SPECTRE (1963). The film adaptation of "From Russia with Love" also features the first on-screen appearance of Blofeld, although he is only identified by name in the closing credits of the film and his face is not seen at all. SPECTRE also serve as the primary antagonists of the film, orchestrating a plan to humiliate and kill James Bond as revenge for the death of Dr. No. After being absent from the third film, "Goldfinger" (1964), SPECTRE returns in the 4th film, "Thunderball" (1965), which closely mirrors the events of the novel, and subsequently is featured in the following films. During
SPECTRE characters were at the centre of long-standing litigation between Kevin McClory and Ian Fleming over the film rights to "Thunderball" and the ownership of the organisation and its characters. In 1963, Fleming settled out of court with McClory, which awarded McClory the film rights to "Thunderball," although literary rights would stay with Fleming and thus allow continuation author John Gardner to use SPECTRE in a number of his novels. In 1963, Eon Productions producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman made an agreement with McClory to adapt the novel into the fourth James Bond film, also stipulating that McClory would