The Battle for Bond: The Genesis of Cinema’s Greatest Hero, by Robert Sellars
Tomahawk Press, paperback

Thunderball and Never Say Never Again are the perennial exceptions in the James Bond canon; Thunderball was produced by Kevin McClory rather than by Eon, Never Say Never Again is “unofficial,” not “counted” (the working title of Quantum of Solace was Bond 22, although if you count NSNA, it’s the 23rd Bond film), and often omitted from books about Bond, except perhaps as an addendum.

What’s the story on that, anyway? The Battle for Bond tells it, in a surprisingly compelling fashion.

There used to be several detailed write-ups of the Kevin McClory/Ian Fleming/Jack Whittingham lawsuit on the web. Most of those old websites are gone, although the old alt.fan.james-bond is still available. But the story they presented was decidedly one-sided. There’s a strong fan tendency to whitewash Ian Fleming and Eon Productions. Understandable, since we love what they’ve given us. Although I was fairly well-read on the topic, the real story is much more complicated than anything I know.

The usual story is that Fleming, McClory, and Whittingham had collaborated on a screenplay that never went anywhere, and that Fleming cannibalized that screenplay (in all innocence!) when writing Thunderball. The truth is much more complex. The screenplay was much more developed, pre-production had begun on this James Bond film, and Thunderball was written while the proposed film was still alive. This is very different than anything I’d read before!

Sellars writes it like an adventure story, making each turn of the page exciting. He has access to a ream of documents never before accessed by any author or historian, thanks to Whittingham’s daughter Sylvan; there are legal papers, contracts, checks, and numerous letters, all of which serve to paint a robust picture of a labyrinthine tale.

The book weakens when it gets to the actual production of Thunderball. Sellars loves the movie so much that it is all a bit gushy and overwrought, but then the next phase of legal maneuvers and strange biography begins, and we’re off to the races again!

I cannot recommend this book highly enough to the real Bond fan. The quality of the writing is surprisingly good, the story is compelling, and my minor objections should not cause you to keep your money in your pocket! Buy The Battle for Bond,

At Cinema Retro, Wes Britton not only has his own review, but analyzes the results of the Ian Fleming estate’s objections to The Battle for Bond, and outlines the differences between the copies that were originally printed (and pulled) and the re-release.