During this challenging time of the Covid-19 pandemic, when so many pleasures in life have been curtailed–including going to movies at the theater–my wife Laurice and I have spent some of our evenings watching through the Bond movies from Dr No (1962) all the way to Spectre (2015). There have been some unexpected pleasures and surprises along they way, chief among which is just how good Timothy Dalton was in his two films as 007. Despite being two of the poorest-performing Bond films at the Box office, The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989) hold up very well today as complex spy films with a charismatic performance by the Welsh-born actor. What I like about Dalton’s interpretation of Bond is his ability to show the dark side of James Bond—his abrupt turn to hostility towards Kara (Maryam D’Abo) when he suspects her of conspiring with the villain Koskov in The Living Daylights is a case in point. Even darker is his portrayal of Bond in Licence to Kill, where his close friend and CIA colleague Felix Leiter (David Hedison) is mauled by sharks, leading Bond to go rogue in pursuit of a personal vendetta against the drug kingpin Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi). And yet Dalton also has a charm and capacity for gentleness, especially in his relationships with women, that provides balance to the character.
Perhaps the biggest surprise, in terms of an individual film, was re-watching A View to a Kill (1985). I had remembered this as Roger Moore’s worst outing as Bond, largely to to his being too old for the role, and the less-than-stellar Bond girl, Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts). However, the film has a compelling villain in Christopher Walken’s Max Zoren, an amazing henchwoman in May Day (Grace Jones), and a brilliant cameo as Bond’s “valet,” Sir Godfrey Tibbet, by Patrick Macnee. The film also has outstanding locations in France and the San Francisco Bay Area, and a topical (at the time) plot featuring a plot to destroy Silicon Valley.
Sean Connery remains the best incarnation of James Bond, for me. It’s worth remembering that, having secured the long-desired film deal with Eon productions, Ian Fleming wanted his friend David Niven for the role of Bond. That gives you an idea of the “English gentleman” style Fleming had in mind. He also would have preferred Cary Grant to Sean Connery. But Fleming was won over by Connery’s charm, virility, and toughness, and was inspired by the casting of the Scottish Connery to create a Scottish background for Bond, outlined in the last two novels he published in his lifetime, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1963) and You Only Live Twice (1964). Even Connery’s last “official” outing as Bond, in Diamonds Are Forever, (1971) has great appeal as a camp, tongue-in-cheek crowd-pleaser.
Another surprise was how the brutality, lack of humor, and relative downplaying of any romantic charm in Daniel Craig’s Bond films seemed disappointing on this most recent journey through the Bond film archive. Although I still greatly admire Craig as an actor, I think it is time for a change of style in the leading actor. Like all Bond fans, I am excited to see Bond 25—No Time To Die—whenever it can finally be released in these Covid-afflicted times. But I am also excited to discover who the next actor will be to utter the legendary line, “My name is Bond, James Bond.”
James Bond and Ian Fleming 