A Little Touch-Up for the Cameras, Please

Anyone versed in the past six decades of Bond films who decides to plunge into Fleming’s novels for the first time, risks a disconcerting trip to the other side of the looking glass.  Even putting aside the fact that the average high school freshman now has access to tech that would dazzle Bond and, for that matter, “Q" in the Fleming novels, the Bond we find there is not quite the same bloke we may be used to seeing portrayed on the screen.

Far from being a universal expert, Fleming’s Bond is a consummate dabbler with a little bit of knowledge about a great many things.  He can get by in a few languages, bluff his way through small talk on a variety of subjects, but needs a crash-course before trying to pass himself off as an expert in any field, except for the one he’s not supposed to talk about, outside the office.  

He’s a former athlete who remembers an old-fashioned skiing stance and can reliably sink a three-foot putt, but he’s much more adept at cards, the one pastime to which he’s devoted the necessary hours of practice.

But it’s not just that the Bond of the Books isn’t as super-humanly proficient as the one in the films.  He’s not even quite as tall, and a bit less good-looking.  At least Fleming never calls him anything more than “rather cruelly handsome,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Come to think of it, the literary 007 seldom measures up to our modern concept of a hero, even when Mr. Bond decides to tackle that role in earnest.  Witness what happens to both Masterton girls when he tries to take them under his protective wing in Goldfinger.  Tatiana Romanova fares better in From Russia With Love (if we assume that “M” is lying about her ultimate fate when he tells Bond she’s dead in Dr. No), although there was never anything in the cards like a traditional fairy-tale ending for the pair.  You know, the way nearly all of the movies end.

Where the literary Bond and the cinematic Bond truly part ways is in the work that vies with From Russia With Love to be crowned both Best Fleming Book and Best Movie Adapted from a Fleming Book - On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.  Here is where we find Bond showing us his most human, most conflicted, and least attractive side.  But I’m talking about the novel’s Bond.  The screenwriters worked overtime to put a stalwart spin on the lamentable but realistic behavior of Ian Fleming’s master spy.

Remember the scene where Bond sneaks into Ruby’s room for a late-night assignation only to find Fraulein Bundt between the sheets instead, and gets coshed by one of the guards?  That doesn’t happen in the book.  At the first hint that Blofeld knows he’s snooping under false pretenses, Bond schusses down the slope in the dark, and a frantic ski chase ensues.

What tipped them off?  Shaun Campbell, not only one of Bond’s associates, but his friend, has been nabbed and is about to have the truth beaten out of him.  He sees Bond and calls out to him, begs him to tell his captors he works for Universal Export.  Bond denies knowing the man and allows him to be dragged away to a brutal interrogation which will end in his death.

Campbell also appears in the film, but Bond doesn’t know he’s been apprehended until he sees Campbell’s lifeless body through a window.  At this point Bond, overcome with rage, struggles manfully but futilely with the men escorting him to a holding pen.  He escapes a few hours later and the chase ensues.

Remember that, for Fleming, Bond is the flawed Sir Gawain who flinches when his own neck is on the line.  In David Lowery’s retelling of the tale in last year’s The Green Knight, he doesn’t just flinch.  We watch him scamper away from the chopping block and run home, sort of the way Bond does, though with gun-toting minions on skis in hot pursuit.

The screenwriters made a few more adjustments to the story, apparently to minimize Bond’s responsibility for the death of his own wife.  In the film, Blofeld kidnaps Tracy, making the storming of Piz Gloria a rescue mission as well as a strike-force intent on scuttling Blofeld’s scheme to weaponize crop failure.  In the book, Bond simply wants to clear Blofeld off the ledger, get the job done once and for all.  It’s a matter of professional pride.

Bond and Tracy enjoy a splendidly photogenic wedding in Portugal in the movie, making Blofeld’s sudden act of retribution seem to come out of left field.  In the book they tie that knot in Germany with a ceremony conducted in the British Consul General’s drawing room.  Bond is warned beforehand that a German woman, perhaps a reporter, has called to inquire about the exact timing of the event, but he attaches no importance to the news.

Even before the tragic ending occurs, Tracy has already laid the blame at Bond’s feet.