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Anthony Burgess On 'The Spy Who Loved Me': Double Standards?

A guest article by SILHOUETTE MAN

Actually, I've found an article on that online by a fellow called The Cat; here it is:

Imagine the Bond movie in which the Pope whitewashes the Sistine Chapel, the Loch Ness monster appears, the royal family is naked, there are henchmen called Tic, Tac, Toe and you meet 007’s twin brother! This is the story of The Spy Who Loved Me!

By 1974, the James Bond movies have reached an all time low box-office-wise. The partnership of Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli ended, with now the latter gaining total control over the franchize. Broccoli felt that the reception of the next movie has to be outstanding in order to save the series and as we all know, he succeeded. Of all the Bond movies, The Spy Who Loved Me was probably the most troubled to shoot, as the pressure was combined with the uncertainty of the future. Here is the true tale how the movie’s story evolved from humble beginnings to the cinematic masterpiece we all know and love.

Anthony Burgess
In early 1975, producer Albert R. Broccoli and director Guy Hamilton went to New York with a typewriter and many sheets of paper to visit the famous author, Anthony Burgess. Burgess is probably best known for his novel of A Clockwork Orange, but he was also a fan of Ian Fleming. He was asked to develop a script outline for a movie entitled The Spy Who Loved Me, which must not feature any Fleming material from the novel. Burgess had the right “pedigree” for the task, knowing all the right ingredients for a classy Bond adventure: he analysed the Goldfinger novel amongst the best 99 novels since 1939 and also wrote introductions to the Coronation editions of the Fleming novels. However, the end result may surprise those who expect a more serious Bond movie in the spirit of the novels. Here’s the outline as told by Burgess himself in a 1987 issue of Life Magazine and his autobiography, You’ve Had Your Time:

The pre-titles sequence finds Bond in Singapore, fighting against a Chinese musical gong society. He is just killing one of the in shark’s fin soup when he is shot in the shoulder. The assassins leave him there, presumed dead, but Bond survives. A Chinese surgeon, who uses acupuncture for the operation, gets the bullet out of 007’s shoulder. Bond learns the methods and receives a pair of yin-yang needles as souvenirs. Just as Bond arrives to the airport, he witnesses a jumbo jet in flames… a work of a new terrorist organisation, CHAOS - Consortium for the Hastening of the Annihilation of Organised Society. And here begins the movie…

CHAOS is a very interesting group indeed. Burgess based the main villain on one of his earlier characters: his 1966 spy spoof Tremors of Intent feature the prototype of this villain called Theodorescu. The character was written with Orson Welles in mind and borrowed many of his mannerisms. The unnamed leader resides in a maritime lair, spending his life confined to a wheelchair. His motivations are not political or monetary, only personal. His aim is to humiliate world leaders, and blackmailing them to commit terrorist action unless they obey him. The flaming jumbo jet is because of the Pope, who refused to whitewash the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with his own hands (although another source claims that this is avenged by blowing up a convent school).

The unnamed leader has an unnamed daughter, who was once the lover of 008 (or 009), but she was left alone by her former beau; now she is depressed and out for revenge. Her mental illness manifests in terrible rashes on her face, which she covers with her raven hair. She demonstrates her worldview by burning 1,000,000 dollars in a fireplace to illustrate the unworthiness of money and compares it to the worthiest thing ever: power.

Meanwhile, 007 investigates and finds out that every terrorist attack had victims who went to the same Bavarian clinic, headed by the CHAOS daughter. The clinic places nuclear explosives into the scar tissues of the innocent patients, blowing them up with radio signals. The girl tries to torture Bond, who survives and convinces the girl that 008/009 didn’t betray her at all. She has a sudden change of heart, makes love to 007 and the rashes magically disappear. It is also implied that she fell in love with Bond because 008/009 was his twin brother (!), but this is unconfirmed.

Bond and his girlfriend travel to Sydney to prevent the biggest tragedy of all: blowing up the Queen, prominent members of the Commonwealth and the whole audience of the Sydney Opera House on the premiere of Strauss’ Salome, unless they perform full frontal nudity on national television. The explosive person of the event is Bond’s old flame, a beautiful Australian opera singer, whom Bond saves with the help of the acupuncture needles and performing a quick operation to remove the bomb. The daughter of the CHAOS leader witnesses the amorous events and her rashes appear again, giving her no choice but blowing up Sydney on her own…

Other Contributors
When finishing the script, not only Broccoli and Hamilton, but even Burgess was unimpressed. The evil plot was not that inspired, and there was too much sex and violence: the relationship between CHAOS girl and Bond implies S&M sex. There was also too much technology involved, and the action sequences deemed too much special effect by the 1970s standards.

After this departure, Broccoli asked various writers to develop scripts with the title The Spy Who Loved Me. Some of the writers include Stirling Silliphant, Derek Marlowe and John Landis (director of the 1980 spy spoof, Spies Like Us). Here are some of the most interesting ideas from these uncredited contributors:

*Cary Bates planned a homage-filled movie by creating a SPECTRE connected Hugo Drax, who owns an underground lair in Loch Ness. His plan had to do with hijacking nuclear submarines; Bond was supposed to defeat him with the help of Tatiana Romanova.

*Ronald Hardy took over the idea of hijacking nuclear submarines, and invented the electronic tracking device with which the villains could detect them. The script also featured twin henchmen for the main villain.

*Anthony Barwick kept the idea of the tracking system, and his number-obsessed villain, Zodiac wants to destroy nuclear submarines with long range torpedoes, unless the blackmailed countries hand over their most loved art treasures. He has triplets as henchmen: Tic, Tac, and Toe.

After all these unsuccessful drafts, Broccoli felt that all the writers tend to overemphasise the comedic features of the previous movies, and finally called on the help of an old contributor, Richard Maibaum, who was given free hand to use the existing material. His first idea was the beautiful spy, Anya Amasova. The character was very complex yet compelling and likeable, so she stayed in the script from now on, but finding a suitable villain was very hard.

Maibaum wanted to resurrect Bond’s arch-nemesis, SPECTRE in a most unusual form. At the beginning of the movie the Red Brigade, the Bader Meinhof Gang, the Black September Organisation and the Japanese Red Army attack the headquarters of SPECTRE, take over the leading of the organisation to make way for New World Order. They want neither money nor power, just to destroy the oil fields of the world. In order to do so, they capture nuclear submarines, leaving East and West puzzled, blaming each other.

Broccoli liked the Maibaum draft, but found it to be too political and realistic. The more recent terrorist attacks called on to a little more fantastic adventure with a good old-fashioned madman in charge of the evil plan. Christopher Wood, writer of the famous Confessions movies was called on board to help Maibaum with creative input. The finished result became the most promising so far with a truly dangerous megalomaniac:

Maibaum reused his original Diamonds Are Forever script, which featured Auric Goldfinger’s twin brother, a Swedish shipping magnate, who owned a supertanker with laser. The villain was renamed Stavros, he received the submarine tracking device and the plan to capture nuclear submarines by swallowing them with his tanker ship (called Leparus, than Lepadus). He also received an indestructible henchman called Jaws, who was loosely based on a Fleming character called Horror. Tom Mankiewicz also polished the final script, but something was still missing…

One thing is for sure: it is great that all the contributors (15 altogether) never sued EON for not giving credit to them. There was only one man who tried… Television producer Gerry Anderson has written a treatment based on Moonraker for Harry Saltzman in the early 1970s. When his friend, Derek Meddings told him about the supertanker he was working on, Anderson got hold of the script and wanted to sue EON, because his treatment had a supertanker as well. Because of his weak lawyers Anderson lost the case and had to settle with 3000 pounds.

From Blofeld To Stromberg
In 1975, Kevin McClory gained rights to produce his very own Bond movie. He announced to make one entitled James Bond of the Secret Service, featuring Sean Connery as James Bond, Orson Welles as Ernst Stavro Blofeld and the much-loved organisation of SPECTRE. With the official series at an all time low, McClory felt this is the perfect time to start a rival franchise based on his ideas.

Broccoli was in great trouble. He also wanted to use SPECTRE once again, making a final epic battle between Bond and Blofeld. The script was written in two versions with minimal differences: one featured Stavros, the other one had Blofeld and SPECTRE. Both of them had the same goal of capturing the submarines, with minor differences on their background. Negotiations didn’t seem to succeed, so the SPECTRE references were quickly omitted, but the presence of Blofeld was thought to be inevitable.

Ernst Stavro Blofeld is usually identified with SPECTRE with no good reason. It is interesting to note that Blofeld appeared until Diamonds Are Forever, yet SPECTRE wasn’t featured since You Only Live Twice. In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Blofeld has an unusual army of Angels of Death, though I like to draw the parallel with SPECTRE: both the Angels and the Operatives are only called by their numbers. In Diamonds Are Forever, Blofeld was leading a bunch of white-collar scientists and there was no mention of SPECTRE at all!

An alternative plan was created, just in case McClory wouldn’t agree to co-operate… Broccoli decided to shoot an unfinished adventure of The Spy Who Loved Me, in which Blofeld escapes, but gets killed in the beginning of the next adventure which would be For Your Eyes Only. This latter project was delayed because of the success of Star Wars and the crew shot Moonraker instead, but the idea was born and executed in a very unsatisfying manner, by dropping down a nameless but very familiar man down the chimney. Yet by this point it was pretty sure that the Blofeld name could not be used, but there came a brilliant idea, based on a Fleming novel!

In You Only Live Twice, Blofeld lives under the German pseudonym of "Dr. Guntram Shatterhand"… Why not use the idea in the movies? And so, Karl Stromberg was created! For a short period, Stromberg was identical with Blofeld, with all the usual characteristics: bald head, petting a cat, etc. Kevin McClory couldn’t sue them unless the Blofeld name is mentioned. That’s why the character of Stromberg wasn’t given much background story, as audiences already knew who he was… No need for introduction. After all, Bond fought against the madman in five different movies.

A few months before shooting began, however, the negotiations came to an end with a negative result: McClory was unwilling to lend Blofeld to the official series. He needed him as well, as the villain was the ace character in his very own movie, which was finally made 1983 under the title Never Say Never Again. If fact, he made it clear that any reference to his creations would cost EON an enormous amount of money. This decision forced the scriptwriters to change their concept and turn Karl Stromberg into a truly original character.

Much of this work went to Christopher Wood. He created the characteristics of Siegmund (!) Stromberg, turning him into an ex-Nazi with nostalgic fondness of crematory chimneys, sea-obsession, a belief in human master race (although this feature is better fleshed out in the character of Hugo Drax) and finally, the compulsory physical deformation of webbed hands. Unfortunately, most of these interesting features are toned down and only appear in Wood’s novelization, but not in the movie. The idea of master race is represented by the underwater city. Also, his webbed hands are very hard to spot and are quite unremarkable compared to Jaws' set of choppers...

Casting veteran German actor Curt Jurgens added the final touches added to the character. Millionaire shipping magnate Karl Stromberg was created, although eager fans may find the traits of Blofeld origins if paying attention. For instance, in the scene where Stromberg executes his beautiful secretary is a clear continuation from the beginning of Thunderball, where Blofeld interrogates a member, than executes another one. If you watch closely, the cat petting is also present in an unintentional way: Stromberg likes to play with objects in his hands, no matter whether it is a towel or Anya Amasova.

Drafts And Scripts
Here are some changes compared with the drafts.

*Bond was supposed to meet Aziz Fekkesh, curator of the Cairo Museum of Antiques. There would have been a fight in an Egyptian museum with Russian agents (who appear by the tombs in the finished picture) and ancient artefacts would have been destroyed during this. The scene was cut and later reused in Moonraker in the Venini Glass Museum.

*Bond is finally knocked out and is tortured by contacting electrodes to some of his vital organs. Bond escapes when Anya Amasova enters.

*Later, Bond meets Anya Amasova again, while he is playing backgammon with Max Kalba and wins fifty thousand pounds from him! Yes, that was used in Octopussy.

*After Jaws kills Kalba, Bond and Anya follow him, but get attacked by Tuaregs; they are defeated by Anya’s pearl-necklace grenades. Oh, and this necklace is designed by P, Q’s equivalent at the KGB, who also appears in Abu Simbel!

The final shooting script (August 23, 1976) also has intriguing changes. Here are some of them:

*Stromberg is still called Number One! This is another Blofeld reference left in, which had to be removed for legal reasons at the last minute.

*The opening sequence featured more of the chess-playing sailors. This was supposed to make the viewers emotionally contacted with these ordinary people.

*Doctor Bechmann and Professor Markovitz meet Stromberg after the Sheikh Hossein scene, and they survive the encounter… In the movie, they get killed because a treacherous Stromberg was thought to be more evil!

*Bond ducks with Felicca instead of getting her shot. The scene was changed to make a reference to the fate of Fiona Volpe.

*Sandor gets hold of Bond’s cuffs instead of his tie. The cuff rips by itself, and Sandor is killed. The scene was changed to make Bond look tough and cruel. The same method was used in For Your Eyes Only, when Bond kicks down Locque’s Mercedes.

*Tom Mankiewicz wanted to add a reference to Tatiana Romanova in the bar scene, where Anya talks about the defecting Russian girl.

*Q is referenced to as Major Boothroyd. This was added on at the last minute on the personal wish of Richard Maibaum. This comes from the previous movie (The Man with the Golden Gun), where Maibaum had a conflict with co-writer Tom Mankiewicz on an issue. The original Mankiewicz draft featured both Q, the gadget master and Major Boothroyd, the weapon expert. Maibaum insisted on that the two are one and the same and changed Boothroyd into Colthorpe (naming him after the colt). In the next movie, Maibaum secured the sameness by referring to Q as Major Boothroyd. The identity is not implied anywhere else!

*The Lotus is referenced to as "Wet Nellie" during the movie, a take on You Only Live Twice’s beloved autogyro, "Little Nellie".

*When the Lotus emerges from the water, everyone is amazed: a girl gets lotion into her face, a boy’s sandcastle is destroyed, and volleyball hits the head of a player… Oh yes, only the double-taking pigeon is missing!

*The ending of Jaws was never determined in the script. Two alternate scenes were shot, one showed him alive, the other showed him dead. The choice was made at the final moment after test-screenings.

*The ending was completely different and was changed on location. The escape chamber was an unnecessarily complex device, and was changed into the common sphere it is now. In the scene, Bond holds a toast for Anya who spared his life, and refers to her as “the spy who loved me”. The final line wasn’t about the British end… Bond repeated General Gogol’s remark about the new era of Anglo-Soviet co-operation!

The final addition of the famous line "Keeping the British end up, sir!" is the perfect end to a perfect film with a mysterious past partially revealed by now.

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Very interesting, nonetheless...

Very interesting. I still don't like this movie as a bond movie. But it's better than any Austin Powers that's for sure.

True enough; my favorite Moore movie is FYEO.

As Bond fan of long standing I have always thought Spy was massively overrated. I admit it cemented Roger Moore's portrayal of Bond, but it still seems just a rerun of a load of ideas that were all ready done better. Particularly in YOLT and I consider that film the weakest of the 60's Bonds. There is not an original idea in the whole film. Honest give me LALD and TMWTGG any day.

Well, YOLT in and of itself is a ripoff of Dr. No, so...

Some fans are always saying this. Honestly, exactly what "ideas" are you referring to, and how were they better in earlier Bondfilms?

Baddie highjacking important hardware using a large Ken Adams set with monorail, control room and color coded army in order to cause nuclear war between US and USSR: YOLT

Baddie dumps women in tank with ravenous fish: YOLT

Stromberg was supposed to be Blofeld until McClory came in.

Stromberg kills someone to make the guilty feel that they have gotten away with only to kill them anyway which is rather similar to what Blofeld did in FRWL, TB and YOLT.

Ski Chase: OHMSS

Train Fight: FRWL and LALD

Underwater fights: TB

Gadget Laden Car: GF

Mute henchman with weird accessory and superhuman strength: GF

and other people will find more...

Russian agents attacking Bond: FRWL

Don't forget the control room that becomes "invincible" when the shutters are closed: YOLT

Hee-hee...

Let's not forget the total ripoff of both Fiona Volpe from Thunderball and the office fight scene from YOLT in Egypt.