Bomber goes techno ....

Len Deighton's 1971 war thriller Bomber is emerging as one of the reguarly discussed 'unfilmed books'. This blog covered the news that there is a legitimate effort to put into production a film of the book, although this trail has gone rather cold. In addition, various web wanderings have turned up treatments of the book by individuals who are inspired by the film and want to interpret it creatively.

One such is Simon Heartfield. He has written an album of ambient/techno music inspired by the film, "Schrage Musik"is the result - it is the name given to the weapon used by German night fighters to attack RAF bombers, and is featured in the book. Simon takes up the story on his own blog:

"The album has a bit of a back story. The first piece of music I wrote called Schrage Musik; it was the opening track on his Venom and Eternity album in 2010. It was inspired by the 1994 BBC Radio production of the legendary Len Deighton's novel Bomber published in 1970, which told the story in real-time of an RAF Lancaster bomber crew and the inhabitants of the fictional German village of Altgarten, which is accidentally mistaken for the real target.

Shortly after it was released I was contacted by the author of the Len Deighton Companion, Edward Milward-Oliver who was writing a piece about the novel as it was being considered for the Lost Man Booker prize.

More intriguing than this was the news that finance was being sought for a film version of Bomber and Edward kindly passed on my details and my track to the producers with the hope that I might possibly be involved in some way. Interestingly, according to Edward, Len Deighton had said that he envisaged that a big screen version might have an electronic based soundtrack as the novel deals with the technology that is used by both the RAF and the Luftwaffe air defence system. Although the plans for a film version have not come to fruition I felt that I would still like to do something so I produced a soundtrack comprised of nine pieces inspired by the novel and radio version (which has not music of its own) which was released in 2011."

Also produced was an imagined film title sequence complete with cast and credits which can be seen online. Indeed, I had already stumbled upon Simon's soundtrack and opening titles sequence before.

The full album is available as a free download via Bandcamp from Monday 21st January.

Another side of Len Deighton ...

"Another Campari, darling?"

His backside, that is.

Not backside, but his back ... side!

What am I talking about? I’ve recently got hold of an extremely rate copy of Town magazine from Christmas 1965 – forty-eight years old but in fantastic condition. The front cover is a photo by James Mortimer that straightaway makes a serious statement about the style and verve of the swinging sixties.

The stunningly beautiful, winking woman is model Patti Boyd, later to become the wife of ex-Beatle George Harrison and blue guitarist Eric Clapton.

She is the woman who was subsequently purported to be the the inspiration for George Harrison's 'Something', 'I need you' and 'Isn't it a pity', plus Clapton's 'Layla' and 'Wonderful Tonight'. She was clearly in the sixties the ultimate hip 'It Girl' and lucky was the man who go to spend a morning in her arms.

The lucky man? Well, that’s Len Deighton of course, hence why it's on this blog. The image it conjures up gives a clue to the way in which men's expectations were changing: a pretty ‘bird’, sexually liberated, up front, enjoying drink-fuelled partying fun, with a handsome man on her arm, who clearly thinks he's struck lucky.

It's perhaps the ultimate fantasy for Town’s male readers of the to subscribe to, as the staid, buttoned-up 'fifties gave way to the 'sixties and men had to learn how to deal with greater personal independence and wealth.

Why is this picture interesting? Well, for a start, it’s the reverse image of the cover of Drinks-man-ship, edited by Len and produced by the same team working on Town magazine, which came out at the same time (in time for Christmas).

"Absolutely - make mind a double!"

An early example of integrated product marketing and advertising. Indeed, at the back of the magazine is an advert (right) in the form of an invitation to join the fun and purchase a copy of the book.

The book, now reasonably collectable, is a bawdy, alcohol-soaked paean to every manifestation of booze in all its forms, with contributions from some of London’s finest writers and reconteurs of the time.

However, it’s also interesting because it demonstrates Len’s status – three years after publication of The Ipcress File – as a writer and … well, nowadays one would refer to him as a “celebrity”.

One would think that a clinch with one of the most beautiful women in London would stay long in the memory.

But Len Deighton today has little recollection of this shoot: he was at the time, he recalls, very busy (with what he doesn't recall) and he remembers a car coming to collect him, going to a studio somewhere where some pictures were taken with the "delightful" Patti Boyd before he was whisked away.

Not a bad way to spend a morning!

[Thanks to blog reader Nick Flindall for his detective work on identifying Patti Boyd]

Thrilling history in Westminster ...

Andrew Williams, Mike Ripley, Robert Ryan

Friend of this blog, crime writer and editor of the Shotsmag journal 'Getting Away with Murder', author Mike Ripley, has informed me about an interesting session in London later this month of interesst anyone interested in historical crime and thriller fiction.

Right now I'm two chapters into the new novel Dominion, by C J Sanson. It's a thriller which takes place in a UK which made an armistice with Nazi Germany in 1940 and part of which - the Isle of Wight - is occupied by the Wehrmacht. It follows in the footsteps of such other 'alternative history' books at, of course, Len Deighton's SS-GB and Fatherland by Anthony Harris.

There is a big market for historical fiction covering all periods - Hilary Mantel recently won the Booker Prize for Bring up the bodies - and on the back of this renewed interest Mike and two other fellow authors are organising a talk in London to get their take on historical crime and thriller fiction.

Historically Criminal! sees Andrew Williams, Mike Ripley and Robert Ryan meet to talk about their take on historical crime and thriller fiction. All three are prolific established authors - below are the covers of their recent works:

Robert Ryan has been a lecturer and a journalist and has written more than fifteen books to date. In Dead Man’s Land, Dr Watson must identify a treacherous killer striking in the trenches of the First World War.

Andrew Williams directed and wrote television documentaries for twenty years before becoming an author. His first two books were short-listed for a number of awards. His latest novel, The Poison Tide centres around the life of a British spy in the First World War.

Mike Ripley is the award winning author of the Angel series of comedy thrillers and has been described as “England's funniest crime writer”. He was a scriptwriter on the BBC series Lovejoy and as a critic has reviewed over 1,000 crime novels in the last 22 years.

Mike Ripley will be chairing a hugely entertaining panel as they discuss why are so many really good thrillers are opting for historical settings these days with Andrew Williams and Robert Ryan explaining their decision to go "Historically Criminal".

Details of the event:
When: Monday 18th February 2013, 1800h*
Where: Victoria Library, Buckingham Palace Road

Update
This event took place in front of a small but enthusiastic audience. Interesting discussion about the benefits that historical fiction provides to the author, but also the challenges they face, particularly with readers who are sticklers for historical accuracy.

New Year wishes to all readers of this blog

May I wish all visitors to the Deighton Dossier blog - and the main website - a Happy New Year for 2013 and to thank you for visiting the site and for sharing your comments on a great number of the posts I've put up over the past twelve months.

Espionage fiction has been in rude health in 2012 - not least with James Bond's Skyfall proving to be box office catnip - and there's every reason to think that in 2013 we'll continue to see varied output from established authors and from writers new on the scene. If I can cover just a fraction of that good news on here, then I'll be happy.

We ended 2012 of course with Len publishing his first substantial book for many a year (see post below), giving for the first time in explicit detail his take on the origins of Bond. I know from previous conversations with Len that there are other written works on the stocks so to speak - a history of the fountain pen, and a history of the aero-engine - and it would be nice if these came to print in 2013.

As for more fiction? Well, who knows! Len's enjoying retirement and, with his 84th birthday in February and having produced over 100 books in a career that's delivered multiple international top sellers, he's perfectly entitled to have hung up his word processor for good when it comes to fiction. And after all, where does one go after the triple trilogy of the Samson series, the historical meisterwerk of Bomber or the tremendous historical re-appraising of Blood, Tears and Folly?

But ..... in the words of the title of the re-make of Thunderball to which Len contributed an early screenplay .... Never Say Never Again?

Deighton e-book published: a new take on James Bond

'Harry Palmer's creator & the father of James Bond

It's been seventeen years since Len Deighton last published a complete book: Charity, the last of the Samson triple trilogy. Readers interested in Len's writing style and knack for storytelling have had to make do with numerous forewords, a short story and a number of magazine articles.

Now, at the tail-end of 2012, he's back, back, back. To a degree.

Len returns to the world of the published author with a new electronic book, produced as a 'Kindle Single'. Sadly, it's not a new Samson novel or historical narrative (fingers remain crossed in that regard.) But it is a fascinating tale of how one of cinema's iconic figures came to be.

In a year that has seen the 50th anniversary of Ian Fleming's James Bond and the release of Skyfall to universal acclaim, Len has chosen to give his perspective - at some length, for the first time - on the origins of this most famous of screen characters and make a further contribution to the Bond mythos.

James Bond: my long and eventful search for his father, reads like a long article that one might read in The Sunday Times Magazine or an essay in The Literary Review. Published solely online - a first for Len - this 10,000-word book is available on Amazon priced £1.53.

You can find the book here.

As someone who was acquainted with Ian Fleming and Kevin McClory, the film producer who is one of the important figures in the development of the Bond mythos through his work on early drafts of From Russia With Love and subsequently on Never Say Never Again (the Thunderball remake), Len provides an unrivalled insider's view of the development of Bond as the character moved from page to screen.

Len was an insider and witness to much of what went on as the character made this transition to cinema. It is his attention to detail, and his capacity to recall in detail many of the meetings and anecdotes which, story by story, gives this book a ring of authenticity. It is also interesting to read again about the connections between the development of James Bond and the simultaneous development of Len's 'unnamed spy' character, subsequently of course Harry Palmer.

We read in the book about Len's first encounter with Ian Fleiming in said White Tower restaurant in Soho, a restaurant that "catered to soft-spoken, dark-suited tycoons, film people, politicians and advertising executives with fat expense accounts. It said a lot about Ian that he preferred such formality." It was over this lunch conversation that Fleming revealed his admiration for the agents he controlled from behind his desk in Naval Intelligence during the war; men like Merlin Minshall who were at the sharp end of the intelligence fight against the Nazis and had the colourful tales to relate.

Bond was, Deighton writes, "[Fleming's] screwball alter ego. Writing provided a chance to depict the forbidden dreams of this outwardly cool, but morose and moody Royal Naval officer."

The book goes on to recount the efforts to get Bond onto the big screen, and it is here that the story becomes interesting as it looks at the myriad elements behind Bond's creation - on screen and on the page - which have kept writers, fans and fiction historians entertained and intrigued.

The book provides an extensive re-telling of the whole story which has been document elsewhere by other authors and Bond fans in great detail, and also been the subject of extensive legal arguments over the decades. While some of the stories are familiar from previous articles, much of it seems new and refreshingly honest.

In a year in which Bond has shown himself to be the 'King Of All Cinema', Deighton maps out in compelling detail - such as his hint at the origin of the 007 moniker, and fascinating perspectives from Bond ground-zero, the bumpy road by which Bond moved from page to screen.

The last paragraph, in particular, is a real peach!

Let's hope too that, if this e-book proves a success, Len may be prompted to write more and take advantage of the world of e-publishing to reach out to his global fanbase.

Gun. Jumped.

This Friday, there may be something interesting to talk about here on this blog.

However, for various reasons, I'm not in a position to share it right now.

That explains recent changes on this blog.

Snippets from a conversation ....

I use an iPhone these days to record interviews

I was fortunate enough to catch up with Len over lunch at his club in South West London, the outcome of which was the third exclusive interview for the Deighton Dossier, which you can access by clicking the button above (along with the two other interviews exclusive to this site).

Over seven hours we talked about many more subjects than those which Len kindly responded to in the Q&A interview. Some of the things we discussed I'm not I'm afraid at liberty to repeat here - interesting though they undoubtedly are - but during our conversation there were a number of stories, anecdotes and facts which came up which I want to share with you here. I'm sure Len wouldn't mind me sharing a few of his interesting stories and asides from a life at the top of his profession as writer, producer and designer.

Try these for size:

Free gifts
Having discussed the new Bond film Skyfall, Len related to me the story of author John Gardner, who wrote one of the Bond sequel books after Fleming's death with permission from the latter's estate. One day, apparently, Gardner called up Len to tell him with glee:

"I've given Bond a SAAB!"

This was a crucial change in the Bond mythology of course, the move away from the Aston Martin.  Gardner told Len he had received a car from the makers for this act of product placement. Product placement was of course crucial to Bonds production value. Len told me that in contrast, the only time he'd received something resulting from product placement was a Sunbeam food mixer which was given to him following publication of one of his cook strips!

This wasn't the only example of a mention in a book leading to a tremendous offer of a free car. Len retold a similar tale: Ian Fleming once wrote to the head of Ferrari asking if he was happy with the use of a Ferrari in one of the recent Bond films (Len wasn’t specific about which film he was referring to). In return, the chief of Ferrari wrote back saying thank you and advising Fleming that he had gone to the top of the list for the new Ferrari; this was a valuable offer, as there were hundreds of stars and rich people on the list already. However, Fleming had to write back indicating that he did not have sufficient funds to purchase one and reluctantly had to decline the offer!

Ian Fleming

Len also told me a story about Ian Fleming in Jamaica, just after he had completed the selling of the film rights for Doctor No. He apparently sent a telegram to his neighbour in Jamaica at the time, actor, director and theatre impresario Noel Coward, asking if he would take the lead part. He sent a telegram back which said, simply, “Dr No, No, No, No”. Classic retort!

Harry Saltzman ... canny

Film producer Harry Saltzman is one of the most fascinating people that Len has known, I think. As well as being the co-producer of the first Bond films he of course got off the ground the films of Len's first three books, christening the unnamed spy character 'Harry Palmer'. Len recounted a story of how when he was working with Saltzman on The Ipcress File in London, a young producer got in touch with him indicating he’d love to get hold of an autograph from Harry, as he was one of the people he was studying to learn about the business of film-making.

The young producer had sent Len a book in the post for Harry to sign; Len gave Harry the book and asked him to sign it. He discussed with Harry what he thought he should write. Harry said he should put “please remit 3’ and 6”!

Not getting the point of promotional gifts

During the marketing push for Billion-Dollar Brain, Len's fourth book in the unnamed spy series, his designer friend Ray Hawkey - who had created the iconic cover for Ipcress File - took some of Len's original notes from his trips to Helsinki when writing the book, and turned them into a facsimile of Len's notebook.

This note book - along with a letter from the author, tickets for the opera and left luggage tags, all of which had relevance to the story - was sent out to reviewers and dealers. It looked like a personaI letter from the authors to the booksellers, and the notebook and other items looked like the real thing. So convincing was it that some booksellers sent it back saying it was very kind of the publishers to let them look at Len’s note book, but they couldn’t see what they had to do with it!

Is that a successful marketing campaign or not? Maybe.

Dove, Ark, Noah ..... do you get it?

As a designer at the Royal College of Art in the nineteen fifties, Len was a contributing editor to Ark magazine, the in-house journal which became a showcase for modern young designers to show off their ideas. I have copies of the editions which Len contributed to and I discussed them with him, asking him in particular about the special edition he produced called, simply, 'Dove'. Why was it called Dove and what was it for?

The Dove supplement, Len told me, was his attempt to give readers of Ark something free that would fall out of the magazine, increasing the perceived value; something for nothing, a bonus, he said. This was why it was so-named: it was the ‘Dove’ that came out of the ‘Ark’. This was the first time it had occurred to me to make that connection. So simple really.

He explained that the article on page three was his attempt to create the most perfectly legible newspaper article, with proper spacing and use of three fonts. Mr Buckett, who featured on the front page, was in fact the husband of the lady who made the tea at the Art School

The area at the school where he had tea with fellow students was, he said, a location used by the SOE during the war as a starting off point for agents heading off to France. The SOE arrange with United Dairies to have one pint of milk to be delivered to each mews door, to disguise the fact that the whole building was in use!

Fascinating little anecdotes. Look forward, in future, to more interviews (I hope!)