SPECTRE: Then & Now

A look at the history of SPECTRE & Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

 

In the novel Diamonds Are Forever (1956), James Bond is brought to the hideaway of the villains, a ghost town known as, 'Spectreville'.

In the novel From Russia With Love (1957), the book that would immediately follow Diamonds in the series, Bond battles it out with SMERSH for the possession of the 'Spektor' decoding machine.

Finally, in 1958, Ian Fleming toys with the idea of writing a script for the purpose of bringing James Bond to the big screen. He enlists the help of Kevin McClory, and, subsequently, Jack Whittingham, to do so. In 1959, the three produce a draft, which includes the villainous organization known as 'SPECTRE'. However, it began to seem as though the screenplay would never be adapted, and the project was scrapped. Fleming then decided to publish a novel which was an adaptation of the screenplay - without crediting Whittingham or McClory. This led to a legal dispute, but one which was quickly resolved.

Which ideas belonged to Fleming and which to McClory remains something of a mystery to this day - both claimed ownership of Blofeld and SPECTRE as their creator. We may never know who was telling the truth, or if the process wasn't maybe a bit more collaborative than either man let on. One thing is certain, however - given his fascination with the word, it was probably Fleming who came up with the name, 'SPECTRE'.

"And then we come to Step 3: Profit."

Thunderball was just the latest Bond novel when the first film, Dr. No, was being made, so it conceivably had a solid wait before it could expect to see the big screen, assuming the franchise was to become successful at all. Nevertheless, one element was taken from that novel and used for the plot of Dr. No. Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman at EON felt that, by making the primary antagonists the Russians, the films would be dated to a specific time and place. Eventually, when the Cold War was over, the movies would seem archaic. This prophetic assessment led the two to take the criminal organization SPECTRE out of Thunderball, and basically use it as a replacement for SMERSH.

In the novels, SMERSH was behind almost everything. Characters such as Le Chiffre, Mr. Big, Donald Grant, Goldfinger, Dr. No and Scaramanga were all Russian agents - on the screen, most of these characters have little to nothing to do with Russia. And, admittedly, mostly the fact that the villain was funding SMERSH or working for them in some capacity was only mentioned in their dossier, and not as relevant to the actual details of the plot. So the decision was made - rather than Dr. No declaring his allegiance to Soviet Intelligence, locked in a nationalistic power struggle with the west, he coldly mentions instead that he is a member of SPECTRE.

The plot of Dr. No hardly delved into SPECTRE at all, aside from what the titular character had to say about it. The real revisions came in From Russia With Love, where the entire plot of the movie was adjusted to include both SPECTRE and SMERSH. Of course, this led to the changing of the name of the 'Spektor' decoding machine from the novel to the 'Lektor'. The decision to insert SPECTRE is still somewhat controversial among fans - while most consider From Russia With Love to be one of the best Bond movies, there is no consensus on whether or not it would have been better to stick to the blueprint of the novel. In any case, the mystique of SPECTRE established by Dr. No works in From Russia With Love's favor - Grant is always two steps ahead of Bond, and it quickly becomes believable that they're able to outwit British and Soviet Intelligence. From Russia With Love is arguably SPECTRE at its most threatening.

And, strangely enough, Thunderball managed to become a film only four years after its publication, becoming the fourth Bond movie in 1965 (Goldfinger took a break from the SPECTRE plotline). The novel was meant to become a film from the very beginning, so little is changed. Fleming and McClory's vision for SPECTRE was realized on the screen; to avoid sparking off a legal battle, EON brought McClory on as a producer. A rival franchise was averted, McClory got the credit and got to produce a movie. The film was massively successful - the franchise was showing the first signs of becoming a cash cow. Everyone was happy.

But the SPECTRE organization would never again be consistently represented in the continuity.

First, Blofeld was recast for his live appearance in You Only Live Twice - as Donald Pleasance, whom many consider to be the definitive Blofeld. Compared to the commanding, malicious baritone voice of Eric Pohlmann in the previous films, however, I consider Pleasance a step down. Telly Savalas is the underdog favorite in OHMSS, but he is not without his detractors. In Diamonds Are Forever, they cast Charles Gray, who is perhaps the most controversial Blofeld thus far. Whatever one's opinions on each portrayal is, the fact remains that the casting, nor even the portrayal of the character, wasn't consistent and it damaged the character's legacy in the canon. In Thunderball, Blofeld is calm and calculating; when Pleasance takes on the character in You Only Live Twice, he seems borderline psychotic. Savalas' Blofeld is tough, direct and brutal. Gray's is almost effeminate, and a little bit goofy. And, as we'll get to in a moment, when the legendary Max Von Sydow would eventually portray the character, he underplayed Blofeld to the point of being forgettable.

Four entirely different characters with the same name.

And during this point in the franchise - the end of Connery's tenure, Lazenby's lone outing and Connery's return - the serialized nature of the films began to break down. While the events of previous films seemed relevant in From Russia With Love, Thunderball and On Her Majesty's Secret Service, past canon was completely disregarded, unimportant or even rewritten in films like You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever. And to top it all off, Blofeld's end was somewhat ambiguous at the end of Diamonds - probably because the producers had every intention of bringing him back. He was their most recognizable evil character, despite his confused portrayal.

But, McClory reared his head around this time - EON had only acquired the rights to Thunderball, and all its contents, for 10 years. Since those contents were technically the first appearance of Blofeld and SPECTRE, McClory tried to acquire them. Thus, Thunderball, SPECTRE and Blofeld's rightful ownership was now in dispute. I've heard that they'd originally planned on including the first scene of For Your Eyes Only as the pre-credits sequence for Live And Let Die, but their legal problems began and they decided it was a bad idea. They probably thought McClory would go away eventually, and the original draft for The Spy Who Loved Me had Bond teaming up with SPECTRE to take down a new, more dangerous organization - this was scrapped when McClory and his legal challenge to the franchise didn't go away, and the plot was altered, ironically, to swap out SPECTRE for the KGB. Things had come full circle.

For a long time, McClory was thought to be the man most likely to kill James Bond.

Eventually, when McClory won the rights to remake Thunderball, the aforementioned pre-title sequence of For Your Eyes Only was included with the intentions of: definitively tying the current Moore films in with the continuity of the Connery and Lazenby films; definitively killing Blofeld without naming the character outright, as a rebuke to McClory; and to wrap up any ambiguity about the Blofeld and SPECTRE plotline. By this time, the series had become pretty much episodic anyway, with only a few recurring characters and occasional references to Bond's past. Thus, For Your Eyes Only represents the last time Blofeld appeared in any Bond movie in the original continuity, and was an intentional 'farewell' to the serialized style of Bond storytelling.

Of course, Kevin McClory eventually won the rights to remake Thunderball, and went on to make Never Say Never Again. While this Bond film is interesting in a number of ways, it is basically just an attempt to imitate the style of the EON movies, and a second-rate attempt at that. It has the distinction of including the first black actor to portray Felix, a few fun moments, but ultimately not much else. It competed with Octopussy at the box office, which outperformed it by a bit, but the passage of time has seen Never Say Never Again mostly forgotten; now its basically a semi-obscure film that mostly only die-hard fans of the EON franchise end up watching, as a novel non-canon offering.

However, while SPECTRE and Blofeld haven't been used since that time, the legal battles had not ceased. There was conjecture about SPECTRE's return from the moment the films rebooted in 2006 with Casino Royale, but Barbara Broccoli claimed that this 'wasn't the plan'. Though they were tight-lipped about ever using these plot elements again, EON did not relent in its legal attempts to acquire the rights to entire franchise and every aspect of it, including Blofeld and SPECTRE. As soon as they finally won those rights, the plan "mysteriously" changed - Spectre (2015) almost immediately went into pre-production. 

A candid picture of Daniel Craig while on holiday, snapped by a paparazzi

'Spectre' will be the 24th Bond film, and it has the distinction of being the first film to involve that organization since 1983, and the only Bond film with the word 'spectre' or any variation thereof in the title. Some fans are concerned that the rebooted franchise will botch SPECTRE's portrayal as an organization - but, frankly, it was botched pretty terribly in the first continuity. In the reboot continuity, the filmmakers have put out two Bond films - Casino Royale and Skyfall - that have become instant fan favorites (and despite Quantum's lukewarm reception, I enjoyed it and would argue that it wasn't terrible). At the very least, the competency that is now applied to the Bond franchise is far beyond the kinds of blunders that were made in Diamonds Are Forever. And really, all the appearances of Blofeld and SPECTRE after Diamonds were intended to be a bit nostalgic even as of 1983. McClory was relying on Blofeld being a recognizable villain for Bond every bit as much as he was relying on Connery's star power. So, to be more accurate - Blofeld and SPECTRE haven't been a central part of the franchise since the 1960's. It's more than high time for an overhaul of their portrayal.

Besides, the character of Blofeld and his dastardly minions in SPECTRE have already been completely dynamic throughout their many appearances - aside from a few key features that are present in almost every Bond storyline that includes them, both seem to have been represented in totally different ways as the canon progressed. It's hard to pin down which film is the definitive portrayal of SPECTRE, or whether this can only be found in the novels. It's subjective to select one actor's Blofeld or another to elevate as the 'correct' representation of the character. Ultimately, EON has a great deal of wiggle room to portray SPECTRE in the upcoming film; they have iconic source material that they can mold into a variety of possible stories. Here's to hoping that they make something amazing.

Even though it's been in production longer, Star Wars 7 will be out two months after Spectre.
Way to churn 'em out, EON.

If you enjoyed this article and would like to support The Nerd Grimoire, please do us the kindness of recommending this article on google. Just hit the little 'g +1' button. Thank you, it really helps!