From the Archive
007 Issue #14 (1984)

Originally published in 007 Issue #14 (1984), the text of this interview is identical, but enhanced here with additional images from the 007 MAGAZINE Archive.

John Glen is not the astronaut, but a British Director whose high flying stunts in the last four Bonds have earned him accolades. Glen is the man who saved Bond from stupidity and mediocrity. His stunt direction and editing; the snow scenes in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the ski jump-chase in The Spy Who Loved Me, the free fall in Moonraker, and his direction of For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy put him in the same league as Guy Hamilton and Terence Young when they were in their prime (1962-65). In Octopussy (the feminists are pulling their hair out at this one) Bond is back, finally doing what he does best – killing and kissing. No idiotic gags, just non-stop action and wild situations.

But who is John Glen? He’s a nice guy, but also an expert craftsman with 40 years of experience in the British film industry, starting with Carol Reed’s The Third Man as a cutter, becoming a sound editor, finally a director for British Television, on some series you might be familiar with Danger Man a.k.a, John Drake, Secret Agent (with Patrick McGoohan, another candidate for Bond). An offer from Peter Hunt, director of 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (with forgotten 007 George Lazenby) led Glen to Second Unit work on The Sea Wolves, The Wild Geese, and the aforementioned Bond films. Tom Sciacca caught up with John Glen at his modest suite at the Plaza during the promotional tour for Octopussy.

John, have you deliberately brought the Bond films back to their original concepts?
That’s right. We did this in For Your Eyes Only purposefully to get back to that style. The actual intention was to put all the emphasis on, action. We weren’t sure Roger was going to be back, so we came up with the graveyard scene (Tracy’s grave) to introduce the new Bond. As it was, Roger came back, we couldn’t come up with a better scene. To really spend our money on that, rather than lavish sets, space ships, or push button technology. Get back to real people, good motives good characterizations... it results in a film where the money was spent on the action.

Are you an Ian Fleming fan?
Well, I’m versed in Fleming in as much as, for instance I think Goldfinger was a fantastically written book, and the short story that For Your Eyes Only, is based on is wonderfully written. I am versed in Fleming and am a great admirer of his. I’ve stuck as closely as I could.

In Octopussy one of the most harrowing, exciting shots was when Bond becomes Superman, hanging on to that plane...
That’s a funny story. The same guys I used on Moonraker had a reel where they walked on the plane in the air. They were so good at it that Cubby asked them to make it look more difficult!

How did you come up with the pre-title sequence with the Acro-Jet?
The Acro-Jet sequence was originally written for Moonraker where Bond and the girl escape from Drax’s headquarters and there’s a fight with Drax’s jets. That was dropped from Moonraker, and we eventually used it for Octopussy.

The audience goes wild during that scene.
That six-minute scene packs in more action than most features do!

One of the best fights in Octopussy is the one in the bedroom where Bond fights from room to room, finally falling into the lake...
Yes, that was difficult to film. The Indian actor [William Derrick, pictured above bottom left - credited as ‘Thug with Yo-yo’] playing the main protagonist, who was on the balcony with the bladed yo-yo fell off the balcony on the first day of shooting, breaking both his arms. From then on it was very difficult because we had to find a double quickly, and had to be ingenious setting up the shots. A week later he came back for pick-ups, big plaster casts around his arms.

It is hard not to repeat yourself in terms of action, or story?
I think we always try to be fairly original, it’s easy to fall into a hack way of doing things. We are a team who have worked on many Bonds together, and we have a great memory of what we did on the early Bonds. We hate to repeat ourselves, the whole thing, really, is a throwaway technique – you don’t hang on something and savour it you just move on. For instance, where Bond slides down the bannister with the machine-gun, he sees the ‘pineapple’ at the end and shoots it off – that’s a laugh on top of a laugh. Give the audience more – purposely cut it short rather than say ‘look how clever we’ve been’. I think this is a better film than For Your Eyes Only in terms of pre-production. We weren’t rushed from one scene to another in planning and executing scenes.

I suspect that location shooting in India was tough.
It was tough, but good value for us. The scenes in the street bazaar were a nightmare as you can well imagine. Let’s face it the bureaucracy in India was founded by the British. To get permission to do anything takes forever. Our first experience in a government office was when we passed a communications room and saw it filled with six feet of paper spewing from three teletype machines. No one was about.

What about Roger Moore? After ten years, he seems to finally be accepted as Bond.
Well almost when he’s due to retire he’s been accepted. That’s life, isn’t it. You don’t know you’ve succeeded until you’re ready to retire. I think it’s partly because we’ve tailored the scripts to Roger’s personality and gotten away from Sean. I’m sure now if we were ready to go with a new actor we’d do the same thing and change the style of the films.

Do you think Roger will do another one?
Yes, I think so. I believe we’ve gotten into the swing of things with Roger, and would like to continue the process.

The next film is From A View To A Kill, from the Fleming short story. Why?
Even though we have the options on the new (John Gardner) books, we feel that there is still mileage left in the Fleming originals, if even it’s just the titles and pieces of the novels. After that we could go back and make Octopussy 2.

How about remaking the old films?
It’s a thought that’s occurred to us more recently, thinking five or six years ahead. There’s no reason why we can’t go back to those stories and bring them up to date. It’s difficult to replace the gimmicks, like the periscope in From Russia With Love, so you’d have to be careful and make it all new, because there wouldn’t be any surprise in the old gags.

Which one would you remake?
I think On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. There’s a lot you could do with that one. Dr. No would be good. Again, it would be difficult to replace those early situations, because they’re the groundwork of the series. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is my favourite because it was my first Bond. I’m sure From Russia With Love could stand remaking.

Well, Thunderball is being remade with Sean Connery!
Yes, well we’re not touching that one!

Any final thoughts, on From A View To A Kill, or other projects?
Between Bonds I’d like to do a comedy with Roger, we work well together. The next Bond, well we have a title, it’s a good situation with the short story, a spy ring in France, the motorcycle courier disappears, the flower in the field hiding the microphone, I’d like to get George MacDonald Fraser again for the script, I like his sense of humour. The action will be as good, if not better than before. We’ll continue the trend, getting back to the real Bond!

Editor's note: Following this interview John Glen began work on the 14th James Bond film released under the title 'A View To A Kill' in 1985. The film would be Roger Moore's 7th and final film starring as James Bond. John Glen then directed Timothy Dalton's debut as James Bond in 'The Living Daylights' (1987), followed by 'Licence To Kill' in 1989. John Glen directed five consecutive James Bond films in the 1980s - a record that is likely to remain unbroken. The 007 series went on a six-year hiatus following the release of 'Licence To Kill' as a result of legal complications. John Glen parted company with EON Productions but went on to direct 'Checkered Flag' (1990) - an American made-for-television sports film, and three further action-adventure films, before his retirement from the industry.

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