Following Roger Moore’s final appearance as James Bond in 1985’s ‘A View To A Kill’, the search was on to find the next actor to play agent 007. After an extensive auditioning process, Eon Productions decided on Pierce Brosnan, but he was unable to take the role due to a contractual situation with the television show ‘Remington Steele’ and NBC.

With the producers back to square one, they turned to Timothy Dalton; an actor who had been on their radar since the 1970’s. Eventually they would get their man, and a new incarnation of James Bond was ready to grace our screens.

The promotional material for ‘The Living Daylights’ suggested that the Bond franchise was heading into darker territory, moving away from the lighter tones of the Roger Moore era. I particularly like the phrase “The most dangerous Bond. Ever.” and Dalton’s expression on the poster was certainly encouraging for Bond fans hoping for a more serious turn.

‘The Living Daylights’ starts off with an explosive chase scene in Gibraltar, confirming Dalton’s standing as a great action man and proving that he was up to the task. It was an impressive sequence that set the plot of the movie up nicely, whilst keeping a fast pace and delivering plenty of thrills.

The film’s story revolves around the defection of KGB superior Giorgi Koskov, who makes contact with British Intelligence and personally requests James Bond to oversee his extraction from Bratislava to London.

It all sounds like a lifetime ago, when the Iron Curtain and Eastern Bloc countries were still around (in that form), but this part of the movie is quite entertaining – as well as nostalgic – and the method used to help Koskov escape to the West is most ingenious.

Of course, things never go so easily in the world of espionage, and before the British have a chance to find out everything Koskov knows, he is snatched back by a KGB agent posing as a milkman – and armed with explosive milk bottles!

At this point we are thirty-five minutes in, and so far so good. However, from here onward the pace of the film does slow a little, but the steely performance of Dalton and well-executed action scenes are more than enough to propel things along.

From Czechoslovakia to Vienna and then onto Afghanistan (and also Tangier) for the third and final act, the movie progresses neatly within an ideal running time of just over two hours.

Timothy Dalton is supported by a decent cast in this film with Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbe as Koskov, John Rhys-Davies as General Pushkin, Joe Don Baker as arms dealer Brad Whittaker and Maryam D’Abo as Kara Milovy.

The movie’s soundtrack is also impressive, and would be the final Bond film for composer John Barry. The main theme by Norwegian band a-ha has a great eighties beat, and there are two songs performed by The Pretenders – one of which is the haunting and moody ‘If There Was A Man’, that is played during the end credits.

‘The Living Daylights’ opened to reasonable reviews in June 1987, and did very well at the box office – earning $190 million from a $40 million budget – and easily eclipsing the takings from the previous Bond film ‘A View to a Kill’ released two years earlier.

I always found this to be a gritty and mature entry into the Bond series, but the seriousness of Dalton’s performance did take a little adjusting to – especially after more than a decade of Roger Moore’s humour and tongue-in-cheek antics.

My only criticism of the film is that the plot does become a little complex and the main villains come across as lightweight, even comical at times. That being said, the plans of these bad guys are a lot more grounded and realistic compared to previous Bond foes who usually wanted to take over the entire world.

This is one of my favourite Bond films, and I have grown to appreciate it even more over the years. I think what has helped raise this movie’s wider appeal – as well as cast Dalton’s portrayal of Bond in a new light – would be the success of Daniel Craig and his similar approach to the role in recent years.

Dalton would play James Bond one more time – in 1989’s ‘Licence To Kill’ – and I will share my thoughts on that film at a later date.

A link to the theatrical trailer for ‘The Living Daylights’ is below, courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers YouTube Channel.

Screenshots and photos courtesy of United Artists and Eon Productions.