JAMES BOND ‘THE SPY WHO LOVED ME’, 1977 – A STORY OUTLINE DICTATED BY LEWIS GILBERT, PRELIMINARY SET LIST AND TWO DIRECTORS’ SCRIPTS BY CHRISTOPHER WOOD

A mimeographed typescript of Lewis Gilbert’s dictated summary of the story entitled The Spy Who Loved Me, Story Outline No:1, (Dictated by Lewis Gilbert at a meeting on 5.Apr,76.), nine unbound pp. fastened by a staple, the title page labelled at the top in red typescript Lewis Gilbert; and a corresponding Preliminary Set List (Based on Story Outline No:1 dated the 5^th April, 1976), this dated 7 Apr.76, five pp. mimeographed typescript, the title page labelled at the top in red typescript Lewis Gilbert; the Story Outline is preceded by a note: “The ‘heavy’ will be referred to as “THE GREEK” – who owns the biggest tanker fleet in the world..”; the story is broken into 59 numbered scenes, beginning with the capture of two nuclear submarines, one British, the other Russian; and the introduction of beautiful Russian special agent Zyk, Major Anya Amasova; the plot focuses on a tracking system, the plans of which a mysterious party, who transpires to be a SPECTRE traitor [Fetish] in Cairo, has offered to sell to the British under the watchful eye of the Russians; the Greek’s headquarters is referred to as SPECTRE HQ an underwater structure which rises from the ocean; Jaws appears in Cairo, when on the Greek’s orders he despatches ‘Fetish’, Gilbert dictates: “ We see [Jaws] pounce on Fetish…and here we use a special sound effect (e.g. crunching of celery) which we associate with Jaws…”. ; Bond and Anya are ordered to work together against the Greek, who in addition to his tracking device runs a North African drug trafficking operation. Drama ensues with Jaws, Bond and Anya on the night train to a Greek tourist resort. Q meets the train and hands over:  “a (Lotus?) car” which, following a dramatic chase involving a helicopter and two pursuing cars, is driven into the sea by Bond and  “…changes miraculously into a small submarine: “NEPTUNE”..”;  one of The Greek’s vast tankers, the “Tabriz/Kaonus”, has opening bow doors which swallow up British and Russian nuclear subs. The drama continues on the tanker where Bond and Anya and the crews of both nuclear subs are captive. Bond with the aid of an exploding pencil, ignites the oil in the hold and frees the British and Russian prisoners but he can’t find Anya; the drama concludes with Bond returning to the Lotus driving it into the sea in pursuit of Anya who is the hostage of The Greek and Jaws. Bond finds the villain’s under-water city and manages to get inside, he disposes of Jaws with an electro-magnetic device, and The Greek is killed.  Gilbert concludes; “…the structure starts to turn on its side like “The Poseidon Adventure” – Bond and the Girl escape…”; and

- Two separate mimeographed typescripts of Christopher Wood’s screenplay, both identical partial versions of the first draft, both entitled The Spy Who Loved Me, First Draft, Christopher Wood, one dated 12 April 1976, 25 unbound pp. fastened by a paper clip, the title page inscribed in black ink in an unidentified hand Mr Lewis Gilbert; the other dated 22 April 1976, 75 unbound pp. fastened by a large paper clip, the title page initialled in pencil at the top B.C.; in this earlier version, Bond is summoned from his holiday in the Alps, making a dramatic exit on skis from a tryst in an Alpine hut culminating in a leap over a 3000 foot sheer drop using a union Jack parachute, a feature not mentioned in Gilbert’s story outline above; other differences include Jaws’ first victim’s name the SPECTRE traitor, is changed from Fetish to Farwagi; the chief SPECTRE villain ‘The Greek’ is identified as the shipping magnate ‘Markos Stavros’ described by M as: “Arguably the richest man in the world.” owning

 “..most of the coastline along the Polyphemos peninsular ..” ; a number of  differences to the ‘Story Outline’ described above include: an amusing scene where the British and Russian collaboration of Bond and Anya extends to Q’s boffin counterpart P, the latter introducing a dart firing suspender belt for Anya’s use; Stavros’ mobile underwater lair is called the ‘Aquapolis’, complete with a lethal shark tank. 

Christopher Wood came last in line in the order of 12 different scriptwriters Cubby Broccoli employed to tackle the screenplay for The Spy Who Loved Me. Wood was brought in at the suggestion of new director Lewis Gilbert who had himself been appointed on 18 December 1975. Gilbert had inherited Richard Maibaum’s script which had at its core a megalomaniac intent on dominating the world. Gilbert described Maibaum’s plot as: “…the good old standby in which the arch villain sets Russia and America at each other’s throats, then steps in to claim the prize. For this one, he had come up with a tanker that swallowed submarines and one of the best henchmen villains ever, the mighty Jaws, whose steel teeth could bite through anything..”. Despite these heady ingredients, Gilbert felt that Maibaum’s script lacked humour, hence his suggestion to bring in Wood. When Wood took the job on he had been unaware that he was following in the footsteps of many writers. In interviews Wood described how the evolution of his plot was very much a collaborative effort. Gilbert and Wood worked together daily in Cubby’s office at Eon. Sometimes they were joined by Cubby, or Ken Adam or Michael Wilson. Wood developed Maibaum’s script and incorporated ideas from the previous writers and drafts and from Broccoli’s original ideas. He wrote on his own and then went back to discuss things with the others, he compared the process to “..putting together a jigsaw puzzle..” The new plot angle, Wood and Gilbert came up with was the idea of a villain obsessed with oceans, whose lair was a palace under the sea. The plot providing marvellous opportunities for Ken Adam’s set design and some of the most eye-catching gadgets in the history of Bond films.

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.