<P> Unlike most James Bond films featuring various locations around the world, almost the entire film is set in one country and several minutes are devoted to an elaborate Japanese wedding . This is in keeping with Fleming's original novel, which also devoted a number of pages to the discussion of Japanese culture . Toho Studios provided soundstages, personnel, and the female Japanese stars to the producers . </P> <P> The producers had Harold Jack Bloom come to Japan with them to write a screenplay . Bloom's work was ultimately rejected, but since several of his ideas were used in the final script, Bloom was given the credit of "Additional Story Material". Among the elements were the opening with Bond's fake death and burial at sea, and the ninja attack . As the screenwriter of the previous Bond films Richard Maibaum was unavailable, Roald Dahl, a close friend of Ian Fleming, was chosen to write the adaptation despite having no prior experience writing a screenplay except for the uncompleted The Bells of Hell Go Ting - a-ling - a-ling . </P> <P> Dahl said that the original novel was "Ian Fleming's worst book, with no plot in it which would even make a movie", and compared it to a travelogue, stating that he had to create a new plot "(though) I could retain only four or five of the original story's ideas ." On creating the plot, Dahl said he "didn't know what the hell Bond was going to do" despite having to deliver the first draft in six weeks, and decided to do a basic plot similar to Dr. No . Dahl was given a free rein on his script, except for the character of Bond and "the girl formula", involving three women for Bond to seduce--an ally and a henchwoman who both get killed, and the main Bond girl . While the third involved a character from the book, Kissy Suzuki, Dahl had to create Aki and Helga Brandt to fulfil the rest . </P> <P> Gilbert was mostly collaborative with Dahl's work, as the writer declared: "He not only helped in script conferences, but had some good ideas and then left you alone, and when you produced the finished thing, he shot it . Other directors have such an ego that they want to rewrite it and put their own dialogue in, and it's usually disastrous . What I admired so much about Lewis Gilbert was that he just took the screenplay and shot it . That's the way to direct: You either trust your writer or you don't ." </P>

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