There I was watching From Russia with Love (1963) a couple nights ago when out popped a scene featuring brass knuckles. I tracked down the script and I learned yet another name for brass knuckles —knuckle duster. The scene takes place when Rosa Kleb (Lotte Lenya) is looking for an ultimate tough guy to take on James Bond and finds him at the killing school. His final test is an unsuspecting punch to the gut by Kleb who’s wearing a “knuckle duster.” (Sounds like knuckle duster is—or was—a term used in the UK, homeland of Bond novelist Ian Fleming. Please correct me if I’m wrong.)
For the record that knuckle duster looks pretty much of a copy of the brass knuckle design on the cover of my book Screenwriting with Brass Knuckles. In my next revision, I’ll find a way to include that scene in my book as I explain something like that the final test metaphorically to see if your script is ready is to hit it with a pair of brass knuckles. One of my friends joked at my title, “Isn’t it hard to type wearing brass knuckles?” Yes, it is.
Brass knuckles (as illegal as they are in most places) are designed to give a punch additional impact. And that was my goal in the book. In the next several days, we’ll take a look at James Bond (flaws and all) and ask why this character still packs a punch with audiences 68 years after he was created. In fact, No Time to Die comes out in a few months.
P.S. Here’s the title page of the From Russia with Love script. It says Screenplay by Richard Maibaum, and Adapted by Johanna Harwood. Is that a 1960s version of rewriting? They are co-credited on the movie, but I’m really curious about “Adapted By.” (Harwood, who turned 90 last year, I believe was to only female screenwriter on a Bond film until recently when Phoebe Waller-Bridge did work on No Time to Die.)
Related posts:
Screenwriting with Brass Knuckles Now on Sale (Forward by screenwriter Scott Beck & Bryan Woods)
Screenwriting with Brass Knuckles (Book Teaser)
A Brass Knuckles Christmas (2020) . . . and a Little Shalom
Where I Got the Idea for the Title ‘Screenwriting with Brass Knuckles’
Screenwriting from Iowa 