The Living Daylights

The Living Daylights was released in 1987 on the same day as The Lost Boys and it was an absolute smash hit. Not only did it outperform the famous vampire flick it also took more at the box office than Die Hard or Lethal Weapon. The first outing for Timothy Dalton as Bond eventually raked in over $190 million at the box office worldwide. It was also well received by fans and critics as everyone welcomed a new incarnation of 007 to re-invigorate the character after the Roger Moore years.

The film is a gritty action packed affair which starts with a spectacular sequence on Gibraltar as Bond chases an assassin. He then assists with the defection of Russian General Koskov who is recaptured by a mysterious Aryan assassin called Necros. Bond eventually uncovers a plot involving an arms dealer and with the help of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan he fights the Soviets, rescues the girl and goes after the bad guy.

Roger Moore finally retired in 1985 after A View to a Kill was panned by critics and this led to the casting of Dalton. They had actually tried to get Dalton when Connery left but he felt he was too young for the part at the time. His most serious competition was from Pierce Brosnan but he was still tied up with the television show Remington Steel and so this time Dalton accepted the part. He was a big fan of the books and decided to play Bond as a tougher, grittier character than Moore had, even performing many of his own stunts.

This does mark a more serious outing for Bond but the supposedly witty one-liners are still there and the script may have been developed with Brosnan in mind. There are also some cringingly awful devices introduced by Q including a couch which swallows people and a Ghetto Blaster which fires rockets. He also equips Bond with an explosive keychain which he whistles to activate.

The action scenes were pretty good and the Cold War backdrop worked well at the time even if it seems clichéd and dated now. Norwegian band A-Ha did the theme song and lead singer Morten Harket was even offered a small part as baddie but he declined. The rest of the casting was good with Maryam d’Abo playing the cellist and love interest, Kara Milovy, Jeroen Krabbe as General Koskov and John Rhys Davies as General Pushkin. There was a new and fairly forgettable Moneypenny played by Caroline Bliss and she returned for the less successful License to Kill.

This was the fifteenth film in the series and audiences were clearly still hungry for more Bond. There is no doubt that Die Hard and Lethal Weapon are superior action films so the fact this outperformed them by a distance at the worldwide box office just shows you the strength of the brand and the draw of a new Bond. Things didn’t work out too well for Dalton in the end and after the fairly disappointing License to Kill he quit the part.