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How TLD came so close to being the quintessential 007 movie
AceHole
Belgium, via Britain
This post is this not only because I’m partial to the film (always in my top 5), but I feel that if it had been fine-tuned a bit more before shooting, The Living Daylights could have quite possibly been the ultimate Bond film, period.
That, and also cos I’m bored and waiting for some decent official B24 news…
Indulge me, if you will, for just a moment.
Eon pulled all the stops out for TLD because it simply had to score big on thrills & visuals to establish a new Bond after public darling Moore retired. It was most likely written first for Roger Moore, then edited with Brosnan in mind, and only a few minor script details were made once Dalton came on board. IF EoN had taken a bit more time to tailor the script to Dalton’s strengths (although he does very well with it) – ie. dispensed with the Moneypenny silliness and made an effort to write the main villains properly - then I venture that TLD would be on a par with FRWL and CR.
Things that could have been done better:
- Minor script changes to dispense with silliness (Moneypenny, Cello-on-snow…)
- Slightly better lines for Kara (although I think she has more charm than most other Bond girls…)
- Cast Koskov and Whitaker properly, and give them a slightly stronger script to work with
Things TLD already does better than 90% of all the Bond films:
- Pre title sequence, up there with the very best
- Strong 007 - whether you like Dalton or not, he made Bond utterly believable for perhaps the very first time. His scenes with M & Saunders, in particular, are top-notch.
- Real cold war plot. Not ‘complicated’ as many state, merely more intricate than most Bond films
- Best use of Ian Fleming’s material in the series (Sniper / defection)
- Superior stunt set pieces - Defection, Safe house, Mid-air fight, Escape from C-130 cargo plane, and possibly the best Aston Martin chase of the whole series
- Magnificent score by John Barry, one his very best
Many will still not agree with me, of course, but you can see what I’m getting at, surely…
That, and also cos I’m bored and waiting for some decent official B24 news…
Indulge me, if you will, for just a moment.
Eon pulled all the stops out for TLD because it simply had to score big on thrills & visuals to establish a new Bond after public darling Moore retired. It was most likely written first for Roger Moore, then edited with Brosnan in mind, and only a few minor script details were made once Dalton came on board. IF EoN had taken a bit more time to tailor the script to Dalton’s strengths (although he does very well with it) – ie. dispensed with the Moneypenny silliness and made an effort to write the main villains properly - then I venture that TLD would be on a par with FRWL and CR.
Things that could have been done better:
- Minor script changes to dispense with silliness (Moneypenny, Cello-on-snow…)
- Slightly better lines for Kara (although I think she has more charm than most other Bond girls…)
- Cast Koskov and Whitaker properly, and give them a slightly stronger script to work with
Things TLD already does better than 90% of all the Bond films:
- Pre title sequence, up there with the very best
- Strong 007 - whether you like Dalton or not, he made Bond utterly believable for perhaps the very first time. His scenes with M & Saunders, in particular, are top-notch.
- Real cold war plot. Not ‘complicated’ as many state, merely more intricate than most Bond films
- Best use of Ian Fleming’s material in the series (Sniper / defection)
- Superior stunt set pieces - Defection, Safe house, Mid-air fight, Escape from C-130 cargo plane, and possibly the best Aston Martin chase of the whole series
- Magnificent score by John Barry, one his very best
Many will still not agree with me, of course, but you can see what I’m getting at, surely…
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Comments
I think for me it would have been great if there'd been a bit more of the serious espionage stuff from the first half.
Amazing score though, and I think Dalts makes a great first stab at the role.
Although I missed Roger Moore at the time, Dalton slipped into the role comfortably and brought a realism & believability to it that was refreshing. I was looking forward to a long tenure for him.
The bit with Saunders and the gun in Vienna is one of the standouts to me. Reminds me so much of that scene with Kerim in FRWL. Dark, espionage-like & beautifully shot. Recently, the China SF scene also brought that same feeling back. All dealing with assassins/sniper type situations.
Pre-titles was also fantastic. “Hold on, you're dead!”
John Barry's best score (apart from OHMSS or TB) & a testament to the man's genius. What a way to go out on top.
My problem was with the casting. I thought that Art Malik & John Rhys-Davies were perfectly cast, as was Andreas Wisniewski (if a bit of a cliche - blonde thug). However, the following were miscast:
1. Maryam d'Abo (a bit plain jane for me). If Isabella Scurupco had this role this movie would be in my top 3
2. Jeroen Krabbé - clown.
3. Joe Don Baker - again, clown. Much better as Wade.
It's amazing whenever I watch this movie that we are now fighting the same guys who we were buddies with in Afghanistan. Strange world.
So I thought it was a very promising start for Dalton after AVTAK, and recaptured the '60s' Bond feeling in my mind. Unfortunately, they did not build on this with LTK, but rather unpredictably took a detour in style that the public did not take to (regretably).
I thought Maryam d'Abo was good. Agreed, she doesn't set the screen on fire, but her relationship with Dalts is very convincing. One of the better Bond girls IMO. In a way, the fact she isn't just eye candy helps the film.
I thought Krabbe was good but what his performance lacked was a peeling away of the clownish exterior to reveal a truly unpleasant and nasty villain inside - he sort of plays it for laughs right upto the end. In the scene where he betrays Kara, he should have just become utterly emotionless. I'm sure Krabbe was capable.
I don't like Joe Don Baker in TLD or as Wade.
Yes, Bond teaming up with the Taliban is a little 'unfortunate'.
You're probably right. She played well off Tim. I just found her a bit plain physically. I think Dalton deserved someone a little more alluring (i.e. Scorupco). That's a deeply personal opinion of course (and one that is likely not shared by others), but it did influence my view (somewhat subconsciously) of the movie.
Krabbe can be good. He was good in the Fugitive. You're right though - he played it for laughs, as did Baker. Maybe as a counterpoint to Tim's straight portrayal of Bond
Was never a fan of Scorupco - I find her performance way more bland than D'Abo's.
I assume that when they cast D'Abo they were looking for a Natasha Kinski lookalike. They may even have tried to cast Kinski, for all I know - she was one of the 'it' girls of the moment in 87. I think Kinski would have brought the required level of alluringness to the screen.
But as I say, I think D'Abo's performance is actually pretty good.
God yes. Kinski at that time was quite a stunner. I remember a poster of her wrapped in a snake that was particularly alluring to a young lad growing up in England.
And yes, I'm bringing my personal biases to this discussion. D'Abo was perfectly serviceable in TLD. She certainly wasn't Lynn Holly Johnson, or Talisa Soto for that matter.
Soto is so wooden it's like someone has thrown a chair onto the set, but she is quite 'alluring'. Still, a shame they didn't cast a young Salma Hayek.
I think I read somewhere that Davi swung the casting of Soto. He told Glen that she looked like a woman that Sanchez could kill for. Apparently.
-I did not care for the either villain
-I dislike the showdown between Bond and Whitaker, it's just silly
-the films drags a bit in the middle
-the plot becomes a little convoluted
However, all of these are remedied in Dalton's next picture, and so it is Licence to Kill that makes it into my top 5.
Some of the gags in the Aston Martin chase are cool, others are just too silly for my taste.
Dalton needed coaching ..too stiff. Too boring.. I think Fleming kinda would have wanted entertaining. Not this cheap looking rubbish.
:))
Ouch...
GF & TB are awesome, it's just that they are bigger movies, and I prefer more intimate, smaller Bonds like DN & LTK... I feel smaller is more 'Fleming', but feel free to disagree! I won't take offence. It's all opinions here.
\m/
:)>-
@mcdonbb, I'm curious. What did you not like about the production standards of TLD? It seemed on par with the last few Moore entries and was directed by the same team.
It's true that 'action' movies were going through a quantum change at that point (with Lethal Weapon & particularly Die Hard the following year upping the ante & changing the rules of the game), & that may have dated your perception of Bond in comparison (interestingly, a similar quantum shift occured during the Brosnan era with the Bourne Identity, and had a similar 'dating' impact on how Bond movies were perceived in comparison).
Was it that comparison with the contemporary movies of the day that made you feel it had inferior production values? Or was it just Dalton's more serious portrayal, and the shock effect vs. what we'd come to expect from Moore, who defined the role for so long? If so, I get that. Dalton was before his time.
If we are going down that road, I suggest you reassess your knowledge of the early Bond films, as From Russia With Love can easily be considered more 'quintessential' & 'classic' than Thunderball.
And Goldfinger? Give me a break! That's the 'quintessential' lowest common-denominator 'best Bond'.
Be original. Buy an edge.
Hop on board for a full 15 rounds with AceHole b-(
Can you still hear other peoples opinions from up there.
As far as I am concerned, The Living Daylights is a quintessential Bond film. It has all the elements of a Bond film, and in all the right measurements for me.
While the story for TLD is actually quite good, a nice collection from Flemings various books, it does not measure up to the early Connery and the Moore great movies.
The music is brilliant and shows Barry going into a new direction with a more electronic feel which we had not heard before. Sadly the soundtrack is the last time we got a piece of work this brilliant connected to a Bondmovie, that in itself gives the movie a lot of extra which the modern movies seem to lack. I do enjoy listening the cd,.
Overal I would say that the US audience were right and I generally prefer to skip the Dalton years because with LTK the era took an even deeper nosedive with a story that was done better every week in the series Miami Vice that looked better and gave the feeling of a bigger budget. And as for Dalton he was a bigger miscast than Lazenby for me.
As for Quintessential I would go with DN, FRWL, GF, TB, OHMSS, TSWLM/MR, FYEO & CR.