James Bond film formats

[Aaron Garman]

I was reading recently about On Her Majesty's Secret Service and supposedly it was the first Bond film released in stereo sound. According to the old forum archive, prints were mono. Anyone have any further knowledge?

This also got me to thinking about the other ones. I know Thunderball was the first in cinemascope, Goldeneye the first in digital surround sound, but not sure which prints were IB tech, 70mm, Dolby Stereo, etc.

[Sam Chavez]

I'm not sure the first scope film was Thnderball. I seem to recall the second, From Russia with Love was Scope.

[Carl Martin]

they were ib up through ohmss. if ohmss was stereo it would have to have been magnetic. i have a friend with a print that i believe is mono but that's not to say there couldn't have been mag ones too.

[Mitchell Dvoskin]

From Russia With Love was NOT scope. Diamonds Are Forever was after OHMSS.

All of the James Bond films up through Diamonds Are Forever were IB Tech. . Although anything is possible, I have never had any reason to believe OHMSS was ever released in stereo.

There was a rumor for years that there were Mag Stereo prints of Thunderball, however the general consensus is that if they exist, they are Mag Mono. I personally handled a Mag Mono print of Zardoz, so Mag Mono did exist.

I know that there were dual sound inventory (separate mono and stereo) prints for Moonraker, Octopussy, and For Your Eyes Only. I do not know if there was any difference in the sound mixing other than mono/stereo.

There may have been 70mm prints of Moonraker. I know that there were 70mm prints of Octopussy.

It has been reported, with unknown accuracy, that for Moonraker, when JB punches in the door lock code for the lab in Venice, in some of the prints the tones are the James Bond theme, and in another version the tones are the "Close Encounters" tones.

Where is Michael Coate when we need him.

[Aaron Garman]

Here is the excerpt from Wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Her..._Service_(film)

As On Her Majesty's Secret Service had been filmed in stereo, the first Bond film to use the technology, the Odeon had a new speaker system installed to benefit the new sounds.^[54]

That quote's source is a book called Kiss Kiss Bang! Bang!: the Unofficial James Bond Film Companion.

Fascinating.

[Mitchell Dvoskin]

Books are like the Internet, the fact that someone wrote this does not mean it is accurate. It may be accurate, it may not be accurate. Further, it may have been filmed in stereo, and even the pre-release promotional material may have listed it as stereo, but that does not mean any stereo release prints were ever struck.

[Allan Young]

As On Her Majesty's Secret Service had been filmed in stereo, the first Bond film to use the technology, the Odeon had a new speaker system installed to benefit the new sounds.

The Odeon Leicester Square would have been screening films in stereo for years before OHMSS was released. Why would they require a new speaker system just for this title?

[Bobby Henderson]

Octopussy definitely had 70mm prints. If Moonraker had any 70mm they must have been playing in Los Angeles only. There were no 70mm prints of it in New York. With all the 70mm shows that were out in 1989 I was kind of surprised there were no 70mm in NYC for License to Kill; that was just 35mm Dolby SR only.

[Carl Martin]

All of the James Bond films up through Diamonds Are Forever were IB Tech.

according to my memory, i saw a slightly faded print of diamonds (which in itself wouldn't disprove your claim), but i checked and my memory lied: it was ib. live and let die, however, was not ib. and it's flat.

[Tim Androes]

When i saw Moonraker (Portland, OR) the door code was Close Encounters. A really funny touch.

[David Kornfeld]

Okay, kids; Ive run every one of these movies, many, many times. I dont have to look any of them up. Heres the list (these will be on the quiz):

1	Dr No	1.75	Mono	IB
2	From Russia with Love	1.66	Mono	IB	In my opinion, the best Bond ever made
3	Goldfinger	1.75	Mono	IB	OCN now almost totally faded; no seps to my knowledge. Second best Bond, in my opinion
4	Thunderball	2.35	Mono	IB	There were rumours of a mag strike; unconfirmed
5	Casino Royale	2.35	Mono	IB	Insane movie
6	You Only Live Twice	2.35	Mono	IB	Ravishing photography which only looks good in IB
7	On Her Majesty's Secret Service	2.35	Mono	IB	Some prints were slightly trimmed by several minutes
8	Diamonds are Forever	2.35	Mono	IB	Last domestic IB strike
9	Live and Let Die	1.85	Mono	EK	Rumours of a British IB strike. Unconfirmed.
10	The Man with the Golden Gun	1.75	Mono	EK	British IB strike confirmed (Ive seen it)
11	The Spy Who Loved Me	2.35	Mono	EK	The best of the Moore Bonds
12	Moonraker	2.35	Dolby A	EK	Rumours (unconfirmed) for years of a 70 strike. Would be beet red by now, if it still exists. Also, the movie is terrible.
13	For Your Eyes Only	2.35	Dolby A	EK
14	Octopussy	2.35	Dolby A	EK	70mm release prints struck (I ran one). The second best of the Moore Bonds
15	Never Say Never Again	2.35	Dolby A	EK	The last of the Connery Bonds. See note on Kevin McClory (below)
16	A View to a Kill	2.35	Dolby A	EK
17	The Living Daylights	2.35	Dolby A	EK	The best of the (two) Dalton Bonds
18	License to Kill	2.35	Dolby SR	EK	One of the worst Bonds ever
19	GoldenEye	2.35	Dolby SR-D	EK	The best of the Brosnan Bonds
20	Tomorrow Never Dies	2.35	Dolby SR-D	EK
21	The World is Not Enough	2.35	Dolby SR-D	EK	....to write a decent script!
22	Die Another Day	2.35	Dolby SR-D	EK	In my opinion, the worst Bond ever made
23	Casino Royale	2.35	Dolby SR-D	EK	Bond reboot. Nothing is sacred.
24	Quantum of Solace	2.35	Dolby SR-D	EK
25	Skyfall	2.35	Depends	DCP	Shot digitally
26	Spectre	2.35	Depends	DCP	Shot mostly digitally

Things to note:

• Most early Bonds were run to death & then treated & then released again. Treating kills the prints over time by preventing out-gassing, which is why IB Bonds are now scarce & hard to see.
• Eon was, for all the millions it raked in, a stunningly parsimonious company. Most of the early negs & elements were neither well-stored nor well preserved, leading to later archival problems.
• All the early Bonds were eventually restruck on Eastman, with varying results. Recent Goldfinger strikes look dreadful because of the faded OCN. From Russia fared a little better, but only a little: the colour on the prints Ive run is uneven. I ran a recent Eastman print of Diamonds are Forever, & it was mis-timed & off. For better or worse, the IB prints are still the way to go.....if you can ever find one to run.
• Rumours persist of mag & 70 strikes of some of the Bonds. It has to be remembered that, while the early Bonds were successful, the franchise didnt really take off into the stratosphere until the release of Thunderball. This started a spy craze in the 60s that you would have to been alive at the time to appreciate: there was spy stuff EVERYWHERE. That being said, I find the idea of Eon shelling out for mag striped 35 to be a stretch. It's possible, just unlikely. As noted above, Eon wouldnt even pay for new prints for re-releases, opting for (print-destroying) treating instead.
• Connery never forgave Broccoli for cheating him on a deal, which is why he agreed to appear in Never Say Never Again: just to stick it to Broccoli. Payback's a bitch.
• McClory -- whose story is of interest -- was the one who realised before anyone else what a moneymaker the Bond character could be in movies. He, Fleming, & Jack Whittingham collaborated on the early screenplay of Thunderball, which never managed to sell. Fleming later adapted the story into a novel, & McClory -- a born huckster if ever there was one -- successfully sued Fleming & was awarded the rights to Thunderball, which is how Never Say Never came to be made.
• Casino Royale was originally made into a simply hideous television adaptation in 1954 (never watch this). Charles Feldman ended up with the rights from a separate deal with Fleming & held into them. He initially tried to get a serious movie made from the material -- he hired Ben Hecht to script it -- but one thing led to another & the wacko & insane 1967 parody was the result, with five different directors working on five different parts of the movie. The production history of that film would fill a thick book. The finished movie made no sense, but is an interesting time capsule. The recently-deceased Nicholas Roeg was the cinematographer of one of the sequences, & boy, can you tell which one. The score -- the best film score Burt Bacharach ever composed -- was splendidly engineered but the master tapes were ruined when someone mis-wound them, which means (kind of ironically) that only way to hear what the score is actually supposed to sound like is to listen to the original Colgems stereo LPs.
• From Russia went through some major recutting before release. Original IB prints have reel 7 edge codes on a 6 reel movie.
• Theres a slight variation in the opening Goldfinger credits, depending on the strike. Also, some of the early British prints have the counter on the bomb stopping at 003, instead of the (later) altered 007.

Lots of trivia that no one needed to know......

[Thomas Hauerslev]

"Thunderball" was Panavision, not CinemaScope. Only Bonds in 70mm were "Octopussy" and "Never Say Never Again". Some of "YOLT" was filmed in 65mm, but it was not released in 70mm.

[Allan Young]

Only Bonds in 70mm were "Octopussy" and "Never Say Never Again".

Your website includes You Only Live Twice as having a Japanese 70mm release?

[Thomas Hauerslev]

I am not convinced about all these "one off" 70mm prints in Japan. I think it is very clever marketing. These claims are based on news paper adverts, and not distrib. print inventory reports etc.

[Mitchell Dvoskin]

And remember, 35mm Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, and Octopussy were duel inventory prints, with separate Dolby A and Mono prints being struck.