Prole Hole vs James Bond

You have to remember, once upon a time using "pussy" to mean vagina was vulgar enough that it didn't really happen, and people could blithely pick up cats and talk about stroking their pussy without anyone snickering. I mean, there's a whole species of trees called pussy willows. 

Dr No (1962)



Where it all began! After apparently every actor to ever appear on screen being offered the role, Sean Connery eventually steps into the tux and brings British secret agent James Bond to life for the very first time, in the role that will go on to define his entire career (not that there’s been a Bond this isn’t true of, obviously).

Pre-existing Prejudices:
Surprisingly few. I’ve seen this film, but I doubt I’ve seen it in… thirty years maybe? Longer? I definitely saw it as a kid, and probably I even liked it, but beyond a few random images I have almost no memory of this at all.

The Actual Movie:
OK I have to immediately break my first written rule, because the title sequence here is truly bizarre. We get the familiar opening gun barrel over some deeply weird, screechy electronics. Then that theme kicks in, and it’s undeniably exciting, but we then get a strange 60’s title sequence of flashing dots and pop art sensibilities. Then it just abruptly stops, we get some “native” drumming, and we’re off to Jamaica. This must rate as the most avant garde opening in the entire Bond series.

Almost immediately there’s an issue though, because the calypso version of the nursery rhyme “Three Blind Mice”, accompanied by three blind black men just looks… well, racist. I know we’re in Jamaica, and it’s a calypso but… it feels very strange indeed. Shortly we’ll discover they’re a band of assassins after they kill Strangway, but this looks very peculiar. The problem is that, even though they shoot someone on-screen and kick off the actual plot, we’re just not given enough information. They’re either a poor stereotype or an underdeveloped plot point, but either way, they don’t really work. Thankfully they’re on screen for a fairly short period of time.

There’s a bit more shenanigans in Jamaica as some anonymous red shirt secretary gets bumped off (though her secret radio is hidden behind some false books, which is terribly sweet), then we finally get to London, with some surprisingly mixed-gender secretaries receiving broadcasts from around the globe. This gets a message forwarded to M, so we finally get to the point where we meet Bond, but the film takes its own sweet time getting there. But at last we get to see Bond himself. Connery’s very first line is, “Bond. James Bond.” He’s an immediately striking on-screen presence, handsome yes, but he draws focus in a way that nobody else in this film has, even when doing something as simple as lighting a cigarette. Noticeably, when playing baccarat in his first scene he speaks with perfect BBC English, and when he gets into M’s office his Scottish accent suddenly puts in an appearance. It’s a small thing, he doesn’t go full-on “hoots mon, where’s ma haggis”, nor the “Jamesssh Bond” Connery stereotype so beloved of bad impersonators, but it’s a good way of suggesting how in-character he was at the casino, and that now he’s dropping the pretense.

So Bond gets his mission to find out who was murdered in the opening five hours of the movie (or ten minutes, but it doesn’t feel like ten minutes…). There are more notable absences here, since there’s no Q, no gadgets, and no lame one-liners, just a bit of standard flirting with Moneypenny (there’s a surprisingly good, relaxed banter between her and Bond, so praise to Lois Maxwell for not being swamped out by Connery – she’s the only female member of the cast to achieve this in Dr. No). There is, at least, a real sense of history here – we’re told Bond spent six months in hospital because of a gun jamming, that M has reduced double-0 casualties since taking over and wants to keep that going… This isn’t an origin story or the beginnings of Bond, there’s an actual sense of established history. And before we get to Jamacia (we are going to get there eventually, right?) the girl from the casino has a quick fling with Bond. What’s interesting here is that, for Bond’s very first dalliance, she seduces him, not the other way around, a refreshing subversion of expectations.

Finally, Jamacia! One of the things about Dr No is that, of course because it’s the first Bond, things aren’t as we expect. When the Bond theme kicks in, we have an in-built expectation that there’s a big action set-piece on the way. Here when it kicks in Bond is… walking across an airport concourse. The theme, in other words, is being used to denote character, rather than situation. It’s an interesting approach. After some too-long hanging about the airport we get the series’ first car chase, which is a bit limp, but finally we get to see Connery beat someone up and get some information. We at last see Bond/Connery’s steel come out, not just charming but ruthless too. Connery’s good at the physical side of the character – it isn’t showy, just a couple of punches and a flip – but there’s a real sense that the character is only using the amount of force he needs to, rather than unleashing everything. It’s an effective technique, and even more pleasingly we get to see that Bonds knuckles are bloodied from the punch, adding a sense of realism to the (relatively brief) burst of violence.

Information gained and potential assassin dead, Bond is back at his hotel and setting traps (hair over the wardrobe door, powder on his attaché case), and there’s a proper sense that Bond is actually investigating here. The action so far has been relatively limited, but Bond is actually following clues, getting information and really working out what’s going on. That makes Dr No feel in some ways more like a detective movie than a spy caper, despite the “exotic” location. But at least we get to see Bond using his intelligence as well as his fists. The vodka-martini puts in its first appearance (the vodka is very, very clearly Smirnoff, for those who think product placement is somehow a new phenomenon).

Then we get to move down to “the pier” and another Bond staple, Felix Liter, puts in an appearance, here played by Hawaii 5-0’s Jack Lord. There’s another pleasing subversion of expectations here, where it looks like the (tellingly black) boat owner and bar owner are going to end up being the bad guys, yet actually end up being extremely helpful and informative, and it all ends in handshakes rather than gunfire. Admittedly that’s only after (the white) Liter puts in an appearance, but it at least means that not all black men in the film are bad guys, which it really looked liked it might have ended up being at one point. The bar is playing the song “Underneath The Mango Tree”. I hope you like it, because it appears to be the only song on the whole damned island. There’s lots of bad 60’s dancing going on at the bar as they plan their course of action, and the odd hilarious costume as well, which is always fun.

But before we can head out to the mysterious Crab Key to find out what the point of this film is, we have an attempt to assassinate Bond by spider (Connery does a good gob of looking genuinely frightened, but it’s a hokey scene), and some more seduction by a soon-to-be-dead femme fatale (though again we get to see Bond being smart enough to know that the assassin sent to kill her has a Smith and Wesson, and he’s used up his shots). But before she dies there’s a lingering sense of threat in the scenes between her and Bond – look at the way he approaches her with the towel wrapped round both his fists, as if ready to strangle her, or the way he grabs her lapel as if she was a common back-alley thug. They really paint a picture of Bond’s (not exactly pleasant) interior life in very small details and it’s effective, if unsettling. Again Connery brings the steel effectively, but there’s a game being played here by both of them, two predators circling each other, even if she ultimately loses.

Finally, we’re heading for Crab Key! Oh should I have mentioned there’s some plot point about “the Americans” trying to launch a moon shot and this maybe being the point of the film? Probably, but the movie itself doesn’t exactly linger over the details. Even getting to Crab Key, ostensibly where the whole film has thus far been leading, we still take ages to get there, including night shooting and Bond and the Anonymous Black Barman bedding down for the night. And then Ursula Andres turns up as Honey Ryder – it’s worth pointing this out simply because we’re now about two-thirds of the way through the movie before the now-standard “Bond girl” puts in her first appearance. Can you guess what mango-related song she might be singing as she emerges from the sea? Here she’s a fiercely independent woman, capable of defending herself and standing up to Bond as an equal. Well, until they reach the Secret Underground Lair, where she abruptly undergoes a personality change and becomes a peril monkey of the worst kind. We spend about fifteen minutes avoiding the bad guys, which at least suggests some effort being put into making Crab Key a real environment, but then they just get caught anyway and Anonymous Black Barman is killed off in the most perfunctory way possible because he no longer serves any plot purpose.

Bond is very unphazed by moving from a sweaty tropical island to what amounts to a spa club, but at least we are (finally) approaching the point of the film. Things have been kind of slow so far, but they’ve more or less made sense. But now we come across a series of logic gaps of the kind that will come to typify Bond movies. For one, Honey and Bond drink some coffee, which turns out to be drugged. They collapse, and are put to bed. Why? We don’t get anything approaching an explanation, and it contributes nothing to the plot. Dr No’s plan is world domination, and we get the first mention of SPECTRE, which is nice, but it’s all a bit ridiculously over-ambitions (he will not the only villain to make that mistake).

When we finally meet him we get a phenomenally arch performance from Joseph Wiseman as the titular Doctor, but he’s barely on-screen for more than five minutes, explaining his Evil Plan, then retreating. He has metal hands, we’re told, because of some mishap with radiation. Right. That’s definitely a thing. And they’re strong – he can crush a gold statue, but in the end the strength amounts to nothing (it’s presumably meant to add additional threat during the climactic fight, but this doesn’t work, partly because we don’t see him do anything with his super-strong hands and partly because the final fight is two stuntmen in radiation suits slugging it out, and it could be anyone fighting). Meanwhile, back at the plot problems, when Bond is escaping through the air ducts, why are they hot? Why does water flush through them? It’s great that we see Bond being put through his paces – like the way he braces for the water rushing over him, and it’s a well-shot sequence – and he’s visibly bloodied and harassed, but again, we don’t get anything approaching an explanation as to what these vents are or why there’s water running through them. Venting for the reactor perhaps? Fine, could be, but one line of dialogue or even a whacking big REACTOR COOLING sign (and there are many big ridiculous signs in this base) would have cleared some of this up. Still the base itself is a huge set, and it’s pretty ambitious. What a shame, then, that we spend so little time on it. Bond gets to slide a hilariously oversized “DANGER LEVER 25” lever, the place goes into meltdown, there’s some perfunctory fisticuffs, and Dr No is defeated because his hands are metal and he can’t get a grip to climb out of the boiling water. OK. Sure.

Still, the American moon shot is saved (hurrah? I can’t even remember being told what the point of this is), and Bond at least makes times to go back and rescue Honey, who has, in what is not the film’s finest moment, been literally tied to a slab of concrete (read: rock) where she will apparently drown when the tide comes in. I say “apparently” though, because when Bond rescues her, the water hasn’t even reached her knees, so it’s not liked she was saved from imminent danger or anything. Anyway you can probably guess the rest: they make their escape, base goes up in big explosion, they’re rescued just before they start having sex, then have sex anyway, while some hilariously parping horn music plays over the top.

And then we’re back under that fucking mango tree for the closing credits.

In Conclusion:
Dr No isn’t a bad film.  In fact it's often a sporadically entertaining one, but it’s also often a fairly plodding, with longeurs all over the place and a sense that script could have done with being tightened up a bit. That will become something of a recurring theme as we move forward with the Bond movies, but it's interesting to observe it here, right out of the gate - this has always been a feature of Bond, not a bug. This tightening up might have made a lot of the middle sections a bit less tedious, because the film definitely does sag in the middle, and give a bit more of a push when we actually reach This Movie’s Point. There’s definitely a sense that we’re following a chain of events here: murder leads to intrigue leads to Bond being involved leads to Jamaica etc. but it’s all fairly linear, and that linearity doesn’t do the film many favours, even though it means everything more or less makes sense and flows from one point to the next.  Bond is genuinely working things out here, and that's immediately how the character should be being deployed - later films will often fall into the trap of having a series of set-pieces with a bit of dialogue in-between to justify them, but here Bond really does deduce and discover, and it feels exactly right for the character, and for this specific interpretation of it.

Dr No, as a character (and, lest we forget, this is the character the film is actually named after), never really coheres into anything very much – having him absent in the first half of the movie, as the puppet-master, has a certain logic to it, but we need more of a sense of the man to understand why he’s doing any of this. We’re told it’s because he’s a member of SPECTRE, and obviously from our perspective we know that’s going to go on to be significant, but purely in terms of this movie the reaction to this allegedly big reveal is mostly, “yes, and…?” He just seems to be a generically wealthy nutjob with a love of Chinese collars. The limited screen-time given to the character can, in other words, be seen as successful from a scripting point of view, but not really from a character point of view, and a bit more time - even just a few minutes - would help flesh out a lot of detail and give Joseph Wiseman the space to really make the character something special.  He is great in the role - despite the first emergence of disability/disfigurement = evil motif that will become an all-too-regular occurrence in Bond movies - it's just a shame we don't get to spend a bit more time with him.

But I don’t want to be too harsh here, because there is plenty to enjoy. Bond himself, for one. If there’s one thing this film had to get right it was Bond, and Connery makes an immediate impression in the title role, nailing it first time out. Bond here is a likeable character right up until the moment he’s not, and that sense of unpredictability and the fact that he can turn on a sixpence is something Connery is able to bring to the fore quite effortlessly. He’s equally good at playing Bond playing a role – when investigating at the club where Strangway was shot, Bond is playing rather diffident, then immediately snaps back to his old self the moment he leaves, a nice bit of variegation from Connery, who could have played it as Bond just demanding information. And as  mentioned earlier, the fact that Bond takes time to really investigate does give a good sense of the intelligence of the man, and why he might be suited to this kind of mission. He’s drawn as smart and capable, but far from invincible, and that’s the right way to build the character. Connery seems to instinctively understand this and, while the film may have other failings, his Bond is front and centre throughout the whole movie, and both the fictional agent and the actor are more than able to cope. It's a flat-out terrific start for the character.

It’s fairly obvious that this isn’t a high budget production – far from the globetrotting of future entries, here there’s only two principal locations, London and Jamaica, and the former is only there for some scene-setting at the start of the movie. This focus on one location does mean we get to spend some time getting a sense of the place, but in the end we also spend a bit too long there. We spend simply ages waiting for Bond to get to the damned island already, and even when we do arrive we still have to endure fifteen minutes of runaround before the plot deigns to move forward. When we actually get into it, the base looks fantastic – it’s pretty obvious this is where the money went, and everything’s decked out in copper, an unusual but successful design conceit that makes it look like a Dalek might glide round a corner at any moment. And the big control room, hilarious signage aside, at least looks like somewhere the big climax of the movie properly belongs. That the climax itself is a bit perfunctory is a shame, and because everyone’s wearing big Michelin Man radiation suits the final fight between Bond and Dr No is pretty incoherent. But still, it does look good.

So is this a good film? Well, bits of it are. In the end, it’s not so much a good film as a good enough film. It gets the Bond series off to a start, and in Connery it finds a leading man worthy of the role, and for that alone it deserves some praise. There’s a few standout moments here, and despite it’s setting and a couple of misjudged moments (the blind assassins, Anonymous Black Barman’s stupid demise) there’s nothing that’s really awful here, in itself something of an achievement. So while it’s impossible to give Dr No an unreserved recommendation, it’s not a complete bust either. Not bad.

What Percentage Of This Film Could Be Cut?:
Bond films can often feel over-long and rather flabby, so this feature is here to address that very issue.  Dr No is one hour and fifty minutes long, which isn't exactly the longest Bond movie, but because the pace is pretty slack it never feels like it's really clipping along (well, until we finally get to the base, anyway, when things finally get going).  The script definitely needs tightening up, especially in the middle section of the movie where we spend simply ages hanging around in sub-plots that could have just been dropped in favour of "Bond finds a clue, finally we're off to the fucking island already".  Conversely, we should have spent a bit more time on the actual base once we get there, rather than a quick runaround then off in time for Felix to come to the rescue.  So I'm going to say 15% here could get the chop.  The film would be better for it.

Quip Level:
Based on the following scale.  Low, Medium, High, Shoutbox Would Be Ashamed Of This

Extremely Low.  Bond gets of a few flirtations lines with Moneypenny, but they're not really quips. And rather than one-liners that he'll eventually ene up delivering, here Bond tends to state things which, while amusing in their own right, don't really qualify as quips, like his, "that's a Smith and Wesson.  And you've had your six," to a potential assassin.  It's funny, dark (since Bond kills him straight after delivering the line), just a little understated, and adds something to the movie. The character seems witty (and just a bit of a bastard) without overstating things.

2017 Cringe Level:
Based on the following scale.  Fine, Ouch, Oh dear..., What were they thinking?, and for maximum cringe, The Trump Handshake (Trumpshake, from hereon in)

Dr No earns an Ouch.  The Three Blind Assassins are poorly thought out rather than actively offensive, even though they're a bit toe-curling.  And there's a bit I haven't actually mentioned yet, whereby a flame-spitting truck has a big smile painted on it because apparently that looks like a dragon and it'll keep the natives away (that's how Anonymous Black Barman meets his maker).  Which is stupid, and quite cringe-y, but also under forty-five seconds of actual screen time.  It would have been part of the 15% that should have been cut.

What's annoying about it in this context is that they've actually travelled to somewhere where the music could be a real texture, something to add depth to the local environment without falling back on stereotypes.  Instead what we get is one lame calypso and the same stupid song again and again.  I'm sure it's just a function of the budget, but it feels like such a waste.  It doesn't ruin the movie or anything, but just one more song (especially in the bar scenes) would have made such a big difference.

I marathoned about half the Bond films back in Summer 2012 when they were about to leave Netflix. Consequently I remember little of any of them, but I do remember Dr. No being quite boring. That this launched a franchise is kind of amazing.

EDIT: Regarding the paucity of music, I suspect that Jamaica wasn't as much of a popular music powerhouse in 1962 as it has been since, even in the UK which still owned it at the time. The Bahamas might be a huge center for music in the future, but I've heard loads of people who have visited that country only to report that they're still coasting on "Who Let the Dogs Out." Plus, post-production probably had a really small budget.

My personal favorite 60's movie music trope is when the movie stops just so a famous rock band can perform apropos of nothing. That seemed to peak in 1966, after which pop soundtracks became a thing.

When they grab you with those metal claws, you can't break free...because they're made of metal, and robots are strong.

The feature I'd like to see for this review series is, "What percentage of this run-time should have been cut?"

I should add, if there are other features people would like see added to these reviews, I'd be happy to include them.  I've now retroactively added this to the first one.

Done, and retroactively added to the Dr No review.

Feature Suggestions:

• Henchmen union complaints
  
• Snacks I ate while watching this
• Would this movie have been better during the cold war? (maybe just for later entries)
• 2017 Cringe Level

    

Like I'd imagine alot of us, Bond films are inextricably linked to Dad, particularly watching them with him every Sunday night when ABC used to air them. I grew up on the Roger Moore Bonds and didn't acquire an appreciation for Connery ("boring Bond") until much later. Now of course, he's my favorite. But I have an odd affection for those Moore films, even as objectively I recognize many of them are crap.

IIRC (it's been a while) Dr. No hews pretty close to the plot of the novel, which is why the pacing is so weird. Ian Fleming wasn't particularly good at structuring plots.

From Russia With Love (1963)



For the first time, James Bond Is Back! After the success of Dr No, a second film was all but a certainty, so here it is. Connery’s still in the title role, M is still in the big leather office, and Moneypenny’s still manning the phones, so everything’s in place.

Pre-existing Prejudices:
As with Dr No, personally few. I definitely haven’t seen this in over two decades, though I know this is lots of people’s favourite from the Connery era, and often just their favourite full stop. For me, it’s the one with the Lesbian Russian Spy Lady and her bladed footwear, the fight in the train carriage, and Blofeld’s first appearance, but that’s about it.

The Actual Movie:
Again I must break my own self-imposed rule and mention the title sequence, because right away the film opens with the famous gun barrel sequence, this time with the correct Bond theme playing over it, not screechy electronics, and Connery firing at the camera. The extent to which this makes it feel like a real Bond movie is hard to overstate.

Unlike Dr No, we get a pre-credits sequence for the first time. This apparently involves a lot of of dramatic string stings, as Bond sneaks round a garden, only to get killed off. In other words, we have a fake-out opening, whereby a mask is pulled off the dead “Bond” to reveal him as someone else, and this is all a training camp – then we immediately cut to the credits. It’s quite effective, especially for not actually featuring Bond at all.

But then that opening credits sequence! It’s hilarious. Tassels! More tassels! Some shimmying! If you know the bulk of this film is going to be set in Turkey then it makes a degree of sense, but if you went into this cold then you’d probably conclude the credits had been filmed in a Soho strip joint. The music is a mix of the actual title song (without lyrics) and the Bond theme, rather than just Matt Monroe giving it his all (it’s worth, I suppose, pointing out that Monroe’s “From Russia With Love” is the first proper movie theme, in what will now be the default from hereon in).

So the movie gets underway, and we’re in Venice! You can tell because canals and gondolas! And a… chess championship? Surely the thing an action movie is made of! The secret note on drinks coaster is rather charming, and faintly reminiscent of The Avengers (which had been on the air for a couple of years by this point). Ah right, then it’s revealed we have a Russian agent. That explains the chess, because what else would a Russian be interested in?

And now we’re off to a big yacht. This is obviously a more high-budget affair than the last movie, and we’ve already visited more locations than the whole of Dr No. Enter Blofeld, the Evil White Cat, and a thousand parodies all at once. Even the fighting fish he feeds to his cat has been parodied (The Naked Gun, most obviously). In fact the whole thing is shot to make it look more like the cat is giving orders rather than the person holding it, since the cat the sole focus (sole focus, because it eats fish, you see! Oh, please yourselves). Still, SPECTRE is immediately back, and the plot is handily explained to the cat. So we learn the cat is Number One (oh, alright, Blofeld is), and Klebb is Number 3, and they want the Lektor decoder and are also out for revenge over the death of Dr No. There’s a surprisingly degree of continuity between the last movie at this one – it’s not that you have to have seen Dr No to understand what’s going on here, but there’s a real feeling that these movies don’t exist in isolation, and events from one affect events in another. It’s very successfully deployed.

Then we’re back to the training camp (amusingly referred to as SPECTRE Island, which makes it sound like something from Thunderbirds), and it looks for all the world like Barbara Windsor has turned up for a sunbathe in one of those uniquely 60’s pointy-bras. Refreshingly, we get to see Klebb get in a bit of ogling, rather than it always being the men who get to leer lustily at their objects of affection. Here we get to meet the SPECTRE agent Grant (well played by Robert Shaw), who will be significant going forward.

Then we’re off to Turkey! Another location! We’re really being spoiled for choice here. SMERSH, a sort-of KGB stand-in, gets mentioned here for the first time, since Klebb has secretly defected from SMERSH to SPECTRE, presumably taking the acronym generator with her. This is who Bond thinks he’s up against, but it’s not a great idea to give a word like SMERSH to someone with Connery’s… unique pronunciation, it sounds like air being let out of a tyre. Klebb gets to examine this movie’s leading lady, Romanova, and there seems to be no question that Klebb is a lesbian. Her lingering hand on Romanova’s leg, the long looks, and the hand across the shoulder make it all perfectly clear without actually coming out (ha!) and stating it. Actually Klebb deserves a few words here, because Lotte Lenya is absolutely brilliant in the role, peering through her coke-bottle glasses and stamping about the place. She even has a swagger stick! It’s not what you’d call a subtle performance, and it’s often quite camp, but it’s a role and performance that’s of huge benefit to the movie.

A full eighteen minutes into the movie, and we finally get to Bond himself, which must be some kind of record. Already we’re off with the puns and the quips, when his squeeze enquires if he got a scar from another woman, and he tells her, “yes but I haven’t turned my back on once since” while rolling on top of her. Interestingly the movie’s theme is actually in the movie itself (it’s playing on the radio of a passing punt, so it’s intertextual), and again there’s an unexpected level of connection between this and the last film, when the girl (Silvia Trench is the character’s name) complains that the last time Bond ditched her, he took off for Jamaica. These are small details, but they add up to a bigger picture and are most welcome.

Bond himself behaves like a naughty schoolboy when M disapproves of him being late, which seems fitting. And here we have the first appearance of Q! There’s absolutely no sense that this is going to be a recurring character, Desmond Llewelyn just comes on, explains a gadget or two, then wanders off, his little moment done. He’s not even given a name here, we’re just told he’s “from Q branch”. So we get the very first Bond gadget and it’s… an attaché case! Exciting! This road will eventually lead us to (sigh) an invisible car, but that’s something for another entry…

And, as with Dr No, we’re off to another airport, because apparently that’s a thing we need to see. At least in Istanbul they have a secret code, which saves a lot of faffing about. The Bond theme is now being used to delineate both character and situation here, rather than just character as in the previous movie. Bond meets up, eventually, with Ali Kerim, the British intelligence chief in Istanbul. He informs Bond that “the game is played with the Russians a bit differently here”, and there’s a sense that the city is being used as something of a frontier town, which is pleasingly unusual. This isn’t Cold War business as usual. Then we get ages of the Bond theme being played as he wanders round an empty hotel room after getting in a lift. Ohhh! He does eventually find a bug but it’s a lot of time playing the theme for a fairly small reveal. Get on with it already!

Eventually, after an attempt on Ali Kerim’s life, we vanish into the Istanbul underground reservoirs, and a hilariously massive periscope that apparently has its seeing end in the Soviet conference room, a “gift from your Navy,” we are informed. Maybe just send a bottle of scotch next time? Still, after the attempt on his life, Ali Kerim decides it’s not safe to stay in Istanbul, so off to a gypsy camp we go. Because nothing says “secure location” like a few caravans and a belly dancer.

Oh yes, there’s belly dancing at the gypsy camp. Lots of belly dancing. This, at last, explains the title sequence. Then two girls, fighting over a prince, emerge from two separate caravans, lacking only a “release the hounds” to complete the picture. It’s a fight to the death that wouldn’t look out of place on Star Trek, as two girls lunge at each other with the sort of conviction that would do Shatner proud. This contributes nothing to the plot at all, but then the whole thing becomes a gun battle for… reasons. Ali Karim is wounded during the fight, since this is ostensibly about him rather than Bond, a nice little shift of focus that helps to paint a slightly broader image of what happens here than we sometimes get. People have lives and grudges and alliances that exist outside of when Bond just so happens to show up. Connery could do with a touch more urgency during the big gun battle, but it’s a well-put-together action sequence, and we get the cliché of him almost being killed but then his potential killer being shot by someone from a long way away (Grant, in this case, who still needs Bond alive to steal the Lektor decoder that all this is apparently in aid of).

And in the morning they’ve all made up, even the fighting girls (they survived the battle, in case you were wondering). Connery is good here and doing some humblebrag long before that was a thing. It’s all very silly, but this is followed by a genuinely tense sniper scene, as Ali Karim takes his revenge for the attack on the gypsy camp. This is an extremely well directed scene, taut, gripping and exciting, just as it should be. The window in the mouth of the movie poster is a hilarious idea, as Krilencu, the man responsible for the attack on the gypsy camp and the first attempt on Ali Karim’s life, tries to make his escape and instead makes himself a target. “She should have kept her mouth shut,” quips Bond. Well, quite.

Meanwhile back at the hotel… The girls may be on full display in this movie but Connery gets his bits and bobs out plenty enough to help balance things out, as indeed does Grant. Sex is being used as a weapon here, and it doesn’t matter which gender is pulling the trigger. Here Bond is essentially seduced for blackmail, so this time his lovemaking is all on film – thanks Colonel Klebb! Next we’re off to a mosque for subterfuge and some general spy shenanigans. It all happens quite quickly - the bad guy is down, a map is retrieved, then we get a bit of fairly typical innuendo.  Fine.

Having agreed to defect with the Lektor decoder, Romonova explains all about it into a reel-to-reel tape inside a camera. What’s odd about this it’s occurring on a tourist boat as they sail up the Bosphorus. Even odder is them firstly actually being on a boat, then clearly in a studio with some suddenly very obvious rear projection. And then we have a very strange a cut back to London with lots of people listening to the tape that was just recorded, for some reason (since this tape must have been mailed or couriered to London that means this scene is actually set in the future, rather than contemporaneously, which is deeply strange) . It’s all a bit peculiar. Anyway the plan is to bomb the Russian embassy (an act of war, surely?), grab the Lektor and high-tail it out of Istanbul. It’s ambitious, and a good action sequence as they grab the device, escape through the previously-established reservoir (so this doesn’t look like a handy get-out, it’s actually been set up that way), and get up into the city. After which we're off to the Orient Express!

It’s good to see the intelligence agency working for a change, rather than it just being Bond solving things in isolation, since here they have passports, a cover story (honeymooners), even luggage, and a sense that everyone is pulling together on this one. We spend ever so slightly too long establishing the train setting, but it works well enough. Ali Karim spots a Soviet agent on the train, since everyone still believes this is a Russian trap, and gets to spend some alone-time with him. There’s been a running thread through the movie that Ali Karim is a bit of a windbag who likes the sound of his own voice, and it’s never not funny. Here, however, he’s killed off by Grant, also on the train, who makes it look like Ali Karim and the Soviet agent killed each other. It’s a shame the character went out that way, but he’s been a good addition to the film.

The death of Ali Karim means Bond drops the façade and tries to get to the truth, still suspecting a Russian trap, and here he openly slaps a woman as he tries to get the truth out of Romanova. She does her crying routine while pleading her innocence, and hilariously Bond just can’t be arsed with it. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” she wails. “Sure,” Connery deadpans, and Bond clearly doesn’t believe a word of it.

And so the Orient Express winds its way through the landscape. We get a train-with-the-map-overlaid sequence, in the style of old action-adventure serials, which is lovely. And we get another staple of Cold War movies, with a clandestine meeting in a darkened station where Grant kills and replaces the agent Bond was meant to meet, before the train takes off once more. Stopping at Zagreb, we have a slight return of the unnecessarily-funny signage from Dr No, as a huge, very-obviously-not-real nameplate informs us what station we’re at. There’s a scene where the do the “borrow a match” code from earlier in the movie, drowned out by train noises so there’s no audible dialogue, which is extremely well directed. Grant is faking being English now, and its not the best English accent ever, but this is obviously intentional.

Finally we make it to the much-talked-about restaurant car. They order sole and Grant orders red wine. Oh dear, now you know he’s a cad (in case his earlier assassinations hadn’t somewhat clued you in). Grant drugs Romanova, which Bond catches but lets happen anyway, an interesting bit of characterization for him. Grant also says “oh-oh seven” not the more common “double-o seven”, which sounds strange. Anyway she’s unceremoniously dropped into bed while Grant finally reveals himself (but not in that way). “You may know the right wines… but you’re the one on your knees,” Grant sneers when he has the upper hand. He then gets a classic “EXPLAIN THE PLAN!” scene, where Bond finally realizes SPECTRE is behind everything, not the Russians, and that Klebb has defected to the rogue organization. Then we get the famous fight in the train carriage, and its famous for a reason because it’s really, really excellent. There’s lots of nice low angles, lots of darkened corners, and it’s very viscerally put together, with the sound of the train emphasized, and Connery really looking like he’s taking a pounding until he finally gains victory. Even better, there’s no Bond theme blaring away here, it’s just a really nasty fight between two people who desperately want to kill each other. It’s a real high point. Bond also retrieves the film of him and Romanova in the hotel room, which Grant has conveniently brought with him, lest there be any dangling plot threads.

The Bond theme point is rather emphasized, because Our Heroes give up on the train and steal the truck Grant was going to use to make his getaway. Here we do get the Bond theme, and it works well enough, but it also serves to emphasize why it’s a good idea to use it in moderation. The fight in the railway carriage worked in a less-is-more way, but here we get the big theme, finally used to 100% delineate action not character (for the first time) and it’s the exact opposite, a more-is-more approach. Anyway, they reach the docks and steal a boat, and SPECTRE are on their tail, so we get another well-executed action sequence where Bond detonates some fuel tanks to get rid of the pursuing boats. There’s a sense of momentum being build up here, and it carries on as, surviving the boats, there’s another attack, this time by that most 60’s of aircraft, the gyrocopter. This too is survived, and learning of the death of Grant, Klebb is given one final chance to get the Lektor and kill Bond.

So we’re back in Venice, where it all began, and Klebb’s faking it as a maid to get into their room. We get a final fight sequence, where Klebb’s famously pointy footwear is her best stab (ho ho) at killing Bond, who keeps her at bay with a hotel chair as if she’s a poorly behaved dog. In the end it’s Romanova that shoots her, not Bond, and finally she and Bond are free. Which leads to a very strange final scene, where Romanova and Bond are in a gondola (because, Venice), Bond destroys the film of him and Romanova in bed together by throwing it overboard, and Bond waves the film goodbye in the campest way possible while Matt Monroe finally gets his chance to belt out “From Russia With Love” over a long, lingering, picturesque scene. Of Venice.

And one small, final footnote, because here there’s the first use of the now-ubiquitous “James Bond Will Return” (or some variation thereof) in the closing credits, where we’re informed his next outing will be in a movie called Goldfinger. I wonder how that will turn out?


In Conclusion:
From Russia With Love is a better film than Dr No in absolutely every regard. The action sequences are better executed, the acting is stronger, the direction is tighter, and there’s a real sense of everything coming together here. If Dr No was the training ground, then From Russia With Love is the mission, and it’s really rather wonderful to behold. Here the story makes actual sense, not James Bond sense – SPECTRE are using the British and the Russians, playing them off against each other, so they can steal a bit of equipment (and also get a small slice of revenge on the side). It’s straightforward enough to be understood, but complex enough to allow nuance. There’s no Massive Underground Base^tm, no insanely over-ambitions world-conquering plot, just a well-thought-out Cold War thriller.

Yet that Cold War setting is something of a feint. By the time we get to the Orient Express, everything becomes very Cold War, with fog-bound railway stations and dark, expressive corners of Eastern Europe, but prior to that (one excellently-put-together sniper scene aside) this isn’t really a Cold War story at all. It uses a lot of the trappings of the Cold War, but there’s a sense in which the script is playing around with these familiar tropes in order to intentionally undercut them. The Istanbul setting is key to this, and the location is used extremely well. Of course we get a tourist boat on the Bosphorus, or visit the most well-known mosque of them all because, after all, we are in Istanbul, but as I mentioned during the review, there’s a proper sense of the location as a frontier town, almost as if this was patterned as much after a Western than a traditional spy story. Had this been set in Vienna or Berlin, for example, everything would feel that much more traditional, but by using the setting to articulate familiar set-ups in new ways the location is able to add much to the overall execution of the movie. There’s games being played here, and off-handed references to the Bulgarians or how business is conducted here speak to a much larger canvas than the very narrow focus of Jamaica that Dr No struggled to utilize in any meaningful way.

This film is just a few minutes longer than Dr No, but it’s a testament to how well everything is put together than it never feels like it. Even the slower moments – of which there are relatively few – carry an atmosphere and contribute to the overall feel of the movie. This is a movie that actually uses its run-time to build an environment, rather than just Places Where Stuff Happens, so even if popping off to a gypsy camp doesn’t seem like the most sensible strategic move ever, it lets us see other corners of this world that we just don’t normally get to explore. Sure the belly dancing goes on a bit too long, but this is an extremely minor mis-step in the grand scheme of things, and the time spent there really contributes to the overall feel of the piece. The direction, too, is much improved from Dr No, which contributes to a much more cohesive sense of place and time. Both films were directed by Terence Young, but there’s a huge difference between his work on From Russia With Love and Dr No. At least some of this is likely due to the obviously much larger budget – having the money to spend on setting up more ambitious shots, or taking longer to construct shots makes a huge difference, and the extra money is all up there on screen, not just in terms of the locations but in terms of the way everything looks. That fight in the railway carriage is a masterclass of focussed, tight direction, but the film is littered with excellently-shot scenes, some complex (like the gypsy camp raid), and some as simple as using a hand-held camera on a railway platform to give a little extra tension. Young deserves all the credit in the world for his work here.

And, lest we lose sight of the most obvious point, From Russia With Love is simply a straightforwardly enjoyable film. The action sequences are all handled with great aplomb, and there’s excitement and tension where it should be. The script has a light touch too, so it’s sometimes a bit campy but never self-parodic, and sometimes funny without being smug. And like all good camp there’s an element of subversion going on, especially with Klebb, who’s just a great character in her own right. Also, Connery is noticeably more relaxed onscreen than his first outing, and he’s able to delivery the quips and puns just as deftly as the action and violence. There’s still a sense of something troubling under the surface of Bond, and at times (as when he slaps Romanova) he’s almost being written as an anti-hero playing at being an actual hero, and this is where the mask comes off. It’s an extremely successful conceit, and there’s a proper sense that Bond really isn’t the charm and bravado he displays on the surface but is in fact something must more unpleasant. There’s only a few moments when this comes to the surface, but that’s all that’s needed, and Connery is genuinely great at finding that balance. It’s easy to forget just how good he is in this role, but everything about his performance here is a step up from Dr No, and quite apart from it being a Bond movie he’s just a good action star.

The way that action moves from location to location, day time to night time, tunnels to trains, really gives a sense of propulsive, engaging fun to the movie, and it’s one of the reasons that this film never feels as sluggish as its predecessor. Lest a Cold War plot to play two enemies off against each other sounds a bit… well, dull, the film never falls into the trap of lingering too long on the minutia of the details but paints in big-picture strokes to get its plot across. Of course the story here is at once both more complex than Dr No and more straightforwardly delivered, and in both of those points From Russia With Love scores hugely. But then again there’s not a single aspect of the film that doesn’t score hugely. This is a vastly enjoyable film, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

What Percentage Of This Film Could Be Cut?
Zero. From Russia With Love is surprisingly taut for a two-hour film, and the atmosphere that it creates, that sense of really living through the locations on display here, would be badly damaged if anything were removed. All the character work belongs in the film, all the locations serve a purpose, all the plot points are dealt with, and nothing feels extraneous at all. Quite the achievement.

Quip Level:
Noticeably higher than Dr No, that’s for sure. Bond is much more quippy than he was in Dr No, which adds to the sense of fun, and makes this feel more… familiar. Yet it’s not over-done either, and never descends into self-parody or winking at the audience, which is very must appreciated. So I’m going to give this a Medium quip rating, bordering on High.

2017 Cringe Level:
Astonishingly, From Russia With Love Earns a Fine. There’s only one scene in the whole movie that comes close to being cringe-worthy, which is when Bond slaps Romanova in the train carriage to try and get her to admit to working for Russia. This could – and should, really – look very poor, but there’s a good sense throughout this movie that this is how Bond treats everyone, and he doesn’t discriminate between men and women when it comes to getting information. If someone needs a slap or a punch to get them to talk, then that’s what they’re getting, regardless of gender. The only other scene that comes close to being cringe-inducing is the too-long belly dancing at the gypsy camp, but the mere fact they manage to have a gypsy camp without it being cringe-inducing (or just lazily stereotypical) is the real achievement here.

One of the little things that I love about the good Bond movies - be they Connery, Craig, or miscellaneous - is that they're the ones in which Bond is actually a spy, not a super-hero. As the series winds towards its nadir Bond moves away from sleuthing and from stories that center on relatively small-scale incidents, towards massive shoot-outs and world-in-peril plots. I bet you could put together a reasonably useful Bond Film Merit Index that just matched higher scores with fewer shots fired in the film. Anyway, this is why I rather like scenes like the long look-around-the-hotel scene in this one. They establish that he's not some sort of genius, he's a skilled agent who succeeds because he does a good and thorough job. 

Also this criteria for Bond quality serves to explain why I think the first two-thirds of Moonraker might be the best Moore film of them all, but I'll save that for when we get there. 

Well, that didn't take long: I complained that Dr. No didn't quite know what it was doing yet; with only the second film, though, we have my favorite Bond movie.

I said earlier I used to watch Bond movies every Sunday night on ABC with my dad. When I saw From Russia With Love for the first time, I didn't get it at all. It was "boring" because it didn't adhere to the standard Bond formula.

Now, that's precisely why I like it. It's so unconventional as a Bond Movie; the film is almost a series of smaller episodes adding up to a larger whole. As Powerthirteen points out, it's a true look at Bond as a spy and dives into the nitty gritty of his work. And god, does it have atmosphere for miles. Exotic, old world locales; Cold War at its height; 60s regressivism. Bond catches the villain because he orders red ("claret"!) wine with fish. That brutal train car fight.  (I recently saw Spectre, and briefly was suckered into thinking it was a good movie by the train sequence which intentionally recalled FRWL).

Taking the time to soak up atmosphere and show Ali Karem be competent at his job makes his death hit all the harder, especially after so many close calls.

I haven't ever read the book but I have to think this hews pretty closely to it; I've read other Bond novels and they seem to be more a launching pad for their movie, since the books often have more of an episodic quality to them.

Bond movies found their formula with the next movie. I kinda wish they'd stuck more to the From Russia With Love model, though. Or at least, that they'd revisit this model, particularly now, twenty some films in, stuck in that same goddamned model even when they have someone as bold and different and brutal as Craig playing Bond.

Floyd Diabolical Barber Interesting stuff, especially about The Living Daylights. That's definitely not the characterization of Bond we've had in the movies so far - it's interesting that neither the version from that short story (regretful of cold-blooded killing) nor the version in the films so far (nasty piece of work masquerading as something else) are falling into the default-Bond role yet. I suspect Goldfinger will have much to answer for...

EDIT: I should add I really appreciate people sticking in notes from the book. I'm not doing the books because there's only so many hours in the day, but it's definitely interesting to have these little parallels running alongside the movie reviews, so thanks to everyone who chips in book details.