Working on abandoned James Bond film The Mask of Deception’s Mask

Sheridan Monkhouse is director of classics such as Hellmare, Platinum Desire, and The Canine Dimension. He writes exclusively for Screen Idle

Like many men and young boys, I’ve always been a huge fan of the outstanding James Bond. Sean Connery, of course, was the definitive Bond. Except, of course, dear Roger who, when it came to James Bond, gave the definitive performance.

One of the more upsetting times in my film career was directing a third Timothy Dalton James Bond picture.

A thrilling adventure called the Mask of Deception’s Mask, in which Bond has to disguise himself as another agent who is disguised as Bond and infiltrate M15 to see if he can find where M left her car keys.

It was to be a huge production, set in Washington, London, Hong Kong, Jupiter, Trumpton and a terrifying virtual reality where everything is turned a little to the left.

I was working with my great friend Tim Dalton who I’d known since we ran together in a pickpocketing gang in the London slums of the early ‘70s.

Sadly, it became increasingly clear that the story was far too catastrophically stupid to actually make into a credible film, and so we abandoned ‘Mask’ and instead it was decided we would make GoldenEye instead.

Tim and I were still onboard and the picture would be something of a reboot, opening with a spectacular stunt in which Tim bungee jumps off the Contra Dam in Switzerland.

Sadly, the stunt went tragically wrong and they were forced to recast, which is how Pierce ended up as the famous spy.

Although I was largely exonerated from blame, it was decided that it would be a little insensitive for me to remain as director and so I was never able to make a James Bond film.

I must confess through, when I watched Die another Day, I did have to question if Mask of Deception’s Mask really was that stupid after all.