Commune

rif. 74293 — N.p. London: Elstree Studios 1960. Literary and cinematic critique Elstree Studios' unfavourable report of Ian Fleming's Thunderball written three months before publication from page proofs submitted by publisher Jonathan Cape. Pp.4 typed report on ABPC letterhead rectos only reader's delivery stamp to first page dated 13 December 1960. Perforations down left edge from office binding. Very well preserved. The ninth James Bond title Thunderball was published on 27 March 1961. Jack Common's reader's report notes that Cape submitted page proofs to the studio on 11 December 1960 and that Common submitted his report to the studio two days later. His conclusions were damning and as it turned out wildly inaccurate: 'Pretty much the same mixture as before plus a few modern 'props' in the way of nuclear bombs and atomic submarines. . Suspense sags for long stretches . All through the main story this excessive use of modern gadgetry proves no substitute for character and invention: it registers as padding. These defects would be certain to show up more disastrously on the screen. I feel this story would not produce a successful film. No recommendation.' The man who wrote the Elstree reader's report for Thunderball was Jack Common 1903-1969. A regular moonlighter at Elstree's Reading Department Common was a working class socialist novelist and essayist from Newcastle who became friends with George Orwell when both were writing for The Adelphi magazine early in their careers. Common rose to edit The Adelphi in 1935-6 but could never make an adequate living from his published writing despite critical acclaim and in the last years of his life wrote Elstree innumerable reader's reports before his death from lung cancer in 1969. Originally meant as the first James Bond film that notion was quietly shelved as the Thunderball controversy ensued; it was the centre of legal disputes that began in 1961 and ran until 2006. In late 1964 after much negotiation Broccoli & Saltzman agreed with Fleming's one-time story collaborator Kevin McClory to adapt the novel for film with due reverence to McClory and screenwriter Jack Whittingham. Against a budget of $9M the film took $141.2M at the box office. N.p. [London: Elstree Studios], 1960 unknown