Jeremy Herbert
James Bond has died again. It’s a remarkable achievement for a fictional character who first ruined a flawless record of indestructability just four years ago. Even his literary father, Ian Fleming, considered pushing him off a cliffhanger in From Russia With Love until an abandoned TV script provided the spy immortality enough for Dr. No. Now the same, small screen that saved his life is the very reason many have already declared him dead, and for good, this time.
On February 20th, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson handed the Aston Martin keys to Amazon MGM Studios, ending a 63-year dynasty for the last family-owned franchise in blockbusting. Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, Bond’s cinematic father and Barbara’s biological, kept a firm hand on the wheel from 1962’s Dr. No through 1989’s License to Kill, ceding the reins to his daughter and stepson, both raised in and around Q-Branch, for 1995’s GoldenEye onward. Until now, the inherited touch for what is and is not James Bond has kept the series afloat through six decades of shifting borders, changing audiences, and daunting competition. Apart from the six-year limbo that necessitated passing that generational torch, there’s never been a serious challenge to the cultural permanence of James Bond before. Well, poor choice of word.
Never Say Never Again was inspired by a heady mix of spite and delusion. When Fleming recycled his first attempt at a James Bond script, Thunderball, into the novel of the same name, he did so at the expense of collaborator Kevin McClory, who successfully sued for his share. As a result, he scored a solo producer credit on the 1965 film and retained the rights to that story on the grounds he not attempt a remake for a decade. A decade later, he attempted a remake, working title Warhead, with enough deviations to earn him a lawsuit from Broccoli and co. that further specified who owned what.
The finished product is a startling, occasionally subliminal breakdown of the same. There is no opening gun barrel; in its place, the 007 logo endlessly repeated like wallpaper behind a Showcase Showdown. There is no Monty Norman theme or John Barry score; instead, Michel LeGrand’s swingers-resort jazz and Herb Alpert’s pornographic trumpets duke it out for sleazy supremacy. Bond’s daily driver is a 1937 Bentley. Major Boothroyd, née Q, doesn’t just like man who destroys his life’s work, but envies his opportunities to do so.
But none of that matters because Sean Connery is James Bond, SPECTRE is in one scene, and Blofeld is named on-screen. Well, in fairness, the real deal killed off a legally distinct Blofeld analogue two years earlier for In Your Eyes Only and had gotten along just fine without SPECTRE in the twelve years since Diamonds Are Forever. So that just leaves Sir Sean. And that’s all you really need, right? A guy who obviously looks like James Bond?
To the 51-year-old’s credit – and a training regimen so serious that a young Steven Seagal broke his $5 million wrist – he still did, even more than in his devil-may-care victory lap of Diamonds. McClory, Connery, and biff-boom-Batman scribe Lorenzo Semple Jr. cleverly reframed Bond’s Thunderball convalescence into bureaucratic ageism – does he still have it? McClory’s do-over wouldn’t have made $160 million if he didn’t – Connery purists Ebert and Siskel raved more about the man’s undiminished “ocean of eroticism” than the actual movie. But how exactly are Connery’s Bond bonafides re-established?
Swoon as 007 wins a fishing tournament in nothing but overalls! Marvel as he stops a gala dead to improvise a world-class tango! Cheer as he humiliates the latest criminal mastermind by beating his high score on Tron! Thrill as the world’s greatest secret agent jumps a horse off a cliff!
Even with a continental sheen moneyballed by Irvin Kershner right after directing Empire Strikes Back and Douglas Slocombe right before shooting Temple of Doom, compared to the other 1983 release starring a guy who obviously looks like James Bond, Never Say Never Again might as well be a TV movie.
Fired up by the direct competition and inspired imitators like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Octopussy flung the three-year-older Roger Moore everywhere from India to Utah, aboard and atop circus trains, tuk-tuks, one-man jets, private planes, hot-air balloons, a stolen Alfa Romeo, and one crocodile-shaped submersible. He leaves a trail of innuendoed admirers and post-mortem one-liners across locations familiar to most viewers only from the pages of National Geographic, for $10 million less than Never Say Never Again to the tune of $27.5 million more.
Even in ape or clown disguise, this guy doesn’t just look like James Bond, he is Bond, and not just because of Moore’s rubber-stamped eyebrow. Because of Cubby Broccoli. Because of a second-time Bond director (eventually five). A second-time Bond cinematographer (eventually three). A tenth-time Bond writer (eventually thirteen). A second-time Bond assistant editor promoted to first-time editor (eventually three). A second-time Bond production designer (eventually nine) with credits dating back to Goldfinger. A first-time Bond stunt supervisor (eventually three) with bruises ranging from You Only Live Twice to Skyfall.
Because of a third-time Bond producer (eventually fifteen) named Michael G. Wilson and a second-time Bond assistant director named Barbara Broccoli.
Never Say Never Again ends with a wink through the fourth wall, something only officially done once by Connery’s first replacement. Despite McClory’s dreams of an adjacent franchise, it seals the film as a one-off practical joke, a curio for scholars of misshapen culture, and a fully-fleshed hypothetical of the franchise without taste, vision, or anything more superficially satisfying than a guy who obviously looks like James Bond. For the best, never again would a James Bond film be crafted by hands that hadn’t grown up playing with his gadgets.
…unless a bald sociopath and his shadowy organization dedicated to world domination and human subjugation finally gets the best of him. In that case, rest in peace, James Bond; he only lived twice.
