Claire Tole-Moir
Head of Department
The Jack Whittingham Collection Part II
The following four lots are offered by the daughter of acclaimed British playwright and screenwriter Jack Whittingham. Featuring documents, screenplays and treatments surrounding the production of a proposed first James Bond film. Ian Fleming in collaboration with producer and director Kevin McClory and screenwriter Jack Whittingham intended to produce a new Bond story that they would transfer onto the big screen.
The venture for this original production began in 1958, and predates the first released James Bond film 'Dr. No' by four years. Fleming agreed with McClory that he would compose a new James Bond story, in the form of treatments that Jack Whittingham would work from to transform into a script for film. Whittingham worked very closely with Fleming taking his initial plot outline, which was originally titled 'James Bond and the Secret Service' into a fit for filming story 'Longitude 78 West'. This title was later changed again by Fleming and registered by McClory in 1960 as 'Thunderball'. Whittingham not only reworked and elaborated the plot, he was also instrumental to the characterisation of James Bond, making him a more endearing character for the audience to resonate with.
Due to disagreements between Fleming and McClory this production was later shelved. Nevertheless, in March 1961 Ian Fleming published his eighth James Bond novel 'Thunderball', bearing no credit acknowledgement to Whittingham or McClory in the published Jonathan Cape edition. This created a bitter plagiarism law battle at the High Court. The majority of the documents included in this collection are copy paperwork which was submitted during the court proceedings between Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham and Ian Fleming. The out of court ruling stipulated that future publications of the book must be credited to 'Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham and Ian Fleming' in that order and awarded the film writes for any future production to McClory. When 'Thunderball' was finally made, in 1965, under Executive Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, Kevin McClory was given the role as the film's Producer.
The following four lots are offered by the daughter of acclaimed British playwright and screenwriter Jack Whittingham. Featuring documents, screenplays and treatments surrounding the production of a proposed first James Bond film. Ian Fleming in collaboration with producer and director Kevin McClory and screenwriter Jack Whittingham intended to produce a new Bond story that they would transfer onto the big screen.
The venture for this original production began in 1958, and predates the first released James Bond film 'Dr. No' by four years. Fleming agreed with McClory that he would compose a new James Bond story, in the form of treatments that Jack Whittingham would work from to transform into a script for film. Whittingham worked very closely with Fleming taking his initial plot outline, which was originally titled 'James Bond and the Secret Service' into a fit for filming story 'Longitude 78 West'. This title was later changed again by Fleming and registered by McClory in 1960 as 'Thunderball'. Whittingham not only reworked and elaborated the plot, he was also instrumental to the characterisation of James Bond, making him a more endearing character for the audience to resonate with.
Due to disagreements between Fleming and McClory this production was later shelved. Nevertheless, in March 1961 Ian Fleming published his eighth James Bond novel 'Thunderball', bearing no credit acknowledgement to Whittingham or McClory in the published Jonathan Cape edition. This created a bitter plagiarism law battle at the High Court. The majority of the documents included in this collection are copy paperwork which was submitted during the court proceedings between Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham and Ian Fleming. The out of court ruling stipulated that future publications of the book must be credited to 'Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham and Ian Fleming' in that order and awarded the film writes for any future production to McClory. When 'Thunderball' was finally made, in 1965, under Executive Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, Kevin McClory was given the role as the film's Producer.
Lot 24
Ian Fleming / James Bond: A copy Memorandum to Jack Whittingham and copy first draft screen treatment titled James Bond of the Secret Service,
12 June 2019, 13:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge£2,000 - £3,000
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Ian Fleming / James Bond: A copy Memorandum to Jack Whittingham and copy first draft screen treatment titled James Bond of the Secret Service,
a copy of a one page memo accompanying Ian Fleming's first draft treatment, given to Jack Whittingham outlining his intentions for the first James Bond film, he states a brief outline of his plan for the plot content It is the story of an attempt by the Mafia to blackmail the West for £100 million using as a lever an automatic warhead stolen from one of Britain's rocket sites he continues My concern has been only to stitch together a more or less plausible narrative based on this plot and to make it as fast-moving and packed with incidents as possible., Fleming narrates his problem with the draft idea for the story I am badly in need of good Italian names for the Mafia gangsters and these could perhaps be obtained from the Venice telephone directory!; the first draft treatment of 57 copied mimeographed typescript, some with copy annotations and crossings out as well as 7 addition pages and rewrites; with court reference document attached to the verso,
Footnotes
It was from this first treatment that Jack Whittingham formed a screenplay for the first James Bond film. Robert Sellers comments in his book, With his trained eye Whittingham immediately saw the deficiencies in Fleming's treatment and after reading it formed the opinion that the author had very little idea of writing for the screen. "In my view Fleming's film treatment was terribly bad...and completely inappropriate for film development". Whittingham had very firm notions of the differences between a screenwriter and an author of books. He had the experience and understanding to tell a story using as little dialogue as possible and tapping into the viewer's visual senses to portray characters and storyline. As Sylvan Mason, Whittingham's daughter explains Fleming was a wonderful writer in his written descriptions, but that didn't work on Film.
Literature:
Sellers, Robert, The Battle For Bond, Sheffield, (Tomahawk Press), 2007, pp.39-41
