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James Bond #15:
The Living Daylights (1987)
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About This Film
Cast
Photos
Cast:
Timothy Dalton as James Bond, 007
Maryam d'Abo as Kara Milovy
Jeroen Krabbe as General Georgi Koskov (one of the movie's major villains)
Joe Don Baker as Brad Whitaker (the top villain of the movie)
John Rhys-Davis as General Leonid Pushkin (good Russian we think is a bad guy at first)
Art Malik as Kamran Shah (good Arab)
Thomas Wheatley as Saunders (pain-in-the-butt good spy that gets killed)
Andreas Wisniewski as Necros (bad, blond guy hitman)
Desmond Llewelyn as Q
Robert Brown as M
Walter Gotell as General Anatol Gogol
Caroline Bliss as Miss Moneypenny
John Terry as Felix Leiter
Geoffrey Keen as Minister of Defence (Sir Frederick Gray)
The Living Daylights (1987): This is the first of two Bond movies for star Timothy Dalton. This was a good movie, but he played Bond too serious. There was no light at the end of his tunnel. A lot of people felt that way when watching this. This serious side of Bond also came too soon after the long-lasting and rather silly Roger Moore era of Bond (1971-1985). Had this film been made in the 1990s, it would have matched the overall downbeat mood of the masses and been a stellar hit.
The next Dalton Bond, "License to Kill" (1989), was much better on many levels. Dalton's serious Bond worked well in LTK because it was a revenge film. THIS is the Bond we always wanted to see; the absolute, p***ed off Bond. Where the gloves come off. Plus, there was much more interesting action and a bigger, more exciting female cast. Unfortunately, I think his lukewarm reception in "The Living Daylights" affected attendance for LTK at the box office. The lack of success with LTK nearly marked the end of the Bond franchise until Pierce Brosnan started Bond with 1994s "Goldeneye". By then, serious was in with movie audiences. America is still in that depressing slump (2009). Pierce's Bond was still very serious, but had an air of levity that Dalton's did not. In one way, it was almost a return to the Sean Connery/George Lazenby era of Bond.
"The Living Daylights" is an entertaining Bond movie with a lot of interesting stuff to see. I still highly recommend it.
Photos:
Timothy Dalton as James Bond, 007
Maryam d'Abo as Kara Milovy
Jeroen Krabbe as General Georgi Koskov (one of the movie's major villains)
Joe Don Baker as Brad Whitaker (the top villain of the movie)
John Rhys-Davis as General Leonid Pushkin (good Russian we think is a bad guy at first)
Art Malik as Kamran Shah (good Arab)
Thomas Wheatley as Saunders (pain-in-the-butt good spy that gets killed)
Andreas Wisniewski as Necros (bad, blond guy hitman)
Desmond Llewelyn as Q
Robert Brown as M
Walter Gotell as General Anatol Gogol
Caroline Bliss as Miss Moneypenny
John Terry as Felix Leiter
Geoffrey Keen as Minister of Defence (Sir Frederick Gray)
The Living Daylights (1987): This is the first of two Bond movies for star Timothy Dalton. This was a good movie, but he played Bond too serious. There was no light at the end of his tunnel. A lot of people felt that way when watching this. This serious side of Bond also came too soon after the long-lasting and rather silly Roger Moore era of Bond (1971-1985). Had this film been made in the 1990s, it would have matched the overall downbeat mood of the masses and been a stellar hit.
The next Dalton Bond, "License to Kill" (1989), was much better on many levels. Dalton's serious Bond worked well in LTK because it was a revenge film. THIS is the Bond we always wanted to see; the absolute, p***ed off Bond. Where the gloves come off. Plus, there was much more interesting action and a bigger, more exciting female cast. Unfortunately, I think his lukewarm reception in "The Living Daylights" affected attendance for LTK at the box office. The lack of success with LTK nearly marked the end of the Bond franchise until Pierce Brosnan started Bond with 1994s "Goldeneye". By then, serious was in with movie audiences. America is still in that depressing slump (2009). Pierce's Bond was still very serious, but had an air of levity that Dalton's did not. In one way, it was almost a return to the Sean Connery/George Lazenby era of Bond.
"The Living Daylights" is an entertaining Bond movie with a lot of interesting stuff to see. I still highly recommend it.
Photos:
Poster Artwork
This is artwork done for an international
movie poster of "The Living Daylights". They should have used
this for ALL the movie posters. It's outstanding! Bond art
at its finest!