Dalton Bond Double Bill
The Living Daylights (PG) Directed by John Glen. Starring Dalton, Maryam d'Abo, Jerome Krabbe. 130 mins. 1987. License to Kill. (15.) Directed by John Glen. Starring Dalton, Carey Lowell and Robert Davi. 133 mins. 1989
He wasn't Bond for long but in his two films Timothy (never Tim) Dalton really ran the gamut like a proper Duke of York. When is he was up, his was one of the best performances as Bond in the whole series, and when he was down he was a calamity: License to Kill is the Carry On Emmanuel of Bond films, a hideous, ill-conceived attempt to get with the times that just made the whole thing look ugly, sordid and ridiculous.
Nowadays you can't appreciate what a relief Dalton was when he took over the role. After the high of The Spy Who Loved Me, Moore's tenure had withered away into nothingness. Moore and the production company Eon had become a relationship where both sides knew it was time to move on, but neither could quite bring themselves to abandon the comfort and security of what they knew and risk the unknown.
In Living Daylights he wasn't the complete Bond, but then neither was Craig in Casino Royale. The freshness he brought to the role more than made up for it. When you consider Dalton, there is one word you keep coming back to – dashing. His Bond was nastier than Moore's, but also much more decent and honourable. Moore's Bond film were like funfair Le Carre, a big cynical game played out in a tired bitter world that had long since forgotten what the point was. Bond films were made because that was what they had always done and nobody had thought to question why. Suddenly with Dalton, something was at stake again. Apart from On Her Majesty Secret Service, Living Daylights is the most romantic of the Bonds, with 007 going all gooey eyed over cellist Kara (d'Abo.)
The Living Daylights needs his commitment, it drives it out of the complacent mediocre rut the Bond films had got stuck in. After Moonraker, which was an enormous hit but also enormously expensive to make, the producers decided to downscale. Part of this included promoting loyal company man John Glen, who first worked for them on On Her Majesty's Secret Service, to the director's chair for the last three Moore films. His Bonds are bland, punctual and efficient and retaining his services for the Daltn era was a mistake - he wasn’t the man to shape a new vision of Bond.
Still Living Daylights has plenty of good moments culminating in a fight while hanging out of the back of a cargo plane over Afghanistan, a stunt which still looks impressive today. (Sadly it is followed by the weakest finale of any of the films – a shoddily set up assassination over a toy battlefield that is such an abrupt comedown it feels like a reel is missing and looks like it was lifted from the film version of Callan.) Living Daylights is also the last Bond film to feature a score by John Barry which gives the film a certain majesty. Apart from A-Ha's title track he also collaborated on a couple of really fine Pretenders songs – If There Was A Man, Where Has Everybody Gone
Dalton is great as a romantic lead, but he is less sure with the lechery: he's all Jim Dale but no Sid James. There is a moment when he gets picked up at gun points by two attractive ladies who promise to take him to party. When they reveal themselves as CIA types delivering him to Felix Leiter and apologise for the guns he says it's OK as long as we're still on for that party later and it's a cringey moment, Radio 1 DJ awkward. Partly, because by this time we are supposed to believe his feelings for Kara are sincere, but mostly because it's supposed to be a light flippant moment and Dalton's Bond can never lighten up.
Which brings us to License To Kill. If Dalton's earnest sincerity lifts Living Daylights into the realms of the really good Bond movies, it accentuated all the miscalculations and bad ideas that caused License to Kill to be such an abomination. It starts with Felix Leiter having his legs being bitten off by a shark and his wife killed, all on their wedding day. Bond then has his license to kill revoked when he goes charging off to get revenge on the South American drug lords behind it. Like Tory governments, the Bond movies inherent weakness is a cyclical desire to go back to basics, an almost mythic belief that beneath all the flim flam there lies something lean and pure. Here though they go so basic that they made an 80s action movie except instead of a Chuck Norris, Van Damme or Dolph Lundrgen in the lead role, there somebody doing a second rate parody of James Bond. License to Kill is like a Cannon movie that through some dreadful accounting error heaps of money has been spent on. Just like Carry On Emmanuel it fails because it makes explicit what was left ambiguous, slices down the entendres from double to single and repositions the series to a level that is far beneath it, that is an insult to its legacy. They aim at the lowest common denominator, and miss. Carry On Emmanuel has more nude shots of Kenneth Williams than Suzanne Danielle; License to Kill has a straight-to-video synopsis that it is just a bit too aloof to really commit to. Nobody wins.
It really struck down Dalton’s interpretation, cut it off at the knees. He had nothing Bondish to work with and he was left badly exposed and looks pretty foolish. A protracted lawsuit that kept the series in hiatus for a number of years and the film’s box office performance – unspectacular globally, disastrous in America – meant that Dalton never got another chance.
And it wastes one of the best Bond tunes. Gladys Knights' performance of the title song is glorious, even if she insists on singing License to Kit.
Dalton Bond Double Bill
The Living Daylights (PG) Directed by John Glen. Starring Dalton, Maryam d'Abo, Jerome Krabbe. 130 mins. 1987. License to Kill. (15.) Directed by John Glen. Starring Dalton, Carey Lowell and Robert Davi. 133 mins. 1989
He wasn't Bond for long but in his two films Timothy (never Tim) Dalton really ran the gamut like a proper Duke of York. When is he was up, his was one of the best performances as Bond in the whole series, and when he was down he was a calamity: License to Kill is the Carry On Emmanuel of Bond films, a hideous, ill-conceived attempt to get with the times that just made the whole thing look ugly, sordid and ridiculous.
Nowadays you can't appreciate what a relief Dalton was when he took over the role. After the high of The Spy Who Loved Me, Moore's tenure had withered away into nothingness. Moore and the production company Eon had become a relationship where both sides knew it was time to move on, but neither could quite bring themselves to abandon the comfort and security of what they knew and risk the unknown.
In Living Daylights he wasn't the complete Bond, but then neither was Craig in Casino Royale. The freshness he brought to the role more than made up for it. When you consider Dalton, there is one word you keep coming back to – dashing. His Bond was nastier than Moore's, but also much more decent and honourable. Moore's Bond film were like funfair Le Carre, a big cynical game played out in a tired bitter world that had long since forgotten what the point was. Bond films were made because that was what they had always done and nobody had thought to question why. Suddenly with Dalton, something was at stake again. Apart from On Her Majesty Secret Service, Living Daylights is the most romantic of the Bonds, with 007 going all gooey eyed over cellist Kara (d'Abo.)
The Living Daylights needs his commitment, it drives it out of the complacent mediocre rut the Bond films had got stuck in. After Moonraker, which was an enormous hit but also enormously expensive to make, the producers decided to downscale. Part of this included promoting loyal company man John Glen, who first worked for them on On Her Majesty's Secret Service, to the director's chair for the last three Moore films. His Bonds are bland, punctual and efficient and retaining his services for the Daltn era was a mistake - he wasn’t the man to shape a new vision of Bond.
Still Living Daylights has plenty of good moments culminating in a fight while hanging out of the back of a cargo plane over Afghanistan, a stunt which still looks impressive today. (Sadly it is followed by the weakest finale of any of the films – a shoddily set up assassination over a toy battlefield that is such an abrupt comedown it feels like a reel is missing and looks like it was lifted from the film version of Callan.) Living Daylights is also the last Bond film to feature a score by John Barry which gives the film a certain majesty. Apart from A-Ha's title track he also collaborated on a couple of really fine Pretenders songs – If There Was A Man, Where Has Everybody Gone
Dalton is great as a romantic lead, but he is less sure with the lechery: he's all Jim Dale but no Sid James. There is a moment when he gets picked up at gun points by two attractive ladies who promise to take him to party. When they reveal themselves as CIA types delivering him to Felix Leiter and apologise for the guns he says it's OK as long as we're still on for that party later and it's a cringey moment, Radio 1 DJ awkward. Partly, because by this time we are supposed to believe his feelings for Kara are sincere, but mostly because it's supposed to be a light flippant moment and Dalton's Bond can never lighten up.
Which brings us to License To Kill. If Dalton's earnest sincerity lifts Living Daylights into the realms of the really good Bond movies, it accentuated all the miscalculations and bad ideas that caused License to Kill to be such an abomination. It starts with Felix Leiter having his legs being bitten off by a shark and his wife killed, all on their wedding day. Bond then has his license to kill revoked when he goes charging off to get revenge on the South American drug lords behind it. Like Tory governments, the Bond movies inherent weakness is a cyclical desire to go back to basics, an almost mythic belief that beneath all the flim flam there lies something lean and pure. Here though they go so basic that they made an 80s action movie except instead of a Chuck Norris, Van Damme or Dolph Lundrgen in the lead role, there somebody doing a second rate parody of James Bond. License to Kill is like a Cannon movie that through some dreadful accounting error heaps of money has been spent on. Just like Carry On Emmanuel it fails because it makes explicit what was left ambiguous, slices down the entendres from double to single and repositions the series to a level that is far beneath it, that is an insult to its legacy. They aim at the lowest common denominator, and miss. Carry On Emmanuel has more nude shots of Kenneth Williams than Suzanne Danielle; License to Kill has a straight-to-video synopsis that it is just a bit too aloof to really commit to. Nobody wins.
It really struck down Dalton’s interpretation, cut it off at the knees. He had nothing Bondish to work with and he was left badly exposed and looks pretty foolish. A protracted lawsuit that kept the series in hiatus for a number of years and the film’s box office performance – unspectacular globally, disastrous in America – meant that Dalton never got another chance.
And it wastes one of the best Bond tunes. Gladys Knights' performance of the title song is glorious, even if she insists on singing License to Kit.
