Dr No (1962)

Dr No (1962)

Director: Terrence Young

Starring: Sean Connery

NOW meet the most extraordinary gentleman spy in all fiction!...JAMES BOND, Agent 007!

Strangways, a British agent, goes missing in Kingston Jamaica whilst investigating the mysterious Dr No and so the British secret service send in their best spy to find out what happened- Bond. James Bond.

So we get to the first movie in the long-running and hugely successful James Bond franchise in this big-screen adaptation of the sixth 007 book. Wait, why did they start with the sixth book and not the first? It’s a long story. The short version is that James Bond author Iam Flemming had been trying to get his spy series of books adapted into live action for quite a while and in his haste to make it happen he sold the rights to his first book to an American TV channel who would go on to give agent 007 his live action debut in Casino Royale. Of course with it being a US production James Bond had to be turned into an American, changed to Jimmy Bond, whereas Felix became the Brit instead. The black-and-white live TV special wasn’t very good to be honest and it’s only really notable, aside from being 007’s first live action production, because it stars the great Peter Lorre as villain La Chiffe.

Later Ian Flemming sold the rights to the rest of the books he had written to Harry Saltzman and Albert, Cubby, Broccoli who went on to form EON, the studio that produces the movies to this day. Unable to get Casino Royale to the big screen due to not having the rights to Casino Royal why then did they chose to adapt the sixth book rather than the second Live and Let Die? I’m not sure, but I reckon they just fancied a holiday in Jamaica.

When it comes to Dr No there are those who think it’s one of the very best 007 adventures and those who think it’s only really notable for being the first. I’m kind of in between ranking it around the middle of the franchise. One thing everybody agrees upon however is that Sean Connery IS James Bond. This is his movie. Connery just exudes screen presence, is coolness personified and is just captivating to watch. Ian Flemming was initially against the casting of Sean Connery as his secret agent but Sean hit the floor running and completely nailed the part perfectly and Flemming himself was so impressed by Connery that in the later Bond books he actually gave 007 a Scottish background.

Connery’s depiction is suave, charming, cocky and he’s also a bit of a ruthless bastard. The best example of how much of a bastard 007 is in Dr No is with the character Miss Taro, played by the stunningly gorgeous Zena Marshall. Bond suspects that Taro is working for henchman Professor Dent and thus working for main villain Dr No so he accepts an invite from Taro to go round to her house in order to get closer to unravelling the mystery disappearance of Agent Strangways. On route to her home 007 is attacked by assassins the Three Blind Mice, who try to ram Bond off the road. The mini chase, complete with appalling rear projection it must be said, ends when the hearse the Mice are in drives slightly off the road and explodes for literally no reason. It does provide us with our first great Bond quip however “I think they were on their way to a funeral.” With his suspicions proved by the failed ambush he arrives at Taro’s house, much to her shock, sleeps with her and under the pretence of calling for a taxi to take them both out for dinner phones his own agents to arrest her. It’s cold and he kind of deserves it when Taro angrily spits on him right after.

His ruthlessness his also on display in the scene that directly follows too. Bond had overheard Taro on the phone speaking to somebody earlier and knows that whoever it was that called Taro is coming to her house to kill him. Bond is prepared though and makes the bed to trick his would-be assassin into believing he is in sleeping in. In a great long shot by Young we see Bond set the scene in the living room. He pours two glasses of wine and places them on a table near the sofa, he ruffles the cushions to make it appear as if it were used, throws his jacket onto it and then put on a record- Underneath the Mango Tree, which seems to be the only song in Jamaica in 1962.

Bond then hides behind the bedroom door waiting and calmly playing solitaire to pass the time when sure enough Professor Dent comes in and shoots the bed six times. James then pushes the door closed, and points his Walther PPK at Dent, demands the Professor put down his own firearm and questions him on information about Agent Strangways and Dr No. During the questioning 007 almost seems uninterested in the answers and it looks like he’s not even paying attention, being sloppy even, as we see Dent’s foot pull his gun closer and closer. The henchman eventually picks up the weapon and fires it at 007 only to hear the click from the empty chamber. We, along with Dent, have vastly underestimated Bond, who had counted how many shots had been fired and he reveals this by calmly telling Dent “That’s a Smith & Wesson and you’ve had your six” before shooting him dead. MGM studios supposedly wanted this scene where Bond shoots the unarmed man cut from the movie, but thankfully Cubby and Saltzman did not balk as it perfectly encapsulates Bond as the “blunt weapon” that Flemming describes him as in the novels.

James Bond was also blessed by his character getting perhaps the best on-screen introduction in cinema. We see the back of a man playing cards against a beautiful lady. The woman has just lost a hand and asks for more money and the camera then cuts to the hands of the mystery man who is taken a cigarette out of his cigarette case. The man somewhat mockingly compliments the woman with the line “I admire your courage Miss?” “Trench” the woman replies. “Sylvia Trench. And I admire your luck Mr?” “Bond.” It’s at that moment when we first see the face of Sean Connery. “James Bond” continues the secret agent and the words exit his mouth along with cigarette smoke and right on cue the James Bond theme starts to play.

It’s just a magnificent magical moment where everything came together from the delivery by Connery, to Monty Norman’s legendary theme, to the wise choice of director Terrence Young, my favourite man to helm a 007 movie, to hide Bond’s face until just the right time.  I also love that the only reason Bond says his name in that trademark way of his is because Sylvia Trench did it first. In fact later on Honey when asked what her name says “Ryder. Honey Ryder. And you?” and 007 simply replies with “James.” Harry Lime’s arrival in The Third Man and Jessica Rabbit’s are really the only character introductions I can think that match it, well apart from Honey Ryder’s an hour later of course…

While James Bond’s introduction is a fantastic moment Ursula Andress emerging from the sea in that white bikini, a change from the books where she was naked, is THE Bond moment. It’s an image so famous and well known that the Bond movies themselves have twice paid homage to it first with Halle Berry in Die Another Day and then with Daniel Craig himself in Casino Royale. It’s a great arrival and the dialogue between her and Bond is gold with Connery answering Honey’s question about whether he too is looking for shells with “No, I’m just looking”. Ursula Andress, or more accurately the woman who voiced her- Nikki van der Zyl (who also voiced Sylvia Trench), is given a good line herself responding to Bond’s claim that he promises not to steal her shells with a strong, confident “I promise you won’t either.” It’s such an iconic, sexy moment that I believe people therefore overrate the actual character of Honey Ryder and claim she’s the best Bond girl of the series.

I get that in 60’s Britain when wearing a miniskirt was seen as risqué that Ursula Andress emerging from the sea in a white bikini like a goddess would have been breath-taking but in reality Honey is given nothing to do in this film and were she not Flemming character you’d accuse the movie creators of including her solely to give Bond a woman to make love to at the end. She’s also not really got much of character either and what she does have is almost a childlike naivety, which makes the fact Bond sleeps with her a little creepy in retrospect. She does utter a quite bizarre line about having seen a mongoose dance (in Jamaica?!!) and a sun-stroked scorpion sting itself and there is a subplot about how Dr No murdered her Father but it’s never really explored.

It’s also just after her introduction that the rest of the movie becomes less fun for me. Aside from the wonderful scene where Dr No is dinner host to 007 I don’t find the last fifty minutes nearly as engaging as the first hour. The scenes prior to Crab Key island where Bond is, shockingly, actually doing detective work I find quite thrilling and really make this movie stand out compared to the bombastic affairs the franchise falls into in a couple of years’ time. There is also quite a lot of silliness in the latter half too. Now obviously to be a 007 fan you need to embrace a lot of camp silly aspects but why would Dr No abduct Bond and Honey, treat them both like they are guests at a hotel (I do love that actually), lock them in a room with no way out yet still feel the need to drug them? Why was Honey tied down to the floor at the end in 1cm of water? Are they trying to drown her? If so it looks like it will take hours! Then there’ the “dragon”. Sigh.

We first hear about the dragon from local fisherman Quarrel (John Kitzmiller), who prior to that had been a bit of a badass, highlighted in a moment when a camera woman (again voiced by Nikki van der Zyl) stabs him in the face with the broken camera bulb and he doesn’t even flinch. Yet when he gets to Crabkey Quarrel becomes a moron with this dragon nonsense. He sees clear car tire tracks in the stand and mistakes them for dragon prints (we all know dragons always drag their feet when they walk, right) and then later we see what is clearly some kind of tank with a flamethrower attached and Quarrel exclaims “If that’s not a dragon then what is it?!” You’re an idiot Quarrel. Of course he dies just after due to the dragon and becomes the first in a long tradition of 007 allies who are killed. I do have to admit however that Connery’s fantastic incredulous delivery of “What?!” when Quarrel first mentions the dragon makes me laugh as it perfectly matched my own thoughts about such a preposterous concept.

Speaking of the latter part of the movie I am also always completely confused about what Dr No’s actual plan is. Is he trying to shoot down missiles? Launch his own nuke? What do all the valves the Bond turns actually do? It’s all very confusing, but Dr No himself is fantastic. A bit less outlandish than future Bond villains, which says a lot seeing as he has metal hands, but I love Joseph Wiseman’s portrayal and as I said the dinner scene is riveting.

I especially love it when Bond goes to smash the bottle of wine over a henchman when Dr No says that bottle is classic ’55 and it would be a shame to waste it before 007 proves that there is nobody as cultured as himself by saying that he prefers the ’53. Bond then tries to get under the scaly skin of Dr No more by asking if the toppling of US missiles really compensates for the lack of hands. It’s excellent. Bond suggests that No must be working for the East and then we get two lines that really define all our future Bond villains. First Wiseman replies with “East. West. They are just points of a compass, each as stupid as the other” setting a standard that every Bond villain has no allegiance to any country or anyone but themselves. Dr No instead says that he instead is a member of S.P.E.C.T.R.E (SPecial Executives for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion), who would be the villains in all but one Connery Bond movie. Dr No invites Bond to join SPECTRE and 007 says he “wouldn’t mind joining the Revenge department, starting with the man who killed Strangways.” This snappy dialogue and cool-under-pressure Bond is just wonderful. Bond then utters the second line that defines future villains with “World domination. The same old dream.” I had no idea when first watching this that Dr No, and Miss Taro too, were meant to be Chinese and it really is quite laughable. It wouldn’t be the last time someone was meant to look like a different race in the series- I’m looking at you Japanese Sean Connery…

The rest of the cast are all well-acted be it Anthony Dawson’s creepy reptilian Prof Dent, Jack Lord who is perhaps the best Felix Leiter and you can see his Felix and Bond becoming the great friends they are in the novels so it’s a pity (not to mention Lord’s stupidity) that it never happened. Bernard Lee is superb as M and Louis Maxwell perfect as Miss Moneypenny and her flirtations with Connery are just magical. However Major Bothroyd AKA Q is played by Peter Burton and it won’t be until next time that Desmond Llwelyn takes up the mantle and a movie after that he really becomes Q and gives him the frustrated character we all know and love. Also the only gadget Q gives Bond here is his signature Walther PPK (Sam Mendez would love such a vanilla Bond no doubt).

I said in my review of North by Northwest that it felt like that movie was James Bond 0 but that is also true here too in many ways, despite it actually being the first. There being no proper Q being a key example but there is also no pre-title sequence, something that comes to define a Bond flick. Instead we go straight to the gun barrel sequence (with stuntman Bob Simmons being the one actually firing the gun rather than Connery) and credit sequence. In those credits we can see all the usual people involved in making a 007 flick but they haven’t yet mastered their craft. Peter Hunt is the editor, but some of his jump cuts here are simply horrific, John Barry scores the movie but he is really over-reliant on using Monty Norman’s theme tune and Underneath the Mango tree and hasn’t yet found his sound and even the titles themselves created by Maurice Binder are not a patch on what he would later do. Director Terrence Young does an excellent job, costume designer Tessa Welborn must get credit for designing Honey’s iconic white bikini and then there is set designer Ken Adams. I love him. He would go on to bigger and better things in later instalments too but his sets here are wonderful.

The simple scene where Dr No gives Prof Dent a tarantula to murder Bond (notable for being our first instance of a villain using an animal to kill 007 rather than a, oh I dunno, a gun? And for the fact tarantula’s are not deadly to humans) could have just been done in a forgettable office or similar room but the set Adams created with the empty hall and the light coming in from the grated grill on the ceiling makes this far more memorable than it likely was on the page.

All in all Dr No is an enjoyable but flawed Bond film. I love the first half, but only enjoy parts of the second and I never chose to watch this one unless I am doing a James Bond marathon.

Best quote: “You looking for shells?” “No. I’m just looking.”

Best scene: Bond coldly shoots Prof Dent.

Kick-ass moment: “Bond. James Bond.”

7/10- A promising start for the James Bond franchise featuring a couple of iconic moments.

Next time on A Bloody Tomorrow...

...James Bond will return and we'll see the introduction of one of the most famous and imitated villains in cinema