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Brutal Bond - MI6 Article Series
JamesPage
Administrator, Moderator, Director
Over the next few months, MI6 will explore the scenes where James Bond is at his most cold-blooded and hardcore across all 23 adventures to date. Voting will then open to find 007's most brutal moment in the series.
We kick the series off with...
Brutal Bond - Killing Sanchez
We kick the series off with...
Brutal Bond - Killing Sanchez
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Comments
In terms of discussing this scene now, I find Sanchez's death to be incredibly brutal - he knows it's coming as soon as Bond does, and the amount of pain Sanchez must have endured is intense enough in thinking. One of Dalton's better moments in his (unfortunately) short-lived time as Bond, and LTK probably ranks as one of my favorites.
Until I start analyzing the rest of the deaths as this series moves along, I would say the death of Sanchez is probably one of the most cold-blooded moments that Bond has.
I agree with @Creasy, it seems the most brutal death has been choosen first.
And then, as he showed the lighter to Sanchez, Bond said, very coldly, "Felix Leiter." And Sanchez's expression suddenly changed as he realized what the whole thing had been about. And then, in that moment as Sanchez's realized, Bond set him ablaze.
The shots of Sanchez burning were also longer and more shocking, even compared to the un-cut version which is now on BluRay .
The "Felix Leiter" line was dropped because of fear that the audience may laugh because the line played close to the shot of the engraved lighter in Bond's hand; but for me, I felt that Dalton's delivery of the line was so strong that they should have kept it. It added more emotional punch which was reflected in Sanchez's look of sudden realization.
Wow I wished they kept that. Is there any footage of that scene with that line?
True his death would have been flaming hot! pardon the pun but I think what Franz did to Krest was worse and simply OTT for a Bond film if any.
The scene has grown with me over the last 20 years but I still wish they killed him some other way. Personally I think this scene was John Glen's worst mistake of a good 5 film run.
But if you look back to the early days grusome deaths have occured since Dr No. Boiled alive, Piranha fish, Snow gritter, dog attacks etc.
...heated confrontation. B-)
I don't find Sanchez's burning too bad - the two guys have been fighting to the death anyway and it's a case of kill or be killed and Bond takes him out with the only weapon he has to hand.
Professor Dent, Locque and Slate are far worse IMO. It depends on how we are classing the term 'brutal' in this instance. Do we mean horrific and painful or callous and cold blooded?
I sometimes wonder whether Mike Myers watched LTK before doing Austin Powers:
Krests death:
Sanchez burning alive:
;)
I've never heard of this before, and the version I saw on opening night has Bond merely showing the engraved lighter to Sanchez. When you say "fear that the audience may laugh" I assume that this was only shown in test screenings, or removed even before that time? Was this an extra on a Blu-ray?
I was part of the editing team on LTK. There was no "audience" preview of the film as such, but it was screened, once fully completed, for a 100 or so invited guests at Theatre 7 in Pinewood Studios -- and the film got an excellent reaction.
The "Felix" line was cut during the editing process. I think, if my memory serves, that John Glen and the lead editor, John Grover, were worried that the line was too on the nose with the shot of the engraved lighter, and also may get a laugh from the audience, but there was no direct evidence this would be the case (or certainly not that I knew of). The climatic tanker chase (spanning the last 2 cutting copy reels, reels 16 and 17) was screened for us as the editing team, along with (I think) Barbara and Michael, and a handful of Pinewood Post Production staff in Theatre 7, just to see how it all worked. This was a longer version of the chase (with rough sound fx and temp music) and it included the "Felix" line. And I don't recall anyone laughing at the line during that screening. As I say, Dalton delivered it with real power.
But some time after that screening, as the film moved into the fine cutting stage, the tanker chase was tightened up, and the line was cut out.
Yes, I think the action sharpened up quite a bit, but there was no action or stunts cut out as such, all the stunts and action beats remained, the sequence was just naturally tightened up. I think about 1 and half minutes were lost in all, including the line.
Then we had all the trouble with the BBFC, and had to make "cuts" to get the film passed as a 15 cert rating in the UK. Those censor cuts included seeing less of Sanchez burning -- but that material is all back in now on the BluRay and Special Edition releases. But that "Felix" line was lost way before all that, and ended up in the box for "Reel 17 deletions".
Nice to know nothing was lost from the tanker chase. I think it's a great sequence and would hate to learn anything is missing.
John Grover, the editor, went thru a lot of that old material when he helped Eon gather and assemble the material for the Extras on the Special Editions a few years back.
All the Bond films were stored in the Pinewood Vaults, but I believe at some point MGM got the older Bond films shipped back to LA.
I know John Grover had his work cut out trying to find and pull together material from the early films.
Nothing to do with LTK, but related to deleted material and Eon.
One day, while we were working on LTK, "Cubby" asked us if we could help him locate the full and complete version of "Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang". Originally there was another song and dance scene during the fairground sequence, but it was cut out at the last minute and removed from all prints of the film. However Cubby remembered that there was one remaining 70mm print of the full version, but for the life of him he could not remember where it had ended up.
So we all started to ring around, chasing up leads all over the place, but we just kept hitting dead ends.
Then one day, Mathew Glen (one of John's sons, and an editor on LTK too) thought he remembered seeing a stack of 70mm cans (which are huge) in the projection booth of Theatre 7, the main theatre at Pinewood. So we dashed up to the projection booth which was tightly ran by the Chief Projectionist called Joe. Now Joe had been the chief projectionist since the early 60's, and was a superb projectionist who lived and breathed his job. It was his life.
Anyway, stashed in a dusty corner of the booth was a stack of 70mm cans. We rushed over, and there is was, the full version of "Chitty". We turned to Joe and asked him how long the print had been there? Joe, in a totally matter-of-fact manner, replied, "Oh, Sat morning, June 1971. Cubby screened it for some local children. Does he want it back now?"
A true gentleman, and a very fine producer. He really respected his crews, and we all respected him. He treated us, the editing team, very well indeed. Always open to hear ideas. Fully supported his director, John Glen (also a charming, witty man), and Timothy Dalton, and his editors, like the excellent John Grover. I feel very, very lucky to have worked for Cubby.
It is nice to hear that the man matches the legend. You have been extremely blessed to be in that company, but I know I don't have to tell you that. All of us are in Cubby's debt, for he was working hard clear until the end, always in Bond's corner. :)>-
Yes, he was very protective of the franchise. And Barbara (who started to come into her own on LTK) has inherited his intelligence, passion, his strength (he stood up for what and who he believed in) and his genuine warmth of character.
I didn't know him well (only did one Bond film), but just enough to say that he was the last of the truly great, larger than life, gentlemen producers.
Er, yeah... fine.
Oh, sorry Darth, I forgot to use the edit button again. Tell u what, I just won't bother to post on this site again, clearly you are more interested in an edit button than anything I may want to share with you.