SYNOPSIS:
A plane carrying two atomic bombs mysteriously crashes into the ocean. Within a day, the evil international organization SPECTRE claims to have control of its nukes and demands NATO pay a ransom of £100 million within 7 days; otherwise they'll use them to wipe out a large city in the US or UK. All nine 00 agents are brought in to investigate, but James Bond (Sean Connery) requests to pursue a clue in the Bahamas. There, he meets Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), a sinister one-eyed man whom Bond begins to suspect is involved with SPECTRE.
REVIEW:
Once again, this film begets more famous supervillain tropes with the return of SPECTRE. We see Ernst Stavro Blofeld and his white persian cat once again (well, all but his face) as he briefs a meeting room full of his SPECTRE agents. Finding one guilty of embezzlement, he presses a button on his console to electrocute the man's chair and dispose of his body under the table.
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| The mysterious Blofeld holding a SPECTRE meeting |
Q (Desmond Llewelyn) makes an appearance half way through the film, choosing to arm Bond in the field this time. He provides Bond with a Geiger counter disguised as a watch, a waterproof camera, a mini pistol that fires flares, a tiny pen-sized breathing device that would allow someone about 4 minutes of air underwater, and a radioactive pill that would send out a homing signal once ingested. We also briefly see Bond's famous 1964 Aston Martin DB5, a relief considering he wrecked it in Goldfinger (1964) and then spent the rest of the movie as basically a captive. Somehow, he recovered it and restored it (probably on the government's dime, considering it was a gov't-issued vehicle).
The SPECTRE logo has been refined in this film. The last time we saw a SPECTRE ring was in From Russia with Love (1963), which looked like a goofy sketch of a 4-armed octopus/skull hybrid. The logo in Thunderball (1965) was more detailed, creating a more menacing 8-legged octopus. Years later, in SPECTRE (2015), the logo would be redefined yet again, with a 7-legged octopus. Here are the various iterations:
So let's get into the meat of this film's controversy. Thunderball (1965) was originally supposed to be the first James Bond film. In 1958, Ian Fleming hired on Kevin McClory (who also brought in Jack Whittingham) to assist him in drafting a screenplay for his novel series' titular character. The three of them went to work writing the screenplay, but when the deal ultimately fell through, Ian Fleming took the unfinished draft and used it as inspiration to write his 9th James Bond novel, which he named Thunderball. Upon reading an early release of the novel, McClory and Whittingham filed a lawsuit to stop the release of the novel, claiming that it was heavily plagiarized from their screenplay.
During the legal battle, Ian Fleming suffered a heart attack and decided he was too tired and weak to continue legal discourse. He settled out of court with McClory, agreeing to give him certain rights to the screenplay, including characters, story, and film rights, but prevent him from creating a film with it for at least 10 years. Meanwhile, Ian Fleming would maintain the rights to the novel he wrote, but would have to credit McClory and Whittingham as collaborators in subsequent printings.
Ian Fleming would suffer a second heart attack 9 months later, this time ending his life. In 1964, after the success of the first three Bond films, McClory approached Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, the current owners of the film rights to the James Bond novels, and arranged a deal to adapt his screenplay for Thunderball into an official movie. Per his legal agreement, he did not participate in the production of the film, but he received a writing credit.
To this day, there is still controversy over who exactly came up with SPECTRE and its leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. They first appeared in the original screenplay for Thunderball, long before any Bond films were made, but a note written by Ian Fleming for McClory and Whittingham make it almost appear as though Fleming himself came up with the evil organization. Their exclusive rights would be contested by McClory for many years, until eventually, EON Productions dropped them from the franchise altogether, choosing to come up with real-world threats for Bond instead of continually battling a mysterious international terrorist organization.
Kevin McClory passed away in 2006. In 2013, EON purchased the rights to Thunderball and all associated stories, characters, and organizations from his family's estate, allowing them to finally use the evil empire in their modern Bond films. Blofeld would live again! But I'm getting way ahead of myself.
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| Kevin McClory - The jerk who maintained lawsuits against the films for years |
RECOMMENDATION:
Up to this point, Goldfinger (1964) had solidified the standard for international spy films, outperforming its two predecessors. Thunderball (1965) continues to expand the world of James Bond and uphold the standard set by its previous title. Bringing back the classic SPECTRE organization after a brief hiatus, we get to see just how involved this secret empire is in world affairs, and how resourceful they can be. If you've been following the films up to this point, you definitely can't miss this one! And just a reminder: Amazon Prime has apparently made all the Bond films previous to the Daniel Craig era available for free streaming as of April 1st. So go check them out! You can watch them along with me this month!
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