Some exceedingly interesting information on the script history of Diamonds Are Forever…
A fellow named Tom Mason managed to read Richard Maibaum’s early treatments of the film and has discussed them on the Licence to Queer podcast:
For the benefit of those who digest information faster by reading than listening, here’s the interesting stuff:
All three Maibaum treatments open with Bond depressed and reeling from the death of Tracy. In the first treatment we’re even told that Bond has been to a psychiatrist. The first two treatments open with Bond walking his dog on a desolate moor, possibly Scotland or Suffolk. He’s described as living like a hermit and has a framed photo of Tracy in his house, which we see as melancholic instrumental of “We Have All the Time in the World” plays. While Bond is out walking a voluptuous skydiver drops from the heavens and reveals herself as Tiffany Case.
The pre-title sequences of all three treatments feature an attack by Irma Bundt. In the first treatment there’s a long chase sequence with Bond on a motorcycle being chased by someone in a land rover. It crashes and Bond discovers the driver is Irma Bundt, disguised as a man and with diamonds on her person. The third treatment forgoes the moor setting and features a chase on the London Underground.
The third treatment shows a girl named Sandra breaking into Bond’s house and hints that Bond is not able to “perform” as he usually does. All three treatments hint that Bond is so depressed he’s less interested in sex; he doesn’t flirt with Moneypenny in the first treatment, though he sleeps with Tiffany a few pages later.
The treatments were likely written with Lazenby in mind. Only one has a date–October '69, a few months before the premiere of OHMSS. Locations differ in each treatment; the second treatment has a sequence in Barcelona, with a chase through Parc Güell, but most of the action is set in Bangkok. There’s also protracted sequence in Bond’s home, described as a mews house in Chelsea, where Bond and Tiffany are attacked by several goons. The third treatment is partially set in India and features an Oxford-educated field agent described as a “brown-skinned day David McCallum.” None of the treatments is set in Las Vegas!
In an echo from the Fleming novel Rufus B. Saye runs a diamond shop, though he’s now a Spectre agent and appears in a six-person group meeting. The third treatment has M sending Moneypenny on a mission in the field, and there’s an uncharacteristic scene of her being prudish around erotic carvings. Later on M is captured and held hostage by Blofeld in a hippie colony!
Q also goes into the field. In the first two treatments Bond takes the diamonds found on Bundt to Q for verification and sourcing. Afterwards Q is seen carrying a briefcase full of diamonds while Bond carries a similar one for paperwork. Bond swaps the briefcases and steals the diamonds.
In the second treatment M believes Bond has gone insane and sends 006 and 008 to capture him. When they find out Bond is on the level they team up with him for the final assault on Spectre. In the third treatment Bond joins Spectre, which accepts him after 006 and 008 make an attempt on his life. Bond and another Spectre agent then join forces to overthrow Blofeld.
Marc-Ange Draco returns in all three treatments. He has retired from the Union Corse and is living in an estate with Che Che, Toussaint, and Rafael as his butlers and valets. They’ve grown sick of civilian life, so when Bond reappears they’re eager to help him. In the first two treatments Draco is dramatically revealed at the end of the first act; in the third he’s randomly on the phone with Bond in the pre-titles. Draco is killed by an elephant stampede in the third treatment.
Wint & Kidd appear and are referred to in the treatments as “two American f*gs”; Wint is described as looking like Terence Stamp. There is less affection between them than in the film, though in the third treatment Wint comforts Kidd, who is afraid of flying.
The third treatment includes Tiffany’s gang rape backstory from the novel, but “amped up” and somehow dramatized. The second treatment also has a sequence, after the diamonds have been evaluated, where Bond follows Tiffany to a restaurant and sits down with her. They have a conversation where he implies he knows what she’s doing and fakes being drunk.
Maibaum was “utterly obsessed” with Blofeld being in a neck brace in all of the treatments. In all of them Blofeld tears the brace off “like a wild animal” before engaging Bond in a fist fight. In the second treatment Blofeld is killed by a tiger, which Maibaum calls poetic irony since Ernst likes cats. In the third treatment Blofeld is killed by six white kittens that Bond has somehow learned to command and sic on their owner. And in a later script (not a treatment) Bond and Tiffany find themselves in an escape pod with Wint, Kidd and Blofeld; they eject the bad guys, who are eaten by sharks.
All of the treatments have a shipboard sequence where Wint and Kidd come in as waiters and tell Bond he has a phone call. After he leaves they try to kill Tiffany with boiling oil. As in the novel, Bond abseils the outside of the ship and enters through the porthole.
