The Living Daylights

I was looking forward to this one. It should be a stone-cold classic: Dalton's 'proper' Bond movie, with some good chases, a real spy story and an authentically Flemingish 007 to boot. But something just isn't right - I'm not entirely sure what yet - and it renders The Living Daylights just a little flat.

This has surprised me because the film has long been a favourite of mine. Although I had seen both Never Say Never Again and AVTAK at the cinema, going to see TLD was the first time I felt and understood the electric tingle of anticipation as the gun barrel rolled across the screen in front of me. I've had the same feeling with every subsequent Bond film, despite the disparagement I  have had for many elements of the franchise in these posts, I know that makes me a incurable fan. Every time, sat there in the dark of the movie theatre, I am on the edge of something new - unlike the other Bond films, endlessly repeated on television, and then bought and re-bought on VHS, DVD and BluRay, what's about to happen is utterly unknown.

When we're faced with the prospect of a new 007, these feelings are exacerbated and, perhaps, also tinged with apprehension. This seems to have been on the minds of the makers of TLD, who not only keep us waiting for Dalton as the PCS unfolds, but give us three faceless Double-O agents who might be him, as if they are auditioning for the part before us. Cleverly, they are revealed in ascending order of Bondness. Number One is floppy-haired and rubbish, and gets caught in his own parachute before being paint-balled by a squaddie as part of the war games. Number Two looks more like Bond, a bit more rugged, darker, and at least has the dignity to be properly killed by a real baddy, but it's still a fail. Which leaves us with Number Three, who promptly dives onto a speeding Land Rover, kills the assassin, escapes stylishly and does sex with a lady on a boat. Yeah, we'll have him then, okay Cubby?

This introduction is a departure because it is very particular version of Bond that we are getting. There's no casino, or gadgets, or bow tie - the traditional Sixties accoutrements. This is the 'Special Ops' Bond, dressed to kill in commando black and, up to this point, we've barely seen him at all apart from the superlative PCS of Goldfinger. The reason, of course, that we haven't seen much of him is that Sir Roger of Moore has been so terribly old lately - so it's entirely logical that this new Bond should be drawn in sharp contrast to his immediate predecessor.

This is our first (and impressive) impression of the new 007, but as soon as we've logged it we're being offered a different - and more interesting - version. Once the film has properly begun we are back in the Cold War world of defections, checkpoints and proper old school secret agents. In short, we are back to something that rather resembles FRWL, but in the middle of all this is none other than the literary James Bond himself, extracted, by some odd Q-Branch alchemy, from the very ribbons of Ian Fleming's gold typewriter. For twenty minutes or so, the film is happy and able to run with Dalton's desire to get Bond back in character and it is absolutely the strongest section of the film. In fact we get the original short story, The Living Daylights, rendered with only the most careful and judicious updating.

The Daniel Craig movies have, so far at least, made much hay out of the dramatic opportunities offered by a version of Bond that more closely matches Fleming's creation, but here, momentarily, we get a delicious glimpse of what is yet to come. We see Bond as the 'blunt instrument', the killer sent to do a job, as he stands in the seedy apartment holding an enormous sniper rifle. But even has he stares coldly down the sights, 007 experiences an instinctive revulsion at his profession - partly because his hackles have been raised by his officious fellow agent, Saunders, and partly because his head has been turned by a pretty blonde - that causes him to spare his target. This is where Bond starts to become interesting. Arrogantly, he backs his instincts against his orders. Forgoing the easy kill, he employs his astonishing skill to shoot the gun from his target's hands instead. And then, accused of insubordination, he snarls his retort, unrepentant.

This is James Bond: a man of improbable abilities; a loner, distrustful of ideologies and communities, repeatedly forced to rely upon his own instincts; a man consumed with self-disgust at what he does; who is nonetheless addicted to the dangers of his profession; and who dulls the awareness of his own fragile mortality with voracious and unhealthy appetites.

This is the man that is sketched over the course of Fleming's stories and it is recognisably the same character that only Craig and Dalton have brought to the screen to any degree. But perhaps the reason why TLD feels a little insubstantial these days is because of Daniel Craig. He sells the powerful masculinity of Bond with his incredible physical performance: huffing, sweating, snorting, crashing - or even just rising out of the sea. Dalton nails the accidie in the opening section of TLD but, as the film leaves its source material behind, his Bond begins to look a little delicate in comparison.

More shockingly, Dalton's Bond is also undermined by his predecessor. Yes, good old Sir Roger. Love him or hate him, it cannot be denied that Moore has a wonderful way of gently selling a joke. Dalton is taking the character in a different direction here, but that doesn't mean he isn't required to try and emulate Moore's lightness of touch. He categorically fails. Specifically there are three egregious attempts at a 'comedy' double-take (for the record the lines are: 'We have a pipeline to the West', 'I've had a few optional extras installed' and 'We have a saying too, and you're full of it!') and they are painful to watch. If I remember correctly there's at least one more coming up in LTK (swordfish through the chair during the bar-brawl?) so that's something to look forward to, isn't it? Or if you'd rather reflect on past glories, two great Moore double-takes: TSWLM, Bond, driving the Lotus, notices the glamorous helicopter pilot who is trying to kill him; FYEO, running for his life, Bond realises that Melina's car is battered yellow 2CV. That, Timothy, is how you do it.

It doesn't help that the whole film begins to lose its bearings once Fleming's source material is out of the way. There are some impressive set pieces (Necros's attack on the MI6 safe house; the escape down a mountain in a cello case) but the story trying to thread these all together isn't good enough, being simultaneously too weak and too complicated. In the past we've been used to films where the plot centred on one thing: gold, diamonds, drugs or weapons for example. TLD throws all these in on top of each other like a game of 'one potato, two potato' and then compounds things by having a multitude of different factions fight over it all as well.

It is laudable that a Bond film would want to reference a real situation like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, although it's fair to say, I think, that recent events have rendered TLD more than a little quaint: the good old days, as it were, when the Russians were the baddies and James Bond could join forces with a radicalised Muslim Oxford graduate. But this film, following on from Octopussy, feels the need to try and reflect the deeper complexity of its times. So, we have bad Russians and good Russians once more. Very interestingly, the good Russians are loyal servants of the state - Pushkin - and the bad Russians are crypto-capitalists, in it for personal wealth. What the hell? We also have good and bad Americans - arguably for the first time: Whitaker, weapons-monger, is bad, and he too is a capitalist. In fact he's a rampant egoist, a brazenly conceited and self-serving individual, almost capitalism personified. The good Americans opposing him are the blank and featureless operatives of the Federal Government - almost literally actually, seeing as John Terry (no really) is a sure-fire winner of the 'Blandest Felix Leiter' competition. Admit it, you'd forgotten Felix was in TLD, hadn't you? He needn't have been. Leiter here is so flavourless, he makes Dalton zing. (There are, of course, no bad Brits. Even Saunders, our sniffy MI6 man in Bratislava, is shown to be a good egg in the end.) Add in the Mujahideen and Kara (an independent faction in her own right) and, well, things become really quite unnecessarily complicated.

Ah yes, Kara Milovy, the one with the cello. She's a bit of a step backwards really. The premise, that 007 is stringing her along to get to her boyfriend, is a strong one and has real opportunities for drama. The downside is that, as a result, Kara becomes a naive and, let's face it, wet character with rather too much in common with the likes of Domino from Thunderball. Worse though are the bumbling, 'hanging-on-the-gun-arm' tendencies she has (mucking about with the plane controls for example) which put her firmly in the vicinity of the hapless Mary Goodnight (TMWTGG).

Still, despite all my carping there's much to like about TLD. M, Q and new Moneypenny, Caroline Bliss, all get nice character moments and Dalton, even if he can't manage the brutal hunger of say Connery or Craig, works hard to rediscover Bond as a paid assassin with distasteful duties. John Rhys-Davies is winningly likeable as Pushkin and there's some proper cinematography going on too (specifically the shots of sunrise over a camel train in the Afghan desert). John Barry turns in his last soundtrack. It's tidy, with the elements of  a strong theme worked throughout, but the most notable thing about it is the synth drums that are laid over the action scenes. I wonder if that was him?

* * *

Pre-Credits Sequence: I've discussed this higher up, but this is obviously a carefully constructed PCS designed to introduce the new Bond. It's a good one too: a nice little mini adventure that still manages to set up the plot for the rest of the film.

Theme: Norwegian pop-rockers a-ha (I believe that's how you type it?) turn in a good effort, full of '80s synths, drums and no small amount of dark and rainy atmospherics. Binder's even able to manage a few images that reinforce this ambience, but mainly it is the usual girl-based nonsense and finishes, for no good reason whatsoever, with a woman killing time stood inside a giant champagne flute. But of course.

Deaths: Ooh, controversy. I made it 28 but I'm am forced to revise this down to 26. I counted four deaths during the attack on the safe house but in the next scene M gruffs "Two dead, two injured," so that's me told. Perhaps I should halve all my tallies on this basis?

Memorable Deaths: Saunders gets mashed up by a door. A Double-O falls off the Rock of Gibraltar. Necros falls off a Hercules clutching Bond's boot. Whitaker gets head-butted by the Duke of Wellington. Most memorable perhaps is Pushkin's faked assasination, which does involve a lot of blood and one comedy eye bulge.

Licence to Kill: 6. Not very high but then Bond does sit out the main Afghan/Russian battle behind the wheel of a taxiing plane.

Exploding Helicopters: 0. Another dry spell.

Shags: Technically, 2 (there's the odd-looking woman on the yacht in the PCS), but really only one and this feels like a deliberate de-tox for 007. Co-incidentally, TLD was the first Bond film to be made after the HIV/AIDS public information campaigns began. Go figure.

Crimes Against Women: As discussed, Kara is not the most empowered of Eighties women. She does get to call Bond the back end of a horse, but this is, perhaps, scant consolation. When she does assert herself, Kamran Shan hisses "Women!" and rolls his eyes in a manner we are presumably intended to find humorous. Bond cynically uses Pushkin's half-naked girlfriend to distract a KGB bodyguard and pats Moneypenny on the backside. Really! 007's eventual sexual harassment tribunal is going to make the Leveson inquiry look like peanuts.

Casual Racism: No particularly terrible examples but Bond does suggest to Kara that the Mujahideen will "save you for the harem". And there is, of course, the usual undeniable background racism of the series which boils down to this: foreigners are a rum lot.

Out of Time: James Bond smokes and that was controversial even in 1987. Q has produced something called a 'ghetto-blaster'. The Soviets are in Afghanistan, but we're exhorted to trust Gorbachev's reforming government: Puskin is absolutely a goody; Gogol, over drinks with M again, coughs up a visa for Kara.

Fashion Disasters: Dalton is the first Bond to make the smart-casual look work at all. Even so, he has an ugly plaid jacket during the safe house briefing. And Q gives him a pair of gizmo sunglasses that are even more shockingly obvious and ridiculous than the ones Roger Moore had.

Eh?: Maybe I stopped caring but I didn't spot very many odd things during this. It's possible that the convoluted double-crossing trade-up swap-shop of a plot does make sense, but I felt very little motivation to sit there and pay attention to it. Likewise the over-complicated instructions to Bond's key-fob/stun-gas/grenade: I'm sure it doesn't quite add up (which whistle does what when again?) but I can't care enough about it to meticulously check (remind of this when we get to the ballpoint pen clicking in GoldenEye).  >> All right, there is this: if the Army in Gibraltar are alert enough to pick off a Double-O agent, why don't they spot the 'KGB' assassin, eh?  >> Clearly still with money to burn, MI6 recreate M's office, complete with desk and phone, in the back of an RAF Hercules for one flight.  >> Is a cello still concert-worthy if it has a bullet hole in it? Presumably it is actually two holes too, unless the bullet is still rattling around inside? Either way, surely this would affect the resonance?  >>  According to Wikipedia there's some controversy about whether Bond's car is an Aston Martin Volante V8 or a non-Volante V8 saloon with Volante badges (it appears to flit between the two states, depending on whether it is is in the studio or on location) but really, Jesus, life's too short to care, surely?

Worst Line: See all the double-takes, above. Bond finishes off by surprising Kara in her dressing room after her concert. "You didn't think I'd miss this performance, did you?" It's funny/clever because he means a SEX performance. Ugh.

Best Line: There's a lovely moment when M blithely introduces General Gogol to Kamran Shah of the Mujahideen. I look forward to Judi Dench having drinks with Donald Rumsfeld and Ayman al-Zawahiri in Skyfall.

Worst Bond Moment: Those double-takes, sorry. And pulling a gun on a little kid and his mother. Awkward!

Best Bond Moment: Bond effortlessly hitting bulls-eyes at the fairground is a nice touch. The PCS is great and all the Eastern European bits are good for Bond. But really, TLD lacks any cast-iron brilliant bit of 007 magic.

Overall: Bond goes back to basics. It's a good, solid Bond film with some proper espionage, a Flemingy 007 and comparatively little sex or violence - in short it would be a good one to show to the kids if it wasn't for the stupidly over-complicated story. Excitingly, Dalton shows that he understands the character of Bond, even if he hasn't got the physical presence of other 007s. Never mind,  Moore didn't have it either and he made seven films so, on the basis of TLD, the franchise will be in safe hands for many years to come! Um...

James Bond Will Return: ... I expect! It doesn't say any more than that. Maybe they've not thought of a title for the next one, seeing as they've all but exhausted the Fleming ones? How about Licence Revoked! What? What do you mean nobody will know what 'revoked' means? Oh well. What? Licence to Kill? Are you kidding me? Why not just call it James Bond is A Spy? Or Martinis, Guns and Girls?  Yes, I am done now, sorry.

Actually, I'm not because I have...

TWO BONUS FACTS:  

1) TLD is the first Bond film to feature opera. Whilst they're in Vienna, James takes Kara to see The Marriage of Figaro and we get a sneak peek of the end of Act II. It's not the Staatsoper though - according to my sources they're at the "Schönbrunn Palace Theatre, occasional home of Vienna's third opera company, the Kammeroper", so now you know.

2) Yes, well spotted. That parrot taking up space in the MI6 safe house really is Max from FYEO. Presumably Bond brought it back lest it blab 'ATAC to Saint Cyrils!' to any passers by.

Saint George

St. George by Raphael

I grew up in a little town in a little country. Nothing ever happened in Salisbury whilst I was a child and it never appeared on the local news, let alone the national headlines. It had no minor football team to stage an improbable fairy-tale cup run. It never featured in TV dramas. Neither Antiques Roadshow nor Songs of Praise ever seemed to call. In short I had no way to tell if the rest of the country knew we existed at all. It might even have been that we didn't exist, and just received programming from a real world that carried on happily without us. Finally, when I was twelve or thirteen, a boy in my class won a Blue Peter badge. He went to London, to BBC Television Centre, and we could actually see him on the screen. Here at last was corroboration: I did live in the same dimension as all those other places on the television. Salisbury was real after all.

But even to this day I am completely thrown when I meet people who have heard of Salisbury. And if they say that they've been there it's all I can do not to scoff out loud, as if they're claiming to have somehow inveigled their way through the magic forcefield that shields us from the mortal realm.

All of which is a silly way of raising two ideas: 1) that one's home always looks different from the outside; 2) that we don't give any thought to what it looks like from the outside until we are forced to. Realisation can dawn in an instant or take years to seep in. And it can happen to a species as easily as it can to an individual, as the Apollo 8 mission proved in 1968 (left).

I've been looking at England from the outside now for many years - in fact, rather like a NASA probe, I seem to be moving further away - and an exterior picture has been gradually forming, as if the data were being beamed in from the depths of space, pixel by pixel.

But alongside the slow drip-feed of first Welsh and then American views on England, there have been sudden instances of insight. I've mentioned living in Wales before, but I must reiterate that I barely considered myself English before I moved there: I was British, of course, as was - I thought - everyone else. This was a long time ago - before Devolution - but I was left in no doubt, even by loving friends, that I was English and different, that in the past I had been the oppressor and that even in the present, on match day at least, I was still the enemy.

The English have no cultural memory of being oppressed. In a pinch, we might huff about the Norman Yoke but that is merely to clutch at the flimsiest of straws. And if ever we do wish to empathise with our downtrodden Saxon forebears, there's no way we'd be willing to give up all that we gained from the Conquest. No, we've never been oppressed but we still relish the way that the Plantagenet kings laid about them with sword and fire, crushing Welsh, Scots, Irish, French and even Saracens. It is these kings that we emulate when we send out our footballers wearing the three lions of Richard I; and when we fly the flag of St. George it is because of Edward III, who venerated courtly ideas of chivalry whilst he was cementing an English empire.

In England if we do admit to any of this then we are aren't prepared to see ourselves as the villains of the piece. We see Medieval battles, bashing the Scots or Welsh, as a bit of fun, like beating them at rugby perhaps. 'And look, they still have their own languages, don't they?' we might say, as if this mitigated against the centuries when children would be beaten, or worse, for letting slip a word of their mother tongue. The English were never required to face up to what we had done - there were never any recriminations. As Wales, Ireland and even Scotland were absorbed into this new United Kingdom of Britain, past grievances were swept under the carpet as we set about being beastly to the rest of the world.

It's an important distinction because I think we are much more aware of, upset by, and feel more guilty about what the British Empire did. The implications are still unwinding, all around the world, and we are involved in an ongoing series of complicated calculations, trying to see if our legacy can't be worked to be morally neutral. Yes, slavery, we think: terrible. But on the other hand, you know, Wilberforce and all that! We cling to the idea that we ended slavery thirty years before the USA because it makes us feel superior and less racist. Yes, India, we hmmm. Some bad things happened, but look we left peacefully and India's now a burgeoning superpower, the largest democracy in the world! Okay, we invented concentration camps, but we're not as bad as the Nazis!

The Second World War is seen as a huge make-weight when we're trying to get the scales to balance. Whatever terrible evil things we did, we think, the war against Nazism was a fire that scourged us of our empire and left Britain diminished but redeemed. As an historical narrative it is neat and tidy, but it is something we tell ourselves. I don't think it's how we're viewed in Kenya, or India, or America.

The view from the US is naturally shaped by the War of Independence. Britain, and especially England, is seen as a rump. Quaint, sure, but redundant. And it doesn't help that there's so much confusion about what exactly constitutes the UK, Great Britain, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland or the British Isles. In terms of political power, 'English' and 'England' are used for everything. As a result, 'English' and 'British' are used pretty much synonymously: to be English is to be British, and vice versa.

But culturally, as soon as one identifies oneself as Irish or Scottish, or even Welsh, one is distinct, not English and therefore not British. Tartan, Loch Ness and Braveheart are not British, they are Scottish. Tom Jones and male voice choirs are Welsh. St. Patrick despite being Romano-British and growing up in Wales, is the most Irishy thing ever.

I'm not complaining. Celtic Britain has its own distinct flavour and has excelled at marketing itself and its culture to the outside world. The English, happy to wave the Union Flag, have never felt the need to cultivate their own individual character.

We need to think about how we're seen from the outside. Even more so because of the looming possibility of Scottish independence. If it were to happen, the divorce would be messy and protracted; everything we share would be carved up over many years. But one thing England would certainly retain is the negative association with British imperialism. As far as the rest of the world would be concerned, Scotland would be left floaty-light, new and shiny and free from centuries of subjugation. And England, that old bully, would be merely more shrivelled, more decrepit, with its blood red cross and its fondness for chain mail armour.

This has turned in to a long rant but, as I say, we need to start thinking about how we're seen from the outside. Last week I read this excellent article by Greg Jenner - it passionately puts the case that St. George is a pretty useless rallying figure for a modern England. I think it is the case that our Englishness, because of Britain, because of empire, has long been a internal matter, something that we only thought about in terms of looking inwards. That won't do.

Brilliantly, St. Patrick's Day has been turned into a rolling global party. It may be, for most people, nothing more than an excuse for a beer but it is undeniably a world-wide phenomenon, a massive celebration and a big win for Irishness. In fact, its promotion has been a deliberate policy of the Irish government for twenty years with (thanks Wikipedia) four specific aims:

• To offer a national festival that ranks amongst all of the greatest celebration in the world
• To create energy and excitement throughout Ireland via innovation, creativity, grassroots involvement, and marketing activity
• To provide the opportunity and motivation for people of Irish descent (and those who sometimes wish they were Irish) to attend and join in the imaginative and expressive celebrations
• To project, internationally, an accurate image of Ireland as a creative, professional and sophisticated country with wide appeal.

I love that, especially 'those who sometimes wish they were Irish'. As an Englishman I look at those words with envy - who would ever aspire to being English? For a start, we're never going to be able to compete with the Irish when it comes to getting the world drunk with us. But if we possibly could, we should take those aims and try to emulate them. After all, we must have something special, something uniquely English, that the world would be happy to cherish with us? And of course, we do. As Mr Jenner and a great many other people have pointed out through the years, we have Shakespeare.

We needn't do much more than rename St. George's Day, (April 23rd, non-English people) as Shakepeare's Birthday. It's so convenient! (No, there's no evidence that he was actually born on that day but it is very likely and we are a lot less fussy about the 'Englishness' of a Palestinian Christian martyr who we currently share with Georgia, Portugal and host of other places.) But we can keep the flag, sure, why not. George can stay patron saint if you like because that's entirely meaningless anyway. But we should start celebrating Shakespeare on April 23rd. It's distinct. It's marketable. His works are glorious and rich and almost endlessly open to interpretation and exploration. Funny, sad, exciting; English history or universal human drama - it's all there. And best of all, it wouldn't just be happening on village greens and in Norman churches. It could be everywhere; English is spoken by over a billion people, more than any other language. Wheel out the ambassadors and the High Commissioners! Unleash the heralds and their fanfares! Put on a show and celebrate our most significant contribution to world culture.

If nothing else it would be chance to future-proof England. Scotland might go its own way. Anglicanism and monarchy, which we have set such store by for so long, might not last. Symbols lose their usefulness or become sullied. Too often English patriotism is an ugly, intolerant beast, mired in ignorance and the born from the fear that we are no longer the power we once were. To hell with that. Shakespeare offers us an England for all ages, for all the world, and something to look back at fondly, proudly, when we are far from home.

The Bear With No Claws

Before I crack on with Timothy Dalton, there's just time for a quick look back. Going through film-by-film is all very well, but some things only become apparent with an overview.

Love it or hate it, the Roger Moore era is all over the place. A mess of low budget thrillers, blaxploitation and kung-fu action fllicks, massive budget space epics and Cold War espionage movies, with a dash of Carry On. The tone seems to change with every film. What's more there are clear tensions running throughout this period. Should the films be small scale dramas or big screen blockbusters? Funny or cold? How violent should they be? How sexist should they be? How fantastic? How realistic?

Different directors tackle these issues in their own way. Guy Hamilton doesn't have any money to play with and tries to follow DAF with plenty of jokes. Lewis Gilbert is given loads of money and turns in two massive, escapist films that, perhaps, don't actually make a lot of sense. Finally John Glen gets his hands on the series, tries to go back to basics, recants and goes for humour and then ends up with a sort of a blend of everything. And throughout, Roger Moore keeps doing his thing, steady and reliable, a single eyebrow raised against all affrontery.

Here are the numbers.

Bond	007 Kills (Av)	Deaths (Av)	Shags (Av)	Helicopters (Av)
Connery	57 (9.5)	384 (64)	13 (2.16)	8 (1.33)
Lazenby	5 (5)	28 (28)	3 (3)	0 (0)
Moore	183 (26.14)	404 (57.71)	19 (2.74)	3 (0.43)
TOTAL	245 (17.5)	816 (58.29)	35 (2.5)	11 (0.79)

HTML Tables

They don't tell the whole truth though which is, again, that the Moore era is very erratic. For example, Bond kills just one person in TMWTGG, but in the very next film, TSWLM, offs over one hundred. Although Bond is killing more people during this time, less is made of it. Moore's Bond tends to dispatch baddies from a distance and very often their demise consists purely of an A-Team-style stunt jump in front of an explosion. And unlike Connery, Moore doesn't kill anyone with his bare hands - he's oddly distanced from even his most cold-blooded murders: both Fekkesh and Locque fall to their deaths, and in both cases Bond doesn't touch them, insulated from the crime by, respectively, his tie and a car door. When he shoots Stromberg, there's a twelve feet long dining table to act as intercessor.

The fractured nature of this period makes it hard to identify themes and track developments - especially in comparison to the Connery era which is very cohesive and has a strong narrative connection from film to film. Instead, the films of the Seventies and early Eighties are more individual adventures than they are episodes in a saga, and the franchise is easily distracted by passing fashions. But there is a slight storyline that progresses through these movies and it is revealing.

It's not there immediately. LALD and TMWTGG represent a false start for Moore's Bond as Guy Hamilton tries to find a contemporary niche for 007 to occupy. Both films explore western anxieties but it's all very domesticated: problems of drugs, race and energy are social ones, hardly within the remit of a governmental assassin. But starting with TSWLM the Moore movies reintroduce characters and plots that, at least, entertain the idea that the Cold War is an ongoing concern for audiences.

What's interesting is how the threat from the Soviet Union is downplayed and how right-wing foreign policy is gently affirmed. Over the course of these films the USSR is entirely co-opted, to the point where General Gogol will sip tea with M in Whitehall and even (in TLD) offer 007 the Order of Lenin.

It happens gradually. In TSWLM, the KGB is a credible and competent agency and Major Amasova repeatedly outwits Bond for our amusement. But the very idea of Anglo-Soviet co-operation, although novel at the time, begins the process of de-fanging the Russians. Their (and our) hideous nuclear weapons represent a threat to both sides, wielded explicitly, as they are, by a neutral third party. The idea that East and West must work together to prevent a nuclear disaster is hardly the subtlest of sub-texts, but we're already a long way from YOLT, where Britain is the voice of sanity whilst US and USSR get the wool pulled over their eyes by SPECTRE.

Moonraker avoids mentioning Russians altogether, but what's interesting is how it presents a much frostier than usual UK/US relationship. If we take Drax's poison plot as a metaphor for nuclear armageddon then Moonraker is almost a re-run of TSWLM, but with the CIA replacing the KGB. The rather extraordinary implication would appear to be that Britain isn't picking sides in the Cold War!

FYEO returns us to the nitty-gritty of a Cold War being fought on the ground, and presents the Russians as distinctly unfriendly once more. But they aren't the villains. The antagonists are gangsters from across Europe (Spanish, Belgian, East German, Greek) seeking to profit by selling British secrets to the USSR. Whilst it's not impossible that this is an attack on closer European cooperation, it's more likely that it is an unconscious attempt to show that Britain is in a league above these pettier nations - a major power that fashions a victory once Bond gets to deal directly with his Soviet opposite number.

As East/West tensions climb dramatically in the early Eighties, the Bond franchise finally gives us 'bad' Russians. General Orlov from Octopussy is the sort of villain one might have expected to come along sooner: an angry Soviet uniform, itching to let his tanks roll across Europe. But again, look at how the USSR is presented. Orlov is clearly a solitary maniac, frustrated by the reasonableness of the Politburo and watched over by 'good' Russians like Gogol, head of the KGB, who finally has the rogue General shot. He doesn't quite turn to Bond and say "Orlov's views and opinions are his own and are not representative of the USSR," but this is certainly supposed to be self-evident. Furthermore, it is Orlov's tanks that we are told to be afraid of, not his nuclear arsenal. Yes, his plan is to detonate a nuke on a USAF base, but his intention is to trick the West into nuclear disarmament so that a conventional war can be waged. The lesson we are supposed to draw from this is that 'our' nukes are good because they protect us, that unilateral disarmament would be a terrible mistake and that we must 'stay the course'.

These were, of course, the prevailing government policies of the day, both in London and in Washington, and perhaps it should come as no surprise that Bond's world should align so closely with them. But I do find it interesting that the nuclear threat is consistently ignored, underplayed or given a neutral context. Despite featuring in nearly all of these films, the Russians are, we are told in no uncertain terms, nothing to worry about.

In AVTAK they are almost entirely toothless, included it seems exclusively for their comedy value. In the PCS, Bond eludes their guards with all the blissed-out nonchalance of a Californian surfer dude. Although nurtured by the USSR, Max Zorin had escaped their doddery clutches in order to fly solo. Gogol and Ivonova get tricked very easily by 007 swapping their cassette. And KGB heavy Dolph Lundgren (yes, it is him) gets picked up and twirled about by Grace flippin' Jones.

This isn't the last we'll see of them - the KGB have one last hurrah to come in The Living Daylights (next) and a flashback flourish in GoldenEye - but throughout these films they and the wider Soviet threat have been thoroughly diminished on screen, as well as in the minds of the audience. It's pretty blatant propaganda, and overlaps only slightly with the realities of the Cold War in the Seventies and Eighties, but with every Martini, every quip, every raised eyebrow, Roger Moore's James Bond has gently pulled another claw from the paws of the Russian bear.