Getting away with things in the James Bond Novels that you can't do in the James Bond Films?

By way of a prelude to this thread I'm of course fully aware that books and films are two very different mediums of storytelling, but nonetheless this is a question that has cropped up in my mind for a long time when considering the James Bond films more in-depth as I am apt to do frequently.

I'm thinking here of the scenes in the original Ian Fleming James Bond novels (and of course the many continuation Bond novels afterwards by various authors) that are fine enough in a novel on the written page. In a book, the dear reader can use their fevered imagination as much as he or she pleases in order to bring the author's words to life in the form of a personalised visual image. However, on film such a scene would cause problems with the censors (the Honey Rider crab scene in Dr. No for instance which was greatly toned down in the film version) or for reasons of good taste, overly long scenes of dialogue, for political and motal reasons etc.

Another thought is why these scenes or even types of villains are fine in books - e.g. having neo-Nazis a s villains in John Gardner's Icebreaker (1983) and SeaFire (1994) but would not ever really be countenanced an official Bond film by Eon. Of course other spy films based on books have featured neo-Nazis (one thinks of The Quiller Memorandum (1966) based on the novel by Adam Hall), so why do neo-Nazis never feature in a Bond film? Probably for the same reason the New IRA,  ISIS or Al-Queada will not either - it dates the film, is too overtly political/current affairs-like for the Eon Bond film series. The graphic I posted above illustrates the dangers of making a Bond film which involves, say, Islamic extremist villainy better than I could ever encapsulate it in words!  

Anyway, this fine line between what is acceptable in an official Bond novel and an official Bond film is of great interest to me (and hopefully others here, too). So what are the basic differences between the nature of the Bond novels and the Bond films that preclude certain scenes,characters, themes, dialogue, villains, villain organisations etc.? Basically, why is it fine in one of the main two strands of the Bond character construct but not in the other strand? This is the crux of what I want to discuss in this thread.

Take it away, Sam...

The pontificating over how women secretly enjoy "the sweet tang of rape."

The persistent chainsmoking would've perhaps been overkill on film.

Err... the big squid monster in DN?

Once upon a time I may have thought that the CR torture scene could never be filmed but, credit where credit's due, Bond's balls were indeed walloped.

The smoking's an interesting one - screen Bond was a smoker into the early Noughties (DAD's cigar). Craig's Bond hasn't been seen smoking ... oddly, it seems to be considered to be more acceptable to show him drinking too much.

I guess there's scope in the modern movies for Q to supply him with an e-cigarette that emits stun-gas or something.

The way it's heading now, that e-cigarette would probably double as a dildo.

It's been a while since I've read all the novels, so I'm going to flip this slightly.

First of all, I think Nazi's would make an interesting villain, and maybe they'll make a comeback in a Bond film, but the books I don't recall had much in the way of Nazi's as villains. ICEBREAKER would be a great novel to adapt, but maybe have to do it as a retro piece. Then again, with what's going on in the world today, maybe not such a huge leap to make.

Zorin was offspring of Nazi experiments, so the movies did touch upon the subject somewhat.

What about things you used to be able to do in the movies but not anymore? Examples:

Bond forcing a kiss on Pussy Galore and Octopussy.

Any reference that touches upon a cultural uniqueness or idiosyncrasy such as "I give you best duck" or 'That should keep them in curry for a few weeks.'

Blofeld could no longer disguise himself in drag, because that would be offensive to the transgender/transvestite/gender-fluid/gender-queer/non-binary/two-spirit "community".

No kung-fu action scenes in MWTGG or TND, as that stereotypes Asians.

Joseph Wiseman could no longer play Dr.No, because he was not Asian.

Pretty much anything in India in Octopussy would have to be jettisoned, because Bond's taxi chase through the streets showed racist indifference to the people Britain once colonized. This was actually a criticism of the free-running action sequence in Casino Royale by one critic who thought Bond was racist for driving a bull-dozer through a construction site full of black workers.

Maud Adams would not be allowed to play Octopussy, as that role would need to go to an Indian actress in order to maintain cultural sensitivities.

Bond and Kara dressing up in Afghan clothing: that would be cultural appropriation.

Bond disguising himself as Japanese: that's yellow-facing.

No smoking.

Sheriff JW Pepper could stay as is, and probably Zorin to, since Zorin today is essentially Donald Trump (and we all know how much Hollywood loves them some Donald Trump), and the portrayal of white men as racists and rednecks never gets old or out of style.

In ten years we'll add to this list: Bond making love to a woman.

FieldsMan wrote:

The way it's heading now, that e-cigarette would probably double as a dildo.

Bloody hell.

That'll bring tears to your eyes.

I suppose as others have mentioned Bond smoking is definitely a thing of the past. Maybe if marijuana legalization comes to the U.K. then Bond might suddenly out of the blue develop a sudden chronic back problem and require a "natural remedy" to help ease the pain but that's as far as I see smoking goes in Bond films.

Also, at this point I can't see Bond knocking off the villain by burying him alive in bat guano like Doctor No although if Disney does take over at some point I would say anything's possible then.

Can picture Dr No's original demise making it into a Moore film, possibly accompanied by the one-liner 'The shit's really hit the man'.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Can picture Dr No's original demise making it into a Moore film, possibly accompanied by the one-liner 'The shit's really hit the man'.

Or Brosnan:

"You're in deep shit". 

I suppose the other thing that I wanted to highlight in the OP of this thread (not sure that I did well enough) was why it is OK for there to be villains like neo-Nazis (or say, Islamists) in the Bond novels, as opposed to the Bond films.

Is it that the novels are read much less (especially the continuations of course) than the Bond films are seen, or what?

This is what actually fascinates me most of all about this topic.

It was a conscious decision early on for the films to remain apolitical to further their reach in international markets.

North Korea took DAD personally enough. Then we all did fifteen years ago.

15 years on and we still haven't disproven the theory that Richard Branson is, in fact, a race-shifting North Korean officer.

FieldsMan wrote:

It was a conscious decision early on for the films to remain apolitical to further their reach in international markets.

I also read once that Cubby and Saltzman felt that too much emphasis on the Cold War would date the films too much.

Golden Gun was the first 007 flick to be shown in Russia ... apparently at the screening for the Soviet authorities, the revelation that Scaramanga was KGB-trained led to them making some sort of crack about how they hadn't trained him well enough.