TImothy Dalton and John Glen

edited March 2013 in Actors Posts: 1,407
Something has caught my interest. John Glen directed a horrible film in 1992 called "Christopher Columbus: The Great Discovery" and Timothy Dalton was scheduled to star in it. He then dropped the film after Glen came on. I also remember reading how Dalton had not wanted Glen to direct his 3rd Bond film if it happened. Can anyone enlighten on some potential bad blood between them? I've never heard Dalton really talk about Glen but I've heard nothing but good things from Glen about Dalton. This was just something that caught my eye so if anyone has any info, that would be great. Thanks
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Comments

  • Posts: 11,189
    Its fairly well known in the Bond circle that Glen and Dalton weren't exactly the best of friends. I remember reading a quote from Glen which basically said that, while Dalton was perfectly professional, he wasn't as easy to get on with as Rog.
  • NicNacNicNac Administrator, Moderator
    Posts: 7,567
    The incident with the Columbus film spoke volumes.

    In one of the interviews Glen did (probably on the AVTAK dvd), he spoke about Moore's retirement from the role and gave his opinion that he believed Roger was good for '2 or 3 more'.

    Now that says to me Glen was so comfortable with Moore that he couldn't see beyond the cosy Bond family to a point where the series clearly needed new blood. It was ridiculous to think Roger could carry on, and Glen must have been the only person who thought so.

  • edited March 2013 Posts: 11,189
    NicNac wrote:
    In one of the interviews Glen did (probably on the AVTAK dvd), he spoke about Moore's retirement from the role and gave his opinion that he believed Roger was good for '2 or 3 more'.

    No offence Nic but I find that a little hard to believe. Is this bloke at 0.30 still a "blunt instrument" to you? I really hope even Glen wasn't that deluded. In the real world a spy of Moore's age would have probably retired long ago,,



    The other day I decided I find the jacuzzi scene between Moore and Fulliton MORE embarrassing than what Brosnan did in DAD (yep!)

  • edited March 2013 Posts: 366
    From what I remember... John Glen was treating the cast of LTK like crap and was loosing his temper on set.
  • NicNacNicNac Administrator, Moderator
    Posts: 7,567
    BAIN123 wrote:
    NicNac wrote:
    In one of the interviews Glen did (probably on the AVTAK dvd), he spoke about Moore's retirement from the role and gave his opinion that he believed Roger was good for '2 or 3 more'.

    No offence Nic but I find that a little hard to believe. Is this bloke at 0.30 still a "blunt instrument" to you? I really hope even Glen wasn't that deluded. In the real world a spy of Moore's age would have probably retired long ago,,

    No, I'm agreeing about Moore. He needed to go before AVTAK. However, Glen did make that comment. I will dig the old dvd out and find it.
  • Posts: 1,052
    I think I remember Glen saying this or something to this effect during the Inside AVTAK doc, I always thought he was just saying it to be nice but maybe he was crazy enough to believe this!
  • Posts: 1,407
    He was obviously a better director for Moore than he was for Dalton (no matter how much I love TLD and LTK). I just found it interesting that Dalton would drop a lead role in a film because his former director came on to do it.
  • Posts: 4,400
    bondbat007 wrote:
    He was obviously a better director for Moore than he was for Dalton (no matter how much I love TLD and LTK). I just found it interesting that Dalton would drop a lead role in a film because his former director came on to do it.

    I actually disagree. Glen's latter Dalton Bond films are considerably better than his Moore efforts. Glen's appointment to the directors chair was always done in an attempt to make the series more gritty and realistic with a focus on larger-than-life stunts done for real. He's a great technical filmmaker.

    Glen wanted to make Bond films that were closer to the spirit of the books. He was able to do this with the Dalton movies but Moore presented more challenges. This is clear with FYEO which is a great film with a much more serious, character-driven tone. Clearly this was possibly considered a little too serious especially for Roger's style hence the strange tonal shift for OP and the less said about AVTAK the better. TLD and LTK are his his standout works.

    The thing I love about Glen though are quite how good his action scenes are. The best in the series no question especially his areal work.

    The divide between Glen and Dalton I think came from character, Dalton took the role very seriously and Glen was a little more of a technical craftsman. I think they clashed here. I think they hired some guy called Alfonso (Don't remember his surname) to do the 3rd Dalton film and Glen was not asked to return
  • Posts: 1,407
    @Pierce2Daniel

    I see what you're saying but I do remember reading interviews about Glen and them saying "he was always looking for a joke". Yes his Dalton films are considerably better than his Moore films but I feel with a different director, the Dalton films could have been even better. And maybe Dalton felt this same way?
  • Samuel001Samuel001 Moderator
    Posts: 13,350
    I agree, I do get the impression, Dalton felt his third film, without Glen, could have been his best yet.
  • Posts: 4,400
    bondbat007 wrote:
    @Pierce2Daniel

    I see what you're saying but I do remember reading interviews about Glen and them saying "he was always looking for a joke". Yes his Dalton films are considerably better than his Moore films but I feel with a different director, the Dalton films could have been even better. And maybe Dalton felt this same way?

    Glen was looking for a joke? I seem to remember Glen saying that typically when he shot action scenes he liked to include visual gags typically at the end of a big thrilling scene. It's not a bad idea, if you can make the audience sit on the edge of the seat throughout a chase scene, it's a rather clever and wry move to then end the sequence with a gag. It lets the movie breathe-in-and-out. Whehter Glen achieved this is really up to you.

    Also Glen's replacement was a guy called Alfonso Ruggiero Jr. I think. I may be wrong.
  • Posts: 14,799
    Maybe Dalton never met his public when he was Bond because he never met his director, so to speak. I always thought LTK looked bland and was unimaginative, regardless of Dalton's performance.
  • ShardlakeShardlake Leeds, West Yorkshire, England
    Posts: 4,043
    Glen is serviceable at best, to think what Dalton's entries could have been with more talent behind the camera. He was fine for Rog because that standard was fine for those films but Tim deserved better and its a good reason why his films are never the standard they should have been allowing his interpretation to really shine.

    Although some prefer that hacks films to any of Craig's films so what do I know?

    If you took all the cliches and the Bond music out of those Glen films the people who love themselves would have a hard time justifying supposedly how great they are, Glen always had those safety nets, anyone could have made a Bond film feel Bondian with tick the box blueprint he always used, even LTK couldn't loose the cliches and had a very uneven balance to it.

    For all the criticism of Forster he had much more flair and would rather see someone with some individuality than some journeyman who delivers the good in a safe tried and tested way.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    Interesting comment, Shard. Don't agree 100%, but it's food for thought!
  • I've seen an interesting criticism on Youtube about the Glen films in which a guy says that he felt as if they felt like they were 'made for TV' and I kind of know what he means.

    Whilst I do really like and admire the Glen films they just... it's hard to pin down, they just lack a bit of cinematic magic and sometimes feel bland. I do like the John Glen films a lot and I like his more realistic and serious (most of the time) take on the series but I agree with a lot of the comments here Dalton could have used a bolder director who was willing to move the series away from the established formula and to tailor the films to Dalton's strengths.

    Licence to Kill is Glen's best though and he redeems himself there by making a very memorable entry in the series (for better or worse depending on your opinion!)
  • Posts: 33
    This probably had something to do with having different directors from Goldeneye onwards. Both Glen and Rog stayed too long in situe, their comfort zone. I think Brosnan had the perfect number of times as Bond, four and out.
  • Jazz007Jazz007 Minnesota
    edited March 2013 Posts: 257
    I am not convinced that Dalton's exit from the Columbus film had as much to do with Glen as some people think. Maybe Dalton and Glen has some bad blood - but is there any evidence of that, especially in connection to the Columbus film? Looking at Dalton's lawsuit, his withdrawal from the film appeared to be a result of a breach of his contract on the part of the film's producers:


    Dalton's Discovery
    http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,316103,00.html

    Actor Timothy Dalton, who is starring in Columbus — The Discovery, has filed a $25 million lawsuit against the movie's producers, Alexander and Ilya Salkind, for breach of contract and fraud. Dalton's suit charges that the defendants failed to provide bank guarantees for his salary ($2.5 million), that they hired a new director without telling him (breaking a contractual agreement), and that they fraudulently promised him ''star casting'' — Marlon Brando, Dustin Hoffman, and Anjelica Huston (none of whom are in the film).



    So it appears as if Glen himself was not the problem as much as the fact that the reasons Dalton signed up for the film in the first place had been changed.
  • Posts: 1,407
    Should of known the Salkinds were involved. Of course there's controversy. Look what they did to Superman. Thanks for the info @Jazz007!
  • NicNacNicNac Administrator, Moderator
    Posts: 7,567
    Good find @Jazz007. Maybe this is a case of the media jumping on a potential story about bad blood between a Bond and his director, then exagerating it?

    Will we ever know the truth?
  • Samuel001Samuel001 Moderator
    Posts: 13,350
    One thing is for certain, Dalton is too much of a gentleman to talk badly about Glen, so I strongly doubt it.
  • "Now why don't you wait until your asked?"
  • edited March 2013 Posts: 55
    From Glen's autobiography, FOR MY EYES ONLY, p.205:
    "Things [on LTK] ended in a bit of a sour atmosphere, unfortunately - I was feeling a little unwell and Tim wasn't in the best of moods either. The whole thing was a bit of an ordeal and Tim and I had a bit of a slanging match across the pool. I don't know whether to put it down to tiredness at the end of the schedule or the accumulated tension of what had been an unusually arduous shoot."

    p. 212:
    "While waiting for his third Bond assignment, Tim had agreed to play Columbus. My arrival, however, seemed to initiate a change of heart and Tim soon decided he didn't want to appear in the film after all. I don't know whether Tim thought that appearing in another John Glen film would typecast him, but I hope that his departure wasn't entirely due to me. Whatever his reasons, the official story was that Tim had decided not to play Christopher Columbus because of 'creative differences' - whatever that means."

    Glen then spends several pages documenting the problems of the COLUMBUS production. The screenwriters (including Mario Puzo) had quit, and when Glen came on board, Ilya Salkind's mother was writing scenes. The Salkinds had already spent a third of the budget promoting the film at Cannes (while Dalton was still on board). Allegedly, the Salkinds were funding the whole production from their own pocket, and financial issues frequently arose. Robert Davi refused to show up on set after not having been paid for two weeks, and at one point the hotel held several reels of footage hostage until the bill was paid.

    So did Dalton leave because his relationship with Glen had degraded at the end of LTK, or had his interactions with the Salkinds led him to see the writing on the wall, that it was not going to be a pleasant shoot? My guess is, a little of both.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    Thanks, very interesting. I agree with your guess.
  • Posts: 1,492
    Tim is on the hot fuzz dvd commentary and he is a real hoot. The mood changes when ken cranham asks him who his bond director was? And tim isnt happy at all answering.
  • Posts: 11,189
    Haha. When does he say that? I've listened to him in parts of that commentary but not that moment. Could you find out when in the film that is? Please! :)
  • Samuel001Samuel001 Moderator
    Posts: 13,350
    I'd like a commentary and his take on his films on a future release. Should be very insightful.
  • ShardlakeShardlake Leeds, West Yorkshire, England
    Posts: 4,043
    I can understand Dalton being bitter over having had his 2 films directed by a journeyman hack, yes both TLD & LTK are near the top for me but I think of what they could have been like with a director who actually understood what Tim was trying to do.

    I've heard the Hot Fuzz commentaries and the cast one is very entertaining as is the crew one, the Tarantino one is an interesting listen especially when Edgar recounts some of Billie Whitelaw's comments when they are raving about some of her earlier work.
  • edited March 2013 Posts: 11,189
    Dalton has never really had what I would call a "distinguished" director behind him.

    People DID see what Dalton was trying to do - but not everyone (even in the production team) agreed with it.

    "You do have to keep fighting your corner"

  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    BAIN123 wrote:

    I love what he said in response to "Do you miss it?"
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    BAIN123 wrote:

    Definition of a Bond legend.
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