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The Living Daylights

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Template:Infobox Film Bond The Living Daylights, released in 1987, is the fifteenth spy film of the James Bond series, and the first to star Timothy Dalton as the fictional British secret agent James Bond. The film's title is taken from Ian Fleming's short story "The Living Daylights." The pre-title sequence of the film resembles the short story almost completely. The film begins with Bond investigating the deaths of a number of MI6 agents. A Soviet defector, Georgi Koskov, informs him that General Pushkin, head of the KGB, is systematically killing Western operatives. When Koskov is seemingly snatched back by the Soviets, Bond follows him across Europe, Afghanistan and Morocco.

The film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli, his stepson Michael G. Wilson, and his daughter Barbara Broccoli. This was the last film to make use of an Ian Fleming story title until 2006's Casino Royale.

Plot

In the prologue, Agents 002, 004, and James Bond (007) parachute onto the Rock of Gibraltar to test its defences. 002 is captured almost immediately by the SAS, while Bond and 004 begin scaling the cliffs to the base. As they ascend an assassin appears and sends a tag reading Smert' Shpionam down the rope before cutting it, killing Agent 004. Bond witnesses the incident and gives chase to the assassin, ending in an explosives-laden Land Rover careening down Gibraltar's narrow roads and then into the air. Bond escapes in mid-air from the falling jeep, landing on a boat, while the assassin is killed.

Bond conducts the defection of a KGB officer, General Georgi Koskov, covering his intermission escape from a concert hall in Bratislava. He notices a sniper assigned to assassinate Koskov, who is actually a cellist from the orchestra named Kara Milovy. Suspecting that she is not an assassin, he shoots the rifle and spares her. Koskov is smuggled through the Russian oil pipeline into Austria and flown to England. There, at a countryside manor (Blayden House), Koskov informs MI6 that the KGB's old policy of Smert' Shpionam, meaning Death to Spies, has been revived by General Leonid Pushkin who has become a psychotic. Milovy is immediately speculated as an assassin. Some time later, the KGB assassin named Necros disguised as a milkman and later a doctor, infiltrates the countryside MI6 building and abducts Koskov in the medical helicopter.

File:TLD-Bond-and-Kara-in-Vienna.jpg
James Bond and Kara Milovy in Vienna.

Bond travels to Bratislava to kill Pushkin but soon begins to suspect that Koskov staged his defection upon learning that Milovy was the latter's girlfriend. However, MI6 never comes to know this and is keen on capturing Milovy. Bond escapes with her into Austria using an Series 2 Aston Martin V8 Vantage equipped with skis, missiles, lasers and a modified radio to tune in to military bands, and later a cello case used as a toboggan, all of which help him cross the border. After a brief romantic period with Kara in Vienna, he meets up again with his MI6 ally, Saunders there at the Wurstelprater amusement park where he reveals a link between Koskov and arms dealer, General Brad Whitaker, whose offer to sell the KGB high-tech weapons in Tangier was declined. Saunders is then immediately killed by Necros disguised as a balloon seller leaving a balloon marked Smert' Shpionam again.

File:The-Living-Daylights-villains.jpg
Necros, Brad Whitaker and General Georgi Koskov in Tangier

Bond infiltrates Pushkin's hotel room in Tangier at gun point. Pushkin reveals to Bond that contrary to Koskov's explanation, he had been actualy been investigating Koskov himself for the embezzlement of government funds. Bond fakes Pushkin's assassination with Necros witnessing the event, allowing Whitaker and Koskov who now believe Pushkin is dead to progress openly with their scheme. Meanwhile, Milovy gets in touch with her old lover Koskov. He convinces her that Bond is a KGB agent. Accordingly, she puts Bond to sleep with a spiked beverage and engenders his capture. They are flown to a Soviet air base in Afghanistan, where Koskov betrays Milovy and imprisons her along with Bond. They escape and in doing so free a condemned prisoner, Kamran Shah, leader of the local Mujahideen. Bond discovers that Whitaker and Koskov are paying diamonds for a large shipment of opium, and so continue supplying the Soviets with arms to turn a hige profit.

The Mujahideen help Bond and Milovy disguised as Afghans to infiltrate the air base. Bond plants a bomb in the back of the cargo aeroplane transporting the opium, but Koskov recognises him just as he is leaving. Bond hijacks the aeroplane, while the Mujahideen attack the airbase on horseback. Milovy joins Bond on a jeep in the back of the aeroplane as they take off and later assumes the controls while Bond leaves to defuse his bomb. Necros, however, had stowed away on board at the last moment, and attacks Bond. Milovy accidentally opens the cargo door, and Bond and Necros are sucked out, on the cargo net containing the opium packets; Bond throws Necros to his death after a struggle and deactivates the bomb in the nick of time. Milovy flies over Kamran Shah's Mujahideen, who are being pursued by Soviet soldiers across a bridge. Bond drops his bomb onto the bridge, killing the Soviets, helping the Mujahideen win their battle.

File:KamranShahafgan.jpg
Kamran Shah of the Mujahideen leading the attack on the Soviet air base in Afghanistan

Bond returns to Tangier and arrives at Whitaker's residence, and steps in as General Whitaker is playing Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg on his terms. When Bond tells him that the opium is burned, Whitaker is determined to kill him. He takes out a submachine gun with a shield. When Bond uses up all of his bullets, Whitaker fires. In the final confrontation, Bond's explosive key-chain, triggered by a wolf whistle, topples a bust of the Duke of Wellington onto Whitaker. Bond sums it up, "He met his Waterloo." At the same time Pushkin and his bodyguards arrive. Koskov is arrested and ordered to be flown back to Moscow in a "diplomatic bag".

Cast

See also: List of James Bond henchmen in The Living Daylights and List of James Bond allies in The Living Daylights
  • Timothy Dalton as James Bond: An MI6 agent assigned to look into the deaths of and conspiracies against several of his allies.
  • Jeroen Krabbé as General Georgi Koskov: A Soviet general who falsely accuses the KGB of planning assassination attempts on British agents. This safeguards his drug trade and ensures that he gets in touch with Brad Whitaker so as to obtain the American army's modern weapons.
  • Maryam d'Abo as Kara Milovy: Koskov's girlfriend who is persuaded by him to enact an attempt on his life and thus framed as the KGB's sniper. Bond protects her from his own allies who are suspicious about her.
  • Joe Don Baker as Brad Whitaker: A renegade American general who smuggles advanced weapons to Koskov in exchange for opium.
  • John Rhys-Davies as General Leonid Pushkin: The new head of the KGB, replacing General Gogol. He proves Koskov's words false and then assists Bond in battling the American and Soviet smugglers.
  • Art Malik as Kamran Shah: The leader of the Mujahideen, who joins hands with Bond for destroying Koskov's opium stockpile.
  • Robert Brown as M: The strict head of MI6.
  • Desmond Llewelyn as Q: MI6's "quartermaster" who supplies Bond with multi-purpose vehicles and gadgets useful in the latter's mission.
  • Caroline Bliss as Miss Moneypenny: M's secretary.
  • John Terry as Felix Leiter: A CIA agent and ally to Bond.
  • Geoffrey Keen as Fredrick Gray: The British Minister of Defence
  • Walter Gotell as General Gogol: The retired head of the KGB.
  • Andreas Wisniewski as Necros: Koskov's henchman who poses repeated threats to Bond but is finally killed in Afghanistan.
  • Thomas Wheatley as Saunders: Bond's ally who initially discourages all of his intentions due to the misconception that Milovy is an assassin. He later helps them stay safely in Austria and leads them to Whitaker.

Production

Casting

In 1985, Roger Moore retired from playing James Bond after A View to a Kill. This led to a significant search for a new actor to play Bond. Timothy Dalton, Sam Neill, Lewis Collins, Sean Bean, and Pierce Brosnan were screen-tested for the role in 1986. Dalton had been considered to replace Sean Connery in 1968, which he refused feeling that he was too young.[1] He was originally the producers' first choice for The Living Daylights but turned down the role because he was busy with the film version of Brenda Starr, while Collins, Neill and Bean failed the screen-test.

The official car the Aston Martin V8 Vantage (Series 2) at a James Bond convention.

The producers eventually offered the role to Pierce Brosnan. At the time, he was contracted to the television show Remington Steele which had been cancelled by the NBC network due to falling ratings. The announcement that he would be chosen to play James Bond caused a surge in interest in the series, which led to NBC exercising an option in Brosnan's contract to make a further season of the show. The NBC's action caused drastic repercussions, as a result of which Albert R. Broccoli withdrew the offer given to Brosnan, citing that he did not want the character associated with a contemporary TV series. This led to a drop in interest in Remington Steele, with the show ending abruptly following its fourth season.[2]

In the intervening period, Dalton was offered the role once again, which he accepted, signing a three film deal. During the five year hiatus due to litigation following Licence to Kill, he resigned the role.[3] Also, the previously rejected Sean Bean would later play a Bond villain, Alec Trevelyan in GoldenEye. Joe Don Baker cast in the film would reappear in GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies as Jack Wade, Bond's CIA liaison. He became the third person to play two different roles of Bond's enemy and ally after Walter Gotell and Charles Gray.

Maryam D'Abo, a former model, was cast as the Czech cellist Kara Milovy. In 1984, Abo had attended auditions for the role of Pola Ivanova in A View To a Kill. Barbara Broccoli included Abo in the audition for playing Kara which the later passed.[4]

Originally, the KGB general set up by Koskov was to be General Gogol; however, Walter Gotell was too sick to handle the major role, and the character of Leonid Pushkin replaced Gogol, who appears briefly at the end of the film, having transferred to the Soviet diplomatic service. This was Gogol's final appearance in a James Bond film. Morten Harket, the lead vocalist of the rock group a-ha (which performed the film's title song), was offered a small role as a villain's henchman in the film, but declined, because of lack of time and because he felt they wanted to cast him due to his popularity rather than his acting.

Director John decided to include a macaw from For Your Eyes Only It was seen chirping in the kitchen of Blayden House when Necros attacks MI6's officers.

Filming

The film was shot at the Pinewood Studios at its 007 Stage in UK, as well as Weissensee in Austria. The pre-title sequence was filmed at the Rock of Gibraltar near Spain. Other locations included Germany, the United States, and Italy. The desert scenes were done in Morocco. The conclusion of the film included the Schonbrunn Palace, Vienna and Elveden Hall, Suffolk.

Principal photography commenced at the Pinewood Studios on September 29, 1986, though the press would meet Dalton and Abo until October 5, 1986, when the main unit travelled to Vienna.[5]

Though the use of a stunt-double was suggested, Dalton insisted on performing as many stunts as possible himself during filming. The sequence of Bond parachuting out of the Land Rover in Gibraltar was filmed at Beachy Head in Sussex. Vehicles were catapulted over the cliff with dummies extracted by fishing line to release the parachute upon exiting. The first shot was scrapped due to onlookers visible in the background. The filming took on its own action movie, when the boat at the bottom of the cliffs positioned to film the descent got into difficulty in a heavy swell, and the local Eastbourne lifeboats were launched to pull the crew off the cliffs, resulting in bravery awards for some members. When the film opened in Eastbourne, Desmond Llewelyn who lived locally at Bexhill attended with some 'Bond gadgets' as a thank you. Part of the filming contract stipulated that remnants of impacted vehicles some 550 ft below had to be cleared up.

Music

Main article: The Living Daylights (soundtrack)

The Living Daylights was the final Bond film to be scored by composer John Barry. The soundtrack is notable for its introduction of sequenced electronic rhythm tracks overdubbed with the orchestra - at the time, a relatively new innovation.

The title song of the film, ""The Living Daylights", was recorded by the pop-music group a-ha. It and Barry did not collaborate well, resulting in two versions of the theme song.[6] Barry's film mix is heard on the soundtrack and the a-ha greatest hits collection Headlines and Deadlines. The a-ha preferred mix can be heard on their 1988 album Stay on These Roads. However in 2006 a-ha's Pal Waaktaar complimented Barry's contributions "I loved the stuff he added to the track, I mean it gave it this really cool string arrangement. That's when for me it started to sound like a Bond thing".[6]

In a departure from conventions of previous Bond films, the film uses different songs over the opening and end credits. The song heard over the end credits, "If There Was A Man", was one of two songs performed for the film by Chrissie Hynde, of The Pretenders. The other song, "Where Has Everybody Gone", is heard from Necros's Walk in the film man. The Pretenders were originally considered to perform the film's title song. However, the producers had been pleased with the commercial success of Duran Duran's "A View to a Kill", and felt that a-ha would be more likely to make an impact in the charts.[7]

The original soundtrack release featured only 12 tracks. Later re-releases by Rykodisc and EMI added 9 additional tracks, including an alternate instrumental end credits. Rykodisc's version was the first music video of the James Bond series to include the gunbarrel sequence of the film. Other shots included were the jailbreak sequence, and the bombing of the bridge.[8]

Additionally, the film featured a number of pieces of classical music, as the main Bond girl, Kara Milovy, is a cellist. Mozart's 40th Symphony in G minor (1st movement) is performed by the orchestra at the Conservatoire in Bratislava when Koskov flees. As Moneypenny relates to Bond, Kara is next to perform Borodin's String Quartet in D major — 007 joins a small audience and tells Kara afterwards that her performance was "exquisite". Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations and the finale to Act II of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro (in Vienna) also feature. At the end of the film, Kara also performs the Dvořák cello concerto in B minor to a rapturous applause.

Release and reception

The Prince and Princess of Wales attended the film's premiere on June 29, 1987 at the Odeon Leicester Square Cinema in London.[5] The Living Daylights grossed $191.2 million worldwide.[9] In the United States it earned $51,185,000.[10] Its opening weekend collections were $11,051,284,[11] surpassing the $5 million grossed by The Lost Boys that was released on the same day.[12]

In the film, Koskov and Whitaker repeatedly use vehicles and drug packets marked with the Red Cross. This action angered a number of Red Cross Societies, which sent letters of protest regarding the film. In addition, the British Red Cross attempted to prosecute the filmmakers and distributors. However, no legal action was taken.[13][14] As a result, a disclaimer was added at the start of the film and some DVD releases.

The Living Daylights has a "Fresh" score of 82% on Rotten Tomatoes.[15] Many including John J. Puccio and Chuck O'Leary praised Timothy Dalton's performance. However, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times criticised the lack of humor in the protagonist.[15]

References

  1. ^ "Timothy Dalton". MI6.co.uk. Retrieved 2007-10-06.
  2. ^ Last, Kimberly (1996). "Pierce Brosnan's Long and Winding Road To Bond". Retrieved 2007-02-22.
  3. ^ ""20 Years Ago: Timothy Dalton Is Announced As James Bond 007"". CommanderBond.net. Retrieved 2007-03-04.
  4. ^ "The Living Daylights". Mi6.co.uk. Retrieved 2007-10-11.
  5. ^ a b "Production Notes (The Living Daylights)". Retrieved 2007-10-16.
  6. ^ a b James Bond's Greatest Hits (Television). UK: North One Television. 2006.
  7. ^ "The Living Daylights". Fastrac Publications. Retrieved 2007-10-11.
  8. ^ "The Living Daylights". SoundtrackNet. Retrieved 2007-10-07.
  9. ^ "Box Office History for James Bond Movies". The-numbers.com. Retrieved 2007-10-06.
  10. ^ "The Living Daylights". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2007-10-06.
  11. ^ "The Living Daylights: Weekend collections". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2007-10-06.
  12. ^ "1987 Domestic Grosses". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2007-10-06.
  13. ^ "Protecting the Emblems in peacetime: the experiences of the British Red Cross Society". Retrieved 2007-10-08.
  14. ^ Protection of the red cross and red crescent emblems and the repression of misuse
  15. ^ a b "The Living Daylights". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2007-10-13.

External links

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