Even though the Bond films always had a big budget feel to them, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS doesn't feel as glitzy as previous films. The actors all have familiar faces but there's no big movie star amongst them. The locations are new and different but there's no French Riviera or Monte Carlo vibe. Vienna, Austria (standing in for Bratislava, Czechoslovakia as well as itself) and Morocco (standing in for Afghanistan as well as its own Tangiers) are the featured countries. Even the theme song The Living Daylights by Norwegian alternative rock band A-Ha is understated but catchy.
Directed by Bond veteran John Glen with a screenplay by Richard Maibaum (GOLDFINGER) and Michael G. Wilson based on a short story The Living Daylights by author Ian Fleming, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS begins in Gibraltar (a small British Overseas Territory between Spain and Morocco) where James Bond (Timothy Dalton) and a group of Double-O agents perform a training exercise to take out a surveillance station at the top of the Rock of Gibraltar. Only one of their agents 004 is a traitor, killing both of Bond's fellow agents and a few British army soldiers. Bond neutralizes the rogue agent, sending him off a cliff in a truck with explosives while Bond parachutes to safety. The film switches gears to Bratislava, Czechoslovakia where Bond assists fellow M-6 attaché Saunders (Thomas Wheatley) with the defection of Russian General Georgi Koskov (a loose, hammy performance by Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbe). Koskov is attending a music concert where his lover classic cellist Kara Milovy and apparent KGB sniper (Maryam D'Abo) is performing. Bond and Saunders whisk Koskov clandestinely away via a new Trans-Siberian pipeline from Communist Czechoslovakia to Democratic Austria where he's greeted by Q (Desmond Llewelyn). Bond nearly kills Kara during the mission but shoots the rifle from her hands instead.
A British Harrier jet takes Koskov to London where he's greeted by M (Robert Brown). M and Bond debrief Koskov at an English countryside safe house where he tells them another Russian General Leonid Pushkin (John Rhys-Davies) has revived a program called Smiert Spionam (Death to Spies) to kill all enemy agents around the world (004 was one of his KGB operatives). Koskov reveals Pushkin will be in Tangiers, Morocco soon and must be killed. A blonde Russian agent Necros (Andreas Wisniewski) disguised as a milkman infiltrates the compound, causing a diversion with a gas leak and explosions to kidnap Koskov back for the Russians. A helicopter swoops in and flies Koskov away. Bond returns to Bratislava pretending to be Koskov's friend to learn more from Kara about what Koskov was up to. Pushkin's also in Bratislava to question Kara. Bond helps Kara escape Pushkin and his agents in his new gadget equipped Aston Martin as they're chased by the KGB and Czech police. Bond and Kara cross into the Austrian border on Kara's cello case.
Pushkin flies to Tangiers where he meets with international arms dealer and military history buff Brad Whitaker (Joe Don Baker). Pushkin cancels Koskov's arms order with Whitaker. After Pushkin leaves, Koskov steps out from hiding. Koskov and Whitaker are working together. Koskov's kidnapping was staged. Bond connects with Saunders in Vienna and learns that Whitaker and Koskov have a history of arms dealings. Necros kills Saunders at an Austrian amusement park called the Prater, leaving the Smiert Spionam message near him. Bond and Kara arrive in Tangiers. Bond interrogates Pushkin in front of his mistress Rubavitch (Virginia Hey) where he learns that Koskov had been embezzling from the Russian government. Pushkin knows nothing about the revived Death to Spies policy. Bond and Pushkin team up. Bond helps Pushkin fake his own assassination. Koskov reunites with Kara, convinces her Bond's a KGB agent. Bond is kidnapped by two pretty CIA agents working with CIA operative and Bond friend Felix Leiter (John Terry). Felix is keeping tabs on Pushkin.
Kara drugs Bond for Koskov. Koskov puts Bond on a military transport plane to Afghanistan. Koskov's plan is to trade diamonds for opium. He'll turn the opium into heroin and sell it on the black market and use the rest of the money to buy weapons for the Russians in their conflict with Afghan rebels and Western arms for Whitaker. Once they land at a Soviet Air Base in Afghanistan, Koskov has Bond and Kara thrown in a local Afghan jail. Bond uses one of his gadgets to break out of their confinement and liquidate a local brutal guard. Also breaking out with them is a shaggy prisoner Kamran Shah (Art Malik) who turns out to be the leader of the Mujahideen rebels. Koskov prepares to fly out of Afghanistan with a huge shipment of opium. Bond, Kara, Shah, and his rebel group storm the airbase. While Shah and the resistance fight with the Russian army, Bond places a bomb on the plane. He's spotted before he can disembark and hides in the cargo area. Bond disarms the pilots and prepares to take off when he spots Kara racing up behind in a jeep. He drops the ramp and she drives on board. The blonde killer Necros climbs on board as well. Bond and Necros fight to the death hanging from a rope tarpaulin on the back of the plane. After Bond dispatches Necros and drops the bomb on the Russian forces, helping Shah and his men escape, he and Kara escape the plane before it crashes and explodes. Bond's last task will be to take out the arms dealer Whitaker and help Pushkin arrest the traitorous Koskov.
I called Dalton a stop gap James Bond between Roger Moore, who played the British agent for 14 years from 1971 to 1985 and Pierce Brosnan who would take over after Dalton for the next 7 years between 1995 and 2002. But Dalton was on Bond Producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli's radar earlier than 1987. Dalton had been considered for the role of James Bond much earlier. After Sean Connery bowed out for ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1969), Dalton had been offered the role of the world's most famous secret agent. Dalton had just appeared in his feature film debut in Anthony Harvey's critically acclaimed historical drama THE LION IN WINTER (1968) starring Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn. Dalton would take himself out of the running, telling Broccoli he was too young for the part. One could see why Broccoli would be interested in Dalton. Young and dashing with matinee idol looks (and green eyes), Dalton was a bit of an unknown like Sean Connery at the outset. Broccoli saw that he could become a star like Connery with the Bond role. Instead, unknown Australian actor George Lazenby would play James Bond for only one time in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE. Dalton would be offered the role again in the early 1970s but turned it down a second time due to other commitments, paving the way for Roger Moore.
With Roger Moore's Bond beginning to look long in the tooth in his last couple of films, the arrival of Timothy Dalton in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS seemed like a breath of fresh air. Dalton embraced the James Bond that Ian Fleming had originally created, a colder and grittier spy. The casualty to that interpretation was a less humorous Bond. There are jokes and one liners in LIVING DAYLIGHTS but they catch us off guard due to Dalton's steely performance in the first half of the film. Dalton brings an athletic Bond back to the screen. The older Moore was doubled by more and more by stunt men in his latter films. Dalton clearly performs many of his stunts in LIVING DAYLIGHTS, hanging onto the top of speeding trucks and galloping in the desert on horses. Dalton performs yeomen's work in both LIVING DAYLIGHTS and LICENSE TO KILL. He's good but not great. Neither film would make fans forget GOLDFINGER or LIVE AND LET LIVE. Playing Bond would not hurt Dalton's career which has remained steady before and after his turn as 007. Dalton's later credits include Joe Johnston's THE ROCKETEER (1991), Edgar Wright's HOT FUZZ (2007), the HBO series DOOM PATROL (2019 - 2021), and most recently as a villainous land baron in the Paramount streaming prequel to YELLOWSTONE called 1923 (2023).
There would be a few firsts with THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. The most earth shaking first is that James Bond would be monogamous in a film for the first time in his career. Throughout the Bond series, Bond had always slept with a minimum of two women and sometimes more. In LIVING DAYLIGHTS, Bond only has eyes for cellist Kara Milovy played by the lovely Maryam D'Abo (XTRO). In fact, Kara is one of Bond's brainier pursuits, a classical musician. She's never shown in a bikini or a provocative dinner gown with plunging neckline. Kara's no wallflower, almost boyish with her short haircut. She's just as physical as Bond whether it's riding horses with the Mujahideen or evading bad guys on her cello case. She even drives a jeep right into the back of a moving cargo plane. Later in the scene, Kara flies the plane while Bond grapples with Necros high above the Afghan desert. There's no obligatory bed scene. Dalton's Bond is an old-fashioned romantic with flowers and long embraces.
Besides a new James Bond, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS would introduce a new, younger Miss Moneypenny, M's personal assistant, played by Caroline Bliss after Lois Maxwell, who played Miss Moneypenny to Sean Connery, George Lazenby, and Roger Moore 14 times, retired from the role after A VIEW TO A KILL (1985). The character of Felix Leiter, James Bond's American CIA friend, would be played by a different actor for the sixth time in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. John Terry (FULL METAL JACKET) would have the honor this time although his role as Leiter is limited to a couple of scenes. Robert Brown would play M again for the third time, taking over the role in 1983's OCTOPUSSY when original M actor Bernard Lee died in 1981. Walter Gotell returns for the 7th and last time as General Anatol Gogol, M's Russian counterpart. Gotell first appeared in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963) as a SPECTRE agent called Morzeny. Even Joe Don Baker (WALKING TALL) who portrays International Arms Dealer Brad Whitaker would appear again in Pierce Brosnan's first Bond outing GOLDENEYE (1995) only this time as an ally to James Bond.
THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS would have an international cast including a couple of actors who are in two of my all-time favorite films. Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbe (SOLDIER OF ORANGE) has the most fun with his role as the corrupt snake General Georgy Koskov who's playing both the West and East against each other, even betraying his mistress Kara. American audiences will remember Krabbe as the villain in Andrew Davis's THE FUGITIVE (1993) starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones based on the 1960s television show. German actor Andreas Wisniewski, trained as a classical dancer, plays Koskov's blonde henchman Necros. Wisniewski would team up with another dancer, Russian ballet star turned actor Alexander Godunov as European terrorists in John McTiernan's DIE HARD (1988) starring Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman.
The target of Georgy Koskov's treachery is his superior General Leonid Pushkin played by the great baritone voiced John Rhys-Davies, familiar to millions of film fans as Indiana Jones's friend Sallah in Steven Spielberg's RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981). Although born in Wales, Davies could play any ethnicity from the Egyptian Sallah in the INDIANA JONES films to a Russian General caught in a power play in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. Rhys-Davies would go on to greater fame playing the warrior dwarf Gimli in Peter Jackson's THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. And playing Pushkin's mistress Rubavitch is Australian actress Virginia Hey, a fan favorite from George Miller's THE ROAD WARRIOR (1981). Hey was one of the few females in THE ROAD WARRIOR playing the tough Warrior Woman. She shows off her feminine beauty a little more in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. Hey would go on to appear in the popular Sci-Fi television series FARSCAPE (1999 - 2002).
One of the locations in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS has a connection to the great Carol Reed post World War II thriller THE THIRD MAN and a couple of Bond directors. THE THIRD MAN was filmed entirely in Vienna, Austria a few years after World War II. One of its best scenes takes place at a giant amusement park in the city called the Prater with its stunning Ferris Wheel where Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten first meet in THE THIRD MAN and take a ride. Bond and Kara would ride and make love in the same Ferris Wheel for THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. The connection between the two films is DAYLIGHTS director John Glen was an Assistant Sound Editor on THE THIRD MAN, his first film assignment. Former Bond director Guy Hamilton (THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN) was an Assistant Director on THE THIRD MAN and even stood in for Orson Welles in some of the shots of Welles' character Harry Lime running down dark Vienna streets, Hamilton's shadow doubling for Welles.
Beginning in the 1970s Bond films would capitalize on the latest movie trend whether it was car chases (DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER), blaxploitation films (LIVE AND LET DIE), or science fiction and space (MOONRAKER). The plot of THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS throws in current events with the third act of the film taking place in Afghanistan where the Russians and the Mujahideen had been waging a war against each other from 1979 to 1989. Bond gets to act like Lawrence of Arabia with his white turban as he, Kara, and a bunch of Afghan horse soldiers fight Russian tanks and grenade launchers in their quest to stop Koskov.
I've been grousing about how director John Glen was my least favorite Bond director but it's not entirely Glen's fault. Glen took over the reins as Roger Moore became too old for the role in OCTOPUSSY and A VIEW TO A KILL. Glen could not make Moore look younger or more athletic. Glen was also saddled with some poor scripts in those last few Moore films. What Glen was good at was shooting action sequences. Glen himself had been a 2nd Unit Director for THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977). Glen's (or his 2nd Unit Director) best work is in snowy scenes like the ski chases in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. In THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, Bond and Kara's escape from Czechoslovakia is a well staged action scene shot by Glen complete with cars and motorcycles racing on an icy lake, assassins pursuing Bond and Kara on skis, and the absurd escape by Bond and Kara sitting in Kara's cello case. A shout out to composer John Barry who would do his last Bond musical score for THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. It's one of his best in my opinion. Barry first started with the Bond franchise with FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.
Dalton's first outing as James Bond in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS would go well, bringing in over $100 million dollars worldwide at the Box Office. Dalton would follow up his debut as 007 in 1989 with LICENSE TO KILL, also directed by John Glen. The second in the Dalton era would not be such a hit for myself or Bond fans. The main Bond girl Carey Lowell wasn't particularly interesting, the main Bond villain Robert Davi (THE GOONIES) as a drug lord not particularly threatening, and even an appearance by Las Vegas crooner Wayne Newton as a corrupt televangelist or an early role for Benicio Del Toro (THE USUAL SUSPECTS) were enough to make LICENSE TO KILL interesting. Dalton's run as the legendary Bond was over before it had really begun (truth be told Dalton was supposed to return for a third film but legal troubles for MGM delayed the film and Dalton retired from the role when his contract ran out). It would be six years, the longest stretch in the Bond series without a film, before James Bond would return in GOLDENEYE, this time with an Irish actor taking over the martini shaken not stirred role.
Timothy Dalton will be better remembered than one and done George Lazenby for his James Bond films. Like many things about how movies come together, timing and fate and schedules played a part in Dalton not becoming James Bond sooner or longer. THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS is a worthy reflection of Dalton's contribution to the James Bond series. Dalton brought the Bond character back to how author Ian Fleming had written him, a little colder and ruthless. For the Bond filmmakers, it was back to the drawing board as they would start to cast for the next James Bond when Dalton retired from the role. And like Dalton, they would end up choosing an actor who had been considered for the role previously but had also been bound by a contract he couldn't get out of. That actor would be Pierce Brosnan.
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