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Comments
Given time it'll be racist to even talk about racism.
Yeah, LOL
There were plenty anti-racist films with yellow faces or red faces.
;)
Fleming was patronizing toward many groups--Blacks, Asians, women, gays. I don't think I'd like him as a person. He seems like he'd be the crank in the corner of the club, complaining about something or other.
But damn if he didn't create something that endured far longer than his attitudes.
It's left unclear as Bond hits her on the side of the head with his stave, knocking her out. After he kills Blofeld he escapes the castle on a helium balloon that was holding a poison garden warning banner up. The castle is then destroyed as Bond locks the natural geyser causing an eruption. Of course later continuation authors like John Pearson and Raymond Benson had Irma Bunt come back so if they are any authority she must've lived to fight another day. As it is, Fleming leaves it open. She could've died or she could've escaped the castle just in time.
Fleming's attitude was very much reflected the time he's living in, had Fleming been say, a Millennial, he wouldn't have that kind of views, it's not just Blacks and Asians, Fleming was also condescending towards Americans and viewed them as inferior or second fiddle to the British (read Diamonds Are Forever).
One of the things that made him that way was how he viewed British (Britain) as superior (this was happened around the time of World War, so it's natural for him to feel that way).
I think Fleming himself have quoted it that his feelings was reflected by how Britain had been affected by the way, they're almost on the brink and Fleming was like he's trying to build Britain up, especially at the time that before the war, Britain was viewed as one of the most powerful countries in the world then, then World War happened, and the country have fallen (at least from the British perspective).
It's one of the things why Fleming made Bond hates tea (for him, it tastes like a mud and blaming it for the reason of the fall of British Empire, maybe because of the Tea Party with Washington, I don't know 😅), I mean, I liked Tea, but even that simple drink where Bond still has Political issues with and we couldn't say at all that he's discriminating Tea 😅.
It's interesting that Fleming leaves this particular death open. Has anyone read the corrected manuscripts?
I've not read the manuscripts but I doubt Fleming would've ever had Irma Bunt survive to return in a later book. He never did that with any other character that I can recall. It seems much more a Bond continuation idea that John Gardner would have run with and one that John Pearson and Raymond Benson did run with.
Frankly, I'm surprised Gardner didn't have Bond seduce Bunt's lovely daughter.
Gardner did have him seduce Blofeld's daughter and probably Felix's daughter so that was probably deemed enough for one novel! Still, I do like Gardner a lot (as my username testifies).
I'd credit the films for such endurance, not the novels.
The daughter "fetish" is a little...off-putting.
What is crucially missing is the blatant politics involved in almost every Fleming novel.
Film FRWL's villains are ultimately Spectre, not the Soviet Union and none of the Spectre plots involve them being employed by Moscow.
There are other examples, too.
The producers consciously removed these political intrigues and we, the Fleming estate included, should be eternally grateful they did.
Should we thank Kevin McClory for this? :D
Oh no, you didn't! LOL.
Seriously, though, McClory is always painted as evil around here (even though TB and NSNA are decidedly meh)...but sainted Fleming is the one who stole (at least some of) his material!
Yes, the trial with McClory (and the drinking and the cigarettes) probably killed Fleming...but one man still stole from the other!
I believe that I once called For Special Services "James Bond: The Next Generation" because it features the daughters of both Blofeld and Leiter. I suppose that all that was needed to make up the set was Bond's son or daughter but thankfully we only got Bond instead! Gardner clearly had a thing about using daughters as villains. His third Boysie Oakes novel, Amber Nine (1966), featured the daughter of Adolf Hitler as the villain!
Goldfinger and YOLT both involve Chinese interference. And anyway, the political intrigue made the stories feel more real. Yes, removing them may have helped with longevity, or world-wide consumption, but would Bond have really done worse in the Western World if SMERSH were still the villains?