The field of historical fiction took a blow on Wednesday with the death of George McDonald Fraser.
Born in Carlisle in 1926, Fraser had careers in the military and journalism before writing novels and non fiction in his spare time. One abandoned novel featured the bully from Tom Brown's Schooldays, which was returned to only at his wife's insistence. The Harry Flashman series ran to 12 novels making Fraser famous. He also wrote screenplays such as the two Richard Lester Musketeers films and Octopussy. George McDonald Fraser died from cancer on January 2 2008.
Comments
Being a huge Bond fan I loved his script for Octopussy.
I thought that was a very entertaining chapter in the Roger Moore era and perfectly captured how good Moore could be as Bond.
McDonald Fraser wrote the films first draft which was then taken over by veteran Bond writer Richard Maibaum.
Would have been great had Fraser written another one, oh well.
In reference to the Musketeers films, originally it was 1 huge script which was simply spliced down the middle making for 2 films.
Both films were made at the same time - with teh actors assuming they were only making 1 big epic.
The resulting legal battle bought on by the actors ensured that never again could producers pay actors for 1 movie where in reality they were acting in 2.
Enough with the history lesson - Octopussy is his great cinematic epitath in my eyes....RIP George McDonald Fraser.
I wonder how his script and the re-write differed. I seen where they were no resemblance between the two on some films. How many films and books are two widely seperate stories with little in commom eg. I Robot or should it be called I Will Smith
I Robot would be a difficult proposition to film as written, as anthology type films are out of fashion. For what it's worth I thought they did a fair job in the issues of the robot series, even if there was too much Will Smith hitting things.
