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She isn't mentioned by name, but it's a song of hers that Tiffany is playing.
Didn't know that about Miss Anders, very nice :)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009y5b3
I would just add that while only nine minutes of the program exists, the full transcript can be read here, and the post also includes YouTube links to Fleming's selections. No one will be surprised to find that Fleming was a fan of the Ink Spots.
I mentioned this link in another thread but I found Fleming's response quite interesting. Because the letter writer is indeed right: a Rolex probably wouldn't stop due to getting a little wet.
Bond did wear Rolex before and after, so Fleming's reasoning doesn't exactly stand up either: Bond actually uses a Rolex for the purpose of fighting in OHMSS and when that breaks he asks Q Branch for another one.
It probably means nothing as Fleming didn't want to concede to the point to the writer but still amusing to picture Bond wearing the equivalent of a Timex or something.
Always found it interesting how this seems to ignore the existence of the intervening Spy Who Loved Me - while considering his retirement at the start, Bond says he’s been hunting SPECTRE ever since the end of the Thunderball case without finding any trace, which contradicts the confrontation with a SPECTRE hitman he tells Viv about in the previous book.
Fleming famously wouldn’t let Eon adapt TSWLM directly, this book almost makes it seem like he tried to pretend it didn’t happen.
Toying with the idea of pausing this during the two-month time gap in the narrative and reading Spy then, to see if it fits as an interlude.
Analysis of the dates and years also don't line up; Thunderball, as stated, occurs in 1959; Spy takes place with Kennedy in charge and October 13th is Friday, thus placing it in 1961; Blofeld in OHMSS is 54 and born in May 1908, so OHMSS takes place at the end of 1962 and into 1963.
And it also makes Bond come off as a bit of a cad. He left Tracy with an agreement to see her again just to fool about with another woman halfway around the world.
True. In his resignation letter Bond states "I have found no trace of this man nor of a revived SPECTRE, if such exists."
This completely contradicts what Bond tells Vivienne in TSWLM: "Less than a year ago there was this business of the stolen atomic bombs. It was called Operation Thunderball. Remember? [...] But the point is that we never cleaned up SPECTRE. The top man got away [...] Well, they've got going again."
So it's very plausible that Fleming meant to ignore the existence of TSWLM, whose reception deeply embarassed him. It's also possible that by the time he began OHMSS Fleming decided it would be more effective, in dramatic terms, to start with Bond fed up with fruitlessly searching for Blofeld and on the verge of resignation. It wouldn't be the first time Fleming contradicted himself, and he probably had no wish to reread TSWLM to refresh himself on what Bond's last encounter with SPECTRE had been like.
I have my doubts about this. Fleming's interview with Photoplay contains the following passage:
"We then talked about the series of films that are being planned and adapted from his books—the already made Dr. No, which will be followed by From Russia With Love, Diamonds Are Forever, Goldfinger, Live And Let Die, Moonraker, and possibly, if it can be adapted for the screen, The Spy That Loved Me [sic]."
It's possible that later on Fleming told the producers to only adapt the title, but I'd like to see stronger evidence for this, since recollections of Broccoli and company were often exagerrated and at times simply incorrect.
Great find!
Possibly it's from Steven Jay Rubin's The James Bond Films (1981) but I'd have to double check as it could go back earlier than that. Anthony Burgess certainly mentions it as a fact in his 1987 introduction to the Coronet editions of Fleming's Bond novels.
Keeping in mind that TSWLM was the first film to jettison the Fleming original entirely until I suppose AVTAK...
Playing devil's advocate/conspiracy theorist here: is it possible that the TSWLM negotiation was about *only* paying for the title, because it would be cheaper for Eon?
YOLT was the first to do it, surely? Although I suppose characters and the location were the same. No idea if they had to have any discussions with the Fleming estate about that one.
Now that Michael G. Wilson is retired, I hope he'll consider giving the sort of in-depth interview, or memoir, where he answers those sort of questions and provides more information than the official histories have. But I doubt that will ever happen. He might very understandably be sick of talking about Bond, and feel he has better things to do in his twilight years. It would be regrettable though, since no one alive has had as much experience making Bond films, and he's the only living link to the Broccoli-Saltzman era. I don't think an unvarnished history of that period would hurt whatever Amazon has planned.
IIRC, titles cannot be copyrighted, at least in the US, but better legal minds can chip in. Presumably EON optioned all the Bond books, to prevent other producers from using them, and so might already have paid for TSWLM.
He might just prefer to enjoy that instead, I couldn't blame him.
I guess they can be trademarked though, so I suppose that's what had to happen back then. Although the exact shape of all of the legal stuff has never made a huge amount of sense to me, I guess it is a bit simpler now where London Operations just simply owns James Bond 007 and all of the Fleming titles in totality, whereas back then it seemed to be the estate and Gildrose and all that owning bits and bobs, not to mention Casino Royale and Thunderball floating about in the wilds, all very confusing.
I’d say that Kevin Feige of the Marvel movies has Wilson and Broccoli beat for interviews. Although Feige does tend to blame others for his failures.
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/marvel-kevin-feige-robert-downey-jr-miles-morales-1236465488/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2025/07/29/kevin-feige-says-captain-america-brave-new-world-suffered-from-no-chris-evans/