The Living Daylights
The Living Daylights is a 1987 spy film, the fifteenth entry in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, and the first of two to star Timothy Dalton as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond.
The fourth film in the series to be directed by John Glen, the film's title is taken from Ian Fleming's short story "The Living Daylights", the plot of which also forms the basis of the first act of the film. It was the last film to use the title of an Ian Fleming story until the 2006 instalment Casino Royale. It is also the first film to have Caroline Bliss as Miss Moneypenny, replacing Lois Maxwell.
The Living Daylights was produced by Albert R. Broccoli, his stepson Michael G. Wilson, and co-produced by his daughter, Barbara Broccoli. It grossed $191.2 million worldwide and was followed by Licence to Kill in 1989.
Plot
, alongside fellow MI6 agents 004 and 002, participates in a training exercise in Gibraltar. During the exercise, an assassin kills 004 and several British military personnel. Bond manages to chase down the assassin, who dies after a vehicle chase.Some time later, Bond is assigned to help KGB General Georgi Koskov defect to the West, acting as a counter-sniper covering his escape from a concert hall in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. During the mission, Bond notices that the KGB sniper assigned to "protect" Koskov is a female cellist from the orchestra. Disobeying his orders to kill the sniper, he shoots the rifle from the cellist, then uses the Trans-Siberian Pipeline to smuggle Koskov across the border to the West.
In his post-defection debriefing, Koskov informs MI6 that the KGB's old policy of "Smert Shpionam", meaning "Death to Spies", has been reactivated by General Leonid Pushkin, the new head of the KGB. Koskov is later abducted from the Blayden estate safe-house and is assumed to have been taken back to Moscow. Bond is ordered to track down Pushkin in Tangier and kill him, to stop further killings of agents and escalation of tensions between the Soviet Union and the West. Bond agrees to carry out the mission when he learns that the assassin who killed 004 left a note reading "Smiert Spionam".
Bond returns to Bratislava to track down the cellist, Kara Milovy. He finds out that Koskov's defection was faked, and that Kara is actually Koskov's girlfriend. Bond convinces Kara that he is a friend of Koskov's and persuades her to accompany him to Vienna, supposedly to be reunited with him. They escape Bratislava while being pursued by the KGB and Slovak police, crossing over the border into Austria. Meanwhile, Pushkin meets with arms dealer Brad Whitaker in Tangier, informing him that the KGB is cancelling an arms deal previously arranged between Koskov and Whitaker.
During his brief journey with Kara in Vienna, Bond visits the Prater to meet his MI6 ally, Saunders, who discovers a history of financial dealings between Koskov and Whitaker. As he leaves their meeting, Saunders is killed by Koskov's henchman Necros, who again leaves the message "Smert' Shpionam". Bond and Kara promptly leave for Tangier. There, Bond confronts Pushkin, who denies any knowledge of "Smert' Shpionam" and reveals that Koskov is evading arrest for embezzlement of government funds. Bond and Pushkin then join forces, and Bond fakes Pushkin's assassination, causing Whitaker and Koskov to progress with their scheme. Meanwhile, Kara contacts Koskov, who tells her that Bond is actually a KGB agent and convinces her to drug him so that he can be captured.
Koskov, Necros, Kara, and the drugged Bond fly to a Soviet air base in Afghanistan, where Koskov betrays Kara and imprisons her, alongside Bond. The pair escape, and in doing so, free a condemned prisoner, Kamran Shah, leader of the local Mujahideen. Bond and Kara discover that Koskov is using Soviet funds to buy a massive shipment of opium from the Mujahideen, intending to keep the profits with enough left over to supply the Soviets with their arms and buy Western arms from Whitaker.
With the Mujahideen's help, Bond plants a bomb aboard the cargo plane carrying the opium but is discovered and has no choice but to barricade himself in the plane. Meanwhile, the Mujahideen attack the air base on horseback and engage the Soviets in a gun battle. During the battle, Kara drives a jeep into the cargo hold of the plane as Bond takes off, and Necros also jumps on board at the last second from a jeep driven by Koskov. After a fight, Bond sends Necros falling to his death and deactivates the bomb. Bond then notices Shah and his men being pursued by Soviet forces. He re-activates the bomb and drops it out of the plane and onto a bridge, blowing it up and helping Shah and his men escape the Soviets. The plane subsequently crashes, destroying the drugs, while Bond and Kara escape.
Bond returns to Tangier to kill Whitaker, infiltrating his estate with the help of Felix Leiter. Pushkin arrests Koskov, ordering him to be sent back to Moscow "in the diplomatic bag".
Sometime later, Kara is the solo cellist in a Vienna performance. Kamran Shah and his men jostle in during the intermission and are introduced to now-diplomat General Gogol, and the Soviets. After her performance, Bond surprises Kara in her dressing room, and they embrace.
Cast
Composer John Barry makes an uncredited cameo appearance as an orchestra conductor.Production
Originally the film was proposed to be a prequel in the series, an idea that eventually resurfaced with the reboot of the series in 2006, Casino Royale. SMERSH, the fictionalised Soviet counterintelligence agency that featured in Fleming's Casino Royale and several other early James Bond novels, was an acronym for 'Smiert Shpionam' —'Death to Spies'.Casting
In autumn 1985, following the mixed reception of A View to a Kill, work began on scripts for the next Bond film, with the intention that Roger Moore would not reprise the role of James Bond. Moore, who by the time of the release of The Living Daylights would have been 59 years old, chose to retire from the role after 12 years and seven films. Albert Broccoli, however, claimed that he let Moore go from the role.During an extensive search for a new actor to play Bond, a number of actors, including New Zealander Sam Neill, Irish-born Pierce Brosnan, and Welsh-born stage actor Timothy Dalton, auditioned for the role in 1986. Bond co-producer Michael G. Wilson, director John Glen, Dana and Barbara Broccoli "were impressed with Sam Neill and very much wanted to use him." However, Albert Broccoli was not sold on the actor. In 2022, Neill stated that he had never wanted the role. Meanwhile, Jerry Weintraub, the chairman of MGM/UA Communications, suggested hiring Mel Gibson for a two-picture deal valued at $10 million, but Broccoli was not interested. Other actors touted in the press included Bryan Brown, Michael Nader, Andrew Clarke, and Finlay Light.
The producers eventually offered the role to Brosnan after a three-day screen-test. At the time, he was contracted to the television series Remington Steele, which had been cancelled by the NBC network due to falling ratings. The announcement that he would be chosen to play James Bond caused a surge in interest in the series, which led to NBC exercising a 60-day option in Brosnan's contract to make a further season of the series. NBC's action caused drastic repercussions, as a result of which Broccoli withdrew the offer given to Brosnan, saying that he did not want the character associated with a contemporary television series. This led to a drop in interest in Remington Steele, and only five new episodes were filmed before the series was finally cancelled. The edict from Broccoli was that "Remington Steele would not be James Bond."
Dana Broccoli suggested Timothy Dalton. Albert Broccoli was initially reluctant given Dalton's public lack of interest in the role, but at his wife's urging agreed to meet the actor. However, Dalton was due to begin filming Brenda Starr and so was unavailable. In the intervening period, having completed Brenda Starr, Dalton was offered the role once again, which he accepted. For a period, the filmmakers had Dalton, but he had not signed a contract. A casting director persuaded Robert Bathurst—an English actor who would become known for his roles in Joking Apart, Cold Feet, and Downton Abbey—to audition for Bond.
Bathurst believes that his "ludicrous audition" was only "an arm-twisting exercise" because the producers wanted to persuade Dalton to take the role by telling him they were still auditioning other actors. Dalton agreed to the film while travelling between airports: "Without anything to do, I decided to start thinking about whether I really, really should or should not do James Bond. Although obviously we'd moved some way along in that process, I just wasn't set on whether I should do it or shan't I do it. But the moment of truth was fast approaching as to whether I'd say yes or no. And that's where I said yes. I picked up the phone from the hotel room in the Miami airport and called them and said, "Yep, you're on: I'll do it."
Dalton's take was very different from that of Moore, regarded as more in line of Ian Fleming's character: a reluctant hero who is often uncomfortable in his job. Dalton wished to create a Bond different from Moore's, feeling he would have declined the project if he were asked to imitate Moore. In contrast to Moore's more jocular approach, Dalton found his creative muse from the original books: "I definitely wanted to recapture the essence and flavour of the books, and play it less flippantly. After all, Bond's essential quality is that he's a man who lives on the edge. He could get killed at any moment, and that stress and danger factor is reflected in the way he lives, chain-smoking, drinking, fast cars and fast women."
Moore declined to watch The Living Daylights in cinema as he did not wish to demonstrate any negative opinions about the project. Broccoli enjoyed the change of tone, feeling that Brosnan would have been too similar to Moore. Neill thought Dalton performed well in the role, and Brosnan called Dalton a good choice in 1987, but felt it too near the bone to watch the finished film. Brosnan won the role in 1994, based on his filmed audition from 1986. Sean Connery endorsed Dalton in an interview with the Daily Mail, and Desmond Llewelyn enjoyed working with a fellow stage actor.
The English actress Maryam d'Abo, a former model, was cast as the Czechoslovak cellist Kara Milovy. In 1984, d'Abo had attended auditions for the role of Pola Ivanova in A View to a Kill. Barbara Broccoli included d'Abo in the audition for playing Kara, which she later passed. D'abo presented a longer account in recent years. While she was chosen for Pola Ivanova, John Glen, the director did notice she had potential. After filming another movie in Germany the director there recommended D'abo to the Broccoli family. She was in a health club with a different hairstyle from her previous screen test and encountered Barbara Broccoli who praised her new looks and after hearing Glen wanted to see her again, she was chosen.
Originally, the KGB general set up by Koskov was to be General Gogol; however, Walter Gotell was too sick to handle the major role, and the character of Leonid Pushkin replaced Gogol, who appears briefly at the end of the film, having transferred to the Soviet diplomatic service. This was Gogol's final appearance in a James Bond film. Morten Harket, the lead vocalist of the Norwegian rock group a-ha, was offered a minor role as a henchman but declined, because of lack of time and because he believed they wanted to cast him for his popularity rather than his acting. Joe Don Baker was hired based on his performance in Edge of Darkness, which was helmed by future Bond director Martin Campbell.
Director John Glen decided to include the macaw from For Your Eyes Only. It can be seen squawking in the kitchen of Blayden House when Necros attacks MI6's officers.