There isn’t a more brutal James Bond villain than Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi) from Licence To Kill (1989). In this scene alone, Sanchez shows his true self: a murderer, torturer and abuser.
Unlike other Bond villains, Sanchez is intimately involved in the cruel ways he shows his power. He doesn’t sit on a throne and stroking a white cat or avoid conflict by pushing a button in an escape pod. No – without hesitation, Sanchez orders a murder and tortures a defenseless woman.
Lupe’s somber “por favor, Franz” and the unsettlingly compliant way she bows to him for punishment is just awful and an obviously regular occurrence. And it’s telling that Sanchez comes with the small whip on his person – he knew Lupe’s fate before listening to any explanation.
Although disturbing, it’s scenes like this that define a Bond villain. It distinguishes Sanchez’s darker persona from other villains that take a more hands-off approach to evil.
Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi) in Licence To Kill (1989)
In Licence To Kill (1989) as Bond investigates Leiter’s shark attack at Milton Krest’s warehouse, 007 tosses a security guard into a fish food drawer to a seemingly horrifying death. “Food for the fish food.”
This scene has a particular significance for me, as it’s the earliest memory I have of watching a James Bond movie in my life. I can distinctly remember this scene during a live ABC or NBC broadcast of this movie in the early 1990s. I also distinctly remembering the pity I felt for the security guard, banished to die by tiny bites in a claustrophobic drawerful of menacing-looking fish food.
At the same time, I can remember wiggling and eventually pulling a tooth out of my mouth. I was six or seven years old.
BondMovies.com
Dentonite Toothpaste Tubes, 1989
Photoshop
700 x 1248 pixels
A play on Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans. 🙂
The Living Daylights (1987) teaser poster
It’s funny that the teaser poster for The Living Daylights (1987) uses a tagline similar to the title of the following movie, Licence To Kill (1989).
I absolutely love this teaser poster!
Lupe Lamora (Talisa Soto) in Licence To Kill (1989)
Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi) in Licence To Kill (1989)
Lupe Lamora (Talisa Soto) is whipped by Franz Sanchez in Licence To Kill (1989)
Sanchez might be the most brutal James Bond villain ever – scenes like the above are why!
