Continuing our discussion of the book OCTOPUSSY, an anthology with four short stories published posthumously. This is the third.
THE BOOK: OCTOPUSSY
The Story: "THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS"
The Year: 1966
The Author: Ian Fleming
THE PLOT
Bond is assigned sniper duty to help British agent 272 escape from East Berlin. Bond's duty is to safeguard his dash into West Berlin by eliminating a top KGB assassin codenamed "Trigger," who has been dispatched to kill him.
THE COMMENTARY
The story opens with Bond on a shooting range. Often these short stories include primers of one kind of profession or another, and this one is no different. It teaches us quite a bit about how ranges work.
But soon enough we flash back to Bond's briefing. He's to be a sniper, sniping at another sniper, code-named Trigger, close to what would soon be called Checkpoint Charlie on the East/West Berlin border.
I don't understand why the Soviets are using Trigger (and, as we later learn, an orchestra to drown out the gunshots) in this book. According to the Victims of the Wall website, the German Democratic Republic killed more than 140 people trying to cross from East Berlin to West Berlin between 1961 and 1989. In addition to machine-gun emplacements, searchlights, guards and dogs, they also used land mines.
So, the East Germans weren't exactly being subtle. Yet in "Living Daylights" they kinda are.
Anyway, 272 is going to cross on one of three consecutive nights, which both the East Germans and MI6 know. So Bond has to set up in his sniper's nest each night until 272 makes his move, which he does on the last night.
We get a bit of a travelogue as Bond kills time in West Berlin for three days. I never mind those bits, although they are often outdated. But part of the charm of Bond books is the travel porn, which we've discussed before as probably a real draw in the '50s for working-class or lower-middle-class Brits and Americans who couldn't afford to travel. It's still a bit of a draw, at least for me.
While watching the kill zone, Bond sees a women's orchestra go in and out of a government building on the East side each day, a building which he and his contact/roommate in the sniper's nest, Captain Paul Sender, have identified as the likely location of the Soviet sniper's nest. He sees a gorgeous, young, blonde cellist when the orchestra files in and is thrilled in a way he describes as not having felt since he was young. He watches her come and go every day, a secret affair, he thinks, that's one-way.
He mentions it to Sender, who disapproves.
On the last day, when the double agent is sure to make his try, Bond has a whiskey to settle his nerves before taking his vigil. Once again, Sender doesn't approve, but Bond bullies him to shut up.
When the man makes his run, Bond sees the Soviet sniper's barrel come out a window in the government building. As the sniper leans in to fire, Bond sees Trigger's face. Bond is stunned to find out it's the blonde cellist. It forces him to hesitate, and Trigger gets off a burst. Then Bond shoots the weapon near the girl's left hand and destroys it. The double agent makes it to safety.
Sender asks why he didn't kill Trigger, and Bond replies because it was the cellist he had mentioned. He said she won't be of any use to the Soviets after this, because he likely hit her hand. Also, she may not have the stomach for it, since he doubtless scared "the living daylights" out of her, inserting the name drop.
Sender says he witnessed it all, and it's going into his report. "Good," says Bond. "Maybe they'll take away my 00."
STRAY BULLETS
- Bond is unusually morose in this book, from the opening bits where he arrives in a deserted area of West Berlin and thinks of all his worst missions in places like that, to the end when he seems genuinely tired of being a 00 agent.
- I have to note that if Bond spent a lot of time on mission in Europe during the Cold War, we sure didn't get to see it. All we ever got was Jamaica!
- Bond laments that his blonde crush plays the cello, a large instrument held between the knees. He thinks someone should find a way for woman to play the cello "side-saddle." Because he is an old, prudish granny.
- I don't know why Bond immediately holds Sender in contempt for his Wykehamist tie, which only indicates to me that Sender is a graduate of Winchester College. It means something else to Bond. "Bond knew the type: backbone of the Civil Service; over-crammed and under-loved at Winchester; a good second in PPE [Philosophy, Politics and Economics] at Oxford; the war, staff jobs he would have done meticulously; perhaps an OBE [Order of the British Empire]." Those don't sound like bad things, but later Bond refers to Sender as "a Horlicks man," which is to say, someone who prefers chocolate milk, presumably over a manly man's alcoholic drink, like the Haig scotch that Bond drinks. Anyway, it's clear that Bond looks down on Sender, who resents Bond in return. I guess you have to be English to understand this automatic animosity, which I assume to be based on class.
- Fleming describes Sender as a nervous, officious sort, and I don't think we're supposed to like him. But when Bond tells him he's "taken with" the blonde, Sender disapproves — and he's right. When Bond wants a strong drink before doing a delicate task, Sender disapproves — and again, he's right. When Bond is startled into delaying his shot, Sender disapproves — and again, he's right. And when Bond shoots the weapon instead of the sniper, Sender disapproves — and again, he's right. Despite Bond's dismissive attitude, there is only one professional in the room, and it's Sender.
SUMMARY
A really downbeat story, where Bond is not at his best. Still, his aim is unerring, and the mission is a success. Plus we learn a little about sniping, Checkpoint Charlie and sightseeing in West Berlin.
THE MOVIES: THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
The Year: 1987
The Director: John Glen
The Writers: Richard Maibaum, Michael G. Wilson
Starring: Timothy Dalton (James Bond), Maryam d'Abo (Kara Milovy), Jeroen Krabbé (General Georgi Koskov), Joe Don Baker (Brad Whitaker), John Rhys-Davies (General Leonid Pushkin), Art Malik (Kamran Shah), Andreas Wisniewski (Necros), Thomas Wheatley (Saunders), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Robert Brown (M), Geoffrey Keen (Minister of Defence), Walter Gotell (General Anatol Gogol), Caroline Bliss (Miss Moneypenny), John Terry (Felix Leiter), Virginia Hey (Rubavitch), John Bowe (Col. Feyador), Julie T. Wallace (Rosika Miklos), Belle Avery (Linda)
The Music: This is the final Bond film to be scored by John Barry. The theme was co-written by Barry and Pål Waaktaar of the Norwegian pop-music group a-ha and performed by the band. The end-credits song was "If There Was a Man" by The Pretenders, who also recorded "Where Has Evertybody Gone?," the song heard on Necros' Walkman, and in the score when he attacks. A lot of classical numbers are heard as well, courtesy of Kara and her Bratislav Conservatoire orchestra.
THE PLOT
James Bond is sent to investigate a KGB policy to kill all enemy spies and uncovers an arms deal that potentially has major global ramifications.
THE COMMENTARY
For a change, the cold open — which involves a HALO drop — is part of the movie. A KGB spy infiltrates a British 00/SAS training exercise on Gibraltar and kills 004 (as well as some SAS guys). Bond returns the favor, but the killer has tagged the dead 00 agent with "SMIERT SPIONAM" (Death to all Spies).
Longtime readers will remember SMERSH from early Bond books, a program whose name is a contraction of Smiert Spionam. At one point in the movie, new KGB boss Gen. Leonid Pushkin (John Rhys-Davies) argues that "Smiert Spionam was a Beria operation in Stalin's time. It was deactivated 20 years ago." "Beria" is Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, Stalin's brutal security chief from the war until Kruschev came to power. SMERSH was dissolved in 1946.
So it's a lot longer than "20 years," bucko. SMERSH was dissolved 41 years before this movie, and was an anachronism in those early Bond books. Beria was executed in 1953, 34 years before this movie.
The early part of the movie and the eponymous short story are almost identical, with various nouns changed.
Bond is sent to protect defecting Soviet Gen. Georgi Koskov (MI6 double agent 272 in the book) from being assassination by an unknown sniper (Codename Trigger in the book) in Bratislava, Czechoslavakia (West Berlin, Bundesrepublik Deutschland, in the book). Bond's contact is Saunders, head of Section V (Captain Paul Sender in the book), and the free-wheeling Bond and the meticulous Saunders don't like each other, just like in the book. Bond notices an attractive blonde in the orchestra through his opera glasses (sniper scope in the book), and says so, to the dismay of Saunders. ("Forget the ladies for once, Bond.") When Bond is about to shoot the Soviet assassin he sees it's the blonde cello player, and only shoots the gun near her left hand (true in both incarnations). He notes, in both book and movie, that he likely "scared the living daylights" out of her, completing the name-drop.
The animosity between Bond and his contact is more overt in the movie than in the book.
Just like in the book, Saunders notices that Bond deliberately avoids killing the sniper In the book, Bond says the sniper was the blonde cello player, and Sender says "I see. The girl you were keen on." In the movie, Bond says, "I only kill professionals. That girl didn't know one end of her rifle from the other."
In both cases, Sender/Saunders says Bond's deliberate failure to kill the KGB assassin will go in his report. In both cases, Bond is unfazed. In the book he says, "WIth any luck, it'll cost me my Double-00 number." In the movie, he says, "Tell M what you want. If he fires me, I'll thank him for it."
The "Living Daylights" short story ends here, so the rest of the movie is all original.
And it's not bad. It's pretty good spy vs. spy stuff, and unlike the Moore movies, played completely straight.
Bond smuggles Koskov out of Czechoslavakia inventively (in the Trans-Siberian Pipeline), who tells MI6 in his debrief that the new KGB chief, Leonid Pushkin, has revived Smiert Spionam and intends to start murdering Western agents. He has a list, and James Bond is on it. But Koskov is kidnapped by the murderous agent Nekros (he kills many guards), whom MI6 assumes is from the KGB. Bond is ordered to track down and assassinate Pushkin.
Bond returns to Bratislava and inveigles his way into the cello player's good graces through charm and lies. (He says he's Koskov's friend, and is helping her to meet with him.) Actors and script present this well. Through her, Bond hopes to find Koskov, whom he's figured out faked his defection. (For one thing, the "assassin" turns out to be Koskov's girlfriend. For another, she fired blanks.) Bond and the cello player, Kara Milovy, escape Czechoslavakia into Austria by riding on her cello case in the snow. That seems like a throwback to Moore movies, and I could have lived without it.
Bond reconnects with Saunders in Vienna. Saunders and Bond start to warm to each other, as each begins to appreciate the other's skills. Too late, though, as Nekros kills Saunders at a carnival and leaves the obligatory Smiert Spionam warning. (Saunders' book counterpart, Sender, survives the story.) Bond becomes very cold after this, even to Kara.
Bond confronts Koskov. His method to distract the guard long enough to shoot him is to pull the clothes off Koskov's mistress and stand her facing the door. That actually might work — I don't think men are mesmerized by the sight of a naked woman necessarily, but a man charging into a room expecting trouble and seeing nothing but a naked woman standing calmly might hesitate (Am I in the wrong room? Was the alarm pressed by accident?) long enough for an unseen man to get the drop on him.
Pushkin says he knows nothing about Smiert Spionam, but that Koskov is under investigation for embezzlement. (The diamonds, presumably.) Bond and Pushkin begin to work together. They fake Bond assassinating Pushkin, to make Koskov think his plan is working. It's a good scene.
Koskov is in Tangier, Algeria, surrounded by women at a big estate. We learn the estate is owned by arms dealer Brad Whitaker, played by Walking Tall's Joe Don Baker, who plans to trade Koskov's diamonds to the Mujahedin (fighting Russians in Afghanistan at the time) for a lot of opium, which will make him very rich. Whitaker is portrayed as a man-child obsessed with warfare, who has famous battles set up in his playroom which he plays (with his own changes) electronically. It's hard to take him seriously.
Bond glances at these tables later in the movie, and notes that Whitaker has Pickett's Charge in the wrong place at Gettysburg. Man, English educations are great.
Koskov tells Kara that Bond is a KGB agent, and to drug him. She does, and she and Bond are both taken to Afghanistan with Koskov and Necros to consummate the diamonds-for-opium deal. Koskov betrays Kara here, leaving her with Bond to the tender mercies of the Russian jailers in Afghanistan. ("It's been a long time since we had a woman prisoner!" Everybody chortles menacingly.) Another well-done scene.
Bond escapes (of course), hooks up with the Mujahedin and together they eventually kill Necros, blow up the opium and capture Koskov. It's unsettling how celebrated the Mujahedin are as Bond's allies here, when within a few years they'd switch from killing Russians to killing Americans and Brits. And the battle scenes, especially between Bond and Necros, are very well done. Lots of practical stunts that are hair-raising.
Everyone converges in Tangier, where Bond kills Whitaker (with the help of Felix Leiter), Pushkin arrests Koskov and Kara goes on to become a big-time cello soloist. She and Bond finally hook up. And, for a change, it feels earned.
STRAY BULLETS
- This movie made me nostalgic for my 20s. It was the first Bond movie I saw as an adult, having dropped the series after Live and Let Die (1973). For both me and Timothy Dalton, the future was a complete unknown, but anything was possible. Of all the things aging steals from us, I might miss that feeling the most.
- Dalton is the last movie Bond before the Berlin Wall comes down and the USSR dissolves. The secrenwriters make the most of the Cold War before, unknowingly, they won't have it any more.
- Robert Brown returns as M, the role he's been filling since Octopussy. I think he's grown into it. He will play the role once more, in Licence to Kill.
- Geoffrey Keen returns as the Minister of Defence, and is even more useless than usual. At least he's not comedy relief.
- There's a new Moneypenny, Caroline Bliss, who fills the role in the two Dalton movies. She's an attractive girl, so they put in her glasses to make her dowdy. Oh Bullwinkle, that trick never works.
- Lois Maxwell lasted two more Bond movies than Bernard Lee (M). Desmond Llewelyn (Q) outlasted them both.
- Bond (Dalton) returns to cigarettes after Roger Moore's cigars.
- Ian Fleming always spells cello as 'cello, as if it's short for something. I looked it up, and it is. The full name of the instrument is violinocello. Which puts a funny spin on Bond's complaint, "Why didn't you learn the violin?"
- Bond drives his first Aston-Martin since On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It's updated, with lasers instead of spikes in the hubcap, plus a 1966 Batman-like rocket in the back.
- Bond tells Kara that the people who have them are the Mujahedin. Minutes later, he tells the head guy, "Put me in touch with the Mujahedin." Short memory, Bond. Must be all the blows to the head.
- "I'll send word to my commander in the Kyber Pass," the fighter responds. I'll bet a dollar that's the only Afghan location the screenwriter knew in 1987.
- There's a new Felix Leiter, played by John Terry. I enjoyed the hint of a Southern accent in his lingo, absent in most Leiters. Terry comes by his naturally, as a Florida native. His '80s hair, so ordinary when I first saw the movie, now makes me laugh.
- The bit where Leiter makes contact with Bond by having him kidnapped by CIA agents pretending to be hookers was pretty funny, and I thought they'd be working for Koskov, so it surprised me. "Not enough?" Bond says when they pull guns on him as he's giving them money. "Have it all," he says, as they take his wallet.
- Joe Don Baker, who plays Brad Whitaker, returns as Jack Wade, Bond's CIA contact, in two Pierce Brosnan movies. I haven't seen those yet, so I just have to assume that's in place of Felix Leiter.
- Walter Gotell played Soviet Gen. Gogol in six Bond movies, this being the last. He's the head of the KGB in the first five, but is succeeded by Gen. Pushkin in this movie, where Gogol is now a diplomat. (He is seen briefly at the end.)
SUMMARY
This is actually very good Bond movie, that — with the exception of the Mujahedin — ages well.
Replies
I find I don't have much to say about the short stories.
Regarding the movies, I've said this before (regarding Roger Moore), but the actor playing James Bond needs to be equally convincing as a lover and a killer (like Connery). Moore was a convincing lover, but not a convincing killer; Timothy Dalton is a convincing killer but not a convincing lover. Nevertheless, a breath of fresh air after Moore's buffoonish Bond.
Anyway, 272 is going to cross on one of three consecutive nights, which both the East Germans and MI6 know. So Bond has to set up in his sniper's nest each night until 272 makes his move, which he does on the last night.
This is one of those scenarios that probably seems cool to a writer, but doesn't seem like it would actually happen in real life. Also, it's like a "best of three falls" pro wrestling match. I've never seen one that doesn't go to a third fall.
Nevertheless, a breath of fresh air after Moore's buffoonish Bond.
This.
This is one of those scenarios that probably seems cool to a writer, but doesn't seem like it would actually happen in real life.
Agreed. Once MI6 knew the East Germans knew, they'd get word to 272 to change his plan. Regardless, as I mentioned in my commentary, the East Germans weren't subtle about stopping defectors. They'd have had machine-gun nests and patrols all over the area 272 was going to traverse, not a solitary sniper.
It's their turf, and they didn't need 272 alive, so the Western intelligence organizations would be at a real disadvantage. But Fleming leveled the playing field so Bond could win.