But John Glen, returning for his fifth and final stint as Bond director, was less than keen to use China as the setting for the film. The Last Emperor [1988] had only recently finished shooting there and the obvious attractions of using a location that was still largely unknown to western audiences had lost some of its appeal.

Douglas Noakes, who was already on board the project as an accountant, came up with the alternative - Churubusco Studios in Mexico City, then a hotbed of activity thanks to favourable tax breaks and low wages. It seemed the ideal choice and EON prepared to up sticks and move, leaving only its post-production and editing teams at Pinewood.

The next step was to get a script written. Long-time Bond scribe Richard Maibaum was prevented from contributing to the script due to a Writer's Guild of America dispute, but he did collaborate with Michael G. Wilson on an outline that Wilson was to develop into a script on his own, titled at that time Licence Revoked.

There was precious little of Fleming in the finished product, save a few characters and situations mixed and matched from a couple of stories.

Above: The leading ladies of "Licence To Kill" - Carey Lowell (top) and Talisa Soto.

The new villain was to be played by Robert Davi, hot off the set of Die Hard [1988] but still best known for his occasional appearances on TV's Hill Street Blues. The former opera singer came to the attention of Broccoli after a recommendation from Richard Maibaum. He was to ably assisted by veteran TV and stage actor Anthony Zerbe whose film career CV featured such hits as Papillon [1973] and Rooster Cogburn [1975].

David Hedison returned to the series to reprise the role of CIA agent turned DEA agent Felix Leiter. Hedison had played the role once before, opposite Roger Moore in Live And Let Die and became the first actor to play the character more than once. Other familiar faces returning to the series were Robert Brown as M and Caroline Bliss as Moneypenny, Licence To Kill marking the swan song in the series for both actors.

But the show is all but stolen by the redoubtable Desmond Llewelyn whose Q not only handed out the goodies to Bond this time, but also joined him in the field, giving Llewelyn a rare chance to venture beyond Pinewood. His extended appearance raised the rafters at the London press screening and Llewelyn later noted that this was the first time that he'd made any real money out of the Bond films!

Above: Sanchez and his pet iguana (top) and a scene from the pre-credits sequence when he finds his girlfriend Lupe in another man's bed.

An underwater crew laboured long and hard off the Isla Mujeres near Cancun while the second unit, supervised by another Bond veteran, Remy Julienne, staged the incredible truck stunts seen in the film's climax. For seven weeks Julienne and his crew toiled away in the sweltering heat of lonely desert roads near Mexicali to provide some of the best vehicular stunts the series had seen so far.

By the time shooting located to the luxurious home of a friend of Broccoli's at Acapulco that was to double for Sanchez's home, it was becoming clear that filming in Mexico was having its drawbacks. Equipment frequently failed in the intense heat and Broccoli, then 81 years old, was forced to relocate to Los Angeles to escape the worst of the heat. Co-ordinating the huge, 200-strong crew was made difficult by language barriers and by unforeseen local union restrictions.

The fact that Dalton and many others in the British contingent were feeling homesick hardly made matters any better. Finally, on Friday 18 November, the ordeal was over as principal photography finished exactly on schedule - no mean feat given the problems the crew had faced during production.

Above: Bond gets attention when he turns up at the Isthmus casino as a high roller (top), Pam Bouvier pilots Bond on to the top of a tanker.

The British and world premiere on Tuesday 13 June 1989 was a predictable enough affair - it was held at the Odeon Leicester Square in the company of the Prince and Princess of Wales, the last time the couple would grace a Bond premiere before their much publicised divorce and Diana's death in 1997. Though the premiere was also attended by former Bond girls Jane Seymour [Live and Let Die [1973]] and Britt Ekland [The Man With The Golden Gun [1975]], there was a noticeable lack of interest in the media and the crowds that gathered outside the Odeon were noticeably smaller than was usual for such events.

The film opened in the States on 14 July and found itself going head to head with a summer full of blockbuster action movies, including Lethal Weapon 2, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Batman.

Despite EON's best efforts to endear the film to the American market by setting it on their doorstep and filling the supporting cast with American actors, Licence To Kill came of worst in the summer box office battle. With admissions dropping to 11.7 million, the all-important Stateside gross of $34,667,015 didn't even manage to cover the negative costs of $35 million.

Above: The climactic finale sees the destruction of Sanchez's drug shipment and a showdown with Bond.