The LTK discussion thread
Number24
NorwayPosts: 22,340MI6 Agent
Many of us have cringed at the call from Leiter at the end of LTK. Leiter is really jolly in spite of losing limbs and worst of all his wife was brutally murdered on their wedding day. Leiter even eyes up a nurse!
The purpose of the scene plotwise is to tell Bond (and the audience) that Leiter survived and Bond has a job with MI6 again. In my opinion the phonecall should've been from M. The movie is called license to kill, his job at MI6 is key in the story, and this news should come from his boss. M has been unusually mean-spirited in LTK, so having him deliver the good news woud to a degree amend that. LTK is set almost entrirely in America, so tying Bond and the move to Britain at the end would be a good thing. M could give Bond the reasurign news that Leiter will pull through o fcourse. We wouldn't have to be reminded to much of Leiter's fate during the celebration and most of all we wouldn't have to see "jolly Felix" after his wife's horrible murder.
What do you think?
Comments
Have to agree with you on that one. As I recall, Felix was left in pretty bad shape and even worse, his wife was murdered.
If Bond were to speak to Felix directly, the conversation should have been much more somber; Bond relieved to hear Felix alive and being encouraging but very much concerned relative to his friend's future both physically and mentally. It would have made more sense for a somber Felix to take a small measure of satisfaction that his friend was successful in avenging his wife and himself. Dalton could have pulled it off very well and it would have been a good counterpoint to the celebratory mood......the film ending with Bond standing alone after speaking with Felix and gazing out into the distance and reflecting on all the brutality that had just ended.
numberTwoFour said:
What do you think?
I think these are all excellent points and EON oughta put you on their payroll!
I wonder how this was handled in Fleming's Live and Let Die?
Felix's recovery seems to be off-stage. Bond learns Felix will survive in chapter 17 The Undertaker's Wind
Towards nightfall on the eighth day [Bond and Quarrel] came back to the rest-house to find Strangways waiting for them.
'I've got some good news for you,' he said. 'Your friend Felix Leiter's going to be all right. At all events he's not going to die. They've had to amputate the remains of an arm and a leg. Now the plastic surgery chaps have started building up his face. They called me up from St Petersburg yesterday. Apparently he insisted on getting a message to you. First thing he thought of when he could think at all. Says he's sorry not to be with you and to tell you not to get your feet wet--or at any rate, not as wet as he did.'
Bond's heart was full. He looked out of the window. 'Tell him to get well quickly,' he said abruptly. 'Tell him I miss him.'
Felix is not mentioned at all in the final chapter. M does send a telegram but it is all about claiming ownership of the gold in the name of British government.
by the way, in the Bedside Companion Benson tells us this:
...in the original manuscript, Felix Leiter does not survive the shark attack and is dead when Bond finds him in their Fonda hotel. Naomi Burton, Fleming's American agent with Curtis Brown, Ltd., later protested the killing of such a fine character, and, perhaps at her insistence, Fleming eventually allowed Leiter to live. Instead of having both arms, a leg, most of his stomach, and part of his face missing, Leiter just lost one arm, half a leg, and received minor face lacerations.
...which may be why it is resolved in one paragraph with Felix offstage, that paragraph was a rewrite.
I think Bond alone with his thoughts in the middle of the party would've been a too sombre end in an already sombre movie. So would a aproriately depressed Leiter. Having M call Bond is a better solution in my opinion.
I certainly like the idea of M calling; really I think the film probably needed Felix to have been killed- there’s no story reason for him to have survived. I presume the only reason he did is because that’s what happened in the book, but they probably should have offed him. He didn’t even pop up in the films again for 17 years.
LTK is a wonderful movie. It is dark and dangerous, and needed a light ending ( I was going to say happy ending, but there are some on here who would take that the wrong way). Showing Felix to be recuperating and flirting was a fitting end, the life of an agent is fraught with danger and death is close at hand all the time, his wife was dead, it’s his way of coping with the future without his wife, not everyone would behave in the same way admittedly, but Felix did and if that’s his way of coping, it’s ok with me.
It does make him seem slightly insane, especially when it’s mentioned that they’ll go fishing, a callback to Bond’s line in the helicopter when they’re above Sanchez’s plane ON THE DAY HIS WIFE WAS RAPED AND MURDERED. I mean he clearly needs a lot of help 😄
It's also a callback to Bond's wedding gift to Felix and Della, a fly fishing set.
I think a conversation between Bond and Leiter at that point would be to dark or too jolly, both being problematic. A phone call from from M where Leiter is mentioned would probably work better.
Re: the fly fishing set, again: a reminder of that day when his wife was raped and murdered! 😂 Imagine that thousand-yard stare when they do go fishing and Felix is just sat there peering out over the water in silence... do anything but fishing!
A call from M would have been better yes: the film basically leaves Bond's argument with M unresolved- I think Q has a line about MI6 taking him back but it's a bit unsatisfying to not have them talk to each other: it's the biggest rift between Bond and M we've seen up to this point so it's a shame that M has no dramatic role in the proceedings.
Just kill off Felix: revenge films at this time were all about family members etc. getting murdered and the hero taking revenge, so why can't that be the same for Bond? It's not as if an ally doesn't get offed in every movie (there's even Sharkey in this one!). I don't really get why they didn't kill Felix.
I think Felix says he talked to M and he has a job offer for him. It would be better if M phoned and said he has a job for Bond. M could also say he called the hospital and they say Leiter is on the mend. Bond replies he talked to Leiter on the phone the day before and was well given the circumstances. This way we see Bond hasn't forgotten about Leiter and just threw a party. He checked personally, but teh audience doesn't ahve to listen to two phone calls. Bond then says he'll gladly take the job back.
This debate merely reinforces my memory of a film jarring between sober and jolly with all the subtlety of a kick in the head. For me, the ending is horrible, just awful, and I don't like it. A more melancholy edged coda might have been better.
Did some one above say Leiter should have been killed by the shark? I agree with that. A real revenge motive for OO7 then, not some pocus conjured up in Michael Wilson's brain where Bond acts like a pre-Craig twit, forgets the conditions of his employment contract and dishes out more than tit-for-tat.
There is the argument that this is how Fleming wrote it, with Leiter surviving.
I don't think the wholeend scene is bad. Other than the phone call I think it's rather good. Some get worked up about the winking fish. Why? Why wouldn't a drug lord have a statue of a fish by his swimming pool and rig it so it winked from time to time during parties? I think it ads a moment of much needed playfulness.
A more melancoly code is an alternative. Bon gets a darker phone call from Felix. The conversation ends and Bond stands surronded the party guests, quiet and looking into the distance. as HowardB suggested. That would probably have worked, but in my opinion the audience needed the movie to end on a more optimistic note.
I just posted what Fleming wrote for reference relevant to this discussion. The film is mapping this sequence from Fleming pretty closely. yet there are at least two elements in the film that make it more complex than what Fleming wrote:
-Della's death: she is already the sacrificial lamb, we don't need a second. in the book the sequence is instigated when Solitaire is recaptured, but she survives in the end.
-Bond's resignation and argument with M
both these need to be resolved in the film in addition to Felix's recovery, and number24's proposed ending deals with both of those, whereas the film as is trivialises both.
Also note when privileging what Fleming wrote, that's not what he intended to write, that's how he was persuaded to rewrite it closer to publication. I never felt Leiter contributed much plotwise to future novels except for his dialogs with Bond, which reveal character and are often quite funny. If the film went with what Fleming intended to write, the Della character would not be needed (as sacrificial lamb) except we need an excuse for Leiter to go to that warehouse. Perhaps she would survive somehow but her husband doesn't.
in the OHMSS thread there was some discussion about what works in a book that might not work in a film, where expectations of morality are more simplistic: Leiter and Bond share a rather cynical gallows humour that denies the danger of their jobs. In the book Leiter cracks a joke in his message to Bond, and its typical of how these two spies speak to each other. In the film that attempt at black humor may not translate the same, and reads as inappropriate. (also his joke in the book "don't get your feet as wet as I did" foreshadows the ending where Bond too shall be facing shark attack, which does not happen in License to Kill)
Yes good point: Felix mentions M. But if they'd have just killed Felix off then you could end with Bond perhaps giving him a moment of remembrance but an optimistic note with M taking him back. You could even have a similar moment to that we got in NTTD with M paying Felix tribute as he talks to Bond, so the whole thing gets closure.
There is the argument that this is how Fleming wrote it, with Leiter surviving.
I think it doesn't work for the film though, and they should always change what they have to change.
Caractacus wrote:
-Della's death: she is already the sacrificial lamb, we don't need a second. in the book the sequence is instigated when Solitaire is recaptured, but she survives in the end.
Well, Sharkey is the second sacrificial lamb so that's out the window(! 😁 ) but Della is only there because they didn't want to kill Felix off- presumably they thought Felix having his leg chewed off wouldn't be enough on its own to make Bond go AWOL (It's interesting that the film is often regarded as Bond getting revenge for Felix, but surely it's more for Della). As a side note, I know it's a grittier Bond film, but the inference that she was gang raped is probably a bit too much I think: it's still a Bond movie, lads, keep it light.
I think I might have had Della survive and be present at the end to see Bond and have killed off Felix - tonally that again feels like it would have played out slightly better to have seen the grieving but-strong widow and Bond pledging to help her always than Felix chuckling and getting his fishing cap on. As it is the film leaves us with the slightly odd situation where both James and Felix have now had their wives murdered on their wedding days (which they might get away with if they hadn't actually reminded us of that happening to James in the dialogue! 😂 ).
In the book Leiter cracks a joke in his message to Bond, and its typical of how these two spies speak to each other. In the film that attempt at black humor may not translate the same, and reads as inappropriate. (also his joke in the book "don't get your feet as wet as I did" foreshadows the ending where Bond too shall be facing shark attack, which does not happen in License to Kill)
Yes that's a good point, in a way it's a shame we don't see Bond ending up in that same situation above the shark tank: we've already seen Felix maimed/killed so it would have added a lot of tension to see Bond facing the same predicament that we've already seen his friend fail to escape from.
It leaves the question how Dells survived. Maybe Felix sacrificed himself for her? We shoot you both or you die a horrible death, but Della lives?
I found a couple of LTK promo photos I haven't seen before:
I don't have a problem with Leiter's phone call. The film isn't occupying a wholly realist genre at the end. The phone call is one of a number of contrivances which take the film away from psychological realism and towards a more theatrical style of denouement. Another such contrivance is the pairing of Lupe with El Presidente - an unlikely match which completes the 'nuptials', Shakespeare-style. Not to mention the winking fish.
Lupe's motivation is financial security, so I think it made sense for her to end up with El Presidente. I also never found the winking fish unrealistic. It's just the type of thing a drug lord would have in his villa.
Ha! Yes I never thought of that, their pairing is quite contrived in that Shakespearean comedy ending style 😊
@emtiem Glad you agree :-)
@Number24 I see what you mean, but I think that after Lupe falls in love with Bond her story is about breaking free from her abusive relationship with Sanchez: love of Bond trumps the financial motivation which may have explained her original submission to the villain. But Lupe's trajectory can't result in a proper consummation with Bond because Pam, as the leading lady, is the first in line for Bond's heart. That's a hot pic of Pam, btw! So Lupe is paired off with El Presidente instead, the integrity of her story finally subordinated to a formal need to provide inclusive closure. Indeed, the formal convenience of this arrangement is so contrived that it would seem to make irrelevant any complaint that she's regressing to financial motivations. She might just as well have been paired off with Q! Kinda cute, especially since, this time, an Armendariz is getting the girl, for final nuptials, rather than a violent end (meaningful for fans of Kerim Bey).
Similarly, in tidying up and returning all Bondian toys to the toybox for another day of play, LTK gives us back a Hedison-Leiter as chipper as we may have remembered him from the lighter LALD. ('Lighter'... geddit?) The re-set is complete, give or take the odd limb, albeit at the expense of psychological realism: thus the wincing... or winking, in the case of the fish.
Sadly, Dalton's complex, nuanced Bond never got to see (or die) another day. Even more sadly, what we did get was Jack Wade as a sometime Leiter stand-in.
I listened to the "License to tweak" episode of James Bond & Friends 0115: Licence To Tweak (mi6-hq.com)) about possible changes to make LTK better or more successful. Very interesting. The possibilities of Leiter getting killed and/or Della surviving are discussed. Near the end of the podcast an alternate ending from an early script was mentioned. In it Pam Bouvier does a bit of smuggling on the side together with being a DEA informant. Here the movie ends with Pam and Bond flying away from Istimus and Pam admits she didn't put all of the money in the pressure chamber. She kept some for herself and it's in the plane! I like this ending. It makes Pam a more complex character. While Carey Lovell is great in the movie I'd like to see a version of LTK with this ending and Geena Davis as a more witty Pam. What do you think? Here is Davis in 1990:
shady tree said:
I think that after Lupe falls in love with Bond her story is about breaking free from her abusive relationship with Sanchez: love of Bond trumps the financial motivation which may have explained her original submission to the villain. But Lupe's trajectory can't result in a proper consummation with Bond because Pam, as the leading lady, is the first in line for Bond's heart. That's a hot pic of Pam, btw! So Lupe is paired off with El Presidente instead, the integrity of her story finally subordinated to a formal need to provide inclusive closure. Indeed, the formal convenience of this arrangement is so contrived that it would seem to make irrelevant any complaint that she's regressing to financial motivations.
it makes complete sense to me Lupe should end up with el Presidente. She is a golddigger who wants a man who can provide her with a certain level of luxury and material wealth. just because she turns against Sanchez and helps Bond does not suddenly make her a nice girl, she just sees Bond as a way out of a bad situation. But maybe more dialog would have helped to explain this, their pairing up at the end is rather sudden, making it seem contrived.
This ending is actually very similar to a certain episode of the Man from Uncle: the Alexander the Greater Affair aka One Spy Too Many. Rip Torn is the villain, and he is planning to assassinate the leader of a SouthEast Asian country as part of a coupe. Dorothy Provine is his wife, who aids Solo and Ilya not because she wants to save the world, but because she wants a divorce and can't get Torn to sign the papers. She says things like "I'm not above blackmail. its part of my charm". At the end of the adventure, when Torn is dead and the country's leader is still alive, she immediately snuggles up with the politician and leads him offstage, presumably not for love or out of any sense of complicit guilt, but to help him send his lavish salary. In the typical teevee show closing dialog Mr Waverly tells us Provine wont get her money because Torn's estate will be in litigation for years to come, so a smart girl like Provine has to quickly make other plans. This even all happens in a very similar formal party scene. It was probably the same with Sanchez's wealth, and maybe the BondFilm could have used similar exposition to make Lupe's motivation at this moment more clear.
Well I've got nothing against Lowell in it, but that's very interesting that they should discuss that. I certainly like the sound of that ending, almost sounds as if Bond is quitting the job altogether, which would be a fun ending given that he went AWOL earlier in the film. It's a shame Phil hasn't joined in with this chat.
EON's first choice for Pam was Sharon Stone according to the podcast, but they coudn't get her. I think Geena Davis would've been better.
I didn't know that about Stone, she'd have been good.
The only movies I've heard in her IMDB listing prior to 1989 was two cheap Indiana Jones knock-offs starrring Richard Chamberlain, A Police Academy sequel and Action Jackson. She had a pretty large role in the mini-series "War and remembrance" (1988-89), most likely the reason she said no to LTK.
Sharon stone in Action Jackson (1988)
I’ve never had a problem with the phone call, though not really thought about it much. I suppose we are only seeing a minute of Felix in his hospital bed, perhaps putting on a front for his best friend who risked life and limb to avenge him. Who knows after the call, he might have slipped back into the depths of despair.
Whats the alternative to the scene, but still using Felix?
Bond: “Felix how are you?”
Felix: “What do you mean, how am I?! I’m as depressed as f@&k- my wife was murdered on our wedding day, possibly raped beforehand, Sharky -one of my mates was hunted down and killed! I’ve lost my left leg below the knee- I mean, c’mon!!! What a stupid question!!!! Enjoy the party you limey t@&t…”
Yes, I prefer it the way it is.
Well as we've said, one alternative was to have killed him. Imagine a version of AVTAK where Tibbet and ChuckLeeCIA call Bond from their hospital beds at the end 😂
Just listening to this now, and the bit where it's suggested that Raul Julia could have been an alternative choice for Sanchez in a parallel dimension did make my mouth water slightly: he'd have been fantastic.
Just the idea of Sharon Stone in LTK is making me wish and wish and wish these things really happened...