BlogalongaBond / Licence To Kill:The Best James Bond Film Ever Made

The summer of 1989 was a glorious time to be inside a cinema. Batman finally got the movie he deserved, Indiana Jones was back to his whip-cracking best and trailers for Back To The Future Part II and Ghostbusters II were causing damp seats at multiplexes the world over. I spent the entire summer holiday in Telford UCI lapping up everything from Police Academy 6: City Under Siege to The 'Burbs and enjoyed every second of it, but nothing caused as much arousal in my trousers as Licence To Kill. Partly because I was, by then, a confirmed Bond obsessive, but mainly because none of those other films had what Licence To Kill had, which was one of these:

Yes, James Bond was back, and he brought with him two "shit"s, a "bullshit", three "bastard"s, a "piss" and a man's head popping like a jam-filled balloon. It's hardly Cannibal Holocaust, but as far as Bond was concerned the brutality of For Your Eyes Only suddenly looked like an episode of ChuckleVision in comparison.

In 2012 Licence To Kill is fairly mild in terms of violence. The minute or so which was cut in order to prevent the film receiving an 18 certificate has long since been restored and the film released as a 15 rated DVD, and it could easily get away with a 12 when it arrives on Blu-ray in October.* But combined with the bastard-hard Bond of Timothy Dalton, who proves once again that he's the only 007 actor who seems to get what Ian Fleming was writing about, the film's freedom to make Bond's world a genuinely threatening one results in what I like to call:

BOOM. I'll bang on about the individual elements that make Licence To Kill so, so good in a minute (contain yourself), but at its core it's its bold refusal to conform that raises it above the rest of the series. When Bond frees himself from the red tape of MI6 in order to get the job done properly, it's a perfect metaphor for the film itself busting out of the franchise's restrictive mould and ruthlessly and efficiently delivering the goods.

Like On Her Majesty's Secret Service before it and Casino Royale after it, Licence To Kill assumes its position as top quality Bondage by ignoring the Goldfinger formula which created so many average entries in the series. Finally allowing James Bond to function as a human being with fragile emotions and a fierce sense of loyalty to his friends, Licence To Kill only falters when it feels the need to crowbar in the scenes it thinks the fans demand: Q's gadget lesson almost grinds the film to a halt and Bond's first episode of sexytime with Pam Bouvier is completely unjustified and irrelevant to the rest of the plot. That said, Carey Lowell is probably the series' third-best Bond girl, her heart-stopping dress and ability to down a vodka martini in one being just two of her admirable attributes.

Yes, you may marry me.

It's Bond's heartfelt relationship with Felix Leiter (an extension of what could have been with The Living Daylights' Saunders) that drives the film though, and which finally allows Ian Fleming's James Bond - largely absent from his own film series since From Russia With Love - to make a welcome reappearance. While a literal adaptation of any of the books remains as likely a prospect as Justin Bieber playing Bond, Licence To Kill contains the most faithful screen version of the complex character that curses, calculates and kills his way through the pages of Fleming's novels and short stories.

The film's box office may have been crippled by its contemporaries in that amazing, blockbuster-packed summer - it's no coincidence that every Bond movie since has been released in winter - but it proved that Bond was at his best when he remembered his roots, went a little crazy and back-combed his substantial barnet so hard that his forehead nearly snapped off.

Timothy Dalton, obviously

T-Daltz takes his ice-cold BastardBond from The Living Daylights and cranks the bastardry up a notch, while simultaneously giving us the most believable portrayal of 007 ever seen on screen. It’s one thing to be a ruthless revenge machine but it only works if you believe the motivation, and Dalton effortlessly manages both. I don’t think it’s any exaggeration to suggest that the fact that he only made two Bond films is probably the greatest tragedy mankind has ever suffered.

The bridge escape

I enjoyed the scene in Mission: Impossible III when the recently-captured villain was being transported across a long, picturesque bridge in a prison van, only for his cronies to suddenly turn up and break him out in an improbably hastily-organised but undeniably exciting escape. However I couldn't help but feel that it owed a certain something to the scene in Licence To Kill when the recently-captured villain was being transported across a long, picturesque bridge in a prison van, only for his cronies to suddenly turn up and break him out in an improbably hastily-organised but undeniably exciting escape. Can't quite put my finger on what it is though.

Franz Sanchez

"Each film is only as good as its villain," said critic Roger Ebert. Inconveniently, he was talking about Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, but his theory has never been proven as strongly in a Bond film as in Licence To Kill. Sanchez isn't just dirty, he's terrifying, psychotic and probably mentally unstable: no sane person would wear a shirt like this, after all. His unique way of dealing with disloyal associates makes me genuinely concerned for Bond when he goes undercover in Sanchez' inner circle, and when his cover's blown, it's one of the rare occasions in a Bond film when you're desperate for him to kill the bad guy before he carves 007's lungs out, or something.

Michael Kamen's score

Having done a cracking job on action scores for Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, and with John Barry  unavailable due to illness, Michael Kamen brought his urgent, stabby brass along to accompany Bond’s roaring rampage of revenge. Kamen’s often frantic, always fantastic score is crucial to ramping up the film’s tension and remains woefully served on the soundtrack album. Somebody needs to sort that out STAT.

“He was married once… but it was a long time ago”

Tracy Bond rarely gets a mention post-OHMSS, but when she does it’s always a touching moment, and Dalton makes this one heartbreaking. It's never overtly mentioned, but given that Felix's wife suffers the same wedding day fate as Mrs Bond, it's hard not to see 007's dogged pursuit of her killers as an attempt to alleviate his own guilt and anger over Tracy's murder. As a result Licence To Kill ends up being the film Diamonds Are Forever should have been.

The Incredible Wetsuit

Most of Bond’s outfits in Licence To Kill have been flamed by those in the know, but check out the sexy red piping on this baby. I might get one of these just to lounge about the house in.

This line reading by Benicio
Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez

He’s not being entirely truthful.

Licence revoked

When Barry Norman showed a clip of this scene in a Film ’89 summer preview, I turned to my dad in horror and disbelief. “James Bond RESIGNS? What the actual fuck?”, I didn’t say to my dad because I would have got a clip round the ear. 23 years later the scene is just as powerful: Robert Brown finally gets his teeth into the role of M, Dalton looks like he wants to beat his boss to a bloody pulp and Bond effectively jacks in the only thing that ever meant anything in his life to avenge his friend. When I quit my job it’s going to be exactly like this.

Milton Krest's death

The scene for which the film probably most deserved its 15 rating might just be the series’ best death. As if we weren’t quite sure just how horrible Sanchez is, we get to see him burst his business partner’s head open over a matter of a few measly quid. Not that Krest didn’t deserve it: in one scene he wore SALMON PINK SLACKS.

The end

Once the film has finished blowing up half of South America in its stunning ten-minute tanker chase and Bond has exacted fiery revenge on Sanchez, it brings it all back down to Earth with a touching moment in which we almost see James Bond cry for the first time since his wife was killed. Without a word, Dalton conveys Bond's exhausted relief that it's all over, and when he nearly breaks down at the thought of everything he's been through it's almost too much to take.


And finally: As Timothy Dalton bade Bond farewell, he took with him several other names who performed their final double-0 duties on Licence To Kill, all of whom played a small part in making me the unbearable conversational bore I am today. So thanks to these guys for that:

* For a geekily fascinating analysis of the film's many journeys between the edit suite and the BBFC, check out these Melon Farmers

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BlogalongaBond / The Living Daylights: I ♥ Timothy Dalton

Maybe it's because it was my first ever Bond film in a cinema. Maybe it's because I was exactly the right age to start appreciating Bond films for what they were and could be. Or maybe it's just because it's absolutely brilliant. Whatever the reasons, and there are several, The Living Daylights is my clear favourite James Bond film up to this point in BlogalongaBond's history.

There's almost too much to love about it, but what never ceases to amaze me is that it was made by the very same writing, directing and producing team that only two years before had squatted over the franchise and curled out A View To A Kill. Anybody would think there had been some single, vital change to the series, perhaps in the regular cast, that would turn it from laughing stock to cinematic force to be reckoned with.

But more about that later. Let's just take a moment to thank screenwriters Richard Maibaum and Michael G Wilson for writing a spy thriller that's both a) thrilling and b) about spies. No certifiable loons trying to wipe out humanity with a bomb on the moon strapped to a double-taking pigeon here, just realistic (albeit power-crazy) opportunists reacting to real-life political turmoil, but causing just enough bother to warrant investigation from Her Majesty's Secret Service.

It's an intelligent, audience-respecting script that drip-feeds details at exactly the right pace, and it's to be even further congratulated for not being built around a series of set-pieces. They're there, to be sure, but for the first time since On Her Majesty's Secret Service they feel like they're a logical progression of the story. Even the escape-by-cello-case makes sense, and it's a mercy that the case isn't equipped with whoopee cushions or rear-mounted stink bomb launchers as it might have done if Roger Moore had been driving.

But yes, when all is said and done, by far the best thing about The Living Daylights is Mr Timothy Peter Dalton, also known as The Best James Bond, Like, Ever. At long last we've got an actor playing Bond, rather than a film star. Just look at a selected filmography - the names of the characters he's played over the years practically scream RADA:

Maybe that last one is pushing it a bit

Dalton owns Bond from the moment he realises shenanigans are afoot at the Rock Of Gibraltar. Immediately making two other Double-0 agents look like bumbling amateurs, he launches into one of the series' best chases for yonks, doing most of his own stunts along the way. But the action is a fraction of what makes Dalton special: he knows Fleming's Bond inside out. He smokes almost constantly (and did so in interviews and press conferences at the time), has absolutely no time for incompetent colleagues and pretty much hates his job. "Stuff my orders," he barks at foppish fuckwit Saunders. "Tell M what you want. If he fires me I'll thank him for it." This may just be the greatest line in any Bond film, ever.

MI6 flunky Saunders might be an officious prick, but that's all the better for bringing out the best from both the cracking script and Dalton's unfaltering work in the film. In their first meeting, Saunders immediately rubs Bond up the wrong way by commenting on his lateness, criticising his appreciation of a fine laydee, treating him like a subordinate and failing to operate a pair of night vision goggles.

Bond visibly bristles at Saunders' remarks, and when it comes to carrying out the mission Dalton gives subtle hints as to the discomfort and doubt coursing through Bond's icy veins. It's already literally impossible to imagine Roger Moore in the role. When they meet again in Vienna, it's Bond's turn to treat Saunders like a child, and Saunders actually relaxes as Bond's unorthodox methods beginning to make sense to him. At this point their relationship improves, and they part on good terms - Bond even gives Saunders a "well done" and "thanks", and with the slightest of glances that would have been beyond his predecessors, Dalton conveys his growing admiration for his colleague. Although he does look a bit like he wants to kiss him on the willy.

In just a few short scenes there's a real sense of warmth developing between two otherwise clinical agents here, and it's a welcome rarity in the series. All of which makes Saunders' brutal murder more devastating, and Bond's reaction to it so convincing. He's furious that it happened, that he couldn't prevent it and that he's lost someone who might have turned out to be a friend, and Dalton uses everything in his arsenal - his stance, his eyes, his jaw, even his hands - to get all that across effortlessly. It sounds a bit ridiculous to congratulate an actor so much for acting, but lest we forget, this is the same film series in which the hero's most emotionally resonant gesture used to be the animation of one or both eyebrows.

I could go on for days about what a great Bond film The Living Daylights is, but that would be intolerable for everyone so imagine a slow-motion montage of the following highlights, perhaps set to soft music: Bond headbutting a bad guy for the first time; the none-more-'80s silhouette of Dalton's suit; Bond pulling his Velcro collar over before he shoots Kara; Q taking tablets after climbing stairs; the return of the Aston Martin; the gag with the cello case in the phone box; Bond killing Necros with a shoelace rather than a watch that turns into a laser-guided cannon. I love all these things and more, but most of all I love Timothy Dalton, and in 1987 I wanted nothing more than for him to play Bond for the rest of my life. That's not too much to ask, right?

John Barry's score

Barry's twelfth and final Bond score is sublime. Melding his typically terrific swooning and sinister orchestral work with '80s synths to create a Bond sound completely of its time, he bowed out in true style, even cameoing as the Carnegie Hall conductor in the film's epilogue. Just one of the brilliant moments in this score comes as Bond gives Necros the boot: the same cue is used as when Necros murdered Saunders, lending the scene a sense of satisfying revenge. Other composers will come and go, bringing their own styles to the series, but each of their Bond scores will be a collaboration with John Barry whether they like it or not.

The safe house sequence

One of the greatest sequences in The Living Daylights doesn't even feature James Bond: he's off in his Aston Martin listening to some serious jazz while a milkman who looks suspiciously like Die Hard's tiny-footed terrorist lays waste to the safe house containing fake defector Koskov. Necros' fight with the remarkably handy-with-his-fists butler is a triumph of stuntmanship and editing, and Andreas Wisniewski is so effectively chilling that I have never been able to fully trust a Walkman-wearing milkman since.

"Where are you going?" "To drop an F-Bomb"

In the course of researching this post I spent several years training to be a lip-reader just so that I could confirm that yes, Timothy Dalton definitely says "fucking hell". If only swearing had been in week one, I would have saved a lot of time and money.

The hanging-out-of-the-back-of-a-plane bit

Somebody obviously knew that the shoddy stunt doubling work of A View To A Kill would one day be ripped apart by a mentally unhinged blogger, because in The Living Daylights it's faultless, particularly in this heart-halting scene where Bond and Necros hang thousands of feet above the Afghanistan desert with only a piddly carabina clip keeping them from splattering on the mountains below. Stunt gods BJ Worth and Jake Lombard are the ones actually and literally hanging on by their fingernails, and I salute them for it.

The correctly deleted scene

Wilson & Maibaum just couldn't help squeezing in the kind of insultingly stoopid visual gag that Roger Moore would probably have considered genius. Fleeing from the Tangier rozzers, Bond escapes on a carpet thrown over some cables, which looks like a flying carpet to the simple, shisha-smoking locals HAHAHA. The scene was shot and cut together, but at the last moment director John Glen came to his senses and put it out of its misery. It's a fascinating aside on the DVD but by crikey it does not belong within a trillion miles of this film.

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BlogalongaBond / A View To A Kill: Occasionally Starring Roger Moore

Well thank Christ that's over. It's not that the last seven Bond films haven't been fun - not one of them was as bad as watery snoozathon Thunderball - but let's be honest: Roger Mortis has finally set in. This incarnation of cinema's favourite secret agent is no more. This is an ex-Bond.

It's not even Rodge's fault (he graciously noted that he was "only about four hundred years too old for the part") - the poor bastard had been trying to escape since 1979, but Cubby Broccoli never had the balls to choose another Bond. As a result of that cowardice, and combined with the fact that Moore is nearly three years older than Sean Connery, James Bond went from a prowling, 32-year-old sex puma in 1962 to a shuffling, 57-year-old sex tortoise in 1985 without ever making reference to his own advancing years or behaving accordingly. I'm all for equal opportunities for the elderly, but not if it means watching a man old enough to be my dad making saucytime with a girl ten years younger than me. Sorry Dad, but that's just wrong.

I wouldn't have minded so much if Bond had got it on with anyone of a similar age to his own, but Broccoli and his various writers and directors simply refused to acknowledge that the character ever aged. Look at this graph, in which the red bars represent Roger Moore's age throughout his tenure, while the green bars represent the ages of the actresses with whom he was required to simulate carnal intimacy:

I mean that's just embarrassing for all of us. By A View To A Kill, Moore was so ancient that the amount of work put in by the hair, make up and lighting departments deserved awards for flattery, as these stills demonstrate:

But enough of this blatant ageism. Roger Moore's seniority is far from the only problem with A View To A Kill: Tanya Roberts is far and away the worst Bond girl ever; there's a Frenchman called Mr Aubergine; we're expected to believe that Bond recorded himself snoring for hours as a cover for sneaking out of his room at night; Grace Jones tries a Russian accent for her first line then doesn't bother again; there's the series' most nonsensical mention of the film's title in casual dialogue; comedy incompetent cops are back, from whom Bond attempts to escape by melting into the crowds in a massive, unwieldy fire truck with its siren blaring, and we're forced to watch the least sexy sex scene in Bond history.

You're not the only one rolling your eyes, mate

I haven't even mentioned the worst thing ever to happen in a Bond film ever, because I can barely bring myself to, but suffice to say it's difficult to listen to The Beach Boys these days without wincing in pain.

The thing that stands out the most about A View To A Kill, though, is the frequent attempts to make us believe that a near-pensioner is executing the film's typically amazing stunts. It's almost as if director John Glen knew he'd never fool us so he just didn't bother trying, allowing so many obvious shots of stuntmen to slip through the edit that it's a wonder they weren't all credited as James Bond in the end crawl. Let's take six completely random shots of Bond in action in the film and see how many of them actually feature Roger Moore:

Nope.

Hmmm.

Seriously?

Fairly certain that's Vladimir Putin.

Not even close.

I think this guy fixed my boiler last winter.

Extrapolate these findings and the shocking truth becomes clear: Roger Moore never actually appeared in A View To A Kill at all. Yet it still made pots of cash at the box office, and for that we must be grateful, because it convinced Cubby Broccoli that he could make a successful Bond film without Rodge. Taking this to its logical conclusion, he decided to hire an actual actor for the next film - but would this brave new dawn actually just mean more cock jokes and teen-shagging pensioners, or would it kick the living daylights out of the series, resulting in the greatest Bond film to date?

Take a wild guess.

Duran Duran's theme song

Simon Le Bon's lyrics might sound like the ramblings of a madman and the baffling video is a perfect example of why pop stars shouldn't attempt acting, but the song itself is a fabulous burst of fluoro-pop made doubly welcome by the fact that it's the first Bond theme in over a decade that isn't a soppy ballad. John Taylor's nimble basslines and Nick Rhodes' excitable synthesisers are at complete odds with the clunking codgertoss that follows, but for three minutes and ten seconds A View To A Kill is back-combed mullet-raising entertainment.
Bonus LOL: Whoever chose the image for the 7" single label gave us a cock joke worthy of Rodge himself, though it only became apparent when you placed the record on your turntable:

Patrick Macnee

Casting Britain's other Greatest Secret Agent alongside Roger Moore was a stroke of genius. Macnee had been winking at Bond throughout The Avengers, and finally he got his chance to join in the fun. In a perfect world there would be a spin-off series of films starring Moore and Macnee as Bond and John Steed in their 80s, fighting crime, attempting to nob 20-year-old girls and forgetting where they parked the car. Although to be honest, A View To A Kill isn't far from that already.

Uh... the length of Roger Moore's

and Grace Jones' legs in this poster?

I've run out of amazing things to say about A View To A Kill. Those legs are very long though.

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BlogalongaBond / Octopussy:Time For A Field Trip

1983 was the year there were two James Bonds, which would have been handy if, as her name suggested, Octopussy had turned out to be some kind of mutant super-villainess with eight vaginas (the script would have written itself - Connery: "I'll have sex with these three, you roger more"). Sadly the cold, harsh reality is that rogue Bond flick Never Say Never Again turned out to be one of the worst films ever made, and Octopussy - though more entertaining than its predecessor - prolongs the agony of having to watch a walking, bewigged corpse bumble through various exotic locations, casually racially and sexually insulting everyone he comes by. Or in.

Nobody is safe from the script's cringing xenophobia and rampant chauvinism: Indians are simple curry-munchers, Russians are mad as eggs and Germans are fat, beer-drinking, sausage-eating, pork pie hat-wearing VW Beetle drivers, while women who do diligent work for Her Majesty's secret service are required to do nothing but smile politely when a senior colleague broadcasts video of their tits around the office. And if you don't like it when a dirty old man forces himself on you, by all means say no, but then it's best if you just change your mind completely and let him get on with it. With any luck he'll die of old age before he gets it up.

Just look how turned on these chicks are.

Having already created one of literature's most odious arseholes in 'Flashman', Octopussy's screenwriter George MacDonald Fraser has a go at turning James Bond into an equally abhorrent shit. Not that that would require much effort, but Fraser also makes Bond look like a complete tool by having him do Tarzan impressions and wear full clown makeup. It's a wonder the character survived to spy another day, but by this point Roger Moore could have bitten the head off a kitten while making a crack about eating pussy and '80s audiences would have LOLled their fluorescent socks off.

To Octopussy's credit, it at least tries out a more complex plot than usual, with enough twists and turns to bamboozle anyone who didn't stop paying attention when General Orlov nonsensically smashes a half-million pound work of art into expensive pieces of eggshell, and the action is, as always, stunning. Despite all the non-PC hilarity at which we 21st century snobs now turn up our noses, it's still stupidly good fun, carried along by another great John Barry score - even if it does shamelessly rip off Laurie Johnson's theme from The Avengers, an obvious influence on Moore's tenure.

7 randomly selected seconds of Laurie Johnson's music for The Avengers

7 randomly selected seconds of John Barry's music for Octopussy

As is usually the case with Roger Moore's Bond films, what's far nicer to look at than Roger Moore are the locations, and Octopussy is no exception. Almost half the film takes place in an unnamed town in India (actually Udaipur), and director John Glen milks it for all it's worth. But how realistic is the film's depiction of India? Because of my selfless devotion to BlogalongaBond, I recently visited Udaipur just so I could sound like I knew what I was on about when I brought you...

Or, if you like, The Incredible Suit's Holiday Snaps.

Udaipur is located in the northern state of Rajasthan, absolutely nowhere near the Taj Mahal (1). So when Bond's helicopter flies past the famous monument before dropping him off to meet tennis-playing snake-charmer Vijay, we are being LIED TO by nearly 400 MILES.

On his arrival Bond checks into, and later plays backgammon against Kamal Khan at, the Shiv Niwas Palace Hotel (2), an unspeakably fancy gaff attached to the 400+ years old City Palace. I visited the palace but people like me don't get to go inside the hotel without selling several kidneys. Still, it looks nice from a distance:

After beating Khan at backgammon and racially abusing his own Indian colleagues, Bond is chased at high speed through the streets (3) in a tuk-tuk without running over a single cow. This is fairly unlikely given that you can't walk more than a few feet through any Indian town without coming across obstacles like this:

Still, manage it he does, before he's forced to abandon his vehicle and take an 11,000 mile detour through the 007 stage at Pinewood (4), where a crowd of extras is gathered to provide clichés for the film to perpetuate. Here's what Bond sees in the middle of Udaipur:

And here's what I saw:

It's my own fault for not going on Dubious Racial Stereotypes Day. 

After a pleasant evening spent nobbing a lady 23 years his junior, Bond is quite rightly bashed over the head and imprisoned in Kamal Khan's Monsoon Palace (5). The Palace has been derelict for many years and is inconveniently located on a mountaintop on the outskirts of Udaipur, making it both a pain in the arse to visit and very difficult to see in photos.

Naturally Bond eventually escapes from this inescapable fortress, and after ploughing his way through a safari full of atrocious jokes and Tarzan impressions, makes his way to Octopussy's floating house of hotties. It's actually the exclusive Lake Palace Hotel on Jagniwas Island (6), and there was about as much chance of me visiting it as there was of me finding a convenient hollowed-out crocodile in which to get there. I got within pointing distance though, but sadly was unable to spot any ladies emerging naked from the pool. More's the pity.

And that's the end of my holiday photo album the BlogalongaBond Guide To Udaipur. Suffice to say the real Udaipur bears little resemblance to that of Octopussy, but many of the locations are still visible from the outside and it's a nice place to visit if you're passing. While you're there, why not stop at one of Udaipur's many cafés and see if there's a film on?

LOL, "Octopussay".

The auction scene

Proving that Bond isn't necessarily at his best when blowing shit up, jumping off shit or having sex with shit, Octopussy's simple and witty auction scene is classic Fleming, adapted as it is from a similar scene in his short story 'The Property Of A Lady'. With Roger Moore by now much more convincing sitting in a chair than doing anything else, he manages to successfully advance the plot while being smooth, daring and a little bit reckless, and he doesn't even need a stunt double to hold his eggs (not a euphemism).

Steven Berkoff

Bonkers as a box of burning badgers at the best of times, Howlin' Mad Berkoff goes maximental for his role as power-crazy Soviet General Orlov. Whether bawling about the decadence of the west, sulking like a baby in a meeting of top USSR military bods or ordering a minion to "follow that car" (along a railway, obviously), Berkoff cranks the crackers up to eleven and the film is all the better for it.

Bonus fact: "The Orlov" is the name of a 190-carat diamond which is part of the Kremlin's actual haul of gems (featured in the film), and is known for its domed, forward-facing top, just like the Berkoff bonce. They don't just throw this stuff together, you know.

The train sequence

While Rodge was doing his best Bonding in a nice comfy seat at Sotheby's, stuntman Martin Grace was risking his life and shattering his limbs hanging off the side of a train near Peterborough. The filming of this scene, in which Grace runs across the top and dangles off the side of a speeding train, resulted in a) a terrific action set-piece and b) a pulverised pelvis for Grace after he smashed into a concrete stanchion at high speed. The bit of the behind-the-scenes doc on the DVD (called Inside Octopussy, which coincidentally is where Bond ends the film) that shows his first post-accident visit to the set, and the cast and crew's outpouring of affection for him, made me get something in my eye possibly.

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