The Living Daylights

U.K. / 1987 Directed by John Glen Starring Timothy Dalton Maryam D'Abo Jeroen Krabbé Color / 131 Minutes / PG Format: DVD (R1 - NTSC) MGM Home Entertainment

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After 1985's A View To A Kill Roger Moore finally relinquished the role of James Bond, and not a moment too soon. While his tongue in cheek, light comedy approach to the character had its moments — providing reliable box office receipts along the way — the aging leading man had definitely worn out his welcome. It was well past time for an infusion of new blood. The Bond franchise got it in spades with Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights, 007's final adventure of the Cold War and also one of his best. Dalton, a Welshman known more for his Shakespearean stage work than roles in a handful of costume films, was actually the producers' second choice to replace Moore. Future 007 Pierce Brosnan was their initial pick, but the actor was unable to get out of his American TV contract in time for shooting. In stepped Dalton, who prepared for the role by reading Ian Fleming's original Bond novels. (Trivia note: As of this writing, The Living Daylights was the last James Bond movie to use the title of a Fleming-penned story.)     In the film's pre-credits 'teaser' sequence, a trio of Double-0 agents (their faces obscured) parachute onto the rocky fastness of Gibraltar as part of a wargame with the SAS, Britain's elite special forces. This training exercise turns unexpectedly deadly when an unknown assassin, lying in ambush, murders 004 and a pair of SAS men. Dalton gets a memorable introduction as the new James Bond here, reacting to 004's death scream as Bond's fellow agent plunges down a cliff face. Instantly springing into action Bond chases and kills the assassin at the climax of a wild jeep ride down a steep, winding road. This relatively simple yet exciting action scene is set to a pulse-quickening synthesizer and drum machine rendition of the 007 theme that, along with the presence of the younger, more athletic Dalton in the lead role, clearly signals that the Bond franchise has left the Roger Moore era behind it.     007 is off on a seemingly unrelated assignment in Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia as soon as the credits fade. As part of an operation aiding the defection of high-ranking KGB general Georgi Koscov (Jeroen Krabbé), Bond is to act as a sniper covering the Russian's flight from a Bratislava concert hall. Peering through his night vision scope, Bond spots a beautiful woman, a cellist from the orchestra, aiming a rifle down Koscov's route of escape. But something feels wrong. He deliberately avoids killing the enemy sniper. Shooting the gun from her hands instead, he later explains, "That girl didn't know one end of a rifle from another." Why would the KGB send an amateur to prevent the possible defection of one its top officers?     Once he's tucked away at a guarded country estate outside London, the gregarious Koscov startles his MI6 debriefers with a shocking revelation: the new KGB chief, Pushkin, has reactivated an old Stalin-era operation, Smiert Spionom ("Death to Spies"), calling for the systematic elimination of the West's top intelligence agents. This is tantamount to an all-out spy war not unlike the bloody turf fights between rival criminal gangs. The murder of 004 on Gibraltar would seem to confirm Koscov's claim; a note with Smiert Spionom scrawled on it was found alongside the body. Despite this, Bond is highly skeptical. Any doubts his superiors have are removed when Koscov is spectacularly kidnapped from the safe house by Necros (Die Hard's Andreas Wisniewski), a supertough KGB commando who single-handedly breaches the tight security screen employed to guard the defector. To nip Smiert Spionom in the bud, Bond's boss M orders him to assassinate Pushkin at an upcoming conference in Morocco. Bond accepts the mission, but only so that he can play his hunch that all is not as it would appear. He begins by returning to Czechoslovakia, intent on tracking down Kara Milovy (winsome Maryam D'Abo), the beautiful cellist whom he chose not to kill when he had her in his sights...     Thus Agent 007 is off on one of his all-time best adventures, a complex tale of double and triple crosses, arms trafficking and dope smuggling. The globetrotting Bond is up to his neck in danger and intrigue behind the Iron Curtain, in Vienna, North Africa, and Russian-occupied Afghanistan. This isn't the smarmy jokester Bond of the Moore days; aside from a few throwaway quips, Dalton (Flash Gordon, The Doctor And The Devils) plays the character totally and refreshingly straight. He's pretty much a one-woman man, too. The script actually gives Bond and Kara time to develop a relationship, aided by good chemistry between the stars, making this entry the most romantic of the Bond flicks with the exception of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. One particular action set-piece — the ice chase involving the gadget-laden Aston Martin — is a bit too 'Moore-ish' for the movie around it, having been written before Dalton was signed; it's too over-the-top but staged in crackerjack fashion nonetheless.     Numerous critics pooh-poohed the lack of a strong master villain in the film a la Auric Goldfinger or Thunderball's Emilio Largo. Indeed, Joe Don Baker's Brad Whitaker (a loony American arms dealer with delusions of military grandeur) pales in comparison to some of Bond's memorable foes from the past. But these critics failed to note that in The Living Daylights 007 is facing a triumvirate of heavies working in partnership to carry out their plot, each for his own reasons. (Must our hero always face a Dr. No or Drax? Shouldn't every now and then he come up against a cabal of lesser criminals who in tandem pose as much of a threat as a single Blofeld?) It's interesting to note that one of Daylights' baddies is actually quite likable — at first, anyway — which also marks an intriguing departure.     Thrilling action scenes, plenty of exotic locales, John Barry's last great series score and Dalton's tougher, more realistic portrayal of the superspy all combine to elevate The Living Daylights to the top ranks of the James Bond canon. It's a terrific throwback to the early Connery films, only updated for the late 1980s. One of the best.

Another superb Bond DVD from MGM here. The audio-visual quality of this relatively recent vintage film is top-notch; ditto the "making of" documentary and a surprisingly long and intimate video biography of Bond creator Ian Fleming. (Appropriate that it should be included on one of the Dalton discs.) Of special interest to 007 fans is the inclusion of a deleted scene, detailing Bond's "magic carpet ride" escape from a Tangiers rooftop. Wisely trimmed from the film's final cut — the sequence is much more in tune with the Moore-style Bond —  it makes for an interesting artifact nonetheless. 4/17/01

UPDATE OOP for a couple of years, The Living Daylights was reissued in November 2006 by MGM. This completely remastered 2-disc edition — with new, additional bonus features — is a part of The James Bond Ultimate Collection Vol. 1, which also contains four other 007 films. (Audio/visual quality is simply stunning.) In May 2007 MGM will release the Ultimate Edition of Daylights in stand-alone, single-disc form. (You get the film and commentary, but none of the Disc 2 extras.)

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