Producer: Kevin McClory

Written by: Len Deighton, Sean Connery, Kevin McClory

Written in: 1978

Best line:
(Bond and Fatima Blush are nude in a jacuzzi)
Fatima: "Ah, I can read you like a book, James."
(she reaches out for him)
Bond: "This must be the Braille system you're using."

Worst line:
Bond: "Call me James. And what's your name?"
Lovesit: "Justine Lovesit."
Bond: "She does?" (sigh...)
... and...
Bond (to Q): "Well done, old fruit."

Legally Bonded?

This is an unproduced, original screenplay written in 1978 by novelist Len Deighton, Sean Connery, and Kevin McClory, based on the screenplay James Bond of the Secret Service, by Ian Fleming, Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham (which became the novel Thunderball). It's wildly uneven, without the polish of a shooting script (Bond seduces Domino in about thirty seconds after breaking into her room; then we are told Domino and Fatima Blush just happen to be identical twins way too late in the story to believe; etc.). But there are a lot of good ideas mixed in with the bad (even at this stage it's better than Moonraker).

Good Cut

Ghengis the Samoan is Blofeld's henchman - but in early drafts he is called Bomba, and he's black. In one scene he's described thusly: "The door is suddenly pulled off its hinges and Bomba, whose presence and attack makes Muhammad Ali look like a fag, enters."

Plot Blofeld (to be played by Orson Welles) leads SPECTRE as it kidnaps vessels in the Bermuda Triangle from an underwater fortress called the Aquapolis. Stealing warheads from three Russian nuclear missiles, he holds the world for ransom, threatening to destroy a major city and detonate two warheads under the Antarctica ice cap.

Bond is recalled from his vacation at the Shrublands health clinic, where he is nearly murdered by Fatima Blush. M sends Bond to investigate Blofeld in the Bahamas with Felix Leiter of the CIA. Sneaking onto Shark Island, they meet Blofeld (Largo in early drafts), Domino, and Ghengis the Samoan (Blofeld's henchman). Bond recruits Domino to help them, but they are captured. Bond and Leiter escape death in a depressurizer as Blofeld has gotten away. But Q calculates that from the amount of fecal matter contained in ocean sediment left at Blofeld's hideout, that the Aquapolis has been to New York Harbor (wretched refuse indeed). Bond assumes that one of the bombs is there.

From his command post in the tiara of the Statue of Liberty, Blofeld attacks through the sewers of New York in giant mechanical sharks - one a hammerhead carrying the bomb. The sharks have heat sensors, and are programmed to attack anything warm-blooded. In effect, the hammerhead is an atomic bomb that attacks anyone that tries to disarm it.

New York Harbor is suddenly teaming with sharks, and attacks are reported from Ellis Island into the New York sewer system - to the New York Stock Exchange and Wall Street. Bond enters the sewer and battles a mechanical tiger shark. Ghengis tries to stop Bond, but is ripped apart by the sharks.

Bond finally catches the hammerhead, dropping on top of it in the sewer tunnel. He rides on the shark, attempting to disarm it as it moves downstream -- until it passes Q walking along the sewer's walkway, who calmly reaches over and kills the timer.

Marines and SPECTRE agents now battle in and around the Statue of Liberty. Bond skis past the sharks in the harbor, then kites up onto the statue, where he battles Blofeld.

Blofeld escapes through a hole blown through the blood-stained eye of Liberty, riding down a rope to the Aquapolis as it emerges in the harbor (can you picture Orson Welles doing this?). Bond follows him down, but must cling to the outside as it submerges and escapes through the Hudson Canyons.

Bond enters through a moon pool and assassinates Blofeld as the Aquapolis smashes against underwater rocks and ravines, out of control.

Bond and Domino escape in Blofeld's private sub. They kiss passionately as the Aquapolis explodes behind them, Domino crying "Oh James!" (as usual) and we fade out.

Undercover

Connery originally was only going to help write the script, but he started to enjoy it so much that he decided to play Bond again.

Connery felt the plot - sharks and all - was quite feasible: "We had all sorts of exotic events. You know those airplanes that were disappearing over the Bermuda triangle? We had SPECTRE doing that. There was this fantastic fleet of planes underneath the sea -- a whole world of stuff that had been brought down. They were going to attack the financial nerve center of the United States by going in through the sewers of New York -- which you can do -- right into Wall Street. They'd have mechanical sharks in the bay and take over the Statue of Liberty, which is quite easy, and have the main troops on Ellis Island. That sort of thing."

Like Fleming, writer Len Deighton (The Ipcress File, Funeral in Belin, and Billion-Dollar Brain) had a background in British Intelligence. He served in the Royal Air Force as a photographer attached to the Special Investigation Branch (SIB). <

The story reduces a lot of the Thunderball plotting. It features the return of Blofeld, now living underwater in a vessel called the Aquapolis (he still enjoys killing his underlings for no reason - four by page 54 - it's amazing anybody still works for him). The character of Largo was jetissoned. <

The Bond of the books re-emerges: He drives an Aston Martin again. He has a maid (a temp - May is gone) and has her get his package from Fortnums and Mason.

Many elements of the story parallel The Spy Who Loved Me, with both camps claiming thievery by the other side.

Then the real sharks arrived: Legal action was threatened by both sides. Broccoli and Eon claimed that McClory could not deviate from the Thunderball story. Meanwhile, McClory heard that Eon planned to use SPECTRE and Blofeld in The Spy Who Loved Me and threatened to sue back. Broccoli finally had the Blofeld character changed to Stromberg, avoiding a lawsuit altogether.

Meanwhile, Broccoli cajoled the "Trustees of the will of Ian Fleming" to sue McClory and prevent the film's production. In response, McClory discovered that Broccoli's next project had adapted many similar elements to his script, and used Blofeld -- which McClory owned the rights to. He threatened a counter-suit, and thus began five years of pointless litigation.<

This film ultimately became Never Say Never Again, but is strikingly different in every area but the names of the characters. Note that none of the screenwriters were listed on the finished film five years later.

"Warhead 8" In 1988, McClory changed the title of this script to Warhead 8 and began scouting locations in Australia, Ireland, and New York. "I had put together a cast with Trevor Howard as M and was having very serious discussions with the incomparable Orson Welles to direct, whom I knew from prior films," McClory told SFWeekly. "Can you imagine how that would have elevated Bond from the shoot-'em-up to a classic film, with actors of that caliber? It would have swept the boards. We had a green light from Paramount, from Warners, then all the shenanigans happened. Our rivals did not wish us to succeed. They don't like mavericks, and it's one reason they don't like me. They'd work behind the scenes whenever they could. And they're blind to what is lost. This industry is the most corrupt in the world. One word describes it, and that is greed."

TOP PHOTO: Early production artwork for the "Warhead" Project which eventually became "Never Say Never Again", art by Maurice George Carter 1978, auctioned at Christies in Nov 2009.

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