James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me is the official novelization of the 1977 Eon "James Bond" film "The Spy Who Loved Me", which was itself inspired to the homonimous 1962 novel by Ian Fleming. When Ian Fleming sold the film rights to the James Bond novels to Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, he only gave permission for the title "The Spy Who Loved Me" to be used. Since the screenplay for the film had nothing to do with Fleming's original novel, Eon Productions, for the first time, authorised that a novelization
Motifs in the James Bond film series appears in nine Eon Bond films: four out of the six Connery films, one film with Moore, both Dalton instalments and none with Brosnan (where Bond's CIA contact is Jack Wade), but returned for Craig's; he is also not in George Lazenby's sole Bond film. In the Eon series, there were no Leiter film appearances between 1973 and 1987 and no Leiter appearances between 1989 and 2006. Although other recurring characters in the Eon series, such as M, Q and Moneypenny, had continuity within the actors, the character of Leiter has not. In the nine Eon films in which Leiter