108 replies to this topic

[Jaelle]

Actually, that bar dancer was a real stripper/club dancer they hired from the US somewhere.

[zencat]

Well she is terrible!

But maybe they told her she couldn't really do a dance because it would be too sexy. But then why hire a real stripper? For her acting ability?

[Jaelle]

<
But maybe they told her she couldn't really do a dance because it would be too sexy. But then why hire a real stripper? For her acting ability?>>

Good question, I have no idea. I'm just repeating what I've read in Glen's bio and elsewhere. Besides which, I'm not a very good judge of the quality of dancers in strip joints so I have no opinion on her performance either way.

[zencat]

I think it would have kind of funny if she was supposed to be a bad or timid stripper and was being heckled relentlessly throughout the scene by a couple scumbags at the bar. Then, when the fight starts, she takes the opportunity to knock the guys flat.

But, of course, that would have added humor to the movie.

But, Jaelle...I see you're a big LTK fan and I don't hate this movie. I like it. I'm just having fun with the thread.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by Triton

They simply did not have the budget to tell a traditional Bond story, such as the I want to destroy/rule the world meglomaniac,  so they rewrote the screenplay to make it more modest and inline with the production budget they had to work with.

Really? I never knew that. I never realized quite how strapped for cash they were. I guess the filmmakers would have been only to happy to include the sort of eye-popping stunt scene I've been hammering on about, had they been able to afford to do so.

Originally posted by Jaelle

they got a studio with a PR department that was constantly changing hands and in serious meltdown; and a criminally incompetent PR campaign. I remember well that campaign because it differed so much from TLD and all the Moore films: in the weeks leading up to LTK's release, there were so few ads that I wondered if the film was actually going to be released.  

It was the same in England. I remember a lot of fuss, excitement and heavy publicity when THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS came out, but when LTK was released it received barely any press or television coverage. It was almost as though it went straight to video in the UK.

BTW, Jaelle, great post. Much food for thought.

And as for you, Mr Cox....

Originally posted by zencat

What else went wrong? Let's not forget....

1. Dirty Love

Okay, I won't defend that awful song.

2. Truman Lodge

Sorry, what was wrong with the character? Okay, he was hardly one of the all-time great henchmen, but if you can get past the novel concept of a Wall Street yuppie as a Bond bad guy, then he's great.

3. Dalton's hair
4. Dalton's wardrobe

Nothing wrong with either, as far as I can see. And a Moore fan is on very thin ice knocking another Bond actor's wardrobe!

5. Ninjas in South America?

Why not? That's quintessential Bond. MOONRAKER would have put ninjas in South America.

6. A bar dancer who can't dance

Well, that was surely the whole point. The bar was supposed to be an absolute tacky dive, not some classy joint.

7. The poster
8. The title change

Yes, but neither of those things affected the quality of the film itself.

9. That old bald guy with the beard and a bottle of champagne dirty dancing by the pool.

Who? I must have seen LTK 300 times, and I've absolutely no idea who you're referring to!

10. "I love James, so much."

Ah, Talisa.... LTK could have featured only Talisa, standing there and reciting the Gettsyburg Address, and I'd still love it. In fact, I'd love it a heck of a lot more.

But, to be fair, here's 10 things that went right.

1. Carey Lowell
2. Robert Davi
3. Dario
4. The tanker chase

Agreed.

5. Q

I like the idea of Q catching up with Bond in the field, off his own bat (hey! a rogue Double-O agent and a rogue Q!), but he's in the film a little too much. He should have given Bond the Dentonite toothpaste and what have you, then left. Seeing him impersonating an old peasant with a broom was just painful, recalling the worst comedy excesses of the Moore era.

6. The teaser poster
7. Good underwater action for a change.
8. Music isn't terrible (I'm reaching)

Agreed.

9. Wayne Newton (I'm really reaching)

Wayne Newton went right?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

[bebopfoot]

You know, I don't get you guys, but that's ok. I think License to Kill is one of the best Bond films if not the best. I remember watching it in about 7th grade on one of the 15 days of 007 marathons on TBS. This was back when they edited less, so I got to hear and see it pretty much unedited, except for the bull---- line. Anyway, watching it, from the beggining I knew I was in for something different, and from the beggining I loved that. The film is like a modern Bond. It's a realistic new problem, and by that reckoning it is where From Russia With Love was back in 1963. For those of you tired with the same thing over and over again from Bond, finally he does something different which is also important to the continuity. For any Fleming fans, the film is especially a treasure trove, using some of his best stuff from Live and Let Die and the Hildebrant Rarity. Reading those works, I can perfectlt picture Ed Killifer from the movie as the Robber in the book, and Anthony Zerbe fit to a tee Milton Krests personality, as even could have Talisa Soto for Liz Krest. Dalton is fantastic, dramatic and James Bond. As for box office, problems, 1) It was the busiest stinking summer in history! Of course it got crushed since Batman, Ghostbusters 2, Lethal Weapon 2, The Little Mermaid, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Back to the Future Part 2, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, and many more smash hits were competing with it. 2) MGM's new marketing head had no experience, and as described in The Essential Bond by Lee Pfeifer and Dave Worral, he marketed the film awkardly on posters as a Die Hard ripoff, and on film trailers as a traditional Bond film, thus people didn't know what to make of it. So in conclusion, a lot of us fans like LTK, just like I know theres a lot that say, love Moonraker. For many of us, LTK is not only a terrific thriller, but it is a great Bond film because it was different, well-acted, and cool. Everything from Q coming to help him, to Robert Davi, to Carey Lowell and Talisa Soto, to the tragedy of Felix and Della, to Benicio Del Toro, to Robert Brown's best M scene, to the conclusion-"You could have had everything-Wait, don't you want to know why?"-Is perfect I think for many of us, and gives it so much more than almost any Bond film. It's like the perfect ending to Volume 1 of the films, where, if you thought it was the end before GoldenEye, came out, you might have even been afraid Bond was leaving for good. And get this, sicne then the producers have known that making it personal is a great plot device. Trevelyan in GoldenEye, Paris in TND, Elektar in TWINE, and Moon/Graves in DAD. Plus, I just thought Dalton was fantastic, once again, as he had been in TLD and Flash Gordon and everything else he had done. So there you have it.

[Turn]

Not to belabor the stripper thing to too ridiculous lenghts, but the bar is not the classiest place in the world, so why should it have a high-quality dancer to begin with?

Zencat, I would trade Dirty Love for that Jump Up song, by far the worst sounding thing ever to come out of a Bond film. I saw someplace that it was a tribute to Jamaican Jump Up from Dr. No. Why bother?

[zencat]

Originally posted by Loomis
Who? I must have seen LTK 300 times, and I've absolutely no idea who you're referring to!

LOL!

He's just an extra in the wedding scene. I see him every time. There are two shots of him. I'll try to find the exact shot that always makes me cringe.

For some reason I always notice extras who go a little OTT.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by bebopfoot

For any Fleming fans, the film is especially a treasure trove, using some of his best stuff from Live and Let Die and the Hildebrant Rarity.  Reading those works, I can perfectlt picture Ed Killifer from the movie as the Robber in the book, and Anthony Zerbe fit to a tee Milton Krests personality, as even could have Talisa Soto for Liz Krest.  Dalton is fantastic, dramatic and James Bond.  ... For many of us, LTK is not only a terrific thriller, but it is a great Bond film because it was different, well-acted, and cool.  Everything from Q coming to help him, to Robert Davi, to Carey Lowell and Talisa Soto, to the tragedy of Felix and Della, to Benicio Del Toro, to Robert Brown's best M scene, to the conclusion-"You could have had everything-Wait, don't you want to know why?"-Is perfect I think for many of us, and gives it so much more than almost any Bond film.  It's like the perfect ending to Volume 1 of the films, where, if you thought it was the end before GoldenEye, came out, you might have even been afraid Bond was leaving for good.  

Agreed 100%, bebopfoot.

[zencat]

Originally posted by Turn
Not to belabor the stripper thing to too ridiculous lenghts, but the bar is not the classiest place in the world, so why should it have a high-quality dancer to begin with?

Oh, I can always belabor a stripper conversation.

It's not that I'd want her to be "high quality", but she should at least look like a woman who does this for a living. My impression of her is she is just standing up there clueless. It makes the bar seem less authentic, not more so. In reality, a dancer in a place like that would was be a slithering little tattooed hottie with a nasty face. She would be a pro. She would get bottles chucked at her if she wasn't.

But, like we said, she was probably asked to not be too sexy. But there's the between two worlds problem again. If we're going to go sleaze bar with sleazy stripper, we should go all the way to make it real. Give it an edge. She should be as hot and authentic as the belly dancer in FRWL. But we want to keep our rating, so...

She perfectly illustrates the problem with LTK. Let's do edgy...but not too edgy. (That's called TV.) I agree with whoever said they should have gone for the R rating right from the beginning and made decisions accordingly.

Originally posted by Turn
Zencat, I would trade Dirty Love for that Jump Up song, by far the worst sounding thing ever to come out of a Bond film. I saw someplace that it was a tribute to Jamaican Jump Up from Dr. No. Why bother?

Wasn't Jump Up a real song and a big hit of the time? I think it was. I know that was a real band playing it.

Dirty Love was a bad attempt an '80s "hit" that just came out sounding bad '80s. Even for the '80s!

[Loomis]

Originally posted by zencat

Dirty Love was a bad attempt an '80s "hit" that just came out sounding bad '80s. Even for the '80s!  

License To Kill: "Dirty Love"

(Performed by Tim Feehan)

You`re going nowhere, you stumble and fall.
You`re moving too fast, and you can`t take it all.

Oh yea, She`s no good for you,
She`s no good for you.

Here comes the woman, that sneaked out behind you.
If it makes you weak, and you fall apart,
Then let it go before it breaks your heart.

It`s Dirty Love...Dirty Love!...Dirty, Dirty Love!...It`s Dirty Love...Dirty Love...Dirty, Dirty Love!

We look for someone, that captures our eyes,
What we don`t count on, becomes a surprise.
She`s no good for you,
She`s no good for you.

Daylight gets slammed in, with no place to hide!
It`s gonna tear you up, when it`s so hard!
When it`s time you know, that you`ve gone to far...

It`s Dirty Love...Dirty Love...Dirty, Dirty Love!...Oh, Dirty Love...Dirty Love...Dirty, Dirty Love!

I know you want it, but don`t be blind,
I`m gonna tell you for the very last time...

It`s Dirty Love!

(taken from http://www.007forever.com/forever's_movie_house_006/lyrics_to_39_bonds/license_to_kill_dirty_love.htm)

[Jaelle]

One more thing that I really love about LTK: It is the only time that I can think of where we see Bond in a totally unguarded, genuine, spontaenous moment where he takes absolute pleasure at foiling the bad guys, and just plain giving them a bad day.

I refer to that one moment where Dalton allows Bond a great big unguarded straightforward out-and-out SMILE! He's in the plane, he's just tossed the pilot out, destroyed a good chunk of the cocaine (and he really seems to be having fun when he's poking at it underwater with that knife), the money's flying in his face, and he flies away. Alone, with no one to see him, he just SMILES! Not a sardonic, ironic grin, mind you, just a great big *spontaneous* smile! He's having FUN at screwing them up! I LOVE that!!

[Tarl_Cabot]

LTK is just 4 years removed from AVTAK, a truly bad Bond film and the worst of the 80's, IMHO. Now I like parts of AVTAK. The pretitle is great, one of my favs, minus beachboys it's a top 3; the score and theme song are top notch, Walken is always great but it's very dull after Bond gets to SF.I think that's the film that temporarily killed my enthusiasm for Bond. I was 15. I liked Rambo 2 more and was dying for the next Indy film. I was not looking forward to Bond with Brosnan because I thought he'd be a young Roger and I'd seen enough of that.

That's when I started reading John Gardner and my interest in Bond returned. The casting of Dalton was a great move. TLD was a great Bond film; a serious, adult story that really invigorated the series for me. I loved Dalton imediately. He was a human being! And he had the appropriate look, voice, inteligence and presence to make me believe he was a secret agent with a LTK.

LTK was a breath of fresh air. I liked it and felt it was the best sequel of '89. I was an Indy freak and I hated Indy 3. Star Trek V and LW2 sucked for me. Batman was an overhyped bore.

I'll admit LTK is not as good as TLD but the action is superb.I think the competition was tough. I think American audiences were being subjected to a blue collar phase by Hollywood. Diehard's Willis, Rambo, Leathal Weapon's Riggs were heroes the public identified with. Rambo and Riggs are basically white trash studs and the general public feels closer to that than Bond, especially Dalton's Bond who attends opera and doesn't camp it up like Roger(or bed 3 chicks in 1 film!).

LTK was a good film that deserved an immediate folly up. Personally, DAD is far and away the worst time I ever had in a Bond film. If any film is qualified to destroy the franchise it's that one...

[Loomis]

Originally posted by Jaelle

One more thing that I really love about LTK:  It is the only time that I can think of where we see Bond in a totally unguarded, genuine, spontaenous moment where he takes absolute pleasure at foiling the bad guys, and just plain giving them a bad day.  

I refer to that one moment where Dalton allows Bond a great big unguarded straightforward out-and-out SMILE!  He's in the plane, he's just tossed the pilot out, destroyed a good chunk of the cocaine (and he really seems to be having fun when he's poking at it underwater with that knife), the money's flying in his face, and he flies away.  Alone, with no one to see him, he just SMILES!  Not a sardonic, ironic grin, mind you, just a great big *spontaneous* smile!  He's having FUN at screwing them up!  I LOVE that!!  

There's a similar moment in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. Dalton smiles wickedly to himself just as all the chaos is kicking off at the airbase with Koskov, Necros and the Afghan resistance fighters, as though he's thinking: "Okay, LET'S ROCK! BRING IT ON!"

Very cool. Very Fleming.

[zencat]

Originally posted by Jaelle
I refer to that one moment where Dalton allows Bond a great big unguarded straightforward out-and-out SMILE!  He's in the plane, he's just tossed the pilot out, destroyed a good chunk of the cocaine (and he really seems to be having fun when he's poking at it underwater with that knife), the money's flying in his face, and he flies away.  Alone, with no one to see him, he just SMILES!  Not a sardonic, ironic grin, mind you, just a great big *spontaneous* smile!  He's having FUN at screwing them up!  I LOVE that!!

Agreed! Very good Dalton moment. I also love it how ballsy he is when he arrives in Isthmus City...how he treats Pam, how he treats the bank manager... Very Connery Bond. There are moments in LTK where you really see Dalton's potential. It's a shame that he didn't do #3 because I think he would have found himself.

[Jaelle]

Originally posted by Loomis


There's a similar moment in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. Dalton smiles wickedly to himself just as all the chaos is kicking off at the airbase with Koskov, Necros and the Afghan resistance fighters, as though he's thinking: "Okay, LET'S ROCK! BRING IT ON!"

Very cool. Very Fleming.

Oh yes, that's right! I'd forgotten about that. Loomis, thanks for giving me an excuse to go and re-watch TLD!!

[Jaelle]

Originally posted by zencat


But, Jaelle...I see you're a big LTK fan and I don't hate this movie. I like it. I'm just having fun with the thread.

No apologies needed, I'm used to seeing or reading or hearing Tim and his two films trashed in far stronger terms than you have in this thread. But since I'm new to the Bond fan community and was recently awarded the privilege of being an Enforcer of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty Against Licence to Kill, I have certain duties that I am obligated to perform after all! I have people to answer to you know!

[zencat]

And you are doing an excellent job of it. Reminding me of the Dalton smile on the plane... I'm now in the mood to watch LTK. Keep it up.

[Turn]

Originally posted by zencat

Oh, I can always belabor a stripper conversation.

It's not that I'd want her to be "high quality", but she should at least look like a woman who does this for a living. My impression of her is she is just standing up there clueless. It makes the bar seem less authentic, not more so. In reality, a dancer in a place like that would was be a slithering little tattooed hottie with a nasty face. She would be a pro. She would get bottles chucked at her if she wasn't.

But, like we said, she was probably asked to not be too sexy. But there's the between two worlds problem again. If we're going to go sleaze bar with sleazy stripper, we should go all the way to make it real. Give it an edge. She should be as hot and authentic as the belly dancer in FRWL. But we want to keep our rating, so...

She perfectly illustrates the problem with LTK. Let's do edgy...but not too edgy. (That's called TV.) I agree with whoever said they should have gone for the R rating right from the beginning and made decisions accordingly.

Wasn't Jump Up a real song and a big hit of the time? I think it was. I know that was a real band playing it.

Dirty Love was a bad attempt an '80s "hit" that just came out sounding bad '80s. Even for the '80s!

I see your point on the whole stripper thing. In truth, I never even noticed it until this thread. Ah, the things you learn from CBN.

LTK was the only place I ever heard the Jump Up song. I've got to admit, Dirty Love is a bad '80s song, but it's something of a guilty pleasure. Sorry.

[Turn]

Originally posted by Tarl_Cabot
And he had the appropriate look, voice, inteligence and presence to make me believe he was a secret agent with a LTK.

I have always thought this as well. That's why I can't understand it when people say Dalton was wrong for the role. In these respects, he is James Bond.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by Tarl_Cabot

I think American audiences were being subjected to a blue collar phase by Hollywood. Diehard's Willis, Rambo, Leathal Weapon's Riggs were heroes the public identified with. Rambo and Riggs are basically white trash studs and the general public feels closer to that than Bond, especially Dalton's Bond who attends opera and doesn't camp it up like Roger(or bed 3 chicks in 1 film!).

Yes, nicely observed. Thanks to LETHAL WEAPON and DIE HARD, the all-American, blue collar action hero was very, very in at the time LTK was released. By comparison to John McClane (for whom, as a line in DIE HARD 2 puts it, "progress peaked with frozen pizza"), Dalton's Bond must have looked like just a limey faggot in a tux, or, to quote Jack Wade, a "stiff-assed Brit".

Could it be that LTK, as a film, was just right for its time, but the one big problem was not Dalton but the James Bond character?

Maybe Moore camping it up and playing it anything but straight would have gone down much better with US audiences in 1989 (although Moore was, of course, by then far too old for the Bond role, as well as quite wrong for the LTK script).

[Jaelle]

Originally posted by Turn


I have always thought this as well. That's why I can't understand it when people say Dalton was wrong for the role. In these respects, he is James Bond.

Well for me he is anyway. For my part I do genuinely like all the Bonds to varying degrees. (And I've recently become a major defender of Lazenby on another list---I re-watched OHMSS a couple of times last week and was just bowled over all over again at how FANTASTIC he looked!) The reason that Dalton keeps coming up consistently as my favorite is that I'm intrigued by his attempt to portray a straightforward nuts-and-bolts no-frills *workman* spy and assassin. It's precisely that approach that turns many people off and I really do understand why---you go to see a Bond film for glamour and glory and spectacle and of course that easy sly humor (tho some of that humor can sometimes be really cheap and not at all clever). You want something "larger than life." Which is why I really do enjoy Roger's films and eagerly re-watch them over and over again.

Tim's approach is very explicit in LTK, and it shows. It had such a small budget compared to all the other films, and compared to all the action films it was competing with at the time. So the film *looks* starker, plainer than most Bond films. But that's what intrigues me. I'm fascinated by this "toned down" Bond who's *not* a celebrity, just a basic professional no-nonsense, gritty workman spy. Ok, enough already. I've gone on far too much as it is.

[zencat]

Very well said, Jaelle. You really know your stuff.

[Jaelle]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Loomis
[B]Could it be that LTK, as a film, was just right for its time, but the one big problem was not Dalton but the James Bond character?

I think Tarl Cabot's point about the popularity of the working class hero and your point above hits it on the head. James Bond just seemed so out of place in the mid-late 80s in US pop culture. I really thought the series was dead and would never rise again, and that's what so many people said at the time.

[zencat]

Yet, at this same time, the videos were selling like mad and wasn't that about the time of the VERY successful Bond marathons on TBS?

Americans still loved James Bond in '89. But they didn't love the violent "dressed down" Bond of LTK.

GE got it right. The return of the classic Bond.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by Jaelle

I really thought the series was dead and would never rise again, and that's what so many people said at the time.  

That's what I thought, too. By 1992 or thereabouts, I was quite convinced that there would never be another James Bond film. It really looked as though the LETHAL WEAPONs, DIE HARDs, T2 and so on had totally buried 007. The Sunday Times in the UK ran a piece shortly before the release of PATRIOT GAMES, claiming that Jack Ryan would be the James Bond of the 1990s, and featuring a point-by-point comparison to show that Ryan was a hero for modern audiences and Bond was yesterday's man.

[zencat]

Read this. This is a clipping from the LA Times, 1989. It's very interesting, especially the last paragraph. True or not, it's clear what the studio thought was the problem.

[zencat]

Originally posted by Loomis
By 1992 or thereabouts...it really looked as though the LETHAL WEAPONs, DIE HARDs, T2 and so on had totally buried 007. The Sunday Times in the UK ran a piece shortly before the release of PATRIOT GAMES, claiming that Jack Ryan would be the James Bond of the 1990s, and featuring a point-by-point comparison to show that Ryan was a hero for modern audiences and Bond was yesterday's man.

See, I heard all this too, but it didn't effect me because I had already lived through it once before with the likes of Dirty Harry and Bruce Lee "replacing" Bond. I knew the current crop of action heroes would burn out and at the end there would still be Bond, James Bond. He's classic. He's timeless.

[Jaelle]

Originally posted by zencat
Read this. This is a clipping from the LA Times, 1989. It's very interesting, especially the last paragraph. True or not, it's clear what the studio thought was the problem.

Interesting clipping, thanks for that. It thus begs the question: why did Dalton do so well with non-US audiences, but not US audiences??

[zencat]

It's become lore that LTK worked in Europe while it didn't work in the US. Ironically, I never saw LTK in America, only in Europe. Twice in London, once in Spain. And while the theater was full, I didn't feel like the audience was into the film in the way I've felt audiences connect with Bonds before. But I have discovered it's hard to read audiences outside the US. They are very quiet and respectful, which is not a bad thing, but it makes me nervous to not hear reactions, even loud ones.

Cut to: (flashback) Zencat and Bryce, opening night, DAD, screaming at the screen, "Bring it!!"

And just about every time I see a Bond in a US theater people applaud when he says, "Bond, James Bond." Then they laugh at having applauded. It's great fun!

But I digress...