A different way of telling a story

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Originally broadcast more than twenty years ago during the long gap between Bond films Licence To Kill and Goldeneye, Spymaker: The Secret Life Of Ian Fleming has only recently been released on DVD as part of the Warner Archive Collection after having long been out of print on VHS. Claiming to be based on Fleming's life and exploits which inspired the creation of Bond, this TV movie also cast Jason Connery (the actor son of Sean Connery) in the role of Fleming. So is Spymaker a good Fleming biopic or a even a good movie? As a movie, Spymaker fares decently While Jason Connery's stunt casting is both obvious and far from original, he nevertheless does a fair job as Fleming. Despite both a complete lack of physical similarity to the real Fleming and coming across as wooden in a couple of occasions, Connery does a better than expected turn covering the Bond creator from his school days through the Second World War. The result, while still more of a stunt than anything else, doesn't do the movie any harm either.More successful is the supporting cast. The biggest highlight of which is undoubtedly a young Kristen Scott Thomas who comes across well as Leda St Gabriel, a character intended to be the Bond girl prototype. The cast also includes former Bond girl Fionna Fullerton who appears for a couple of minutes very early on while Julian Firth and Marsha Fitzalan do well as characters clearly inspired by the Q and Moneypenny of the Bond films. The supporting cast is nicely rounded out by David Warner as Admiral Godfrey, Patrica Hodge as Fleming's mother and Joss Ackland as General Hellstein.The production values are perhaps better than average for a TV movie, especially one doing a period setting. The sets and costumes call up much of the movie's period flavor from the wonderful evening gowns in the casino scenes to the weapons and uniforms seen during the film's second half. Veteran TV director Ferdinand Fairfax does a superb job of directing the movie and making what must have been a fairly small budget to good use. The only place where the limited budget becomes obvious in a couple of moments involving special effects shots that don't quite work but the results are good overall.Despite its subtitle, viewers thinking they're going to get an accurate depiction of Fleming's life must instead take what Spymaker presents with a grain of salt for it can at best be called heavily fictionalized. While it certainly contains many kernels of truth, the script by veteran TV movie writer Robert J. Avrech often takes them and crafts them into bigger events. Examples include the section featuring Fleming covering the Moscow show trial of British engineers accused of sabotaging Soviet factories and a sequence later on where Fleming plays Baccarat against German General Hellstein in Lisbon, an incident based on a real event where Fleming played against a German agent but in both cases are significantly altered.Indeed, Spymaker draws far more on the cinematic Bond than the literary Bond or Fleming's life. Examples include the entirely fictional characters of gadget master Quincy (played by Julian Firth) , secretary Miss Delaney (Marsha Fitzalan) and the almost Blofeld like German General Hellstein played by Joss Ackland. Fleming also spends a good deal of screen time in a tuxedo, visiting a couple of casinos and a couple of martinis shaken not stirred are ordered all in Bond film tradition. Last but not least, the climactic (and entirely fictional) castle assault calls to mind similar sequences in numerous Bond films but perhaps none more so than that of You Only Live Twice. There are also moments where the score by Carl Davis evokes some of the John Barry style of Bond music as well.In other places, Spymaker is closer to life. Kristen Scott Thomas' Leda St Gabriel shares characteristics with some of the woman in Fleming's life around the time the movie is set while a scene where Fleming presents a rather unorthodox plan to his boss Admiral Godfrey which leads Fleming to ask if he got his memo and Godfrey's response that "You send me a hundred memos a week!" calls to mind some of Fleming's more outlandish wartime plans. Also, while the aforementioned castle assault is entirely fictional, it does echo some of commando operations carried out by the 30 Assault Unit that Fleming helped to organize (and which itself was the subject of the heavily fictionalized film Age Of Heroes). All in all, readers of Fleming biographies or even those who have seen the Fleming biography extra on the various DVD and Bluray releases of the Bond film The Living Daylights will likely be able to spot a lot of Spymaker's often considerable fictionalizations.Spymaker then is far heavier on fiction than fact. On one hand, it perhaps tries too hard at times to make connections with the world of Bond films with its mix of fact and fiction coming across at times as forced. What it is perhaps better as is an attempt to do a pseudo-Bond film in a period setting and it's indeed interesting to contemplate that, with a few changes, Spymaker could almost as easily be the origin story of Bond as it is a biopic of his creator. For its faults as a Fleming biopic then, Spymaker could easily be the closest things fans are likely to get to a period Bond film and for that reason alone is worth seeking out.

I found The Secret Life of Ian Fleming more entertaining than any James Bond film that I have ever seen, though I will readily admit that I am not a fan of the series or the genre. The obviously low-budget nature of the film contributed towards an emphasis on story (though obviously a somewhat exaggerated one), rather than on gimmickry and gadgetry. You felt that even though the story undoubtedly didn't happen as it appeared on screen, that it COULD have happened like that - the bounds of credibility weren't stretched too far. Jason Connery showed that although he doubtless got the part because of his name, he was quite capable of playing it well. Kristin Scott Thomas, in an early role, is as usual outstanding (not to mention breathtakingly lovely) - there is ample evidence of the skill that has made her the pre-eminent actress of her generation. Throw in a good supporting cast with the likes of Patricia Hodge, Joss Ackland (one again doing malevolence to a tee), David Warner and Colin Welland, and you have an entertaining hour and a half to pass the time with.

The impact of James Bond, 007, on 20th century popular culture is such that we deserve to know something of his creator. The details of the character and the situations into which he is thrust suggest that it would be beyond anyone's imagination to conjure up in a vacuum. Clearly Bond must have been based on a model, and this film leaves us in doubt that Fleming's own life forms at least part of the myth.The film is of course a hokey collection of picaresque adventures that strain the credulity of the 90's viewer (unlike the 60's spectator who was only too ready to accept the then-novel portrayal of romance and derring-do of our nations' finest), but it is strangely satisfying in at least giving us some insight into the shadowy world of the spy and his typical background.The choice of Jason Connery as the eponymous hero was certainly an exercise in the bleeding obvious, and transparently the casting decision of a cynical producer seeking a large audience of the curious; but Connery was arguably the perfect actor for the role. No doubt his looks owe more to the young Bond than the young Fleming, but he makes a plausible philandering wastrel from the British upper classes, the victim of a well-connected domineering mother struggling to find something useful for him to do that might engage his attention long enough for him to become respectable and self-sufficient. Unlike so many of that breed whose very existence repulses the less favoured, his larrikin spirit is engaging and sympathetic and we cannot help ourselves from wishing him well.A good supporting cast, with Patricia Hodge as his mother and Kristin Scott-Thomas as Leda St Gabriel, the initially cool and eventually hot colleague and love interest help to suspend the disbelief - and there are OK performances by David Warner as his boss, presumably the model for 'M'; and Julian Firth's college chum Quincey leaves us in no doubt that he was the basis for the eccentric inventor 'Q' of the Bond films.If there is a grain of truth in the events portrayed we have an insight into the genesis of the 007 phenomenon, and while we are spared the interminable periods of inactivity and boredom that probably are the lot of the average 'spy', we have a sense of the influences that make it possible for some to dare to take on the enemy alone.

Fiction grounded in fact best describes this film. While they got the basics right, most of it is fantasy. The film focuses on young Ian Fleming's life, from his time as a Reuters' co-respondent in Moscow in the early 1930's to his genuine wartime position as the Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence, Admiral Sir John Godfrey.There are plenty of Bondian references, some easy to spot, and some apparent only to the true fanatic. Jason Connery does a good job on an entertaining and amusing film, but the ending is too melodramatic for my liking.