Never Say Never Again: The Unofficial Bond Film That Challenged an Empire

Never Say Never Again stands as one of cinema's most peculiar artifacts: a James Bond film made outside the official Eon Productions machinery, born from a half-century legal dispute that began when Ian Fleming adapted an unmade screenplay without crediting its creators.

The roots trace to 1961, when Ian Fleming collaborated with producer Kevin McClory and writer Jack Whittingham on a project called Longitude 78 West intended for film. When Fleming later novelized the story as Thunderball without crediting them, McClory sued and won a 1963 settlement. As part of a deal with Eon Productions to produce Thunderball, McClory received a clause granting him rights to create his own Bond film after 10 years. Eon apparently assumed he would never exercise this option.

By the early 1980s, with Thunderball having become the biggest Bond film ever made, McClory was ready to capitalize. He assembled an unlikely coalition: Sean Connery, who felt burned by his dealings with Eon; director Irvin Kershner, fresh from The Empire Strikes Back; and writer Len Dayton. After years of legal wrangling that constrained the filmmakers to Thunderball's plot elements, the project finally reached screens in 1983.

Connery, then 52, returns as 007 in what would prove his final screen appearance in the role. The film opens not with the iconic gun barrel sequence but with a training mission set to a ballad by Lani Hall, immediately signaling its outsider status. M, played by Edward Fox rather than Bernard Lee, sends the aging Bond to a health spa to recover from dissipation, a direct lift from Fleming's novel that the Eon films had avoided.

The spa setting introduces Fatima Blush, played with manic energy by Barbara Carrera. Unlike Fiona Volpe from Thunderball, Fatima is entirely original to this adaptation. Carrera, who drew inspiration from the Hindu goddess Kali, creates a psychotic seductress who kills with the same enthusiasm she loves with. She received a Golden Globe nomination, the only Bond actress to achieve this recognition. Her influence would later be felt in characters like Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye.

The plot follows Thunderball's skeleton: SPECTRE steals nuclear warheads and demands ransom. But McClory's legal restrictions meant the story could not diverge significantly from Fleming's novel. Blofeld, played by Max von Sydow, is reduced to a minor role despite having more scenes in original cuts. Klaus Maria Brandauer's Largo lacks the menace of Adolfo Celi's version, introduced via videophone rather than commanding presence.

Supporting the mission are Bernie Casey as Felix Leiter, the first Black actor to play the role, and Rowan Atkinson as the bumbling Nigel Small-Fawcett. Atkinson, brought in with 12 hours notice for what became his first feature film role, provides comic relief that divides viewers. The character's name puns on British slang, and Atkinson himself later expressed regret about his preparation time, though he cherished working with Connery.

The film's technical execution reveals its outsider status. Michele Legrand's score, styled after 1970s spy thrillers rather than John Barry's signature sound, feels generic. The opening sequence, initially set to a ticking clock for tension, loses urgency when Lani Hall's ballad was added during assembly. A rejected version by Phyllis Hyman circulates online, though neither version fits the covert opening convincingly.

Connery himself insisted on humor, and the script obliges. When Bond infiltrates a casino, he leaves a guard holding a cigarette rigged to explode if moved laterally. A video game sequence where Bond battles Largo feels dated even now, despite being contemporary in 1983. The final act includes a jetpack sequence attempting to recapture Thunderball's iconic moment, though the effects cannot sustain the illusion.

The climactic underwater battle sees Largo defeated when Domino, played by Kim Basinger, shoots him with a harpoon. This follows Fleming's novel precisely, offering a more satisfying conclusion than Thunderball's boat sequence. The film ends with a retired Bond in the Bahamas, interrupted by Faucet bearing M's plea for his return.

Connery's final scene delivers the title's promise. Though rumors circulated for years about an alternate ending featuring Connery and Roger Moore in a fourth-wall-breaking moment, this never materialized. Connery would not play Bond again on film, though he voiced the character in the 2005 video game adaptation of From Russia with Love.

The film's legacy is complicated. It initially had the stronger opening weekend than the competing Octopussy, but ultimately grossed $160 million versus Octopussy's $185 million. Critical reception was mixed, though it rated higher on Rotten Tomatoes than its competitor. More significantly, Eon Productions has marginalized it, excluding it from most box sets and anniversary collections despite it being an official, licensed adaptation.

What the film reveals is that James Bond transcends any single element. Despite featuring Connery, Fleming's plot, a notable director, and inspired secondary characters, it lacks the intangible quality that defines an Eon production. The editing, cinematography, music, and atmosphere combine to create something that feels like a Bond film without being one.

For McClory, Never Say Never Again represented both triumph and curse. He successfully made a Bond film, but it consumed the remainder of his life. He repeatedly attempted to remake Thunderball under various titles, Warhead, Atomic Warfare, Warhead 2000 AD, pursuing Pierce Brosnan and Timothy Dalton without success. His attempts to produce a Bond television series were continuously blocked by Eon. Lawsuits continued into the 1990s, with McClory even claiming co-authorship of Bond itself and demanding compensation for all previous films.

When McClory died in 2006, just four years after Casino Royale's release, his estate reached an amicable settlement with MGM. In 2013, when MGM finally regained rights to Spectre, the 50-year legal battle finally ended. McClory never saw another film produced, having devoted decades to relitigating Thunderball rather than creating new material.

Never Say Never Again endures as a curious footnote, a film that demonstrates both the strengths of its cast and the importance of institutional filmmaking. Sean Connery proved he could still embody 007, Barbara Carrera created an indelible villain, and the script occasionally sparkles with wit. Yet the absence of the gun barrel, the generic score, and the televisual production values create a persistent sense of incompleteness. It is simultaneously a legitimate Bond film and an outsider, a reminder that some franchises transcend their source material through the alchemy of a specific creative family rather than individual talents assembled for a single project.