Original manuscript first draft of Roald Dahl’s screenplay for the screen adaptation of Fleming’s You Only Live Twice, released in 1967 starring Sean Connery, with Dahl’s signature boldly across the title leaf. This is the most substantial Roald Dahl manuscript to exist in private hands and to come on the market in decades.
Roald Dahl, though a good friend of Ian Fleming, was an unlikely choice to write the adaptation, having never worked with screenplays before. As in virtually all film projects, several drafts were needed before the screenplay was finally approved, and Dahl quickly managed to provide a finished screenplay to the satisfaction of the producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman (though some additional story material was supplied by the television writer Harry Jack Bloom). Dahl admired Ian Fleming’s writing, and later also adapted his Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for the screen.
Many critics have commented on how much the finished screenplay of You Only Live Twice owed to Dahl’s invention, rather than Fleming’s novel. In fact, Dahl’s script set a template for the Bond film series, and his story structure would be re-used extensively in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997).
Dahl’s friendship with Ian Fleming began with their joint activities in spying. Dahl was posted to Washington as assistant air attaché (1942-3) and worked in security (1943-5). Dahl, with a successful book (The Gremlins) under his belt, became a frequent guest of Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House and their weekend retreat, Hyde Park. British Intelligence exploited his access and recruited him to spy for the British. Dahl's co-conspirators included future advertising legend David Ogilvy and Ian Fleming. The future author of the James Bond books was also high in joint intelligence circles, having worked with Colonel Bill Donovan, the special representative of President Roosevelt, on intelligence co-operation between London and Washington before Pearl Harbor. In May 1941 he accompanied Admiral Godfrey to America, staying to help write a blueprint for the office of co-ordinator of information (the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency). Both men came under the control of the British spymaster Sir William Stephenson (code-named “Intrepid”), who ran the entire complex British Intelligence network he had built up throughout North and South America. After the war Fleming and Dahl maintained their friendship, meeting frequently at the New York house of Fleming’s friend Ivar Bryce. Dahl was a great admirer of Fleming’s charisma: “There was,” he wrote later, “a great red glow when Ian came into the room”.
This screenplay comes from the significant Ian Fleming collection of Martin Schøyen (b.1940), with his bookplate within the solander box. Schøyen’s private collection of manuscripts, which span all cultures and all time periods, is one of the largest and most comprehensive of its kind.
23 янв 2023
