From Russia with Love (1963)
Director: Terrence Young
Starring: Sean Connery
James Bond is Back!
After the death of Dr No Spectre leader, a mysterious cat
stroking man who’s face is never seen and name is never uttered, wants two
things. First he wants to steal the Lektor, a decoding device from the Russians,
and then revenge by having James Bond killed. Spectre member #5 Kronsteen, a
championship chess player, devices a plan to lure MI6 and James Bond into
stealing it for them whilst Spectre #3, Soviet-defector Rosa Klebb, tricks Russian
agent Tatiana Romanova into helping Bond and hires assassin Red Grant to shadow
the pair, kill them and bring the Lektor to Spectre.
From Russia with Love is regarded to be the best Bond movie
of the series by many people. It’s the favourite Bond film of Sean Connery,
Timothy Dalton, and Daniel Craig along with the creators of the series. Even if
it’s not your favourite it’s hard to argue that it is not the best and that the
case for me. It’s not my favourite but it’s the most perfect. It’s funny that
when I was a child I really didn’t like this one, I think I found it boring,
but as I’ve got older, and perhaps wiser, I now view this as the classic it is.
It’s not just the best Bond, it’s one of the best British movies ever made in
my book.
So why didn’t I like this when I was young? Well I think
that’s because I used to prefer the huge bombastic larger than life movies like
The Man with the Golden Gun or A View to a Kill over the more serious spy
movies such as Living Daylights or this whereas now I’ve done a 180 on all of
those films. Secondly I think I just didn’t quite follow the plot properly
honestly and even when I last watched it just prior to the release of Skyfall I
still think I didn’t quite get it perfectly. Indeed it was only when I watched
it again for this review that everything finally fell into place rather than me
just enjoying the set pieces but being a little confused as to why the things
on screen were happening.
This movie’s plot is complex. It throws you into a world of
spies in Istanbul, where everybody is keeping tabs on everybody and espionage not
only happens but is expected. When Bond first arrives he tells his driver that they
are being followed, but the driver already knows this and is used to it. You
are deep in this cold war between the East and West and I just love it. It
feels like this world is real as if we are just watching one week’s events in
Istanbul and the excitement we see could just be any other day to the locals. However
with this complex world where Bulgarians are working with Russians who keeping tabs
on the Turkish working for the British and SPECTRE is trying to play all sides
off against each other you do need to pay attention. There is a scene where
Bond says to his contact in Turkey, Ali Kerim Bey (played with amazing charm by
Pedro Armendariz) that they need to tell Tatiana (Daniela Bianchi; voiced by
Barbra Jefford) what day they are going to steal the Lektor from the Russian embassy
and Kerim asks “the 13th?” but Bond instead says the 14th.
I only just got that Bond told Tatiana the wrong day on purpose as he didn’t
fully trust her and so he could steal it easier having given her the incorrect
date rather than 007 just being superstitious about the number thirteen.
Although the plot is basically everyone chasing around a
macguffin it’s so intricately well told and full of great locations and set
pieces that you can’t help but be wrapped up in it. Some have criticized the
gypsy camp scenes and thus the fight between the two girls as an unnecessary side-story,
but I feel like it just adds flavour to the movie. I love the European setting
in this film as not only does it differ so greatly from its predecessor but I
just find all the Istanbul architecture so claustrophobic, like you believe spies
could be hidden anywhere. I especially like the scene where Bond has agreed to
meet Tatiana but is followed there by Grant and the Bulgarian guy into the cathedral
while a tour is going on. With four people all with differing motivations it feels
so dangerous and the location really enhances that feeling. Heck I didn’t even
miss superb set designer Ken Adams who was absent for this film. You don’t need
sets when the real locations are this good I suppose? But as much as I liked
Istanbul the gypsy scene gives us a nice change and also provides us with our
first good action set-piece in a Bond movie with the shoot-out.
The shoot-out is also when we get to hear the 007 Theme (not
to be confused with the James Bond Theme) which I adore and really, really wish
a new Bond movie would bring it back. It’s great that John Barry brought in a
new theme, but he still relies way too heavy on Monty Norman’s Bond theme and
he plays it it at rather random times instead of using it during exciting
action scenes where it works best. Lionel Bart composed Matt Munro’s ‘From
Russia with Love’, which again I simply love. I can’t quite say why but underneath
all the espionage I feel there is a romantic aspect to this movie and Matt
Munro’s crooner style really compliments that. Better still is the theme that
plays over the title credits- starting with Barry’s short but brief ‘James Bond
is Back’ then transitioning to the instrumental ‘From Russia with Love’ then
into the ‘James Bond Theme’. It might just be my favourite Bond credits theme.
The credits themselves are simply sublime with Robert Brownjohn (replacing
Maurice Binder who briefly fell out with EON) having the frankly genius idea to
project the credits onto the midriffs of belly dancers. If that alone doesn’t
justify the gypsy scene then I don’t know what does.
Prior to the credits we get the pre-title sequence which
gives us a fascinating look at the inner-workings of Spectre and a fake-out
where it looks like Bond has been killed by Red Grant before revealing that the
dead man was just wearing a 007 mask. How an Earth did they find a guy for that
role? “So you want me to put on the mask while an assassin tries to get me as
quick as possible….. This does sound dangerous, are you sure I’ll be fine?” We
don’t actually get to see the real Bond until the 19th minute which
shows great restraint and it is to this film’s credit that we don’t miss him.
It’s often said that Goldfinger created the so-called “Bond
formula” but really that all began here. This movie introduced the pre-title
sequence, introduced Desmond Llewelyn as Q (though he still wasn’t referred to
us such nor had any personality yet), gave us our first gadget, and perhaps his
best ever, with the exploding briefcase, gave us a great villain in Rosa Klebb
(Lotte Lenya) with her infamous spiked shoe, a beautiful Bond girl and the best
henchman in the series in my opinion with Robert Shaw’s Red Grant. Grant as the
evil mirrored image of James Bond is superb, you believe he could have been a
00 agent had things worked out differently and I really like how’s kept in the
shadows the whole movie, observing Bond and even saving his life during the
gypsy gun battle, but not revealing himself until near the end. Grant also has
the incredible fight with Bond on the Siberian Express train and after a decade
of shaky-cam and terrible editing this fight looks even better today in 2017
appearing brutal and real. The fight is the movie’s highlight. They have tried
to replicate the train fight at least five times in Bond movies, including the
latest Spectre, and have had several a tall blonde henchman in the Red Grant style
even more times and none compare to him or the fight.
Elsewhere in the cast Bernard Lee and Louis Maxwell are
perfect as always and the part where Moneypenny overhears Bond telling Tatiana
a salacious story about him and M in Tokyo before being cut off is sold expertly
by Maxwell’s widening eyes. Armendariz gives so much life to Kerim, I want this
guy to be my father, and he is my favourite ally Bond ever has. But of course
as he’s an ally he has to die and this dath hurts you as well as 007. Vladek
Sheybal is soooo creepy as Kronsteen he can make your skin crawl, Lotte’s Klebb
despite being so short, is always an intimidating presence and Eunice Grayson
is fun in her one scene as the returning Sylvia Trench. Sylvia was going to be
a regular character as Bond’s lover before becoming the main Bond girl in a
future movie but those plans were cut which I think is a bit of a shame as I’d
take her over Tiffany Case in Diamonds are Forever. Walter Gottel makes his
first appearance in a Bond movie, but not as the General Gogol character from
the Moore movies but as a henchman and I never realised how tall he was or how
menacing he could be. Lastly of course this movie introduces us to head of
SPECTRE Ernst Staveo Blofeld, here just referred to as “#1” and played by Dr No’s
Professor Dent Anthony Dawson. The faceless bad guy stroking a white Persian cat
is so iconic and this is where it all began. The cat wasn’t a Flemming thing
but was created for this movie and it’s a stroke (pun intended) of genius. This,
along with Thunderball’s faceless Blofeld, are my favourite incarnations of
Bond’s greatest enemy.
So From Russia with Love is a fantastic cold war spy
thriller and a movie that set the template for the Bond formula set the
standard for every future Bond film to aim and fail to achieve. It also is full
of terrific action set-pieces including Bond being attacked (and Connery
actually nearly killed) by a helicopter in a clear homage to North by
Northwest.
10/10- It may not be my favourite 007 movie but objectively
it is the best.
Best quote: “The mechanism is… Oh James. James, will you
make love to me all the time in England?” “Day and night. Go on about the
mechanism.”
Best scene: James Bond vs Red Grant on the train.
Kick-ass moment: Bond had been held up a gun point by Grant,
mocked for knowing that you shouldn’t drink red wine with fish, and
patronisingly called “Old man.” After killing Grant, Bond takes back his money
saying “You won’t be needing this… old man.” Yeah!! Geez Grant, calling Bond
old man?! He’s got 22 more films to come yet!
I’ll be going into 1964 with my next article but before I do
so it’d be wrong not to at least mention another movie.
The Great Escape (1963)
Director: John Sturges
Starring: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Charles Bronson,
Richard Attenborough, Donald Pleasense, James Coburn, Gordon Jackson
From a barbed-wire camp to a barbed-wire country.
The Great Escape is not an action movie obviously but it is
one of the most exciting movies I have ever seen so I was tempted to include
it. It features an all-star cast, several of whom we’ll be seeing again in
these reviews including Donald Pleasense, Gordon Jackson, Richard Attenborough
and most notable Charles Bronson and of course Steve McQueen. I said before
that Connery encapsulates cool so perfectly, well McQueen perhaps does so even
more and along with the guy we’ll be talking about next time, is the coolest
guy in cinema history. Here he turns up to a prisoner of war camp in casual
clothes and baseball glove and nobody bats an eyelid because of how awesome he
is. Then of course there’s the motorbike chase, which is why I am mentioning
it, as while the rest of the film is a tense thriller that chase is pure
action. McQueen requested the chase for his character and even played one of
the Nazi’s chasing him at one point too. Of course the big stunt where his
character Hilts jumps one of the two barbed-wire fences to freedom was done by
stuntman Bud Ekins, but you know McQueen really wanted to do it himself. It’s a
fantastic stunt and you are crushed when he fails to get over the second fence,
but then when Hilts is captured and put into confinement once again and bounces
his baseball of the cell walls you are uplifted again as you know that his
spirit, and that of the allied forces, will never be broken.
10/10- if you haven’t see this movie please do. It’s one of my
favourite films and is the UK’s favourite Boxing Day movie.
Next time in A Bloody Tomorrow the trifecta of coolest actors ever is complete as 'The Man with No Name' comes to town.
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