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The one thing, true for almost any and every movie, is the inability to tell the back story and back ground. Mr Barra alludes to this when talking about Bond complaining about how penurious his agency was. Reading the early novels with a historical eye, one is reminded that Britain was under rationing and travel restrictions well into the 1950s and part of Bond's duties came from enforcing those restrictions.
As always perspective and knowledge add much to the enjoyment of reading and watching subjects based in the past.
Of course they are, but then we don’t get the fun car flips, perilous ski ventures, oodles of silly to actually helpful Q-equipment...movies are just more fun. :D
The only Bond movie which pretty much was the same as the book was Dr. No.
All the first ones were close enough that you would recognize the story line tho. Even when they began to get way off the storyline as in “Diamonds Are Forever”, you could still see parts of the book.
They eventually got to where the only similarity to the books was the title and the movies were the worse for it.
Then again most people seem to like unbelievable car chases and impossible fights etc.
I remember seeing those SIGNET Bond books for sale back in the 1960s. About this time the ISRAEL BOND spoofs came out.
Playboy did a Annie Fannie cartoon about James Bond vs Israel Bond.
I also remember when Columnist Bob Green had a fit in print about the MOONRAKER novel he bought, not being the Ian Flemming book, but a novelization of the movie.
The best James Bond movie is still FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.
Just curious... does the literary Bond have a character named ‘M’ ( 007’s boss )?
the books in general were far better, with the films devolving into self parody.
the movie Goldfinger did however solve the problem of the inability to move the gold so Ill give advantage to Glodfinger he movie.
From russia was both good as a book and film, but changing SMERSH to Spectre was dumb in the film version.
Thunderball was the last one to come close to the book.
They could do a whole reboot and re-adapt all of the films from the original books.
But to do so, it would have to be PERIOD pieces and not revisionist updates.
Also, the way Hollywood screenwriting credits go, this would be nixed (if you adapt a book to the screen and someone else later writes the same adaptation using those characters, etc, the original screenwriter often still gets credit for it whereas the TRUE credit belongs to the original author). Additionally, the adapted films reportedly mix elements from different books to concoct the filmed stories.
It is true that the literary connection with the James Bond novels is, and ever shall be, more complete than any film company’s lavish production, of the screenplay, derived from the novel.
I own the Penguin Book Company Centenary celebration of publication of the Ian Fleming novels, complete with ‘pulp’ covers, circa 2008. I’ve traveled a lot until a few years ago, and these were on my “library-building list”.
I started reading them, after purchasing them from a drug store on the way home from junior high school, in 1967.
I still find reading a real book, without the aid of electronics and insufficient battery power, always more enjoyable.