Licence To Kill

Licence Revoked (U.S./U.K. - title changed)
The Cancelled License (Japan)
Personal Revenge (Greece)

Producer: EON
Released: 1989
Best Line: Dalton to actor Robert Davi: "You realize you've got the best part."
Worst (and best) line: Sanchez: "Launder it."

Title Revoked

The working title was Licence Revoked, but it was later changed when it confused test audiences in America. Although the test audiences couldn't understand the title, they loved the film. It scored higher with preview crowds than any other Bond film. Over 80% of them rated it as "outstanding."

The first two drafts of the story took place in China, where Bond battled an oriental drug lord, but logistics and budget considerations forced them to change the location to South America.

Timothy Dalton: "We're going back to the origins. Ian Fleming wrote books about a dangerous, violent, extreme world and the early movies were about that world. What we've done is force the Bond movies back into that world of the first movies under Fleming. I hope the majority of the people will like that. I know obviously some people won't. Some people will prefer a comedic style, but to me this is right. I'm all for humor, but the humor shouldn't be jokey, or tongue-in-cheek, it's got to have a morbid or a darker edge because it's a darker world, a world of violence and danger."

In the final chase sequence, just after 007 lands on a tanker truck, Sanchez fires a machine gun at Bond, hitting the truck's fuel tanks. The sound of the bullets ricocheting off the tanks plays the start of the James Bond theme.

Carey Lowell compained that director John Glen didn't care about character or the actors' performances -- only about the stunts.

She and Timothy Dalton changed a lot of the dialogue themselves while Glen was off working on the action.

Wayne Newton gave up a week's work in Las Vegas to play his role. That doesn't sound like much, but it actually added up to a $1 million in salary.

Undercover

Unlike previous Bond girls, Talisa Soto (Lupe Lamora) refused to pose for Playboy to promote the film. "I've always hated those magazines, and just because I did this film doesn't mean I'm gonna do it. I think that's such a tacky magazine," she said. (She plays a former beauty queen who sleeps with different men throughout the film when they can take care of her. Thank God she didn't have to do anything "tacky.")

Carey Lowell (Pam Bouvier) had a similar reaction: "I'll pose for Playboy, so long as my clothes are still on."

So much for the Bond/Playboy connection...

Possible in-joke: All the male CIA operatives in the film seem to be wearing toupees.

Timothy Dalton (From Bondage #16): "My feeling is this will be the last one. I don't mean my last one, I mean the end of the whole lot. I don't speak with any real authority, but it's sort of a feeling I have. Sorry!"

Bad Cut

Screenwriter Richard Maibaum worked on early treatments, but had to exit the production during a Writers Guild Strike. Still, EON never waivers from a projected release date, whether there's a screenplay or not. So co-producer Michael Wilson finished the script himself. Here are some passages from an early treatment of the film:

 

BOND XVI
REVISED TREATMENT
by Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson
March 4, 1998

 Page 25; Bond and Pam are escaping from pursuers on a cigarette boat. Pam wants to change out of her Kevlar into something more comfortable:

... After a moment she says her clothes are soaked. He points to steps leading to the fore cabin.
BOND: "Try in there."
While she is gone he consults charts.
The engines start to miss. Then they stop.
Pam comes back in a terry cloth robe too large for her.
PAM: "What's the problem?"
He grins.
BOND: "We're out of gas."
PAM: "I haven't heard that one since high school."
BOND: "Did it work then?"
He looks toward shore.
BOND: "It should take a couple of hours to drift in."
She eyes him with amused skepticism.
PAM: "What do we do in the meantime?"
Bond stretches on a mat.
BOND: "I suggest a nap."
She sits next to him.
PAM: "I had you pegged all wrong. When you came in I thought you were just a chauvinistic English wimp about to get his ass kicked."
BOND: "What do you think now?"
PAM: "You didn't get your ass kicked. I'm keeping an open mind about the rest."
She leans over him. They kiss. He starts to roll her over.
PAM: "Careful, I have a bruised back, remember?"
She sits up, reverses their positions.
PAM: "I see I have to teach you some new tricks."
BOND: "Surprise me."
They laugh, kiss again. The night sky above them blazes with stars.

Original ending:

MEXICAN FIESTA - ACAPULCO
Pam and Q are at table in patio. She wears her leather vest.
She sees Bond approach, one arm in a sling, talking to Lupe. Only their heads are visible above the crowds.
Pam is miffed.
As crowd thins we see Lupe is pushing Leiter in a wheel chair.
They arrive at the table.
It seems Lupe has found her true vocation taking care of Leiter.
Q tells Bond M wants him to return at once for re-assignment.
Pam says, "You need R and R first. Why don't you buy a yacht for a three month sail on the Caribbean with me."
Bond asks her what they will use for money. She opens one of the padded sections of her vest. It is stuffed with packets of hundred dollar bills.
"You didn't think I was going to let you put all that cash in the decompression chamber, did you? I'm a practical woman."
Bond says he won't be much use to her with one arm.
"For what I have in mind, you won't need your hands," she tells him.

The ending was changed because it was felt that if Leiter ended up with Lupe it would cheapen the death of his wife at the opening of the film. Such attention to character would be dropped once again in the nineties.


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