James Bond movie club: Dr. No and From Russia

Cafe Society
1

The wife and I (married one month Nov. 19) are watching the James Bond movies, she for the first time ever, one at a time in order. To steal the idea from the top 100 movie club threads, I’m inviting any and everyone with access to the movies to give them a view and post any relevant comments here. We’ve watched Dr. No and From Russia With Love over the past two weeks, and have Goldfinger set for next week.

Some random thoughts:

Both movies are realistic in that everything they show is possible in real life. Bond actually seems human.

Dr. No is frequently cited as one of only two movies without Q in it (the other being “Live and Let Die”. Not true. Major Boothroyd, the agent who gives Bond his Walther PPK in the office scene, is Q’s real name. In “From Russia With Love”, he (Douglas Lewellyn) is referred to as a representative of Q branch. Q is, of course, short for quartermaster, or supply. Later, Q will become Boothroyd’s designation rather than the division he represents, and he graduates to head of the branch. But Q is in Dr. No. Different actor, real name given, but the same character.

The casting of Dr. No reflects the racist casting of the time. No himself is half German, so I suppose that can excuse the casting of Wiseman in the role, but Zena Marshall as a Chinese woman is unforgivable. I had to explain to the wife that, yes, she’s supposed to be Chinese. They found Asian actresses to play Dr. No’s servants, but heaven forbid they use one for a prominent role.

Ursula Andress had such a heavy accent and flat delivery that her lines were dubbed, with a less heavy accent and more feeling. Half the performance credit belongs to Monica van der Syl.

“From Russia With Love” has the greatest fight scene in any Bond movie (Bond vs. Grant), and IMHO, one of the greatest on film. I’ve seen it a dozen times, and I still find myself letting out a deep breath at the end, without realizing I’d been holding my breath.

From Russia With Love has the first “talking killer” scene in the Bond films. Dr. No doesn’t count, because No doesn’t intend to kill Bond at the time of the dinner. Grant does plan to kill Bond right away, but stops to explain what’s going on (and gloat) first.

Daniela Bianchi, an Italian model with little acting experience and a prominent Italian accent, was dubbed by Barbara Jefford.

Ian Fleming and Terence Young both make cameo apperances.

Any and all comments are welcome. Next week, “Goldfinger”.

2

This becomes less true as you go through the series and the movies increasingly turn into self-parodies. They become sillier but funnier. They are undeniably great entertainment - a traditional part of my Xmas day routine.

3

[quote]

Dr. No is frequently cited as one of only two movies without Q in it (the other being “Live and Let Die”. Not true. Major Boothroyd, the agent who gives Bond his Walther PPK in the office scene, is Q’s real name. In “From Russia With Love”, he (Douglas Lewellyn) is referred to as a representative of Q branch. Q is, of course, short for quartermaster, or supply. Later, Q will become Boothroyd’s designation rather than the division he represents, and he graduates to head of the branch. But Q is in Dr. No. Different actor, real name given, but the same character.

[/qute]

Nitpick: It’s Desmond Lewellyn. And you’re ight – he’s not in Dr. No. But the real Bond feas know that.

The earliest Bond films actually try to stick close to the books, in general. But I have to admit that Dr. No doesn’t, and is an odd choice for the first Bond flick. That prison cell with the man-sized air duct, protected with only a slight electrical shock, makes no sense. (And why does it later have sea water flushing through it if it’s an air duct? Were they planning on drowning Bond in his cell? Or is this innovative HVAC engineering?) In the book, it’s clear that No intended this as an obstacle course for Bond. In the movie, it’s just dumb, since it allows Bond to escape and wreck No’s plans.

From Russia with Love, however, is one of the bst overall Bonds. The gadgets and humor haven’t got to be obnoxious yet, and the introduction of SPECTRE into what should just be an East/West situation didn’t d too much violence to the plot.

BTW, have you seen the 1954 TV version of Casino Royale? It’s a must fr all Bond fans. Not only is it the first dramatization of a Bond book, it’s also, as KevinLeeC pointed out, the first place where humo was introduced nto the Bond franchise.

4

From Russia With Love is my favorite Bond. It’s almost realistic (there really are sewers like that in Istambul), but has just enough weirdness (e.g. Lotte Leyne) to keep it interesting. And, of course, it has The One True Bond.

5

Thanks for the correction Cal. Another observation. In the early movies, they tried for some sense of continuity. They want Bond in “From Russia With Love” because he killed Dr. No. It got much less prominent with Roger Moore, and was discarded when Eon lost the rights to SPECTRE.

6

I too, find that From Russia With Love is my favorite Bond film. Besides being the closest to the book of any of the Bond films, it is also the one with the most human James Bond. I liked that then and I like that now. The gadgets did not dominate and were believable (the briefcase with the assemblable rifle and the knife-equipped shoe) as were the fight scenes.

Bond was at his most vulnerable, too (if Bond is ever really vulnerable), and I felt that added to the quality of the film. I mean, he was duped by those giving him his room in the hotel, he was duped by the villian who clearly made a wine-choice error (an error no later Bond would think of making) and actually had to be rescued by him during the gypsy fight scene. And finally in the fight scene, he looked in danger of losing. You don’t see that in most Bond flicks.

7

But not so much continuity as to agree with the sequence of the books.

Fleming had intended to kill off 007 in From Russia With Love (via Rosa Klebb’s poison-tipped knife in the shoe) but was moved to change his mind.

From Russia With Love immediately precedes Dr. No in the canon. There are references in the latter to 007’s lucky escape in the former, and M prevails upon Bond to change the handgun which seemed to have served him ill when he tried to use it to shoot Mrs. Klebb.

And so, armed with a Smith & Wesson instead of a Beretta, James disappears to Jamaica and Crab Key in order to bury the Evil Doctor under a Pile Of Guano. :slight_smile:

8

All this talk about Dr. No has made me recall one moment that still irks me.
Bond walks into the house of the murdered Doctor. He sees a slip of paper in a book and casually pulls it out!!! What if the page that was being marked was important, huh? Bond was just lucky that it was the paper itself (a recipt for testing rocks for radioactivity – you mean to tell me that this didn’t make it into the Doc’s daily radio report?) rather than the page marked that was significant. Every time I see that scene I cringe. Geez, James, you’re supposed to be a seasoned agent, not a tyro.

9

I guess you all know Desmond Lewellyn died in a car crash a year or so ago.

Thanks for the thread, Number Six. You’ve inspired me to recatch them all in order this Xmas and I’ll look for the points each of you have made.

number nine, number nine, number nine…

10

Oh my!

My 12-year old son is currently going through a MAJOR Bond stage. I believe we have at least 5 vids stacked up on the telly, either borrowed from friends or taken out from the library. This weekend I saw parts of some incredible dreck with Timothy Dalton and Myriam D’Abo as an utterly implausible cellist, as well as Roger Moore and Tatoo in TMwtGG.

And no meal is quite complete without brilliant conversation such as, “In the book, the Golden gun ws actuallyu a gold plated six shot Colt …” blah blah blah ad infinitum.

Meanwhile my wife feels the need to stop the video every few seconds and comment, “Right now, you know he is being a pig.”

Sorry - I can’t participate meaningfully in this conversation cause they are all kinda running together. All I can say is Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton are worthless, and Pierce Brosnan is much better than I had expected. I was really amused by the Pierce Brosnan one with the motorcycle chase.

God! I sound like one of the 3 geek supergeniuses on Buffy the Vampire Slayer!

11

Actually, it was two years ago, just after TWINE came out. He was planning to do one more before retiring.

I recently bought the first three on VHS (only $6.44 at Walmart!)
FRWL is currently lent to an unfortunate young fellow who–get this–has never seen any of the Connery Bonds!
I agree, FRWL is probably the best, but Goldfinger is just so darned much fun. Mrs. Six is in for a treat!
Has anyone ever spotted Fleming’s Cameo in FRWL? I still haven’t.

Timothy Dalton worthless? I disagree–but then, I think Licence to Kill is in the top five of the series.

12

I can’t believe the thread is this advanced without anyone mentioning the “catfight” scene in FRWL, or the casual, low-key racist attitudes in Dr. No [in which Connery’s Bond takes Quarrel entirely for granted, ordering him about, etc.]

The key scene in establishing Bond’s character, for me, in Dr. No: when he gets the better of Prof. Dent (sent out to assassinate Bond in his cabin), and then, cold-bloodedly, executes him ("…and you’ve had your six.").

Still love the movies & novels, though, in spite of myself!

13

Good point, Scrivener. It’s curious that, after having Bond execute the professor in No, the script of Russia was rewritten to have Grant kill the Russain messenger rather than Bond, and rather clumily to prevent him from firing the fatal shot that the Gypsy leader insists on taking. There is dialog to show that Bond would have killed in both cases, but it’s not the same as actually doing the killing.

14

Thank you, Number Six. You’ll have to forgive me, though, if I prefer not to take a seat around the SMERSH table… something tells me it would be safer to stand several feet behind your chair!

One fun thing I love about FRWL is the Cold War intrigue surrounding the chess tournament. The Fleming novel was written before the international chess culture nearly ran off the rails in its greatest East-West-paranoic phase – arguably, right around when Fisher beat Spassky in ['70? 71?] – so what we have here is life inspiring art, further fueling real-life paranoias…

There was a terrifically entertaining article about chess madness in the Jan. '98 Smithsonian:

http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues98/jan98/chess.html

Unfortunately, that link just offers a several-paragraphs-long teaser of a summary.

But, from that and other reading on the subject, I can tell you that these guys were nuts. Poisoned danishes, radioactive chairs, electromagnetic or psychic mind control, the right to wear sunglasses or funny hats in competition – you name it, some grandmaster was ranting about it to his handlers.

Another detail in FRWL – Connery’s Greek cap. Aside from the continuity question of where/how did Bond get his hands on a Greek captain’s cap when he had no idea he’d be getting into a boat in the [Mediterranean? Black Sea? Sea of Azur?], it’s still a very cool look. [Did he just… find the cap in the boat and put it on? I need to watch that movie again!] A definite improvement over what he was wearing in the first reel of that movie. [Hint: “Rubber ducky,…”] :wink:

15

Scrivener;

He did in fact find it on board the boat when he and the girl borrowed it.

16

Cal, regarding the escape through the ducts, the water doesn’t appear untul after Bond climbs down 20 or 30 feet, which would make it possible that the first was an air duct connected to a water drain. Why they would do this I have no idea. But yeah, it’s one of the weaknesses of the movie.

17

Nothing much to add to the excellent commentary here, except another tidbit about Desmond Lewellyn.

It’s unclear whether this was some sort of in-joke (he was well-known as ‘Q’ by that time), but in the great British gangster film Get Carter, Lewellyn appears for just a moment as a passenger in the train compartment shared with Michael Caine. It’s just after the opening credits, as the train pulls in to Newcastle. Check it out.

18

In the book Dr. No was “conducting research” to see how much pain a human could stand. (Oh, and there was no “rocket toppling”.) The duct was purpose-built by Dr. No as sort of an “obstacle course”. There would be increasing amounts of pain inflicted on the “test subject” – heat, water, giant poisonous spiders – and he wanted to see how far Bond, a very fit specimen, could make it through the course. No one ever made it to the end, and Bond was not expected to, but it finally opens onto an inlet which is closed off by a steel net. Inside this sort-of tidepool was a giant hungry octopus to take care of anyone who actually did the impossible and survived the trap.

19

Dang it, Johnny! Now I’m going to have to go and get a copy of the book so I can read it. It sounds like a much more interesting plot than the movie. Of course, that means I’ll have to get the books that preceeded it in the series also, and read them, because I hate reading a series out of order. And since I’m currently half way through the third Harry Potter book, I’ll have to put it aside or wait 'till I’m done to read the Bonds.

Do you realize how much money and time you’ve cost me? Bastard.

20

I paid $6.99 each for Dr. No and Goldfinger at Borders. Since there are so many books, I could see this becoming a costly endeavor. I haven’t bought or read Moonraker or Casino Royale yet, but I got the rest of the paperbacks from a used-book store in Bellingham, WA for about $2.00 each. Hey, the words are the same.