Timothy Dalton

GOLDENEYE

/ Rich Paschall / 8 Comments

The Pierce Brosnan Years, by Rich Paschall

Although Timothy Dalton had a six-year, 3 film deal to play the famous secret agent, James Bond, only two films were made.  The third was delayed by a protracted legal fight between Danjaq, holder of the Bond copyright, and a variety of parties, including mega studio MGM.  When the six years expired, Dalton walked away.  He felt it might not just be the end for him as Bond, but the series itself may be over.  Sixteen films had been made by 1989 which is a good run for any series.

While the legal battles went on, EON Productions planned to go ahead with the Bond legacy.  With Dalton dropping out, the producers called on Pierce Brosnan who had actually been considered as the one to replace Roger Moore.  His contractual agreement to a revived Remington Steele television series kept Brosnan from agreeing years earlier to the super sleuth.  In 1994 he went into production on his first Bond film, GoldenEye.

The initial Brosnan movie was the second Bond film not to take the title from an Ian Fleming story.  The original work did pay homage to the Bond creator, however, by taking its name from Operation Goldeneye.  This was a project Fleming participated in as a Lieutenant Commander in British Naval Intelligence.  Years later, after the success of the Bond stories, Fleming named his Jamaica estate, Goldeneye.  The book GoldenEye is actually a novelization of the movie.

The story finds Bond investigating the theft of a helicopter, and the attack on a Russian outpost that controlled a satellite with the “GoldenEye” weapon.  Was GoldenEye real?  Was it capable of destroying London’s financial district?  Could anyone save the day?  Pierce Brosnan brings charm back to Bond with plenty of opportunity for the double entendre.  Judi Dench now becomes M, head of MI6.  Some regulars are recast but Desmond Llewelyn returns as Q, having played the part since the beginning of the Bond films.  It is a good effort by Brosnan and he revives the series with the 1995 release after the long hiatus.  The stunts and special effects are over the top as usual, and they will again ask you to accept the improbable (if not impossible) as fact.

james-bond-movie-crazy-pierce-brosnan

For the second film, Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), can you imagine a media mogul who tries to manipulate the news to improve on ratings?  If this seems a bit more modern, perhaps it is meant to be so.  A British ship is sunk near China, a Chinese plane is shot down and the resulting tension seems to be pushing the world toward World War III. One cable news outlet is always on hand to catch the disasters as they happen.  Jonathan Pryce plays the media mogul and Teri Hatcher is his trophy wife.  Bond teams up with a Chinese agent (girl, of course) to find out what is really going on and the world will once again be saved.  Despite script disputes with studios and also with actors, the final product was a success at the box office.

The World Is Not Enough (1999) for the evil villains that populate this story.  There is no brief summary for this tale of a former KGB agent who is now a terrorist and has to be stopped after he gets weapons-grade plutonium.  Is the daughter of an assassinated businessman, who had been kidnapped but later set free, still safe?  Can Bond protect her?  Is she sympathetic to her former captors? What about M who is later kidnapped?  What about the pipeline to save a poor country?  What about Istanbul?  If you can stay with the interconnected storylines it is an engaging, if somewhat long, Bond affair.  Denise Richards is the “Bond girl.”

After many years with United Artists, MGM becomes the distributor of the Bond films.  The business dealings of MGM and it various holdings, United Artists, Danjaq, EON Productions and others has become more complicated than this Bond film.  MGM will count on Bond not just to save the world, but the studio too.

A sad and ironic side note to The World Is Not Enough involves actor Desmond Llewelyn.  In the film he seems to be training John Cleese to be his successor of Q division for gadgets.  He indicates he is not retiring and there was no intention of replacing the aging performer in the role.  Aside from continuity, he was a beloved character in the series.  Soon after the première, Llewelyn was killed in an automobile accident.  Cleese will indeed move up in the next film.

No one can kill James Bond, not even the North Koreans.  While investigating a North Korean Colonel and the sale of diamonds for weapons, Bond is captured and imprisoned but he lives to Die Another Day (2002).  Brought home through a prisoner swap after 14 months, Bond is suspended from duty but will that stop our hero?  Of course not.  Soon he teams up with an American Agent, Halle Barry, to follow the trail of diamonds and weapons from London to Cuba to Iceland.  Like some other Bond films, the climactic fight takes place on a plane and who is flying the craft?  Cleese is now Q.  Madonna has a small part and performs the title tune.  The film marks the 40th anniversary of the first feature when Sean Connery told us he was “Bond, James Bond.”

Brosnan had an option on a fifth film.  In fact he had once mentioned he thought he might like to do six films.  But he was already 50 and recalling the criticism Roger Moore took for staying too long in the role.  He decided to decline the option and move on.  This gave EON the opportunity to restart the series and go back to the first James Bond story and make the movie that had eluded them all along, Casino Royale.

RELATED:
Bond, James Bond, The Sean Connery Years, Part 1
Never Say Never Again, The Sean Connery Years, Part 2
Moore Bond, The Roger Moore Years, Part 1
For Your Eyes Only, The Roger More Years, Part 2
Bond Is Back, The Timothy Dalton Years

BOND IS BACK

/ Rich Paschall / 7 Comments

The Timothy Dalton Years, by Rich Paschall

James Bond first appeared in film in 1962 with Sean Connery bringing charm and adventure to the world’s greatest spy with a license to kill.  After 6 films by Connery and one by George Lazenby, Roger Moore took the role for seven films.

James_Bond_Timothy_Dalton

After these 14 Eon Productions, a rival production that was a remake of Thunderball (Never Say Never Again) and a spoof (Casino Royale starring David Niven), it might seem that James Bond had reached the end.  Moore’s last film, 1985’s A View To A Kill, did well at the box office, but was not particularly well received with the critics.  It seems Moore was a bit too old for the secret agent.

Eon decided to move forward. Bond was back in the person of Timothy Dalton in the 1987 film, The Living Daylights.  It was based on the Ian Fleming short story of the same name.  This time the film may have retained more of the essence of the Fleming piece than many of the other Bond films had done.

With the first Dalton film you will find more of an intense James Bond than previously revealed.  There is less of the charm and more uncertainty than we are used to in the Bond character.  Dalton is not Connery or Moore in his portrayals of 007.  He is a serious agent at work.  Why the shift?  Whether it was in the script or not, Dalton was attempting to move more toward the Bond as described in the novels rather than the Bond people had already seen.

Reports are that Dalton could be seen on set reading the Fleming novels to see what the original author had meant the character to be.  The books were not describing the Bond seen in previous films.  Some of those movies only used the title and little else from the original author’s story.

In The Living Daylights, as in the short story, Bond is set up as a sniper to shoot anyone who might harm a top Soviet defector.  Bond does not kill the other shooter but only wounds her.  Some think it is because the other sniper was a woman.  We later learn she is the girlfriend of the defector Bond was supposed to protect, and she was just there to create the illusion of harm.  From there Bond is left to figure out the real roles of the girlfriend and the defector, as well as diamond dealers and drug dealers.  There is a little humor, a little charm, and a lot of intensity.

Next up for James Bond was the film Licence To Kill.  No, you will not find an Ian Fleming story with that title.  It was the first story to use an original title, although the term “licence to kill” was used often in the Bond stories.  In truth many of the films retained almost nothing of the story from which the title was taken.  There are references to other stories and characters in this movie, but the series has clearly gone in a new direction.

The sixteenth Eon production was written with the darker portrayal of Bond in mind.  The charm is left behind as Bond is on more of a personal vendetta against a drug lord who has murdered friends of his.  When one wonders why Bond has taken up the pursuit, someone refers back to something we see at the end of the sixth Bond film and is referred to in one of the Moore films.  I won’t give that away just in case you have not seen it.

With James Bond now seen as a rogue agent, his “double 00” status is revoked.  “Q” takes a vacation so he can help Bond in secret.  This gives character actor Desmond Llewelyn, who played the keeper of all those Bond gadgets, an extended part in a film.  Llewelyn had played the character throughout the series at this point.  Here he is caught up in the action, as unlikely as that may seem.

The Dalton films were directed by John Glen, who also directed the last three Moore films.  Just as before, Bond performs incredible action stunts throughout the features.  Perhaps filming techniques have improved to the point that they can make the sequences appear more dangerous with minimal risk.  Bond’s fight with the villain in Licence To Kill may be the most incredible yet.

Dalton had a six-year, three film deal with Eon Productions to play the super spy.  After Licence To Kill, however, producer Albert Broccoli and his company Danjaq, holders of the Bond copyright, found themselves in a protracted legal battle over the Bond series.  This effectively delayed the series for years as the lawsuit between Danjaq and MGM/UA dragged on.  The movie studio had leased the back catalogue of Bond films to another party at below market value.  MGM, which had previously merged with the UA who had funded the Bond series at the beginning, was owned by Qintex, which wanted to merge with Pathe Communications so they made the lease deal and… OK, that’s enough of that.

While all of this went on, the six-year deal with Dalton expired.  Dalton reportedly said at the time “My feeling is this will be the last one. I don’t mean my last one, I mean the end of the whole lot.”  We have already seen, however, that James Bond does indeed live more than twice.  Bond will be back.

Friday: “Goldeneye, The Pierce Brosnan Years.”

RELATED:
Bond, James Bond, The Sean Connery Years, Part 1
Never Say Never Again, The Sean Connery Years, Part 2
Moore Bond, The Roger Moore Years, Part 1
For Your Eyes Only, The Roger More Years, Part 2

GOLDENEYE

/ Rich Paschall / 24 Comments

The Pierce Brosnan Years, by Rich Paschall

Although Timothy Dalton had a six-year, 3 film deal to play the famous secret agent, James Bond, only two films were made.  The third was delayed by a protracted legal fight between Danjaq, holder of the Bond copyright, and a variety of parties, including mega studio MGM.  When the six years expired, Dalton walked away.  He felt it might not just be the end for him as Bond, but the series itself may be over.  Sixteen films had been made by 1989 which is a good run for any series.

While the legal battles went on, EON Studios planned to go ahead with the Bond legacy.  With Dalton dropping out, the producers called on Pierce Brosnan who had actually been considered as the one to replace Roger Moore.  His contractual agreement to a revived Remington Steele television series kept Brosnan from agreeing years earlier to the super sleuth.  In 1994 he went into production on his first Bond film, Goldeneye.

The initial Brosnan movie was the first Bond film not to take the title from an Ian Fleming story.  The original work did pay homage to the Bond creator by taking its name from Operation Goldeneye.  This was a project Fleming was a part of when he was a Lieutenant Commander in British Naval Intelligence.  Years later, after the success of the Bond stories, Fleming named his Jamaica estate, Goldeneye.  The book Goldeneye is actually a novelization of the movie.

The story finds Bond investigating the theft of a helicopter, and the attack on a Russian outpost that controlled a satellite with the “Goldeneye” weapon.  Was Goldeneye real?  Was it capable of destroying London’s financial district?  Could anyone save the day?  Pierce Brosnan brings charm back to Bond with plenty of opportunity for the double entendre.  Judi Dench now becomes M, head of MI6.  Some regulars are recast but Desmond Llewelyn returns as Q, having played the part since the beginning of the Bond films.  It is a good effort by Brosnan and he revives the series with the 1995 release after the long hiatus.  The stunts and special effects are over the top as usual, and they will again ask you to accept the improbable (if not impossible) as fact.

james-bond-movie-crazy-pierce-brosnan

For the second film, Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), can you imagine a media mogul who tries to manipulate the news to improve on ratings?  If this seems a bit more modern, perhaps it is meant to be so.  A British ship is sunk near China, a Chinese plane is shot down and the resulting tension seems to be pushing the world toward World War III and one cable news outlet is always on hand to catch the disasters as they happen.  Jonathan Pryce plays the media mogul and Teri Hatcher is his trophy wife.  Bond teams up with a Chinese agent (girl, of course) to find out what is really going on and the world will once again be saved.  Despite script disputes with studios and also with actors, the final product was a success at the box office.

The World Is Not Enough (1999) for the evil villains that populate this story.  There is no brief summary for this tale of a former KGB agent who is now a terrorist and has to be stopped after he gets weapons-grade plutonium.  Is the daughter of an assassinated businessman, who had been kidnapped but later set free, still safe?  Can Bond protect her?  Is she sympathetic to her former captors?What about M who is later kidnapped?  What about the pipeline to save a poor country?  What about Istanbul?  If you can stay with the interconnected storylines it is an engaging, if somewhat long, Bond affair.  Denise Richards is the “Bond girl.”  After many years with United Artists, MGM becomes the distributor of the Bond films.  The business dealings of MGM and it various holdings, United Artists, Danjaq, EON Productions and others has become more complicated than this Bond film.  MGM will count on Bond not just to save the world, but the studio too.

A sad and ironic side note to The World Is Not Enough involves actor Desmond Llewelyn.  In the film he seems to be training John Cleese to be his successor of Q division for gadgets.  He indicates he is not retiring and there was no intention of replacing the aging performer in the role.  Aside from continuity, he was a beloved character in the series.  Soon after the première, Llewelyn was killed in an automobile accident.  Cleese will indeed move up in the next film.

No one can kill James Bond, not even the North Koreans.  While investigating a North Korean Colonel and the sale of diamonds for weapons, Bond is captured and imprisoned but he lives to Die Another Day (2002).  Brought home through a prisoner swap after 14 months, Bond is suspended from duty but will that stop our hero?  Of course not.  Soon he teams up with an American Agent, Halle Barry, to follow the trail of diamonds and weapons from London to Cuba to Iceland.  Like some other Bond films, the climactic fight takes place on a plane and who is flying the craft?  Cleese is now Q.  Madonna has a small part and performs the title tune.  The film marks the 40th anniversary of the first feature when Sean Connery told us he was “Bond, James Bond.”

Brosnan had an option on a fifth film.  In fact he had once mentioned he thought he might like to do six films.  But he was already 50 and recalling the criticism Roger Moore took for staying too long in the role.  He decided to decline the option and move on.  This gave EON the opportunity to restart the series and go back to the first James Bond story and make the movie that had eluded them all along, Casino Royale.

Related:  Bond, James Bond
Never Say Never Again
Moore Bond
For You Eyes Only
Bond Is Back

BOND IS BACK

/ Rich Paschall / 26 Comments

The Timothy Dalton Years, by Rich Paschall

James Bond first appeared in film in 1962 with Sean Connery bringing charm and adventure to the world’s greatest spy with a license to kill.  After 6 films by Connery and one by George Lazenby, Roger Moore took the role for seven films.

James_Bond_Timothy_Dalton

After these 14 Eon Productions, a rival production that was a remake of Thunderball (Never Say Never Again) and a spoof (Casino Royale starring David Niven), it might seem that James Bond had reached the end.  Moore’s last film, 1985’s A View To A Kill, did well at the box office, but was not particularly well received with the critics.  It seems Moore was a bit too old for the secret agent.

Eon decided to move forward. Bond was back in the person of Timothy Dalton in the 1987 film, The Living Daylights.  It was based on the Ian Fleming short story of the same name.  This time the film may have retained more of the essence of the Fleming piece than many of the other Bond films had done.

With the first Dalton film you will find more of an intense James Bond than previously revealed.  There is less of the charm and more uncertainty than we are used to in the Bond character.  Dalton is not Connery or Moore in his portrayals of 007.  He is a serious agent at work.  Why the shift?  Whether it was in the script or not, Dalton was attempting to move more toward the Bond as described in the novels rather than the Bond people had already seen.

Reports are that Dalton could be seen on set reading the Fleming novels to see what the original author had meant the character to be.  The books were not describing the Bond seen in previous films.  Some of those movies only used the title and little else from the original author’s story.

First up for Dalton was a film based on the Fleming short story, The Living Daylights.  As in the short story, Bond is set up as a sniper to shoot anyone who might harm a top Soviet defector.  Bond does not kill the other shooter but only wounds her.  Some think it is because the other sniper was a woman.  We later learn she is the girlfriend of the defector Bond was supposed to protect and she was just there to create the illusion of harm.  From there Bond is left to figure out the real roles of the girlfriend, the defector, as well as diamond dealers and drug dealers.  There is a little humor, a little charm, and a lot of intensity.

Next up for James Bond was the film Licence To Kill.  No, you will not find an Ian Fleming story with that title.  It was the first story to use an original title, although the term “licence to kill” was used often in the Bond stories.  In truth many of the films retained almost nothing of the story from which the title was taken.  There are references to other stories and characters in this movie, but the series has clearly gone in a new direction.

The sixteenth Eon production was written with the darker portrayal of Bond in mind.  The charm is left behind as Bond is on more of a personal vendetta against a drug lord who has murdered friends of his.  When one wonders why Bond has taken up the pursuit, someone refers back to something we see at the end of the sixth Bond film and is referred to in one of the Moore films.  I won’t give that away just in case you have not seen it.

With James Bond now seen as a rogue agent, his “double 00” status is revoked.  “Q” takes a vacation so he can help Bond in secret.  This gives character actor Desmond Llewelyn, who played the keeper of all those Bond gadgets, an extended part in a film.  Llewelyn had played the character throughout the series at this point.  Here he is caught up in the action, as unlikely as that may seem.

The Dalton films were directed by John Glen, who also directed the last three Moore films.  Just as before, Bond performs incredible action stunts throughout the features.  Perhaps filming techniques have improved to the point that they can make the sequences appear more dangerous with minimal risk.  Bond’s fight with the villain in Licence To Kill may be the most incredible yet.

Dalton had a six-year, three film deal with Eon Productions to play the super spy.  After Licence To Kill, however, producer Albert Broccoli and his company Danjaq, holders of the Bond copyright, found themselves in a protracted legal battle over the Bond series.  This effectively delayed the series for years as the lawsuit between Danjaq and MGM/UA dragged on.  The movie studio had leased the back catalogue of Bond films to another party at below market value.  MGM, which had previously merged with the UA, who had funded the Bond series at the beginning, was owned by Qintex, which wanted to merge with Pathe Communications so they made the lease deal and… OK, that’s enough of that.

While all of this went on, the six-year deal with Dalton expired.  Dalton reportedly said at the time “My feeling is this will be the last one. I don’t mean my last one, I mean the end of the whole lot.”  We have already seen, however, that James Bond does indeed live more than twice.  Bond will be back.

Related: Bond, James Bond
Never Say Never Again
Moore Bond
For Your Eyes Only