Thunderball

Thunderball is a James Bond novel written by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Ian Fleming.

The film adaptation was released in 1965 with James Bond played by Sean Connery. The main villain in the film is Emilio Largo, played by Adolfo Celi. It is the fourth official Bond movie in EON Productions' franchise. Screenwriter and coauthor McClory also participated in a "noncanonical" remake, 1983's Never Say Never Again. Thunderball was actually supposed to be the first James Bond movie, but was later switched to Dr. No due to a lawsuit with author and executive producer Kevin McClory. In the '90s Sony and Kevin McClory had plans to do yet another remake of Thunderball, called Warhead 2000AD with Liam Neeson as a potential Bond. Plans for this movie were abandoned in 1999.

Plot summary

The film is closely adapted from the the novel. S.P.E.C.T.R.E. (the SPecial EXecutive for Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) has hijacked a nuclear device and is threatening to destroy a major city unless a hefty ransom is paid. Bond is assigned to foil the plot.

Filmed in Caribbean locales, the film is remarkable for its focus on underwater scenes, which contributed greatly to the popularity of scuba diving as a recreational activity.

Claudine Auger, a former Miss France, and Luciana Paluzzi play Domino Derval and Fiona Volpe, the two Bond Girls. Paluzzi's character is the first Bond Girl not to be redeemed by Bond during the course of the movie; she is instead killed by a bullet intended for Bond. One of Volpe's fellow S.P.E.C.T.R.E. henchmen aimed a gun at Bond as he and Volpe were dancing in a nightclub, but in a typically over-the-top plot element, Bond sees the gunman while glancing to the rear, and turns her into the bullet's path at the very moment he fires.

The original title was "Mr. Kiss-Kiss Bang-Bang." This was dropped later in favor of the more dramatic-sounding "Thunderball."

S.P.E.C.T.R.E.

This film is the second time S.P.E.C.T.R.E. was used in the James Bond franchise, the first being From Russia With Love. Technically, S.P.E.C.T.R.E. was involved in the film Dr. No as we later find out in From Russia With Love that Dr. Julius No was a member of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. In the novels, however, S.P.E.C.T.R.E.'s first and last appearance was actually in Thunderball, although Ernst Stavro Blofeld would later also be in the novels On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice.

S.P.E.C.T.R.E. would later be held up in decades-long litigation between Producer/Contributing Author of Thunderball Kevin McClory and EON Productions, in which McClory claimed to own the rights to the story. A rather bizarre legal holding many years later allowed McClory to own the name S.P.E.C.T.R.E. as well as other elements of the Bond franchise. McClory went on to make his own version of Thunderball in 1983, which he entitled Never Say Never Again and starred Sean Connery as James Bond.

Theme music

The theme music to Thunderball was sung by Tom Jones. Bond legend has it that he passed out in the recording booth when singing the final high note of the theme song. The soundtrack was composed by Bond veteran, John Barry.

Vehicles and gadgets

• The Aston Martin DB5 previously used in the James Bond movie Goldfinger was reused again in Thunderball.
• Jet Pack - Bond uses the Jet Pack to escape a mansion in the opening sequence.
• Homer Pill - When Bond takes this pill it emits a signal that can be seen only by a certain receiver.
• Rebreather - A small device that can be carried on the person without notice and when in use, is held in the mouth to provide a few minutes of air in emergencies or when the user has to go underwater.

Cast & characters

• James Bond - Sean Connery
• Dominique 'Domino' Derval - Claudine Auger
• M - Bernard Lee
• Miss Moneypenny - Lois Maxwell
• Felix Leiter - Rik Van Nutter
• Emilio Largo #2 - Adolfo Celi
• Fiona Volpe - Luciana Paluzzi

Director: Terrence Young

Producers: Albert R. Broccoli , Kevin McClory , Harry Saltzman

Written by: Kevin McClory, Ian Fleming, Jack Whittingham

Screenplay by: Richard Maibaum, John Hopkins

Composed by: John Barry

Thunderball is the only James Bond movie made during the lifetime of Albert R. Broccoli for which Broccoli was not the executive producer. Due to a lawsuit, that position was filled by Kevin McClory.

The controversy over the novel

Thunderball was originally conceived as the first episode of a proposed James Bond television series, or possibly as a film on its own. For this project, Ian Fleming collaborated with Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham on a storyline and screenplay. When the series idea fell through, Fleming took the story and essentially novelized it as his ninth James Bond novel, which was released in 1961.

The book initially credited only Fleming. As a result, his collaborators filed a lawsuit against him which prevented Thunderball from becoming the first James Bond movie.

As a result of the suit, McClory and Whittingham received story credit in future editions of the novel (though Fleming still received main author credit). In addition, McClory was given the right to be producer of any film adaptation of the book (which occurred in 1965). He also received the rights to produce a second adaptation of the book after a set period of time had passed after the first movie. This allowed him to later produce Never Say Never Again based upon the same basic story. As mentioned above, McClory attempted to do a third version of Thunderball but MGM put its foot down, which led to MGM ultimately obtaining the rights to Never Say Never Again.

Novel publication order

External links

• Thunderball (1965) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059800/) at the Internet Movie Database
• MGM's site for the movie (http://www.mgm.com/title_title.do?title_star=THUNDERB)
• Universal Export's entry on Thunderball (http://www.universalexports.net/Movies/thunderball.shtml)

de:Feuerball (Film)