James Bond - The Living daylights

23 February 2015

The Living Daylights 1987

• Director:  John Glen
• Based on the novels  by Ian Fleming
• Cast: Timothy Dalton, Maryam D’Abo, Jereon Krabbé, Joe Don Baker, John Rhys-Davies, Art Malik, Andreas Wisnieski, Desmond Llewellyn, Robert Brown
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Timothy Dalton  – The Tourist, The Lion in Winter
• Jereon Krabbé  – Ever After, Immortal Love, The Fugitive, The Prince of Tides, Kafka
• Why? Curious. Hal and I saw several Bond films in a Bond festival in the early 70’s and enjoyed them. Sean Connery is the only Bond we have ever seen.  Friends have said later actors have been good too. And with Judi Dench they can’t be all bad.  So we bought the box...
• Seen:  February 20, 2015  

Finally a new Bond.  The Saint was looking a little worse for wear. An odd-looking fellow though, Mr Dalton. Not as suave as Moore. Nowhere as cheeky as Connery. Well, let’s give him a chance, shall we?

He seems tired, irritable, sarcastic. The new Moneypenny has none of the tongue-in-cheek elegance as the original and poor old Q is wearing out completely.  I’ll miss him when he’s gone. I like him best now that the original Moneypenny is gone.

Oh yes, this film. It’s the most cloak-and-dagger spy story so far, which in itself is a boring genre. But it seems the Soviet general is the good guy, the defector is a sleaze and the American is an arm-dealing warmonger. Interesting.

As a whole the film has its moments but it’s pretty much the same as the others only very 1980’s. A-Ha at the beginning and Chrissie Hynde as the end help.

2* of 5