JAMES BOND ‘THE SPY WHO LOVED ME’, 1977 – TWO EARLY DIRECTOR’S SCRIPTS BY RICHARD MAIBAUM (2)

Two separate mimeographed typescripts of Richard Maibaum’s screenplay, both different versions; one entitled The Spy Who Loved Me, Draft Screenplay, Richard Maibaum and dated Nov.5,1975, 154 pp. in grey card covers, contained in a red imitation leather binder; the other entitled The Spy Who Loved Me, Richard Maibaum, undated, the title page inscribed in black ink in an unidentified hand Mr Lewis Gilbert and annotated with a small arrowhead symbol, 129 pp. in buff card covers, contained in a black imitation leather binder; 

Both screenplays share a number of key plot elements woven around a threat to the West from a mysterious evil force with the ability to use satellite technology to detect and capture submerged nuclear submarines; and involving interference with the world’s oil supplies using nuclear submarines, adapted super tankers and oil platforms; in both, a new look SPECTRE, run by a group of young idealists all under the age of 30, are headed by a character called [Elroy] Kronk, who kills ‘Number One’ the old wheelchair-bound SPECTRE leader; then, backed by Jaws and six other International terrorists they overthrow the SPECTRE old guard. Kronk takes control for his own fiendish ends; both scripts feature a dramatic fight finale between Jaws and 007 in which 007 triumphs aided by electro-magnetic assistance; significant characters both scripts share include: steel-teethed-assassin Jaws, beautiful Russian agent Anya Amasova, General Gogol her KGB boss, new SPECTRE ‘Number One’   Kronk; and Gita, a tall beautiful assassin with a lethal butterfly pin brooch;   shared locations include: Sardinia, Geneva and Egypt; 

Key differences between the two scripts include: the location of the first appearance of Jaws, in the script dated 1975 [red binder] this occurs in Egypt in the ‘City of the Dead’, and in the undated script [black binder] in Prague where a lot of this script’s early action takes place; apart from a number of location and character variations, the most notable difference between the two scripts is that only the undated script [black binder] features the ‘Underwater Car Sub’ over a 20 page action sequence [pp.68-88]. In this script the car is a new model Ford modified by Q and delivered by him to Bond in Oslo.

Richard Maibaum was the penultimate writer in the order of twelve different scriptwriters Cubby Broccoli employed to tackle the screenplay for The Spy Who Loved Me until he got the script he wanted. Maibaum worked on all but three of the Bond Films from Dr No (1962) to Licence to Kill (1989), and is the co-author with Christopher Wood of the final draft screenplay for The Spy Who Loved Me. 

The two scripts in this lot, both early variants of the final script, are a particularly interesting record of the development of this screenplay. It is fascinating to note which elements, included here, were omitted or adapted for use in the final version:

 -Firstly, the overthrow of SPECTRE’S `Number One’: In both scripts Number One is described as a heavy imposing man seated in a mechanised wheelchair which, in the dated script [red binder], has a mini communication system in its arm. In the undated script [black binder], Number One has a white cat on his lap. The new arch-villain Kronk manipulates Number One’s chair so that it and its occupant (without the cat) plunges to his death out of the window of the high-rise building. It is then that Kronk introduces his young radical supporters, described in the undated script as his ‘family’, and named in both as: Jaws, Gita (tall and beautiful), Marco, Rolz (American), Kazi (Japanese), Turner (a black) and Djabi (Arab terrorist type). Interestingly, in the undated script [black binder] Kronk is a woman disguised as a bald-headed, bespectacled man.  Kronk’s coterie of young idealists are said to have represented members of the Red Brigade, the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the Black September Organization and the Japanese Red Army. Their aim was to form a new SPECTRE no longer interested in blackmail and extortion, but intent on destroying civilization by capturing a nuclear submarine and wiping out the world’s oil fields.  This plot line of Maibaum’s with the young SPECTRE radicals was regarded by Cubby Broccoli as being too politically controversial at the time, and was consequently dropped from the final storyline;

- Another significant difference between the two scripts is the appearance of the ‘ Underwater Car Sub’ in one and not the other. Q himself is reportedly killed off in the dated script [red binder] going down with a nuclear sub, an incident recounted to 007 by Moneypenny when, due to Q’s absence, she’s sent to delivers Bond’s reconnaissance kit to him at Oslo airport. In the undated script [black binder], Q himself meets 007 off the Oslo night train and delivers a new model Ford sports car with numerous vital modifications. The cars underwater features are not specified in the dialogue between the two, and become obvious when pursued by SPECTRE hoodlums on a death-defying cliffside rode, Bond with Anya beside him drives off the end of a jetty into the sea; it is during this ‘Underwater Car Sub’ sequence in the undated script that the two agent lovers believe they are going to die as they are trapped deep beneath the sea in the malfunctioning sub with only three hours of oxygen left. Bond removes two miniature bottles of Armagnac ‘27 from inside the car door and they toast each other: “To the spy who loved me”, Anya’s toast to Bond in English, Bond’s to her in perfect Russian. [pp.87-88]. In the dated script, the two agents make the same toast with the same vintage Armagnac following the dramatic action finale at the villain’s oil refinery [p.107]. In both instances they are of course miraculously saved.

Condition Report: Red binder script: Overall very good. Grey card cover has small tear to front edge, and some folding at edges of corners on both front and back

Black binder script: Overall very good

Footnote: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), the tenth in the Eon Productions official 007 series, initiated a number of records for the James Bond franchise. It was Cubby Broccoli’s first solo 007 venture without co-producer Harry Saltzman, and he was determined that it should become the biggest and best Bond yet.  From the outset, the film’s path to success was beset with numerous difficulties and the screenplay itself went through more adaptations and revisions than any production during the 40-year history of 007 on screen. Problems began with Ian Fleming’s source material for the film’s title. Like the movie, it was Fleming’s tenth Bond novel in order, however it represented a departure from Fleming’s usual 007 format in that it is told from the viewpoint of a young Englishwoman who only meets the famous spy in the last few chapters of the book. For this reason, Fleming never wanted this book to be sold as a film project. His estate, however, gave Broccoli permission to use the novel’s title only. The book and film do also share one significant common element – Jaws,  who is loosely based on Fleming’s villain, `Horror’, who had steel-capped teeth. Nevertheless, the screenplay for The Spy Who Loved Me is considered to be the first Bond film whose story is completely original. After a visit to Russia, Broccoli devised a plot for a  new story which suited the film’s title and focused on a beautiful Russian agent who falls in love with James Bond. 

 It is said that twelve different screenwriters worked on fifteen separate drafts for the screenplay over a period of three years, in one of the most fiendishly complicated film pre-production processes in Eon’s history. Considering the quantity of different variants of the screenplay here in Lewis Gilbert’s personal film script archive, it appears that just over half of the fifteen screenplay versions are represented between lots 13-18.

Looking through the different variations of treatments and screenplays for The Spy Who Loved Me, a large proportion of which are represented in this collection, in the words of film historian Steven Jay Rubin they : “…offer a textbook look at script development…the material is priceless, since it allows the reader to see how typical Bondian situations are workshopped…”

Literature:

RUBIN, Steven Jay Spy Who Loved Me Script Wars in The James Bond Movie Encyclopaedia, Chicago Review Press Incorp. Chicago, 2021

GILBERT, Lewis All My Flashbacks The Autobiography of Lewis Gilbert, Sixty Years A Film Director, Reynolds & Hearn, London, 2010

FIELD, Matthew & CHOWDHURY, Ajay Some Kind Of Hero, The Remarkable Story of The James Bond Films, Cheltenham Glouc., 2015

The Spy Who Loved Me Script History www.M16-HQ.com

www.IMDB.com

Bellmans is grateful to Wallace and Hodgson for their assistance with cataloguing the Lewis Gilbert Film Script and Production Archive.