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yestolerancepro · 8 months

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My dear girl, there are some things that just aren't done, such as drinking Dom Perignon '53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That's just as bad as listening to The Beatles without earmuffs!” A blog inspired by the music world of James Bond Part 3B View to a Kill a sad Goodbye to Roger Moore and More

Introduction

Hello there and welcome to another episode of my blog that looks at the musical tastes of James Bond over the last 60 years the last episode looked at the Bond films that I don’t like for various reasons this chapter continues that trend.

I really have mixed feelings about A View to a Kill if you asked the 8 year old me about it in 1985 what I felt about It I would have said I was really excited after all Roger Moore was my favourite Bond and their was a lot of Buzz around the film it seemed to be everywhere I remember one offer on Smith crisps offering a Free Poster I eat all the crisps and got myself one it looked really exciting the Tagline for View to a Kill was Has James Bond Finally Met his Match judging by the Posters and the film trailers I really thought they would kill James Bond off they wouldn’t do that would they ?

Jumping ahead 38 years and taking off my rose tinted glasses I wore as an 8 year as the Doctor says in a 1984 episode called Warriors of the Deep “there should have been another way” and in the case of View to a kill I agree with him.

The film starts really well a great title song by Duran Duran you can watch the video for the song by clicking here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp4CR2HcHLQ&list=PL17vqAEJv6CUxmeZBk3JGDLBbcPEd4CDp&index=39 It also has one of the best pre-title sequences ever featured in a Bond film. But that’s about as good as the film gets.

The Villians in the film namely Max Zorin and his Hench woman May Day played by Grace Jones are both just way over the top even for A Bond film.

I even find Tanya Roberts as Stacey Sutton off putting as well as she seems to channelling Faye Ray from King Kong in her performance.

When Roger Moore himself dislikes the film you know there is something wrong. I love Roger Moore as Bond but his era shouldn’t have ended like this he should have left the series with his head held high at the end of For Your Eyes only or Octopussy.

I don’t know what made them do this but the What Culture website decided to give Christropher Walken’s performance as Max Zorin the best bond moment of the film,

A View to a Kill is quite possibly the worst James Bond film ever made. It's been widely criticized for still having Roger Moore as Bond even though he's visibly almost 60 years old, and the sight of this far-too-old action hero awkwardly stumbling his way through the action scenes and bedding women young enough to be his daughters is a great analogy for the movie itself.

View is every bit as energy-free and cringe-worthy as its lead performance, thanks to its disastrous mixture of terrible action, risible comedy and total lack of zest, but as has been said before, greatness lies within every Bond movie. In this case, Christopher Walken is legitimately brilliant as main villain Max Zorrin.

Both fiendishly entertaining and chillingly evil, the great actor is absolutely magnetic every moment he's on screen and he's so good it feels like you're watching a different, far better movie every time he appears.

Comparisons to Alan Rickman in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - a terrible movie that only becomes watchable when Rickman's incredible villain is on screen - would be completely justified here.

His Super intelligence also makes Max Zorin a great bond baddie according to the Screen Rant article the top 10 Bond Villians with Super Powers where Max Zorin landed at number 5 in their list Screen Rant had this to say about his brain power

By the time A View to a Kill was released in 1985, Roger Moore was arguably too old to play Bond and it wasn't believable for him to fight henchmen with superhuman abilities. The 57-year-old no longer looked like he could take on men with robotic arms. The filmmaker's solution to this was Max Zorin, a byproduct of Nazi experimentation that lead to hyper-intelligence. While not as visually spectacular as other Bond villains, Christopher Walken lends Zorin an eerie presence that gives the very goofy film some stakes.

Likewise Mayday came in at number 3 on Moviewebs list of the Deadliest women in the Bond Franchise Yes she is but she is still bloody awful here is what Movieweb said about Mayday

Portrayed by model, singer, and actress Grace Jones, May Day is the fierce and incredibly strong lover and bodyguard of the German KGB operative-turned-billionaire industrialist Max Zorin. She is also responsible for selecting and training all his female guards, and assassinating anyone he deems a threat, whether via strangulation, a poisoned stage prop, drowning, or defenestration.

After being betrayed by Zorin, she joins forces with Bond (Moore), but is killed by an explosion. Her dying wish from Bond is, “Get Zarin for me!”.

Jones’ portrayal is so on-point that, according to her autobiography, even Moore himself was afraid of her on set.

The film is also way too violent there is way too much killing in it particularity in the last 20 mins why the film only got a PG rating is beyond me

To watch a retrospective review of A View to a kill from Oliver Harper’s You Tube channel click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsuG2nOmbrs Sorry about the unintended pun

To watch a trailer for View to a kill click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buOK9kJIJA4

To watch a tribute to Roger Moore from the You Tube channel Jo Blo orignals click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX8JsR1D9Vc&list=PL17vqAEJv6CV1syq4_fFKgBwSqGdJzH9z&index=286

To watch a short video which shows Roger Moore best bits of James Bond Click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee4ghr-Y1tI&list=PL17vqAEJv6CV1syq4_fFKgBwSqGdJzH9z&index=287&t=45s

To read an article on how the Roger Moore James Bond films are ranked by James Bond fans click here https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2555559/roger-moores-james-bond-movies-ranked

To watch a tribuite video for a View to a kill click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46x4H9heJoM

Further reading

According to this article A view to a kill is the best bond film of the franchise click here to read it https://movieweb.com/james-bond-a-view-to-kill-best-movie-in-franchise/

Licence to Kill

The last James Bond of the 80’s and the last James Bond film to star Timothy Dalton which to me was a shame as he was excellent in the Living Daylights but for me this is not the way Timothy’s Bond should have gone.

But once again let start with the positives first and finish with the negatives later the film has an excellant title track by Gladyis Knight.

The Music

Here is a little background on the song with thanks to Wikipedia.

Initially Vic Flick, who had played lead guitar on Monty Norman's original 007 theme, and Eric Clapton were asked to write and perform the theme song to Licence to Kill and they produced a theme to match Dalton's gritty performance, but the producers turned it down[30] and instead Gladys Knight's song and performance was chosen. The song was based on the "horn line" from "Goldfinger", seen as an homage to the film of the same name,[30] which required royalty payments to the original writers.[31] The song gave Knight her first British top-ten hit since 1977.[32] The end credits feature the Top 10 R&B hit "If You Asked Me To", sung by Patti LaBelle.[33]

The song was composed by Narada Michael Walden, Jeffrey Cohen and Walter Afanasieff, based on the "horn line" from Goldfinger, which required royalty payments to the original writers.[3] At 5 minutes 13 seconds it is the longest Bond theme, though 45 single releases featured a shorter edit, running 4 minutes 11 seconds. The version used in the movie itself was edited to 2 minutes 53 seconds

To watch a video for the song click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1iRaS3gqws&list=PL17vqAEJv6CUxmeZBk3JGDLBbcPEd4CDp&index=41

On the production front Carey Lowell is excellant as Pam Bouvier she made number 15 in Collider films list of the 16 best Bond girls this what they had to say about her:

Timothy Dalton’s tenure as Bond, albeit being just two movies, is the most underrated era in the franchise’s long and illustrious history. Nestled within it are some of the most raw and engaging characters the Bond films have to offer, which is brought to the fore in Licence to Kill as it combines the Bond movie formula with a gritty revenge narrative.

As Bond strives to avenge his friend and colleague Felix Leiter, he finds a valuable ally in Leiter’s CIA collaborator Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell). A former fighter pilot for the U.S., Bouvier is more than capable of looking after herself and even rescues Bond as they seek justice for their comrade.

The films Villian is very good if slightly underated Robert Davi plays Franz Sanchez in Licence to Kill The Collider Website rated his performance as number 1 in their top 10 list of James Bonds underated Villains so what makes him so good.

The films spawned from Timothy Dalton’s brief tenure as 007 boasted a toughness their predecessors lacked but still had a healthy appetite for flamboyance when the opportunity arose. While this resulted in an underwhelming villain in The Living Daylights, the franchise struck gold in Licence to Kill with Robert Davi’s Franz Sanchez.

A violent and ruthless drug dealer, Sanchez attracts the ire of Bond when he had Felix Leiter maimed and his wife brutally murdered on their wedding day. Sanchez is one of the most violent villains Bond has ever encountered, and yet the intimidating criminal was made all the more compelling thanks to his moral code and the value he placed on loyalty.

The Death of Franz Sanchez in Licence to Kill was highlighted in the Screenrant.com article as one of the 6 moments that defined 007 in the article they comment

Timothy Dalton only played Bond in two movies, but he’s been lauded for being the most faithful to Ian Fleming’s source material. Dalton’s Bond is a cold, calculated killing machine. His second and final outing, Licence to Kill, is a violent revenge thriller that sees 007 abandoning his official MI6 assignment to pursue a personal vendetta against drug lord Franz Sanchez for killing Felix Leiter’s bride. In the explosive climax of the movie, 007 lights Sanchez on fire with the lighter that Felix gave him as a gift. This moment is an appropriately brutal ending to the darkest Bond film, and the use of Felix’s wedding gift offers poetic justice.

Franz Sanchez was also includedin the screenrant article Every James Bonds Iconic Villian Ranked in that article they say

Timothy Dalton only ever appeared in two Bond films, but out of his two villains, Licence to Kill’s Franz Sanchez is much more memorable than The Living Daylights’ Brad Whitaker. Whitaker is a typically smarmy arms dealer who adheres to all the Bond villain clichés, but Sanchez is wholly unique within the 007 canon. Licence to Kill is basically Bond versus Scarface as 007 pursues a personal vendetta against a ruthless drug lord. Sanchez is one of the most brutal Bond villains. He kills and maims people for fun. He’s so evil that he gets the audience emotionally invested in Bond’s fight against him.

Q Branch

The film makes good use of Q as well which is always an added bonus when 007 makes Q an agent to help in his revenge scheme which gives Desmond Lewleyns Q probably his longest appearance in a Bond film he also brings with him a whole load of gadgets to help Bond on his quest these include:

Exploding alarm clock

"Guaranteed never to wake up anybody who uses it."[84]

Signature camera gun

A camera that can be taken apart and assembled into a sniper rifle. The grip is programmed to recognize only Bond's hand.[85]

Laser Polaroid camera

When the flash is used on this camera, it shoots a laser. It can also take x-ray pictures.[11][3][9]

Broom radio

used by Q to communicate with Bond's companion while disguised as a grounds man. Q throws this item away after using it.[7]

By far the Best gadget in Qs overnight bag is the Dentonite Toothpaste which also made number 8 in Den of the Geeks Top Ten of the Best Gadgets used in the Bond films.

A Bond movie wouldn’t be complete without explosives. All manner of situations require a little dynamite to help an agent on their way, and Q usually had an ingenious method to hide these lethal gadgets in plain sight. For License To Kill, the movie took an unexpected approach, relying on a household item. However, unlike other equipment from the series, this was not based on a real-world brand.

His Majesty’s Secret Service had transformed a tube of toothpaste into an explosive device. Comedically titled Detonite, the false branding alluded to the contents within. It’s terrifying that someone could have mistakenly used this product as was intended, but James Bond took advantage of the gadget when he made an assassination attempt on Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi). While his goal was unsuccessful, the toothpaste itself destructed without issue. A cleverly disguised cigarette packet became the detonator in another spectacular design choice.

So what's my issue with Licence to Kill?

I get that the film is a revenge story but the film is ruined by too much killing Timothy Dalton who was excellant in Living Daylights is turned into a John McClane clone.

James Bond is not Bruce Willis The tag in ths film should be James Bond meets Die Hard and for me its not a good look.

To watch a retrospective review of Licence to Kill from the Oliver Harper You Tube page click herehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL10kuq39gw&t=8s

To watch a video of Timothy Daltons best moments as James Bond click here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XJu4vWLUSs

If you have read and liked this blog please consider giving the Tolerance project a donation by clicking on the above link https://www.gofundme.com/gnk3ww

Pictures

1) Smiths Crisps View to a kill Poster Promotion

2) Poster for a view to a kill

3) Max Zorin

4)Tanya Roberts as Stacy Sutton

5) Grace Jones as May Day

6 a foriegn poster for Licence to Kill

7) Cary Lowell as Pam Bovier with Timothy Dolton as James Bond

8) Robert Davi as Franz Sanchez

Notes Thanks to Oliver Harper for the respective on Licence to Kill also thanks to Stormchaser Z for the video on Timothy Daltons best moments as Bond thanks also to the following websites Den of the Geek for their article the top ten best gadgets used on the Bond films What Culture website for their best moments and the Culder website for the 16 best Bond girls article also Wikipedia for some of the background material.

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