ of what a Bond film could look like long before production commenced on any of them. They were shown at the 1959 Venice Film Festival in a bid to raise interest for the proposed new project.

A variety of purchase options are available to choose from. Click here to view the Thunderball prints available for sale and for further details.

Literary 007 fans may recall a few of them that made their way into the first edition of The Battle for Bond by Robert Sellers.

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