mercredi 8 septembre 2010

Go ahead, Blofeld : Make my day !


It was more or less known amongst film fans & movie historians that Clint Eastwood has been aproached to replace Sean Connery as James Bond in the 1970s ( Cubby Broccoli recalled the event in his memoirs ' When the Snow melts ' ) .
Director Guy Hamilton confirmed me on a couple of times that United Artists wanted a big US name to carry on the franchise .
They were even considering Burt Reynolds ( fresh from John Boorman's Deliverance ) to step into the British spy's shoes ...
At the times , Clint Eastwood was best known for his parts in the Sergio Leone so called Spaguetti Westerns ( where he played some sort of recurrent character , promptly nicknamed ' the man with no name ' by Critics & audience alike ) .
" I was offered pretty good money to do Bond , confirmed today the acclaimed actor turned director , this was after Connery left . My lawyer represented the Broccolis and he came and said ' they would love to have you ' . But to me , well, that was somebody's else's gig . That was Sean's deal . It didn't feel right for me to do it . I always like characters that are more grounded in reality . Maybe they do super things or more-than-human things - like Dirty Harry he has a knack for doing crazy things - but still they're not caped crusaders ...
Although it could be considered as pure heresy to have an American actor impersonnating Ian Fleming's creation, I for one think that some of the Dirty Harry's best lines & quips would have perfectly worked in a more serious Bond context approach ( à la Daniel Craig ) ...But not , I repeat NOT , for the tongue-in-cheek approach chosen by the film producers for the 7th entry of the Eon series , the comedy-enhanced Diamonds Are Forever ...
Many thanks to Tony Crawley for sending me the original info .

1 commentaire:

  1. I think that the offer to replace Connery actually came circa 1967 or 1968, after Connery left the first time, to be replaced by George Lazenby for 1969's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service."

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