• Hi Guest!

    The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress

Scenes We'd Like To See: Alternate Movies, Television & Other Pop Culture Miscellanea

Hi, I'm one of the writers on the Reds! TL, with Aelita and The Red Star Rising/Mental Omega(currently with new installments on Sufficient Velocity). I had an idea for this since reading about the various drafts of Casino Royale, and figured it'll do as a supplemental for a piece I wrote about James Bond in that universe (here:https://forums.sufficientvelocity.c...utionary-timeline.48563/page-64#post-14146160). Also figured it would be a nice addition to this thread, so here it is.

The Making of Casino Royale


In 1953, Casino Royale, written by former Naval Intelligence Officer Ian Fleming (a veteran of the Spanish campaign during WW2), was a massive hit across the Franco-British Union, combining the hard boiled style of Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe with the spy adventure stories of Richard Hannay. With this success came offers for the film rights. Fleming turned down an offer to adapt Bond for Cuban television, instead ultimately selling the rights to exiled Russian-American producer Gregory Ratoff and MGM, both now stationed in Britain.

Ratoff would do uncredited work on the script, while MGM would find a director. Ratoff himself found the character of Bond unbelievable, and attempted to find a way to work around that, including making Bond a woman (“Jane Bond”), one set in WW2 era Spain (to parallel Fleming’s own experiences) or even a draft where Bond was absent, replaced by an Americuban gangster working for Franco-British intelligence. MGM would have none of that. MGM initially tried to move forward with popular British directing-screenwriting team Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, (“The Archers”), who had helmed pictures like Black Narcissus and The Elusive Pimpernel (starring David Niven) for MGM and their partner London Films. However, growing money troubles and MGM’s insistence on changing Pressburger’s script led to their departure. They would eventually commission a script by Charles Bennett, who had written the 1935 Richard Hannay film The 39 Steps. Bennett would largely stick to the novel, though one draft combined the characters of Bond’s fellow JSB agent Rene Mathis and love interest Vesper Lynd into the character of Valerie Mathis, another combined Lynd with the novel’s secondary villain, American agent Felix Leiter. More importantly, Bennett’s previous major credit and its director would give MGM and Ratoff an idea.

Alfred Hitchcock was struggling in the early 50’s. Hitchcock had a successful contract with Cuban producer David O. Selznick, which saw the two produce hits, including Rebecca (1940), Greenmantle (1942), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Spellbound (1945), and Notorious(1946), even through Selznick’s departure from Warner Bros. and the war. After their final film together The Paradine Case (where Hitchcock grew to dislike Selznick), Hitchcock attempted to start his own production company with Sidney Bernstein, Transatlantic, to do his own films. However, by the early 50’s, it was experiencing financial difficulties. Hitchcock also had the headache of having to appear before the Franco-British National Assembly’s “Select Committee on Communist Activity”, over one of his non-Selznick propaganda films, Saboteur, which had been commissioned as pro-American. While Hitchcock was cleared, it would strike a blow to Transatlantic, which dissolved. Hitchcock soon attempted to get support for a project he had developed with writer Fredrick Knott, Dial M for Murder, when MGM contacted him.

Hitchcock had considered doing another spy thriller and had conceived of some ideas to that end, but, ultimately, he agreed to do Casino Royale, if MGM agreed to back Dial M afterwards. Hitchcock did an uncredited rewrite of Bennett’s script, restoring the characters of Rene Mathis and Vesper Lynd. However, he made several changes, including removing DITR8R (Fleming’s attempt at transposing the Soviet SMERSH to American intelligence) from Leiter’s origin, instead making him a simple Section 1 agent, and moving the action to Monte Carlo. He also left Lynd’s suicide more ambiguous in part to skirt censorship. Another move to mollify censorship was the change involving Le Chiffre. In the novel, he had run a profitable brothel venture in Paris (which is where he invested the money given to him by Section 1 and Comintern), before the newly formed Franco-British Union shut it all down. This was why he needed to gain the money back. The film instead alludes to “bad investments” from “government intervention”. Hitchcock also changed Leiter carving the Cyrillic symbol “ш” unto Bond’s hand to carving the letter “S”, to make it clearer to Anglophone audiences.

With Hitchcock on board, other actors were in talks. David Niven, who had his career stalled after his war service and falling out with producer Samuel Goldwyn, was Fleming’s first choice for the role, and Hitchcock's name ultimately led to his interest and eventual casting as James Bond. Ingrid Bergman, Hitchcock’s leading lady on Notorious, would star opposite Niven as Vesper Lynd. Jean Gabin, the star of Pepe lo Moko, whose career had also stalled after the war, was cast as Mathis. Another veteran French actor, Jean-Louis Barrault was cast as the villain Le Chiffre. Hitchcock’s frequent collaborator Leo G. Caroll plays the JSB’s head M.

The biggest challenge was Felix Leiter. Hitchcock and Ratoff considered several British, Cuban, and Canadian actors for the role, but none were satisfying enough or had the right quality of leading man but menacing when need be. While in Canada auditioning actors, Ratoff caught a late night CBC television production, and contacted MGM immediately after it ended to say that he had found their Leiter. Thus, at 28 years old, Leslie Nielsen would make his feature film debut.

Hitchcock would utilize his trademark style in making the baccarat scenes intense and the effective centerpiece of the entire film, especially the tension between Barrault and Niven. He would combine the Shepperton Studio sets with location shooting in the South of France. Hitchcock approached Bond himself less as Fleming’s cold, efficient killing machine and more in the vein of his other spy protagonists: a mostly everyman worker who approaches his duty the same way any other worker does, and has a fascination with their leading lady. Much of Bond’s cold detachment is instead transferred to Felix Leiter, who was shown as a standard androit American killing machine, hyperfocused on the mission at hand.

Released in late 1954, the film was a massive critical and financial success, harkening Hitchcock’s return to cinema and introducing cinema-goers to the character of James Bond. Ratoff was convinced by Irish playwright Kevin McClory and Canadian producer Harry Saltzman to pool their collected rights to Bond in a new venture, Eon Productions, who would then option “Live and Let Die” as a sequel with MGM. Hitchcock would decline directing duties (focusing on finishing Dial M for Murder), though Niven, Nielsen, and Caroll would return, and the “Bond” series as known today would start, eventually leading to a 2009 remake of Casino Royale with Idris Elba as Bond.
 
Worthwhile considering some of the films Sean Connery turned down or missed out on since there are a lot of them.

He was invited to reprise the role of Bond for both On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Live and Let Die, and really in both instances I think its probably for the best we got George Lazenby and Roger Moore, respectively, instead. Connery comes across as so bored in You Only Live Twice and this would have just gotten worse if he did another one, the break meant that by the time he did come back for Diamonds Are Forever he's got something of the cool detachment back. Even so, Connery is looking pretty bloated in Diamonds Are Forever, which does enhance the ridiculous near-parodic tone of the film (the best Moore film Connery ever starred in!) but I think if he had come back for Live and Let Die we would have gotten that, plus him being bored again. Lee Tamahori wanted him to film a cameo for Die Another Day, since Tamahori likes the Bond-is-a-codename theory - yeah, no.

He was one of the many sought for the role of Deckard in Blade Runner, though my own preference would be for Robert Mitchum I think Connery in that period between Bond and The Untouchables would have been great in it. Then there's the sad set of circumstances that led to his retirement, where he turned down the role of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and a role in The Matrix sequels (long suspected to be the Architect) because he did not understand the content, but both went on the be financially successful. He took the next script that he did not understand, which turned out to be The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which flopped - and he retired soon after. It's strange to think he might have had another decade of roles in him, but considering the changes in the film industry that came as the 00s turned into the 10s I think it's fair to say there would be a lot of offers for films he didn't understand and would eventually trip up and accept the wrong one anyway...
 
Oooooh! Sean Connery as Gandalf! Imagine! Though, could you see him yelling at the Balrog: "You shall not parssh!"?
They were saying on the "In Memoriam" segment on the news that later in his life he laid down the law that he didn't want to hear the "B" word ("Bond") in his earshot.
 
Worthwhile considering some of the films Sean Connery turned down or missed out on since there are a lot of them.
When Jean-Jacques Annaud told Umberto Eco that he was thinking of Sean Connery to play William of Baskerville, Eco was reportedly aghast. In his opinion Connery was a washed-out ex-James Bond and not at all the kind of actor he had in mind for the role. Which begs the question: who else might Annaud have gone with if he had caved to Eco's objection? Christopher Lee? Max von Sydow?
 
When Jean-Jacques Annaud told Umberto Eco that he was thinking of Sean Connery to play William of Baskerville, Eco was reportedly aghast. In his opinion Connery was a washed-out ex-James Bond and not at all the kind of actor he had in mind for the role. Which begs the question: who else might Annaud have gone with if he had caved to Eco's objection? Christopher Lee? Max von Sydow?

When I read the book, shortly before the film came out, in my mind's-eye William of Baskerville was Alan Bennett and Adso of Melk was Derek Nimmo.
 
When I read the book, shortly before the film came out, in my mind's-eye William of Baskerville was Alan Bennett and Adso of Melk was Derek Nimmo.
Looking it up (it's been nearly 30 years since I read the book), William's appearance is described as:

His height surpassed that of a normal man and he was so thin that he seemed still taller. His eyes were sharp and penetrating; his thin and slightly beaky nose gave his countenance the expression of man on the lookout, save in certain moments of sluggishness of which I shall speak. His chin also denoted a firm will, though the long face covered with freckles could occasionally express hesitation and puzzlement.
 
Monster (2015-)
This award winning show on Netflix is probably one of their biggest successes after House of Cards and spawned a variety of psychological thrillers set in the 80s/90s. Based on the Manga by Naoki Urasawa and brought to TV by filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro this rather dark tale follows Dr Kenzo Tenma (Derek Mio), a Japanese surgeon living in 1990s Germany as his life goes into turmoil after getting himself involved with a former patient called Johan Liebert (Anton Yelchin). The series became famous for taking a Wallander approach to the story with the story still being set in Germany but mostly starring English and American actors as the main characters with various German actors filling out side characters with a surprise appearance from Udo Kier as Udo Heineman (mostly because Del Toro asked him if he could and being very passionate about it).

The show was praised for it's strong use of visuals (in particular the art design and cinematography) as well as it's soundtrack by Mica Levi (with various collaborations from artists like Trent Reznor and Ben Frost) although some criticism was given to Derek Mio's acting at certain points and the awkward nature of certain scenes due to various non-English actors speaking English. The show would help increase the profile of certain creators from Naoki Urasawa himself, to Del Toro regular Guy Davis (who drew and created various pieces of art around the world as well as help create the opening animation), NINA (German Synthwave act that performed in one episode) and Baran Bo Odar who would work with Netflix to create Pleasure to Kill the first German Language program there in 2017. Netflix would give Monster a Second Season before it even aired in 2015 and Season 2 would come out at the end of 2016 with a third season due in early 2018.
 
I'm wondering if they actually wanted Scheider, and it got bogged down in contractual stuff and they got on the phone to Central Casting and barked 'Gimme a guy who can wear a huge pair of glasses like hero dad nerd' or it's just a homage to Jaws or what.

Whatever the truth, it's interesting considering Seaquest DSV and all.
 
Watching the 80s horror documentary In Search of Darkness Part II I was struck by an idea mentioned by Stuart Gordon during a segment on films people wanted to make but never got off the ground. Per Gordon he wanted to do a series of adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft all starring Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton after doing Re-Animator with them, akin to the adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe that Roger Corman did with Vincent Price in the 1960s. They even got a second film made in that vein, From Beyond in 1986, but struggled to get the third, which was to be an adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth. For some bizarre reason backers did not rate the commercial appeal of a story in which denizens of a secluded New England town are revealed to be piscine abominations, though one did offer to finance the project if they changed it to werewolves. We would never get a further Lovecraft adaptation by Gordon starring Combs and Crampton. Would have liked to have seen a few more from such a strand, and got wondering if Gordon might have found it easier if a horror anthology film series was already an established thing in Hollywood in the 80s.

John Carpenter and Debra Hill had tried to take the Halloween series down that route some years earlier with Halloween III: Season of the Witch. The film saw a complete departure from the formula set by Halloween and Halloween II by not featuring Michael Myers and not even being a slasher instead going a more science-fiction root in a script originating from the legendary Nigel Kneale. It was not a success and was poorly received with most asking "Where's Michael?" Carpenter and Hill only agreed to do a third film if it was completely detached from the story of Michael Myers. They weren't even keen to do Halloween II and even ended that with Michael being blown up and burned to death on camera. Eventually, executive producer Moustapha Akkad wanted to do another Halloween film regardless, with Carpenter and Hill returning in a producing capacity.

Carpenter and Hill wanted to produce a script from Dennis Etchison with Joe Dante directing. What's interesting about this planned version of Halloween 4 is that there was still no plans to revert to the formula of the first two. We don't know what exactly was planned, but Akkad rejected the Etchison script saying that Michael Myers had to appear as a flesh and blood killer. This can either be taken as them not including Michael in any capacity or, perhaps more interestingly, they intended to keep Michael dead and change him to some supernatural menace thus changing genres again. Regardless, Carpenter and Hill had no interest in this and sold their rights to the Halloween name to Akkad, would would continue to produce sequels featuring Michael Myers until his death in the 2005 Amman bombings.

It's often been suggested that the way to make the Halloween series work as an anthology would be to start that concept with the second film and have Halloween II not feature Michael Myers at all. No one was excited by the prospect of a sequel, but original producer Irwin Yablans was very keen to do a sequel to the most successful independent film ever at the time. Carpenter was already developing The Fog when Yablans began to reach out, and the latter intended to produce that until the rights to it were bought by Robert Rehme of AVCO Embassy. A lawsuit developed between Yablans and Rehme that ended with Rehme getting the rights to The Fog and Yablans having the exclusive rights to Halloween II. There's maybe potential here that Carpenter has the idea to do an anthology series a bit earlier and offers The Fog as the sequel. This might help to an extent, but I would note that The Fog, despite being a box office success, had mixed reviews at the time and did require a lot of re-shoots. It is possible going with the anthology idea on the first sequel lessens the "Where's Michael?" impact and the Halloween name makes an already successful film even more successful and the anthology series is ingrained for the first part of the 1980s anyway.

This might help Stuart Gordon in the latter half of the 1980s get his series of Lovecraft adaptations made, but what else might come of this? I wonder if the Friday the 13th series might go down a similar root, as much as I love it there's no denying it followed on the coattails of Halloween (and then Halloween II copied Friday the 13th's gore, turnabout is fair play). Slashers were still money-makers in the early 80s, so perhaps they do those for the first few and if the same ideas permeate they might go an anthology route after they kill off Jason Voorhees for good in the third or fourth like they tried too before the dead horse proved to still have a heartbeat. I wonder too if Creepshow might see an earlier sequel with Stephen king returning to do the screenplay and George A. Romero returning to do the script if anthologies become vogue; it did get one OTL in 1987 but with Romero scripting (and not directing) from King's stories and the number of stories cut because of a far smaller budget.

Would certainly make for a very different horror genre in film if slashers have completely been supplanted by a new raft of anthology series in film and television by the late 1980s.
 
Watching the 80s horror documentary In Search of Darkness Part II I was struck by an idea mentioned by Stuart Gordon during a segment on films people wanted to make but never got off the ground. Per Gordon he wanted to do a series of adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft all starring Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton after doing Re-Animator with them, akin to the adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe that Roger Corman did with Vincent Price in the 1960s. They even got a second film made in that vein, From Beyond in 1986, but struggled to get the third, which was to be an adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth. For some bizarre reason backers did not rate the commercial appeal of a story in which denizens of a secluded New England town are revealed to be piscine abominations, though one did offer to finance the project if they changed it to werewolves.
"Also change the setting to a contemporary Californian high school and throw in a romantic subplot, and you've got a winner!"
 
Apollo defeats Drago in Rocky 4 .Rocky only watch's the fight does not get in the ring himself.



Leonard Nimoy is a crew member in the film forbidden planet and he has pointed ears.
 
Last edited:
Random thought following on from yesterday's random thought: if Friday the 13th goes down the anthology route (which they had considered even as early as the first sequel) and the franchise isn't based around Jason Voorhees then it's possible Hugh Jackman doesn't go into acting.

He only wanted to become an actor in his younger days so he could grow up to play Jason.
 
Back
Top