(Caution: Mild spoilers ahead for the James Bond novel and
film, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE.)
DEATH IN THE FACE
In 1962, a gravely ill Ian Fleming went to Japan to research
what would result in his penultimate James Bond novel, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE.
Typical of Fleming, he planned for himself a macabre
itinerary he hoped would showcase the stranger sides of Japan that
might in turn inform his novel. He went in the company of two journalists with Asian
expertise (more on them later).
The resulting book is one of the darker, more doom-laden of
the James Bond novels, almost gothic in atmosphere, and a world away from the
resulting 1967 film adaptation which became the first Bond film to jettison the
majority of its Fleming inspiration’s plot.
I made my first acquaintance with YOLT, the novel, in the
winter of 1981. My maternal grandfather who turned me on to pulp literature had
died the previous October. I inherited his 1965 Ford Galaxy and a bunch of
paperbacks including a near complete run of the original Fleming Bonds that I
commenced to reading in publication order that fall into winter.
My first acquaintance with James Bond had come in 1967 when
my folks took me to a big old downtown Columbus theater to see YOU ONLY LIVE
TWICE on first run. Given how young I was, my memories of the film remain
spotty, but, perhaps tellingly, I have more memories of that film than anything
else that happened to me in that year of my very, very young life.
I remember the great John Barry music and the creepy scene
of one space capsule swallowing another, killing a NASA astronaut in the
process.
I remember James Bond’s apparent assassination. (This
appears to have left a particular mark on me as I have, as a fiction writer,
composed several pieces in which protagonists are falsely presumed deceased.)
I remember the ninjas and that sprawling volcano lair and I
remember Blofeld’s reveal and his scar, as well as a giant magnet plucking a
trailing car of thugs off the road and dropping them into the ocean. I also remember
some other scenes, here and there that were quieter…more disturbing
(assassination by thread and poison being the most haunting of these.)
When, fourteen years later, I finally began to read the
original Fleming novels, I was stunned to see how many of the films and books
departed ways from one another. With the exception of THE SPY WHO LOVED ME,
perhaps no other film/novel in the Bond canon deviated from one another so
vastly than YOLT.
 |
| Bond encounters "Siamese Vodka" |
Parts of the novel have since been cannibalized to greater
or lesser degree (probably most notably in SKYFALL, though I hear SPECTRE may
also work some of that ground).
It’s too bad we never got a more faithful version of Fleming’s
next-to-last Bond, as I have a certain fondness for YOLT and its melancholy
air…for its brave ending that Fleming, sadly, would prove too physically weak in
delivering more fully upon in its never polished sequel, THE MAN WITH THE
GOLDEN
GUN.
My new Hector Lassiter novel DEATH IN THE FACE places
Lassiter along with journalists Richard Hughes and Tiger Saito on Fleming’s circa
sixty-two Japanese tour.
From there, the two authors continue on to 1963 Istanbul where the filming of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (the second Bond film I ever saw) is underway.
From there, the two authors continue on to 1963 Istanbul where the filming of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (the second Bond film I ever saw) is underway.
DEATH IN THE FACE
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Yes, the novel YOLT is among my favorites of all the Bonds; it also gives us a Bond with perhaps the one man who can understand him, Tiger Tanaka. Bond is sort of a man out of time, who would perhaps be a wandering 'ronin.' We also are treated to hilarious bits beginning with the chaste kiss in the first chapter, and the live lobster "My God, Tiger, it's alive!" "Really, Bondo-san, you must transcend your Western sensibilities" or something to that effect. In the film, we are also treated to a wonderful adaptation of Tiger, who has many of the film's best lines. The film has plenty of them, and democratically awards them to many of the characters, Kissy, Blofeld, and Mister Osato and his assistant with the healthy chest. Plus beautiful Japan of Fleming's imagination, with master cinematography and music, set design, blah blah blah. As the years go, YOLT the film has become my favorite Bond film as sheer entertainment. OHMSS is my favorite for 'serious' Bond. I don;'t like the Craig Bonds... extremely far far away from the Bond I've known in the books and movies. Fortunately, I haven't yet seen the scene where 'Bond' gets his head drilled. It's fun, however, to Startpage "Bond gets his head drilled."
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