I thought Timothy Dalton was terrific as the new James Bond in The Living Daylights. In fact, I found the whole movie something of a breath of fresh air after the ludicrousness of the latter Roger Moore Bonds, where pretty much everything ended up being played for cheap laughs.

In the movie’s gripping opening sequence set on Gibraltar, Bond head-butts a baddie, before parachuting onto a babe’s yacht.  When she offers him a glass of champagne, where Roger would have raised an eyebrow and delivered a one-liner, Dalton makes do with a perfunctory “I need to use your phone”, which rather sets the tone for the movie – this Bond is all business. 

The weakness of this movie is that it lacks a really strong villain, but the rest of it packs a punch, with some terrific action sequences and a great, well-used theme song, courtesy of Swedish popsters A-Ha. 

This poster also represents the end of on era for Bond movies – it is (to date) the last illustrated poster in the series.  Starting with the godawful photoshopped poster for the follow-up, Licence To Kill, all the Bond posters since have used photography, to varying effect. 

I must admit I do miss the old style – this poster (illustrated by British artist Brian Bysouth) rather neatly ties “the new James Bond” back into the series by featuring the ‘gun-barrel’ image that kicks off most of the Bond movies. I had been considering putting this poster up for auction as its becoming quite valuable but I now think I will keep it!