Licence to Kill (1989): 20 Things You Never Knew!

Hey there movie lovers, welcome back to Rocky Watches Movies. Today we're going undercover with Timothy Dalton's second and final outing as 007, the brutal 1989 James Bond thriller Licence to Kill. With Bond going rogue to avenge Felix Leiter, this darker and more violent adventure pushed the character in a very different direction from the films that came before it. But how much do you really know about what went on behind the scenes? So take aim and get ready for 20 Things You Never Knew About Licence to Kill. The film was originally intended to be set in China, but production difficulties eventually made the location impossible. Screenwriters Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson developed two treatments centred on the drug trade in the Golden Triangle, with the villain envisioned as a powerful drug warlord. The story included some ambitious sequences, including a motorcycle chase along the Great Wall of China and a fight inside the recently discovered museum housing the ancient Terracotta Army in Xi'an. However, the Chinese government made a number of restrictive demands, including the right to veto the script. With the filmmakers unwilling to accept these conditions, plans to shoot in China fell through and the story was eventually relocated to South America. The only remnants of the original plan were the characters of Quang, Lottie and the Asian drug dealers who appear among Sanchez's guests. Licence to Kill was originally titled Licence Revoked, reflecting the plot in which M revokes Bond's Licence to Kill. Early teaser artwork was produced using the original title, but it was eventually changed because the filmmakers feared it would cause confusion in the US. Licence Revoked commonly refers to having a driving licence taken away, and a survey found fewer than half of Americans questioned understood the meaning of revoked. There was also a minor dispute over whether the British or American spelling, Licence with a C or Licence with an S, should be used. The British spelling eventually won out, although the film was initially released in the United States as Licence to Kill with an S. The British spelling was then later used for the video release. The film was the first James Bond film not to take its title from an Ian Fleming novel or short story. This was despite several unused Fleming titles still being available, the story was nevertheless heavily influenced by Fleming's work. Major elements were borrowed from Live and Let Die, including Felix Leiter's shark attack, while the Milton Crest character, his boat and the method of punishment involving a stingray tail, came from the Hildebrand rarity. Interestingly, the Hildebrand rarity itself had an unusual history. Fleming originally developed it as a script for a proposed James Bond television series in the 1950s, before adapting it into the short story that eventually appeared in For Your Eyes Only. While Bond's plan to infiltrate Sanchez's organisation also contains echoes of Goldfinger. Stunt coordinator Remy Julien ordered 16 Kenworth 18-wheel tankers for the final chase sequence, with several receiving special modifications. Most were fitted with improved engines to make them faster, while a special rig with a steering wheel was installed behind the cab of the tanker driven by Carey Lowell, allowing a stunt driver to control it for her. Another tanker was fitted with additional suspension, so it could perform a wheelie during the scene in which Bond drives through a wall of flames. A separate rig was also built to help Julien drive one of the tankers on two wheels, to avoid a fake Stinger missile. However, he had the rig removed after proving he could perform the spectacular manoeuvre without it. That climactic Kenworth tanker chase was filmed on the La Rumerosa mountain pass near Mexicali, a remote road surrounded by stories of strange occurrences. The road had reportedly been closed after a bus carrying nuns plunged over a cliff, making the deserted road an ideal yet unsettling filming location. Several crew members claimed to have seen ghosts along the road, only for the figures to disappear when approached. Also, some onlookers believed one of the explosions resembled an ominous hand reaching towards the ground. Director John Glenn and editor John Grover examined the footage but could not find the shape, although production photographs do show the flames appearing to form a grasping hand. Alongside Derek Meddings, special effects expert John Richardson was responsible for many of the spectacular effects seen throughout the Bond films. One of his techniques was to combine foreground miniatures with forced perspective to create locations and events that appeared much larger or more elaborate than they really were. For Licence to Kill, the exterior scenes at the Olympotech Meditation Institute were filmed at the Centro Cultural Otomi in Mexico. Richardson and his team then created foreground miniatures representing a giant seal embedded in the rock, which appeared to lift to allow Sanchez's helicopter to enter. They also created a fake tunnel used by Bond and Sanchez's guests to enter the compound. Although it's known as Timothy Dalton's second and final appearance as James Bond, Licence to Kill was also the last Bond film for several other cast and crew members. Robert Brown made his final appearance as M, while Caroline Bliss stepped away from the role of Miss Moneypenny after just two films. Director John Glenn also left the series after directing all five Bond films of the 1980s, a record that still makes him the franchise's most prolific director. Long-serving screenwriter Richard Maibaum and title designer Maurice Binder, both involved since Doctor No, died in 1991. The British Board of Film Classification awarded the film a 15 certificate after cuts were made, while the US release received a PG-13 rating. Among the scenes trimmed or altered to get the lower rating was Felix Leiter's severed leg floating in the water. Interestingly, they used a one-legged diver for the shark attack scene of Felix's leg getting bitten off. Unfortunately, that was also cut. Other scenes altered were Lottie being shot in both breasts, Milton Krest's head exploding against the glass of the decompression chamber, Dario being shredded by the cocaine grinder, and Sanchez being consumed by flames. Some of the deleted material was restored for later home video releases, although claims that the completely uncensored version was officially released in the 2006 Ultimate Edition are somewhat misleading. Several different versions and restorations have circulated, with some containing material that was removed from the original theatrical release. When Bond scrambles underneath the tanker he is riding on to avoid the gunfire, if you listen carefully you may notice something hidden among the sound effects. The bullets ricocheting off the tanker actually play the opening bars of the James Bond theme. The original plan was for guitarist Vic Flick and Eric Clapton to collaborate on an updated version of Monty Norman's The James Bond theme for the film's main song. Flick had provided the famous guitar riff for John Barry's original arrangement, making him a natural choice for the project. However, the plans fell through and Gladys Knight's license to kill was chosen instead. Knight, a Christian soul singer, initially objected to the word kill but eventually agreed to record the song. It also incorporated the horn line from Dame Shirley Bass's Goldfinger theme, meaning royalties had to be paid to its original songwriters. The accompanying music video, which features Knight wearing a tuxedo, was directed by Daniel Kleinman. He later became the regular director of the Bond title sequences from GoldenEye onwards, following the death of Morris Binder. Coming up on nearly six minutes, Licence to Kill remains the longest Bond theme song to date. During filming, frequent disagreements reportedly broke out between director John Glenn and Timothy Dalton over the artistic direction of James Bond. Dalton was determined to portray 007 as a darker, more serious and emotionally driven character, while Glenn had his own ideas about how the role should be handled. The tensions were said to have contributed to Dalton becoming increasingly difficult during the Mexican shoot. Stories circulated about clashes with hotel guests, rude behaviour towards staff and Dalton turning down autograph requests. During a dinner with the Governor of Florida, he also disappeared earlier than expected. Despite the difficulties, Glenn has since described Licence to Kill as his favourite of the Bond films he directed. David Hedison had already played Felix Leiter opposite Roger Moore in Live and Let Die, making him the first actor to portray Bond's CIA ally more than once. Reality almost mirrored fiction during the filming of the sequence in which Bond and Leiter parachute into his wedding in Key West. During one take, the crane lowered Hedison too quickly, causing the then 61-year-old actor to hit the ground with considerably more force than intended. Hedison was left walking with a limp for the remainder of the shoot, an unfortunate precursor to the injuries that would later be inflicted upon Felix Leiter. Licence to Kill contains several nods to Bond's earlier underwater adventures. Bond's brief battle with Milton Kress's speargun-wielding frogmen recalls the underwater fight in Thunderball, while the yellow submersible had previously appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me. The mini-submarine was originally built by Perry Oceanographic specifically for the 10th official Bond film. Timothy Dalton was unavailable for screen tests for the film's Bond girls, so Robert Darvey, who played Franz Sanchez, stepped in as James Bond when testing potential actresses. Because the script was not finished in time for the auditions, Kerry Lowell was instead given some of Tanya Roberts' lines from A View to a Kill. Lowell's character, Pam Bouvier, who takes on the alias Miss Kennedy while undercover, was named in honour of former American First Lady Jackie Kennedy, whose maiden name was Bouvier. Gene Simmons, best known as the bassist and co-founder of the rock band KISS, was originally considered for the role of Franz Sanchez. However, other commitments prevented him from taking the part, which eventually went to Robert Darvey. Darvey took the role seriously, studying the behaviour of Colombian drug lords and working on his accent to make Sanchez sound more authentic. He even underwent diving training for the sequence in which Sanchez escapes underwater from an armoured transport. Wayne Newton appears as Professor Joe Butcher, a charismatic televangelist whose broadcasts secretly communicate cocaine prices to Sanchez's American dealers. Newton had written to the Bond producers explaining that appearing in a Bond film was a lifelong ambition and asking for a cameo. Instead, he was given a supporting role as a villain, finally fulfilling his dream of appearing in the series. The character was inspired by 1980s televangelists such as Jim and Tammy Faye Backer and the PTL Club. Carey Lowell's character was supposed to have travelled through some of South America's worst hellholes, yet Lowell had a tendency to flinch whenever she fired a gun. It became an important part of her firearms training, although she still flinches when shooting Sanchez's sadistic henchman, Dario, inside the exploding laboratory. The scene in which M confronts Bond and accepts his resignation from MI6 was filmed at Ernest Hemingway's former home in Key West, Florida. The location provided the perfect setting for one of the film's more literary jokes. As Bond walks away from his career in the British Secret Service, he delivers the line, I guess this is a farewell to arms. The reference is to A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway's 1929 novel about an American ambulance driver serving in the Italian Army during the First World War. Licence to Kill was the first Bond film to shoot virtually no scenes in the UK, apart from a brief establishing shot of London's Whitehall. One reason for moving the production overseas was the abolition of the E.D. Levy in 1985. The British tax subsidy had helped make the UK an attractive place for film production, and its removal made shooting there considerably more expensive. It was estimated that keeping the production in the UK could have increased the budget by as much as 10%. However, co-producer Michael G. Wilson later argued that the move to Mexico had its drawbacks, claiming that the production suffered from a lack of sufficiently experienced technicians. Cubby Broccoli arranged for the production to be based primarily at S-Studios Churubusco in Mexico. The aging studios were so poorly equipped that the team even had to install a telephone system. When Bond sets fire to Sanchez's cocaine laboratories at the Olympatech Meditation Institute, Truman Lodge panics over the $32 million cost of the facility, before eventually earning Sanchez's wrath and being gunned down. This was an in-joke about the film itself. Licence to Kill was produced on a strict $32 million budget, because of the huge cost of Moonraker, which affected the budgets of Bond films throughout the 80s. Although Licence to Kill made $156 million worldwide, this was modest compared with earlier Bond films. Executives were also unconvinced that American audiences had accepted Timothy Dalton as 007. Rumors continued over whether Dalton resigned or was reluctantly dismissed by Cubby Broccoli, in favor of a more universally accepted actor during the development of GoldenEye. And there you have it folks, you now know a little bit more about Licence to Kill. 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