“Forget the ladies for once, Bond,” an MI6 contact in The Living Daylights chides 007 (Timothy Dalton) for showing more interest in a female cellist than the defection of a Soviet general. It could ...

James Bond 007's mission is to firstly, organise the defection of a top Soviet general. When the general is re-captured, Bond heads off to find why an ally of General Koskov was sent to murder him.

Balancing immediacy with the new trappings could succeed that April. Viz: The Move’s “I Can Hear the Grass Grow” and The Hollies’ gently wonky “On a Carousel”. If the mainstream was to be penetrated, ...