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I agree compared to Lee, he couldn't hold a candle but that said he still did a good job and I liked the harshness of his interchange with Bond in LTK when Bond goes AWOL.
In relation with the original thread, I strongly believe that Robert Brown doesn't portrayed Miles. But I'm not certain yet if his M is Hargreaves though I like to think he is.
I think it is probably because Brown was quite old at that time, 74 when GE was released. I have many friends into acting (I did a bit myself, albeit never professional) and they told me that once reaching a certain age many actors have problems memorizing their lines, which makes it technically difficult working with them. In a demanding production like a Bond movie, when M has a central role, it can be a liability.
To answer the OP, I always assumed he was Miles Messervy, just like Bond is the same Bond, Moneypenny the same Moneypenny, etc. And like many other actors in the franchise, Robert Brown played different roles. That said, I would have prefered they cast somebody else to avoid confusion. Dennis Burgess for instance, who actually played C in The Sandbaggers, or Alan MacNaughton (again he had a role in The Sandbaggers and also played with Moore in one episode of The Saint). Both had a commanding presence and both had something vaguely reminiscent of Bernard Lee's M.
LTK suffered thru having Felix Leiter, never a consistent character, a wet Moneypenny and of course Brown as M, who never really generated much tension with Bond.
I think you nailed the difference between the two: Bernard Lee looked and acted like a military officer, Robert Brown like a civil servant. I do agree with 0013 that Brown was more convincing with Dalton because of the age difference, he seemed to have more authority.
Maybe he was cast too quickly. Had Dennis Burgess been cast instead, not many people would have noticed the difference.
Anyways,that seals it for me - I think that Robert Brown's "M" is the same as from ASWLM.
iMO,of course...
TSWLM is on Epix tonight so I will see his sleeve stripes. It could be that he was a Captain in TSWLM and promoted.
Yes, Bond was taking orders from Frederick Gray the Defence Ministry in both TSWLM and MR.
You are a fountain of much arcane yet useful information, @Perdogg!
Thank you, I have been researching this for my paper.!! :)
Oh! That explains it then! Is this still the Bond and MoD one, then?
Yes.
As for his performance, I love Robert Brown's M. Of course Dench and Lee were better (Lee can't be beaten, he was absolutely identical to the M of the novels, perhaps even more so than Dalton was to Bond) but I still thought he was great. He was only M for four films and I think that's a good thing, his portrayal was short and sweet.
I agree with him being Hargreaves promoted to being M, and remembered Brown from Spy as by the time Octopussy came out, the movies were available for VHS purchase and I had them all in my collection, which is now obviously retired as far as when I rewatch.
I wasn't sure about him at first, but I did like his sly little smile in OP when Bond announces he's already booked a flight to India to follow and further investigate Khan. I started to warm a lot more to him in TLD, and thought he was fantastic in LTK during the Hemingway House confrontation. I honestly don't think Bernie Lee could have done that scene any better as far as emotion and conviction.
"We're not a country club 007!"
Great line. :-)
I love the look of utter contempt and anger on TD's face just before he offers his resignation. Wonderful.
I think he's going to be more like Lee. I hope anyway.
Personality wise he is like Lee's though I see some of Brown's M in him too.
This is as spot on as Brown's reactions. And I like their scene discussing Bond's reluctance to kill Pushkin before getting his side of the story almost as well. Brown and Dalton had terrific chemistry together like Lee and Connery did. Not that Lee didn't with Moore as well, just in a more humorous way consistent with the era.
And I disagree with those who called Dalton's actions at the Hemingway House unrealistic. Bond was ready to go there in GF over Jill. He was seething there too and M had to remind him he was acting unprofessionally, thus he refocused. She wasn't an innocent when she betrayed Goldfinger. It wasn't so much Leiter's maiming, Bond understood to some degree what happened was a professional consequence. The DEA refusing to pursue the matter played a part in his decision to go "rogue", but it was raping and murdering the innocent Della that he could not abide. Dalton is so amazing here because for me, I can see him hit the breaking point from white hot anger into pure outrage when M refuses to answer the question. And so he rightfully refused to go to Istanbul as "robo-Bond", as he knew at that moment he could not be the professional he and M would have expected.
Wouldn't a demotion be a really bad mark on his sheet?
I always considered him the same M as Lee's, Brown just played two different roles in the franchise.
Yes, but this is a very controversial points in the halls of Bondology whether Robert Brown played a continuation of the M Lee or whether he was actually Admiral Hargreaves from TSWLM replacing Lee's Admiral Sir Miles Messervy. I plumb for him being a continuation of Lee's M, myself, but there is no real set answer to this, of course.
Good point. However, I thought he was called Hargreaves by Gray in either Octopussy or A View To A Kill.
No, I'm pretty sure it's not mentioned at all. Someone (like me!) would have written it up by now if he had been, given this theory's discussion on all of the main Bond sites every now and then. It's what you might call an old chestnut, this one.
Right. It make more sense that he wasn't Hargreaves since it would be difficult to explain the demotion rather than just an actor who just happens to play a Flag Officer 6 years earlier.