EXCLUSIVE 2022 INTERVIEW

Screenwriter JOHANNA HARWOOD’s important role in the first two James Bond films has for too long been brushed aside in many 007 histories. Author FRÉDÉRIC ALBERT LEVY [with additional research by KEVIN HARPER] sets the record straight in this exclusive interview conducted in the 60th anniversary year of the James Bond film series.

What made you decide to go and study film at the Paris IDHEC (Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques)? Weren’t there such film schools in English-speaking countries? Was it your film studies in Paris that made you become bilingual or were you already bilingual?
I went to Paris because there was no film school in England at the time. There was one in Italy – at Cinecittà – but I didn’t speak a word of Italian. There were also courses in some American universities, but for me going to the States was out of the question: the costs were far too high.

I still don’t consider myself bilingual! I learned the basics of French at school, with a year of modern French at the University of Lausanne as a complement. That was enough to understand the teachers at IDHEC. Some of them, moreover, accepted papers handed to them in English.

As the ‘legend’ goes, you left the Bond series after From Russia With Love because of Terence Young and Richard Maibaum’s outrageously sexist behaviour. Did Maibaum really object to your name being mentioned in the credits?
I never worked with Richard Maibaum – or even met him. So, he could never be “outrageously sexist” with me. As I had left EON long before From Russia With Love was released, I only recently learned that he had objected to me being credited.

As for Terence Young, we only worked together for one afternoon. Harry Saltzman had asked us to work together to rewrite my first draft for Russia (Maibaum had not joined the party yet). With my script open on the table, pencil in hand, Young worked all afternoon without speaking to me, then he put down his pencil, pushed the script away and said, “There! That’s better, don’t you think?” The question was purely rhetorical.

I immediately went to tell Harry Saltzman that if I stayed, he would have to pay two salaries instead of one for the same result, since collaboration was a word that obviously didn’t belong in Terence Young’s lexicon. It was a line of reasoning Saltzman understood perfectly well! However, I wouldn’t say that Young’s behaviour was particularly sexist. He just thought he was better than everyone else. After I left, it was Maibaum who took over.

Once interviewed by a journalist who said, "You’re one of the fathers of James Bond", Terence Young abruptly interrupted him to rephrase his sentence: "No, the father of James Bond". What do you think of this claim?
Young claimed to be the father of James Bond. I think you have the essence of the man in his line. James Bond has only one father – Ian Fleming.

Harry Saltzman, it seems, was much more courteous to you than Young and Maibaum. Why did you work uncredited on The Ipcress File? And, given your ties to France, didn’t you work on Costa-Gavras’ Shock Troops, also produced in 1967 by Saltzman?
Courteous is not a word that could be applied to Harry Saltzman. But he wasn’t a sexist either. He was only interested in the results. He didn’t care where they came from. I wrote the first script for The Ipcress File long before the film was made. The same goes for Shock Troops. When these two films were finally made, I was no longer part of the production and did not follow the shooting.

What was your relationship like with Albert R. Broccoli?
I saw very little of Broccoli. He was more concerned with management issues, with the administrative aspects of the production, while Saltzman was the big producer, getting involved in all the little details.

Why do quite a few seemingly reliable sources claim that you worked on Goldfinger when this wasn’t the case?
I had absolutely nothing to do with Goldfinger. I think these “reliable sources” you speak of are wrong from time to time. And, once information is published, it is easier for others to copy it than to verify it – hence the repeated errors.

What exactly was your contribution to Dr. No and From Russia With Love? Did you ever meet Ian Fleming? Were you already familiar with Fleming’s novels before they were adapted for the screen?
I wrote the first screenplay for Dr. No, which enabled EON Productions to obtain a distribution contract and a financial advance from United Artists, and thus to hire two well-known screenwriters to rework my script – Richard Maibaum, who had already worked for Broccoli on The Red Beret, and Wolf Mankowitz, a very popular English writer at the time. They were the ones who made Doctor No a monkey! Faced with this bad surprise, the producers asked me to rewrite my first script, incorporating everything that could be saved from the Maibaum/Mankowitz version.

At one point there was a version of Dr. No in which Doctor No was an ape! Maibaum and Mankowitz took on this heavy responsibility as best they could! Mankowitz, once the film turned out to be a success, spread the rumour that he had expressly asked not to be credited! Richard Maibaum fared better. By the way, if I had known that he was going to contest the presence of my name in the credits of From Russia With Love, I could have contested his presence for Dr. No.

My second script seemed to be satisfactory, since it was the one used to prepare the shooting. But then I learned that Berkely Mather, a writer who had just published The Pass Beyond Kashmir, a best-selling novel about the British in India, had been asked to “masculinise” the dialogue. It should be noted that I had always used Ian Fleming’s dialogue from his book. Mather “enhanced” my script by introducing so much vulgar dialogue that Saltzman gave it back to me and asked me to cut out everything I didn’t like. Which I did! This third draft is the one that was shot. (Of course, some small changes were made, as always, during the shooting.) When he agreed to rewrite the dialogue, Mather asked not to be credited, but his agent, after attending a private screening of the film before its release, convinced him to change his mind!

As for From Russia With Love, only the first script was my own. I never met Ian Fleming – he played no part in the writing of the scripts – but yes, I had read most of his books long before they were ever considered for film.

Did the choice of Sean Connery entail any adjustments in the script of Dr. No? Did you follow the crew to Jamaica during the shooting?
The choice of Sean Connery did not entail any changes in the script of Dr. No. However, it was reworked a little when Ursula Andress (imposed by United Artists) was cast, because her physique did not match Fleming’s heroine at all. I didn’t follow the crew to Jamaica. I stayed home in Paris, writing the first script for Russia, which was already scheduled to be shot in the wake of Dr. No.

Have you followed the Bond series over the last 60 years? What do you think of its evolution? In what direction would you go today if you had to imagine a new Bond adventure?
I’ve followed the Bond series somewhat randomly through television programmes. Not enough to judge its evolution. I’m not surprised by the scale of the Bond phenomenon: the Broccoli family has managed to keep the same intangible qualities from film to film. I won’t allow myself to imagine a new Bond adventure. To each his own!

“Double or Nothing”
In the year the cinematic James Bond franchise celebrates its 60th Anniversary, 2022 also saw the publication of a new spin-off novel by Kim Sherwood. The first in a trilogy of novels introducing a new generation of Double-O agents, DOUBLE OR NOTHING was published in September 2022. Among the many ‘Easter Eggs’ scattered throughout the novel for die-hard Bond fans, is the name of one of the new Double-O agents - 003 - a certain Johanna Harwood! The real-life Johanna Harwood is one of the few surviving members of the original Dr. No (1962) production team, and the first female screenwriter of the 007 series.  It is fitting that one of the chief architects of the James Bond series, and someone who played an important part in the success of the first two films, can now be recognised for her lasting contribution to the long-running franchise.

FACT FILES