ronboakes_87114 | I stand corrected -- Re: Ian Fleming Books

For years, I've asserted that the film adaptation of an Ian Fleming novel that was the furthest from the original book was Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang.

However, I've been working through unabridged audio book recordings of the Bond books in publishing order, and have also done some poking at wikipedia, and have determined that this isn't quite true. While I'm not up to it yet, the plot summary of the novel The Spy Who Loved Me has nothing to do with the movie -- reportedly part of the agreement that Saltzman and Broccoli made with Ian Fleming for the film rights to his Bond stories.

Having just finished Moonraker I can also confirm that about the only thing the novel had in common with the movie was the name of the villain. The Bond Girl didn't even have the same name. Now that I'm into Diamonds are Forever I suspect that movie will have a bit, but not much, more relationship to the novel than Moonraker.

All that being said, Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang is still far from a faithful adaptation of the original novel, which does not say that it is a bad movie.