Licence Reviewed: Former 007 Dalton comments on Amazon takeover of Bond

Now pay close attention, 007. Your next mission for MI6 will be under the direction of new owners. How are previous 007 actors responding to this dramatic news? In a round of interviews given to help publicise his role in 1923, Taylor Sheridan’s TV series about the American West which is back for a second series, former two-times James Bond star Timothy Dalton has offered a number of interesting comments about the big news concerning EON and Amazon, and the new deal that is being struck for Amazon to take over creative control of Bond.

At the same time, Dalton also gave some detailed reflections on his general screen career, which included some thoughtful comments on his two 007 movies. There remains, of course, a huge interest in Dalton’s screen appearances and, in a sense, the current uncertainty about the creative direction the former EON franchise will now take after the departure of Daniel Craig and the ‘handover’ of the reins by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson recalls some of the disquiet and intense speculation that preceded the surprise and welcome appointment of Timothy Dalton as 007 back in 1986.

Bond, EON and Amazon: Dalton’s Perspective

Significantly, the choice of former Shakespearean actor Dalton as James Bond had signalled back then a chance for a big reset of the franchise and a new and more gritty direction and tone. Dalton was determined to take Bond back to Ian Fleming, and very much based his interpretation of 007 on the character as found in the original novels, something that the then-director John Glen was more than happy to support and which had the full backing of producer Cubby Broccoli. But whether the cinemagoing public were quite ready for this was open to question. In hindsight, however, the choice of Dalton as Bond is now looked back on very fondly by a large number of 007 aficionados, and it is now common to hear the view expressed that is a pity he was not able to make a third appearance as 007.

In one of the more detailed interviews Dalton has given in recent days, conducted by Anita Singh and which appeared in the ‘Features’ section of the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper (26th February), the ex-007 showed that he was very much aware of the latest Bond developments and said he shared some of the ‘sadness’ that many fans have expressed that the 63-year link to the Broccoli family dynasty has now effectively ended.

He said: ‘I think it’s sad as well’. He added: ‘Barbara is one of the best women in the whole world. I think she’s fantastic’. Dalton continued: ‘Around a Bond movie, everyone’s got an opinion. That tends to make something less special, but if you keep it to people who know what they’re doing and know what they want, then it will sharpen up and be good. Barbara had that’.

Reflecting on the Amazon deal, Timothy observed: ‘I have no idea what Amazon would do with it, and I have no idea what the relationship of Amazon to the Broccolis will be. But it is a damn fine series of movies. I was watching it when I was young – we all were. It’s been part of our lives, so anything that threatens it is kind of sad’. When the interviewer suggested some of the concern at the new deal is that Bond may lose its Britishness and become just another bit of Americanized Amazon ‘content’ (a term that reportedly made Barbara Broccoli  shudder when she heard it applied to her Bond films), Dalton responded: ‘I would agree with that. It is one of the few wonderful stories we’ve got in film that is British. The leading character is British. We can call it our own’.

When Dalton was also asked whether he is of the mindset that the next actor to play Bond must be British, he was emphatic about this: ‘Yes. Yes. Because that’s where it was born, that’s what the stories are. Definitely. One hundred per cent’. On the other hand, he made it clear to the interviewer that he wasn’t too gloomy about the deal, either: ‘Everyone who’s got anything to do with it will be working very hard to make it a hit. Amazon are quite capable of making it a hit, I should think’.

Dalton’s Living Highlights

Dalton, who is now 78, gave his Telegraph interview the very morning after he had attended the 1923 second season premiere, so he was feeling a bit fragile: ‘We had a party that would have reminded you of being 17 years old’, he laughed, joking that he needed to get his brain into gear: ‘Think of lots of very long questions that take two or three minutes…’.

Discussing his role as the villainous Donald Whitfield in 1923, Dalton said the character is a tycoon intent on buying up swathes of of land in Montana, and the filming on location had not been without its challenges: ‘There was a wonderful moment last season where I had this very long speech to do, and I saw this grey mark on the horizon, this looming thing that was getting bigger and bigger and I realised was coming towards us. And a blizzard hit us. We sadly knew that a couple of men had gone to hospital with early frostbite. So now we’re not only taking on the challenge of making the scene work well, but also the challenge of staying alive’.

Dalton confirmed that he had signed on to the series before reading a script, on the strength of Taylor Sheridan’s reputation. This was, the interviewer noted, an astute decision on Dalton’s part, as the first series of 1923 became Paramount’s highest-rated launch, and has been highly successful in the Midwest and in southern U.S. states.

Dalton said of Sheridan is ‘a damn good writer. And he’s taking what has become tradition and knocking it for six. When I was young, we watched westerns with pure while Conestoga wagons and Ward Bond in charge; westerns where everybody was clean, their clothes somehow washed and ironed. It wasn’t like that at all. Taylor Sheridan is exposing that. His shows have a touch of something where you can say, “That, I believe” ‘.

Further on in the Telegraph interview, Dalton reminded the interviewer that he had made his screen debut as Philip II of France in The Lion in Winter (1968), which had starred Katherine Hepburn and Peter O’Toole: ‘That’s pretty remarkable for a first film job, isn’t it?’ And distinguished screen roles had come thick and fast after that, mostly in period dramas, although he said that wasn’t by design: ‘It was just what was available. That’s what we were doing then’. The ‘kitchen sink’ era in British film was, by then, over. However, those brooding, often romantic, roles as heroes often taken by Dalton possibly helped him eventually become Bond because, by that stage (the mid-1980s), the producers were looking for a more ‘serious’ Bond after the Roger Moore years. As the Telegraph noted, his portrayal of Bond ‘is often regarded as coming closest to Ian Fleming’s vision’.

Dalton on Bond

As well as the Telegraph interview, Dalton has also given a number of other interviews to help promote season two of 1923, where he has offered similar observations to the above. What has really come across is how much more relaxed he is now in interviews. There was a time when he appeared to be very reluctant to engage with the media, including when he was James Bond.

But he seems to have mellowed over the years, and has become much happier to talk about his time as James Bond. This became, apparent, for example, in some comments he gave back in 2014. In probably what was one of the most detailed interviews Dalton had given in recent years, conducted by Will Harris of the AV Club website, Dalton talked at some length in 2014 about his various film and TV roles, starting with his ‘breakthrough’ role in the award-winning film The Lion in Winter (1968), through to movies such as the now rarely-seen Permission to Kill (1975), Flash Gordon (1980), his two James Bond adventures, and on to roles in the comedy movie Hot Fuzz (2007) and the cult British TV sci-fi series Dr. Who (where he played a Time Lord).

Dalton, who had been helping at the time to promote his role as ‘Sir Malcolm’ in Penny Dreadful (a supernatural drama set in late 19th century London, which was written by Skyfall‘s John Logan and produced by Sam Mendes), answered a number of questions about The Living Daylights (1987) and License to Kill (1989), both directed, of course, by the ever-talented John Glen. Will Harris noted that the story from several sources was that Dalton was pitched the role of 007 many years before he eventually accepted it.

Dalton responded: ‘I was. After Sean Connery left’. But he added that, at the time, ‘it just seemed a ridiculous notion! I mean, I was very flattered that someone should even think that I should, but I don’t know, I was in my early 20s, I think, and… hey, look, on an intelligent level, it just seemed idiotic to take over from Sean Connery’. Dalton said he had been to see the Connery movies when he was a teenager: ‘I mean, you can’t take over for Sean Connery in that series at its height!’ In Dalton’s estimation, Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger ‘were always the three great ones. You don’t take over. So of course I said no’.

Later on, however, some years later, things were somewhat different. Dalton explained that, by then, there had been George Lazenby and Roger Moore: ‘I think now everybody was now used to the idea that this series was gonna last. No one was trying to cheaply exploit the success, which is a path that’s doomed to failure. This was a series where the producers were honestly trying to make each one better than the one before, a series that the producers took pride in and wanted to maintain’.

Dalton pointed out that this was down to the fact that the series was controlled by a family, the Broccoli family. If it had a been a studio, he said, it might have been an entirely different trajectory for the EON series. On his decision to finally accept the role, Dalton added that, by then, three people had now played 007 and he (Dalton) ‘was lots older – I must have been 10, 12, 13 years older – I thought it was worth a shot’.

Turning to his particular interpretation of James Bond, and his desire to be as close to the original Fleming character as possible, Dalton said that the ‘prevailing wisdom at the time – which I would say I shared – was that the series, whilst very entertaining, had become rather spoof-like’. He said it had become ‘too light-hearted’ and producer Cubby Broccoli ‘wanted to try and bring it back to something more like its original roots with those Sean Connery films’. Consequently, that was the ‘loose framework’ that Dalton and Broccoli together ‘sort of embarked upon’, but then they found ‘that nobody else wants to change it all!’ Dalton hinted that the studio did not want to change it, and some of the people working on it did not to change it, as everybody was ‘happy with what they know’.

In fact, Dalton explained further in his 2014 interview that, despite people at the time conceding that the series had become a bit stale, nobody actually wanted to change it in practice: ‘So it wasn’t as easy as one would hope. I mean, now they have. I think now, with Daniel [Craig], they have. But that was, what, almost 20 years later that they actually embarked on something more believable?’

Reflecting in 2014 on his time as 007, Dalton said he had to be careful what he said ‘because, of course, everyone is interested in Bond’. He said the only people who could explain accurately what it is like to be the actor playing 007 are the other actors who have played the part: ‘It’s kind of astonishing, really’.

Interestingly, Dalton was evidently impressed with the Craig 007 era. Just after it was released, for example, Dalton said he was ‘hugely impressed’ with Skyfall (2012). He also told the Sunday Express in December, 2012: ‘On almost every level this Bond movie is right at the forefront of what cinema is capable of. It is an absolutely modern James Bond, a movie truly of its time. Daniel Craig is fantastic and it feels very real’.

Dalton’s point made back in 2014 about the role of the Broccoli family in contributing to the success of Bond, and his comments in the Telegraph interview set out above, seem even more poignant given all the uncertainty that the new EON/Amazon deal has stirred up. However, despite his reservations, he clearly thinks that – if Amazon approaches Bond in a sensible way and employ the right people – they are perfectly capable of making a hit 007 movie.

Did You Know?

Until it became mired in the ongoing legal battles of the time connected with the main studio and distribution rights, Cubby Broccoli’s EON Productions had every intention of making a third Timothy Dalton 007 movie, and Tim was very keen for it to start shooting. In May, 1992, for example, when interviewed in the UK’s Daily Mirror newspaper, he had explained: ‘I went to California two years ago to start preparatory work. We’d got a terrific team together and a good first draft script, then legal problems came down on us’. He added: ‘It’s very frustrating that we’ve had these difficulties. I’d love to be doing a Bond film right now. Problems beset us that should never have happened. But the end of Bond? No’.