How an unmade TV movie almost cast the first James Bond: “We might have to settle for him”
Anyone who knows anything about James Bond, which is a lot of people considering the franchise is almost 65 years old, is aware that it was a long and winding road toward Sean Connery being cast as the first big-screen 007.
Countless names were floated by various folks involved in the production, and some suggestions even came directly from Ian Fleming. Cubby Broccoli famously had his eyes on Cary Grant, who baulked at the suggestion he sign a multi-picture deal when he was in his 50s and edging closer to retirement.
Household names, rising stars, and complete unknowns were all mentioned behind closed doors until Connery landed the gig, launching both his own career and one of cinema’s most iconic film sagas in one fell swoop when his smouldering introduction in Dr No immediately established Bond as cinema’s coolest secret agent.
However, he wasn’t the first person to play the role. Barry Nelson had played an Americanised version in a 1954 TV adaptation of Casino Royale, Bob Holness had voiced the character in a radio-only production of Moonraker, while John Payne made an audacious play to secure the rights to several stories and launch the franchise on his lonesome.
Before the company, ultimately known as Eon Productions, consolidated the rights to every Bond story ever written, as well as the entirety of Fleming’s literary back catalogue, it was a bit of a free-for-all. There was nothing stopping an actor, producer, or director from developing a 007 adventure, and one such project was a made-for-television feature of From Russia with Love.
It would have been another American affair, with James Mason having already committed to playing Bond. Inevitably, that put the shitters up Fleming a little bit, because if the picture was made and drew massive ratings, his franchise was potentially scuppered because a mainstream audience would instantly associate the three-time Academy Award nominee with the MI6 agent.
In a letter written to fellow author Ivar Bryce, Fleming relayed his concerns and admitted that if the US-backed From Russia with Love took off among the public, his hand might be forced into ending the casting conversation before it had even started. “If the worst comes to worst,” he wrote. “We might have to settle for him.”
Ironically, Christopher Lee would later recall that Fleming believed Mason to be the “perfect” person to bring Bond to life on the silver screen, a far cry from his hesitance about potentially being hamstrung by the hypothetical success of an American TV movie, making it impossible for viewers to buy anyone else as 007 in his feature-length introduction.
In the end, plans for the first From Russia with Love adaptation fell apart, leaving Fleming to breathe a sigh of relief. Mason had been eliminated from the running by doing absolutely nothing, clearing a path for Connery to make the role his own. It took a while, but looking at how Bond remained his career-defining role despite everything else the Scotsman achieved in his career, he was undoubtedly the right choice.
