Benson is my least favourite Bond author, ZERO MINUS TEN was okay,but I found the rest mediocre.
I got the impression that most of his research about the locations the books were set in came from Tourist information leaflets or brochures, especially how he described main Street in Gibraltar!
As a little foot note, because the had such a small print run here in the u.k, all the Raymond Benson James bond books I have:,apart from the novelisations of the last three Brosnon movies, are hardback ex library books from America
December 3:
The Living Daylights highlights: PTS, theme song, adaptation of The Living Daylights story, Vantage chase, the cello, the Afghanistan finale, Timothy Dalton
The Living Daylights lowlights: Villains (Whitaker and Koskov are arguably the series’ lamest villains), the convoluted plot, Bond at a carnival in a tuxedo, the poor final credits song
Overall, the highlights vastly outweigh the lowlights to make a great Bond film and a great debut for TD.
Oops, realized I jumped the gun here or maybe the plane cargo net? It’s still Dec 2
December 2: I was on again off again through Benson’s tenure and usually waited for the paperbacks to get them on the cheap. Not so with ZMT, which I bought new in hardcover. All I remember about it now is a passage where Bond is mowing down enemies with a machine gun and the narration says something like “this is what he lived for,” which I found an astonishing misread of the character, coming from a guy who’d once written the definitive guide to 007. It didn’t help that someone at the publisher chose that blurb to go on the back cover.
I remember finding HTTD interesting, mainly because it would have worked just as well with a hero not named James Bond. And maybe should have.
I guess I’m in the minority here, but I enjoyed the Raymond Benson novels. I thought his plots were really good, but admittedly his writing style could have been better.
Zero Minus Ten and Doubleshot are good, but my favorite novel of his is High Time To Kill. It is unique in the series in that it’s a plot about a race against time–and the elements–while having to deal with sabotage and double agents in his own climbing party to reach a crashed plane high in the Himalayas carrying the MacGuffin–a stolen microdot containing a revolutionary substance called Skin 17. To top it off, James Bond has to deal with a rival colleague leading the mission who’s every bit the athlete and climber that he is, if not more so, and one of the few people who can routinely get under Bond’s nerves. It’s a good, solid story that would make for an entertaining 007 film.
I didn’t dislike any of Benson’s novels, but my least favorite is The Facts Of Death. Great title, but I thought the story was too filled with action, and I wasn’t as wild about the villain’s organization, the Decada. Although its way of transporting viruses around the world was brilliant, if also frightening.
December 3: Highlights - Dalton, for most of it, and the general tone, approach and atmosphere of the first hour or so.
Lowlights: (Beyond it being 35 years old reminding me how old I have become) The cargo net fight as a stunt is smashing but once you spot it, the false floor beneath the inserts of the actors is so very cheap. The need to have Dalton shout the plot at us very quickly and in a rush. The Living Lowlight is the comedy end scene with Kamran Shah at the concert - why? How? What? Uh? Why are both Daltons saddled with such stupid endings? I do like the film on the whole but that stupid, stupid ending is one of the worst scenes of the series. Perhaps the worst, given the hike in quality on display in the preceding two hours.
Highlights: I still rate TLD as one of the best Bonds, consistently entertaining and exciting from beginning to end, with Dalton bringing freshness and a really different approach, the location work excellent, the story interesting and twisty, the action inventive yet believable, and a first rate John Barry score. I remember watching it in the cinema for the first time and being completely won over from the PTS onwards.
Lowlights: I agree, the comedy at the end is a misstep, judged with today’s sensibility. But in 1987, it was absolutely in line with the Moore era, as wink-wink as the, um, winking fish in LTK. And I shrug it off - no, I even welcome it, since it indicates that the filmmakers know and want the audience to know that this is all just pure fun in the end, no serious, contemporary spy treatise with the weight on the world on its shoulders. Just great entertainment.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. I’m more of a LTK man, but TLD has a great balance. I think it’s the template of how ‘Movie Bond’ and ‘Fleming’s Bond’ can be married without alienating either camp. Koskov isn’t my favourite villain, but Necros helps make up for that. I also believe Dalton is the only other Bond that has a truly distinctive vehicle of his own.
Highlights: “If he fires me, I’ll thank him for it,” “You should have brought lillies” and “Yes, I got the message,” signalling we’re in new territory now with a whole new take on Bond. Also a fit and agile Bond actor who helps sell some great stunts, and the last (alas) wonderful score from John Barry.
Lowlights: A middling title song that wasn’t worth contributing to Barry’s departure, the aforementioned goofy “we had some trouble at the airport” ending and two very weak enemies in Koskov and Whittaker, coming off as low-level con men at best and bizarrely splitting their roles between “villains” and “comedy relief.” Plus now that we’ve installed the doggy door, the dreaded Joe Don Baker will slip into the house two more times. Gaaah!
Highlights: Necros is one of the best henchmen in the series. The kidnapping of Koskov is wonderful and so is the cargo net fight. Like Casino Royale, the film succeeds in constructing a larger narrative on top of a faithfully-adapted foundation of Fleming.
Lowlights: I may be in the minority here, but I really do not enjoy the cello sled chase. I am all for ridiculous camp, but ending an otherwise wonderful car chase on that note almost ruins it for me.
December 3:
The Living Daylights is a personal favorite of mine so there’s a lot for me to love here.
Highlights: Dalton gets a great introductory PTS, from the first shot of him to the terrific stunt work. Add on the him appearing in a tuxedo in the first scene of the main film and I’d call this the ideal Bond introduction. Actually, just put Dalton’s Bond as one of the highlights.
I love the whole sniper sequence, a cool and unique part of the story. In particular I love how this is taken from the Fleming short story and expanded to be the basis for the film’s plot.
I like that John Rhys-Davies is in this.
Overall I like the supporting cast, particularly Saunders and how he does from butting heads with Bond to aiding him only to be killed for his troubles.
The villains get a bad rep but I like Necros, particularly his quirky weaponry like Walkman strangulation and exploding milk bottles. I also found Whitaker’s wax works to be a good foible.
The Aston Martin Vantage, a cool car and great chase sequence.
The climatic battle culminating with a really impressive bridge explosion.
Lowlights:
John Terry’s Felix. It was nice to see Felix back in the story, just wish they found a better actor.
The whole Afghanistan sequence, especially Bond working with the Mujahideen can be a bit jarring when viewed from a modern perspective.
No, the villains weren’t great but I don’t hate them the way others seem to.
I find this film interesting as a transitional point in the series with few first and lasts:
Following Lois Maxwell’s departure it was the first film not to feature any of the Dr No cast.
It was the last time we see character like Fredrick Gray and General Gogol, mainstays of the series since TSWLM
Last time Bond takes a briefing in the classic M’s office.
Fist film where Barbara Broccoli is a producer and her first time in the opening credits.
Last John Barry score (as mentioned in a previous post).
And finally, some random observations:
Did they bring back Max the parrot? Because there’s a very similar looking bird in the kitchen of the safehouse.
There’s a Russian heavy who’s one of Koskov’s minders who the general successfully evades. He turns up again surveilling Kara who also successfully evades him. Then he turns up again as part of Pushkin’s security detail. Who is this guy, Gogol’s nephew?
Good question. Let me reframe my comment to say that using the cello to escape created a bit too much tonal dissonance to my liking relative to the rest of the scene/film, but it was a nice demonstration of Bond’s resourcefulness.
December 3rd -
Highlights - the first 25 minutes is about the best of any Bond film. The look to the camera sets out the stall, the headbutt, if he fires me for it I’ll thank him… joyous it always brings me back to 11 year old me amazed by how exciting it was.
Lowlights - Felix Letter ( the actor is shocking and impinges on Dalton’s performance )
Highlights - the A-ha theme and the loyalty to both the story then the style of Fleming
Lowlights - The Moore hangovers! Timothy Dalton and Roger Moore are two very different people with two VERY different interpretations of James Bond. Trying to crowbar one into the other is pandering…
…in a way that some small () people are know b****ing about
But didn’t that also happen to some extent with Moore vis-a-vis Connery in LALD? Moore recalibrated in TMWTGG (good performance, but a franchise dead end), found his groove with TSWLM, and then perfected it in MR.
P.S. Looking forward to tomorrow’s question, and reading people’s posts.
Likes: DN is still my favorite. The delivery of the first “Bond, James Bond” line and the first scene with Silvia is probably the coolest any human has ever been on film.
Dislikes: Smiling Joe Wiseman didn’t get enough screen time.
Dec 3: Highlights: TLD was great. TD was a fantastic Bond, ahead of his time, and the public apparently didn’t get him. Shame. His Bond, James Bond delivery in the PTS is maybe my second favorite. Almost like a toss off as if to say, what in the world do you care what my name is? Line deliveries like “I’ve had a few optional extras installed” and “salt corrosion” were just spot on. And of course, the Vantage.
Lowlights: The second half of the film. It just began to weaken, and the climax was lame. Shame because the first half of the film is some of the best material in the series.
The Living Daylights highlights are many from the exciting pre-titles sequence to the use of the TLD short story, from the deadly mimic Necros (and his terrific fight with the Blayden butler–one of the series’ best) to another gadget-laden Aston Martin (fantastically demonstrated in the ice chase), and from John Barry’s stellar score to Q’s terrific explosive key ring finder, which is also one of the best gadgets in the series. So many to choose from. But if I had to select one, I’ll go with Bond’s fight with Necros on the cargo net. It’s different, creative, dangerous, and very Bond. I also love that after 007 dispatches Necros and gets back on the plane, how he takes a huge sigh of relief only to suddenly become aware of the bomb’s countdown ticking away, dramatically reminding him of yet another impending danger, and then he has to quickly scour for the device from among all the similarly attired Red Cross bags filled with opium. Very tense and exciting scene.
The Living Daylights lowlights – there aren’t many. (I actually enjoy the villains Brad Whitaker and Georgi Koskov by the way.) But I would have to go with Afghan desert stuff. The movie goes along great up through Bond’s and Kara Milovy’s escape from the prison cell on the Soviet air base, but then it starts to lose momentum. The stuff at Kamran Shah’s base is okay and doesn’t slow the film down too much, but once everyone gets on horseback for the Snow Leopard Brotherhood deal with Koskov and company, the movie almost grinds to a halt until they all get back to the air base. Problem is, I don’t know how the filmmakers could have done it differently. But nevertheless, it’s my least favorite part in an otherwise great Bond film.
4 December: Both exemplify a bad habit of the Bonds, that occasional “there’s insufficient story to tell; here’s stuff”, both relying not on any particular narrative drive but on the innate watchability of the leading man to barrel it all along and hope for a semblance of cohesion that way, although coherence is beyond them. Individual bits and pieces have their charms.
Both have significance to steering the series; Diamonds are Forever in its pastiche of 40s screwball comedies and gangster pictures, a Some Like It Tepid, sets up the genre homaging of the 70s, and For Your Eyes Only bedrocks the 1980s as Show the Stunts, Stuff the Script.
Diamonds are Forever does have atmosphere, an etiolated seediness, which admittedly is consistent (and there’s a recognisable and eruidite school of thought that this is deliberate and an exemplar of its period, so far as the Bonds could allow) so what it lacks in plot it makes up for in “feel”. An underwashed, sordid fumble, but felt-up nonetheless. Of the two, and despite all the running and jumping and swimming and skiing and climbing and noise and falling over and dodgy sexualised nymphettes of For Your Eyes Only, Diamonds are Forever is the more interesting, if primarily on a curiosity level about the artistic choices, or compromises, demonstrated within it. It’s the oddest film of the series.
As oft stated by myself, I adore DAF. It’s a mess yes but a deliberate and probably necessary mess. Connery gives a great pastiche of Goldfinger Bond ( which is different from TB Bond and Dr No - FRWL Bond. I still maintain that YOLT is a protest non-performance )
The film has always reminded me of a great Dubliners concert. It’s meandering, there’s no real destination but the journey is such fun that doesn’t matter. It’s looseness is something to cherish, as a big budget movie these days is generally a straightjacketed affair.
Viva Las Vegas! Diamonds ARE Forever.
FYEO on the other hand… I think as watch it that it should have been Dalton’s first Bond. It’s fundamentally unsuited to the Bond characterisation Moore, I agree with @MrKiddWint , perfected in Moonraker and to some extent returned to in OP and AVTAK. Moore’s charm sees him through but he looks decrepit compared to the young female cast. The central relationship would have been enhanced with Dalton and Bouquet acting opposite eachother and the Columbo character less redundant as an older mentor figure.
Quite a wasted opportunity really. Still, great stunts.
) people are know b****ing about