THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
(*Spoilers*)
A film review by Jeff Meyer
Copyright 1987 Jeff Meyer
Well, yes, I enjoyed THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, not just parts of it, but the entire film, straight through. The Friday night audience I was in laughed uproariously several times and seemed to come out with pretty pleased expressions on their collective faces. However, for those of you who are reading the local movie reviews heralding a "new beginning" for the James Bond series...not quite. Below are spoilers...
First, Bond himself. Let's face it, the character created by Ian Fleming was something of a psycho--he wore Freudian hang-ups on his sleeve. Distrust of women, domination, the whole bit. When Sean Connery took over the role in the first three films, he played Bond with something of the brutal edge that Fleming described, but this was The Movies, after all, and the suave killer soon disappeared underneath heroics, puns and gadgets, albeit stylishly done. Then, for reasons that still amazes me, someone decided to hire Roger Moore to take over the role. For LIVE AND LET DIE, he played Bond as The Saint; afterwards, he became James Bond, Her Majesty's Comic Relief with a Poker Up His Ass. Except for one exception (THE SPY WHO LOVED ME), the role disappeared underneath greater and greater stunts and special effects, and under the increasingly wooden performances by Moore.
Timothy Dalton could play James Bond like Bob Hoskins after Moore and still be refreshing. Instead, he tries something else with Bond: a professional, but without the hang-ups, and without his tongue anywhere near his cheek. He looks earnest, and though it's Business First, he also has the Sir Galahad urges firmly supporting everything he does--one supposes M allows it because of his excellent track record. Still, he gets thrown into a lot of the situations Moore has for the last several movies (John Glen directs this film as per usual); it just seems more suspenseful, because he's not Acting Concerned--he actually looks like he's worried how he's going to survive. He even makes mistakes. Dalton also tends to be less aloof; scenes with other British agents (Q is back, though without the stock nagging he usually performs) give you the feeling he actually works with them (the new Moneypenny is quite good). In fact, it's nice to see some competent agents other than Bond; a battle between a safe-house guard and a Russian assassin makes you wonder, for a while, who will get the upper hand. It also makes the villain seem much more capable (and dangerous) when he confronts Bond.
The rest of the film, though, has the trappings of recent Bond pictures: supposedly erotic credits (they now have "Marketing Director" near the beginning of the line), stunts, gadgets, humor, a new Felix Leiter (collect them all!) and pretty fantastic luck on Bond's part. They've even gone so far as to try to keep a sort of continuity going: General Gogol, who has been depicted as the head of the KGB in four or five previous films, has been moved to the Soviet foreign office; it would appear that John Rhys-Davies will be take up the role of head of the KGB. Well, more power to them; if they can keep the next few movies at this pitch (and with this quality of the dialogue and the plot--they have paid attention to the details here), I'll continue to watch them. However, take it with a grain of salt; the films introducing a new Bond have usually put a lot of extra effort into supporting factors. Whether they do so for the next film is a good question.
Other comments: Joe Don Baker is listed fairly high up on the credits, but he can't be on screen for more than 5 minutes during the entire film. The villains seem a bit more stupid than sinister, though the fellow playing the Russian defector works well.
Couple of Questions:
1) I read in one of the trash magazines they pass out free in the theater that the Czech cellist Bond woos in this film is planned to be a steady love interest in later films--not an unattractive alternative, as the actress who plays Kara adds a certain Indiana Jones humor to the situations Bond finds himself in. Can anyone confirm or deny this? I can't believe they'd put anything in the films to deny Bond's "availability" in later films; but I would like to see it, as it makes his romances each film seem pretty superficial.
2) The $%$!@ Aurora theater shut the projection off before they got to the very end of the credits--did they have a "James Bond will return in XXXXXXXX" message at the tail end? [They did have "James Bond will return" but no film title was given. -ecl]
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
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