BUTCHERING BOND: THE EPITOME OF HOLLYWOOD SCREENWRITING CORRUPTION

Most present-era respecters of English language literature will concede that author Ian Fleming churned out numerous cleverly-written novels during his all too short earthside venture. In case memories need jogging, he was the man who created master spy/sleuth, supersuave pursuer of sultry ladies, and homicide license 007 holder, James (himself) Bond.

The Bond books provided easy reading, much welcome put-it-downness and pick-it-up-laterness, a tempting sex interlude every few chapters, and suspenseful plots, climaxing with justifiable, sometimes comedy-tainted bloodshed. Mr. Fleming did indeed manage to incite mass reader sensationalism in his prime composing years.

During the mid-1960s, a person who couldn’t hold his or her own in cocktail and dinner party discussion of almost any James Bond adventure simply didn’t belong among those who were “with it”.

Perhaps on a comparable basis with the revered football coach Knute Rockne, Fleming was cut down at the very height of his career. Unlike the fabled Notre Dame mentor, though, he hasn’t been remembered with pseudo-reverence decades thereafter. In fact, his literary contributions are virtually forgotten today by the less-aged generations. There happens to be a most unfortunate reason for that.

All thirteen Bond tales that stemmed from Fleming’s penmanship were turned into movies, with a series of extremely masculine heroes. The initial productions launched Sean Connery into stratospheric stardom. Others have followed in his wake, all adequate, but none quite so exclamation pointy. British actor Bernard Lee also enjoyed top support ratings in his continuing role as “M”, James’ iron-jawed, authoritarian, anti-espionaging boss. The girls who came and went from film to film didn’t necessarily damage their careers by hitting the sack with our ubiquitous rogue either.

Now, as one often says, that was the good news. It’s time to proceed with the bad.

The novels were published between 1953 and 1962, the last two after Fleming’s demise in 1964. The first four, beginning with 1963, made reasonable viewer sense, as Connery globe-hopped, caressed a series of fair maidens, and wiped out nasty blokes by increasingly unimaginable means. The remaining nine, since supplemented by an apparent eternal string of lower class writers’ copycat efforts, warrant description in no terms other than repulsive to the hilt. The disappointing cumulative result to date has been an utter wipeout of any and all tastefulness once exhibited by the original author.

Doctor No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, and Thunderball, despite a few spice-adding script deviations from the books, did stick fairly close to the original stories. From then onward, the plots have featured a consistent pattern of sex, ultra-modern technological gimmickry, more sex, more technological gimmickry, and finally blowing the arch villains’ structures for foul evil-doing plumb to hell. Even Fleming’s off-beat tale The Spy Who Loved Me was converted into the same mess as the other eight stinkeroos.

Despite middle or advanced age, most of us fellows can remember taking our girls to the movies and seizing the opportunity to grip them tightly whenever suspenseful terror appeared on the screen. The love scenes were also helpful, although much less recognizable as such in earlier days. Sure, everyone enjoys being thrilled, including our lady friends. Nevertheless, to what extreme are Hollywood producers entitled to transform worthy literature into nonsensical garbage, solely to make the box office receipts climb?

When dwelling upon this far too lengthy string of sickening James Bondist glamor/violence, a person might be tempted to watch Shakespearean classics rescripted in a similar vein. Wouldn’t it be great to see Hamlet having an Oedipus affair with his scheming mother, then destroying her with dynamite, MacBeth engaging in an extra-marital event on several occasions before having his head lopped off right before the camera, Romeo and Juliet jumping between the bedsheets a few times prior to their explosively exaggerated mutual suicide, or Portia sleeping around when not dishing out dynamic courtroom oratory?

Despite this seemingly endless stream of filmed trash, a few of us elder folk are still able to retain memories from the days when Ian Fleming (not just Ian who) offered us tasteful relaxed reading, and Mr. Connery’s antics paralleled the initial plots to an acceptable degree.