Agent 007 (Or 221) In Space...
I first saw Sean Connery's likeness in the 1965/'66 TV Century 21 Annual, but I didn't know it was Sean until many years later when I acquired a replacement (sometime in the early '80s) and noticed the likeness immediately. It's too strong a resemblance to be coincidental, but in another illustration of the same character on another page, he looks more like Steve Zodiac.
Any of you Crivs got the Annual, and have you ever noticed this before?
17 comments:
Never heard of him Kid other than reading online that Agent 21 appeared in text stories in TV21 and was for a time the "editor". Certainly looks like oor Sean.
Yeah, Agent 21 - I remember him, McS, 'cos I used to fancy his assistant Tina, who ended up getting killed. (Maybe a first for a UK comic in regard to a long-running sidekick.) I'd have to check, but I think Agent 221 is a different guy.
Let us not count the last few years when Mr. Connery was ill. But it is shame that he never fully reconciled his differences with Eon and it’s owners. Therefore, he never appeared in DCD extras or publicly speaking at any Bond events. Although he apparently made up with Albert Broccolli before the producer passed.
Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccolli teamed together in 1962 to buy the film rights to Ian Flemings books. The called the company Danjac after the wives of the two men. And it was incorporated in Switzerland to avoid the high UK taxes (which went up to 82%). The books were actually owned by various relatives, now know as the Ian Fleming Estate.
Danjac created EON Productions as an sub-corporation and they were the studio that made the Bond films. But they did not finance or distribute them. Originally, United Artists did, the MGM, even Sony and now Universal. So the money came from the movie studios. The distributor also collects the money form the theatres and gives a percentage to the studio.
Sean Connery saw himself as a creator of the screen Bond and wanted a share of the royalties. Which he got for his movies and licensing. Connery would claim that as a creator of the movie Bond he was entitled to royalties for ALL the Bond movies, including the ones he was not in. He lost this battle at every turn.
But he blamed Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccolli for this and had a rough relationship with them. He insulted them regularly in public and on the Tonight Show. They felt they made him rich and famous and didn't understand the anger.
But the pair also claimed that the contract Connery had, and where he was paid, was from the movie studio, not them. Technically the studio hired him and his argument was with them. In later life Connery kind of conceded that point. He even appeared in a 2005 James Bond video game, but he never helped the movie franchise again.
Kid, you will know more about the UK taxes than I do. I know that several Bond related figures left the UK to avoid their high taxes. In fact the Bond movies lost some creators and many of the movies were made outside GB because of this. Connery was one, but so was Roger Moore, Guy Hamilton, John Barry, Shirley Bassey and a few others.
Very interesting comments, BP. Never Say Never Again proved that it took more than Sean Connery to make a classic Bond film, there were various other important factors required. In fact, Octopussy outperformed NSNA at the box-office, which is why I find Sean's attitude bewildering. Roger Moore proved that Bond could survive (and indeed even thrive) without Connery, so why Sean thought he was worth any more than the wage he was paid to do the job reminds me a bit of Jack Kirby's attitude in the comics field. (But that's another discussion.)
Having said that, the late David Picker, head of United Artists, said that Broccoli and Saltzman should've made Connery a partner, as they were both repeatedly coming back to the table to renegotiate their deal with UA, so they should've accorded Connery the same respect. Having said that, Sean looked a good 10 years older than he actually was in 1971, and although it would've been interesting to see him continue in the role, it was clear he was getting bored with Bond. Big Rog breathed new life into the franchise and I enjoyed his 007 movies as much as Sean's.
Connery was definitely the right man at the time for the Bonds of the '60s (especially the first three), but Moore was the ultimate '70s Bond (in my famously humble opinion).
Apparently, Danjaq and MGM now co-own the rights to the Bond movies, going from what I believe is their own website.
'Danjaq is the US based company that, with MGM, co-owns the copyrights in the existing James Bond films and controls the right to produce future James Bond films. EON Productions, an affiliate of Danjaq, is the UK based production company which makes the James Bond films. Danjaq and EON control the rights to all worldwide traditional Bond merchandising, and with MGM control the rights in other areas of Bond licensing such as location based entertainment.'
Connery was a tax exile and knighthoods shouldn't be given to tax exiles.
Being a tax exile is a self-imposed condition, CJ, and Connery paid taxes on his earnings when he worked in this country. And he certainly put more dosh into the British economy than you or I could in a hundred lifetimes.
(In my view, knighthoods shouldn't be given to anyone. Except me, of course, if they were to offer.)
Colin, I agree with Kid on this issue. The legally left the UK and millions of people have for many reasons. Billions of people have left their native countries and they are called "immigrants."
Kid the last paragraph is correct, but I will add a little more to it. MGM controls the home video rights, which, I believe also includes streaming and cable.
MGM used to be a big Movie company until bought by Ted Turner in the 1980s. Turner kept all of MGM assets and copyrights for his cable stations and then sold the virtually "empty" company. There was a legal fight over the Bond rights and EON won it. (Turner had claimed he owned the Bond movies because MGM had bought United Artists)
Well, MGM has been trying to establish itself again as a movie studio and distributer, but in the meantime it was Sony that financed the last few films and now Universal is doing it. (Eon puts this out to bid). So MGM is not quite there yet.
But Spider-Man changed everything!
Spider-Man changed everything? For James Bond? HUH?
Briefly: Sony obtain the rights to the novel Casino Royal, which Fleming ha originally sold to CBS. In 1978 Colgems, now part of Sony, produced that terrible Casino Royale movies.
About 20 years ago, Sony also reached a deal with Kevin McCloy, who had the screen rights to Thunderball. He was the one who remade it as Never Say Never Again. Sony then claimed that they could now make James Bond movies. Eon took them to court. (This is greatly detailed in “The Battle for Bond” a great book.
To make a very long story short, Sony owned the rights to Casino Royale but did not have the legal right to make another movie of it. And the same was true for Thunderball. But Eon did not have the legal right to make Casino Royale either because Sony owned the property. So the court basically said, “we can’t solve this, why don’t you sit down and work this out for yourselves?”
And they did. MGM, no longer a studio, owned some of the rights to Spider-Man (I think the international, but I am not sure) and Sony owned the other rights. So MGM and Sony traded Spider-Man for Casino Royal and all of Sony’s Bond rights.
Rather than continue with Pierce Bronson, EON, with Fleming’s first Bond book, decided to start over and produced Casino Royale.
Soon after McCloy passed, just a few years ago, Eon bought from his estate their Bond rights (And the movie Never Say Never Again) so we were able to see SPECTRE and Blofeld again.
So EON owns virtually everything now, including the two movies they never made. I just wonder: Who owns the 1954 TV show?
I knew about EON acquiring Never Say Never Again, BP, and what I'd like is for them re-edit it, add the gun barrel logo opening and the Monty Norman/John Barry James Bond theme, use CGI to add Desmond Llewelyn as Q, and then reissue it in cinemas. Wouldn't that be great?
As for who owns the TV show, I'd guess that as it's based on Casino Royale and Eon have the rights again, then they probably own it.
Incidentally, I don't think that Kevin McClory should ever have been given the rights to James Bond, even for just one movie. He should have, arguably, been given the rights to the plot elements he contributed, but not Bond himself, who was a preexisting character long before Jack Whittingham and Kevin McClory ever became involved.
Well, in making a long story short, er, shorter.
From the beginning Fleming created Bond to make money and was anxious for a movie deal. When he could not get one, he sold Casino Royale and Moonraker to CBS. After its airing CBS said tht it would not produce a Bond series, it was too violet, sadistic and sexy. (The same reasons it makes money today!)
After Goldfinger, the seventh novel, Fleming felt he was running out of steam, so to speak. Two books were published, For Your Eyes Only and The Spy Who Loved Me which were basically short stories.
Fleming hired or worked with Jack Whittingham (Movie Producer) and Kevin McClory (Screenwriter) to write a screenplay, (entitled Warhead) not a novel. First thing they did was take Bond out of the cold war and had him face an enemy, the Mafia. But the pair really redid the character to make him more a screen presence. They pair felt that their Bond was a new and original character. (That is why all the villains in Thunderball are Italian.) That later evolved into SPECTRE.
It wasn’t working and Fleming left the project and signed over all his rights to them. He then wrote and published Thunderball, without their knowledge. They took him to court. The Judge ruled that Fleming owned the rights to the book, but had to add “Based on the screenplay by Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham. The judge also ruled that McClory owned the script, which he had mostly written. Even after Fleming left.
Later, Fleming hoped that Thunderball would be the first Bond movie, but it was still in litigation at the time. Eon approached McClory and bought the movie rights to Thunderball for ten years. When those rights lapsed, McCloy was able to make another movie from it.
Kid, at this point, the judge was right. McClory ONLY had rights to the script he authored. Just like Mario Puzo wrote the script to the Superman movie. Puzo only owned the original script, not Superman. Any screenwriter would get upset if their ideas were stolen.
Sadly though, McClory fought for a half a century to gain possession of his “Movie” Bond character. And he was mostly not successful. The screen character "Bond" is so much his invention too. The judge acted with the wisdom of Solomon.
As you know, BP, I have several books about the making of James Bond, the first I read being James Bond In The Cinema, which I first read around the mid-'70s. I have quite a few, so know a lot (of what has been published - whether it's all accurate is another matter) of what you've written in your comments, but it's my understanding that the screenplay project by Fleming, McClory, and Whittingham was initially called James Bond Of The Secret Service, with other names such as SPECTRE and Longtitude 78 West being considered. (The Warhead name doesn't seem to have surfaced until the '70s when Len Deighton was involved in a new screenplay based on the Thunderball plot.)
However, James Bond as a character had already been published in six or seven novels before McClory became involved in a screenplay treatment, so I don't believe that he should ever have had access to the character of Bond, only the plot elements that he'd contributed to what eventually became Thunderball. The only reason he did gain use of Bond, it seems, is because Fleming capitulated during the copyright trial on the advice of his friend Ivor Bryce, who was concerned for Fleming's health as he'd suffered a heart attack while the case was ongoing. Also, when Thunderball was being made as a movie, Broccoli and Saltzman conceded too much ground to McClory in their desire to avoid any more legal hassle which might prevent them making the film.
So it's my judgement that McClory gained access to James Bond unfairly, as he had nothing to do with the creation of the character per se. (Remember, Bond had already appeared in several books before McClory's involvement.) Apart from SPECTRE, most if not all the names in the Thunderball novel came from Fleming, who used the surnames of various friends of his.
It may have taken around 50 years, but justice was finally achieved by EON in the end.
Kid, I have Bond in the Cinema. This is a book that spends little time on the back story and gives a great deal of space to describing the movies. And it was written in early 1970s. There are many more books out there that have much more detail than in here. Mstly because teh legal details took decades to be made public.
Thunderball actually had many "names." But McClory simply, by court order, owned the script and Eon could only license it.
I know, BP, I was merely listing the first book about Bond I read. I've got a few different ones by various authors. All I'm saying is that I don't think McClory should have been allowed to use Bond, and really only got to do so because first Fleming, then Broccoli and Saltzman, gave in too easily for the sake of expediency. However, it all came right in the end, even if it did take decades.
Kid,
I think we are missing a major point here.
Eon did not own the movie rights, or the screenplay to Thunderball. Fleming legally gave all that up and gave that to McClory when those rights, in 1959, were worth nothing. It was McClory who held all the cards for that project. Eon could not have produced it on their own. McClory could have produced “Never Say Never Again” in 1968 without the EON team. And he was looking to do so. (Of course that would not have been its name.)
McClory granted them rights, not the other way around. Thunderball, in terms of tickets sold, is the most successful Bond movie. Even bigger than Goldfinger. In terms of money I think Skyfall heads the list, but it did not sell as many tickets as Thunderball.
One of us certainly is, BP. I'm using plain English, but you must be reading it too fast. What is it they say about two countries being divided by a common language? I'll have one last stab at it and if that doesn't work, I'll bang my head off a brick wall.
Ian Fleming created James Bond. The character was his and appeared in several books. Then he, Kevin McClory, and Jack Whittingham worked on a proposal for the purpose of launching Bond as a movie series. It initially came to naught, so Fleming then used elements that McClory had contributed to the proposal in his next Bond book. McClory took the hump and sued Fleming, who, during the period that the court proceedings were ongoing, suffered a heart attack. So, on the advice of his friend Ivor Bryce, Fleming capitulated as the stress was too much for him. This meant that he essentially abandoned a fight that he could possibly have won had he continued with it.
As regards the movie, the rest happened as you say. However, it has always been my opinion that the courts disproportionately found in McClory's favour at Fleming's expense (and I'm not talking money). While McClory should have been awarded the rights to use the elements of the plot that he contributed, I don't think he should have been awarded the right to use Bond, or any other Fleming Bond characters created prior to Fleming, McClory, and Whittingham collaborating together.
So in my view, the courts originally got it wrong back in the day when they awarded McClory the right to use the character of James Bond. That's all I've been saying from the beginning, so I don't see what you find so difficult with it.
In short, MY view is that it was morally wrong and legally unfair for McClory to have been awarded access to use the character of Bond in anything, which Fleming should have had sole use of until he sold the rights to Eon. In other words, the courts f*cked up - with the inadvertent collusion of Fleming!
Can't be any plainer. Anyone else out there who can't see what I'm saying?
I remember this well, as it was the first time we got some background (and conflicting) information about Agent 21 - which was my favourite non-GA strip in TV21. Lots of cold war and spies. It wasn't until a few years later than I and others realised the Connery link.
I'll have to re-read the story to remind myself what it was about, M. Scary to think it's 55 years old, eh?
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