The World of 007: The movies, the books, and more

By Anthony Reed

For more than 50 years, James Bond has enthralled, excited, energized and entertained different generations like no other screen hero has done.
Since his initial portrayal by Sean Connery, James Bond has become a timeless icon worldwide. His world full of glamour, mystery and intrigue, the most dashing secret agent in the history of cinema has been charming and thrilling audiences worldwide.
Following the sincere descriptions of the James Bond movies and books, readers will discover the characteristics that made him resonate, as well as the less glamorous relics that made him evolve.
Die hard fan Anthony Reeds will take the reader through a detailed and sometimes pungent description of the James Bond films and books along with his extremely deatailing scoring used to evaluate each movie in the most objective manner. The book also includes dynamic stills from the movies, a variety of rankings, and several other interesting facts of the World of 007.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vyiha Publishing
• Release date: Oct 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9789881300577

Book preview

The Movies

Dr. No

JIMMY Bond was just dreadful. Obviously Fleming got extremely disappointed. He kept wondering who would protect the Bond character he invented and who will make sure his step to the movie industry would have been successful. Disappointed about the result of Jimmy Bond, in 1955 Fleming writes Diamonds are forever. Meanwhile, other parties start to show interests in other Fleming’s novels. American actor John Payne and the Rank Organization battle for the film rights of Moonraker. When John Payne quitted negotiations, British actor Ian Hunter showed interest. Even this deal did not go anywhere. Later in 1956, Fleming writes From Russia with love at Goldeneye and the year after Dr. No. In 1958, Fleming then writes Goldfinger, and it’s another success. He also writes an outline for a Bond television series which becomes the premise of For your eyes only. But he seriously starts toying with the idea of killing off the James Bond character, unsure of whether he should write another Bond novel or not.

Things changed when two ambitious filmmakers came along, one called Harry Saltzman and the other one called Albert R. Broccoli (R. stands for Romolo to denote his Italian origins as his parents were immigrants from Calabria and thought as descendants of the first person who crossed cauliflower with pea seed to create broccoli), or Cubby as all of his friends would call him. Albert. R. Cubby Broccoli was a filmmaker who had read the books and really believed they should have been made as movies. He set up a meeting with Fleming but unfortunately, his wife Nedra was diagnosed with cancer in that period of time and could not personally make it to the meetings. He decided to send his partner for the first meeting, who took the liberty to tell Fleming that Bond should have been a TV character. He ended up insulting the author. Even more disappointed, Fleming went back to writing. His wife remembers him as always with his Scotch and cigarettes while typing. Even more now, desperate as he was to find someone to save Bond.

Harry Saltzman was instead a showman. He started in a circus, he had great ideas and did not want to miss any opportunity. He was a man who was always on the phone, sometimes on multiple phones at the same time. Harry loved his wife Jacqueline Jaquie, who met when he was in Paris. And Jaquie was known to be his main motivation to be successful in life. He would have done anything for Jaquie to be able one day to give her the best. When he learned about Fleming, he was so desperate to get the rights on Bond’s book that he paid all his money on it. He literally did not have cash left anymore. At that point he potentially had a goldmine that he could not dig up. Saltzman approached Fleming in the Swiss Alps during a Christmas holiday, and bought as an option all the novels of the 007 series, including the future ones (with the exception of Casino Royale, that at this time was already owned by Charles K. Feldman). We now know that Saltzman paid 50,000 dollars for the screen rights in 1961, a very big sum for the time (about 450,000 dollars in 2020 money), and gave him just a six month option on the Bond character. Everybody in the film industry knew that he would have never found a way to do anything with that. And this is the reason that when Cubby went to knock at Saltzman's door to propose to do a movie together, he was more than interested into that as an opportunity to see his huge investment coming back. Harry Saltzman was introduced then to Cubby Broccoli by a mutual friend, screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz. Cubby has been interested in Bond since 1957 and, considering cubby's contacts in the industry, especially at United Artists, they decided that they should have teamed up and bring Bond to the big screen. They formed a production company called EON Productions, (EON elsewhere in the book) standing for Everything or Nothing, and they went for it all the way. At this point they needed a production house so they went to New York City. First Columbia turned them down so they went to United Artists that, by the way, have just tried to get the screen rights on Bond from Fleming, by then already unavailable. So the UA executives look at their ideas and their requests. These contained a serious budget, which meant a serious risk. But then United said ‘yes’. Bond could have ended up in simply being a comic book character but EON was bringing him in the movie world. EON was Fleming's answer to finally adapting the Bond novels to the big screen. However, since the filmmakers didn't own the rights to Casino Royale, as Fleming had previously sold those rights, they have tried to start Bond with the so called 'Blofeld Trilogy' (see Book section) and therefore looked at Thunderball as the best candidate for the first movie of the franchise. I have no idea of how they would manage to stay within budget given the number of underwater scenes that the movie would have required to shoot, but anyway, things stopped quite soon, as UA had absolutely no interest in getting involved with the issues the then recent lawsuit created with the title (see more in the Appendixes). So they chose Fleming's sixth novel Dr. No to become their first James Bond epic adventure in the big screen.

Of course they had to find an actor to play James Bond. They took a risk by going with an unknown Scottish actor named Sean Connery after having seen probably 200 actors after they understood that Fleming’s first choice, Cary Grant (probably suggested after having seen him in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest), was too expensive for their budget. Fleming at first wasn't really fond of Connery at all. He thought Connery was too much of a country boy to play the suave and sophisticated character that he envisioned. But they wanted an anti-hero with whom the public could sympathize with, and Connery seemed to be the right fit for that. Plus, Harry’s wife said he was a very sexy, very masculine British actor. With time people really started to believe that he could make love to a woman and after a second he could kill somebody. The producers had the main song theme composed by Monty Norman and then arranged and executed by John Barry, the man who would then be behind the great music of most of all Bond movies (he will be absent for The spy who lover me, whose music was made by Marvin Hamlisch, and For your eyes only, whose soundtrack was made by Bill Conti) until other composers like Eric Serra and David Arnold would take over from GoldenEye. The filmmakers also had to find a director for their first Bond movie and that director became Terence Young. He did more than simply directing the movie. He was the man that showed Connery how to walk, talk, dress and be suave. So much so that later Fleming really started to like Connery as Bond. He even gave his Bond of the novels a Scottish background because of Connery.

In the 60s England was in a creative revolution. Having Dr. No coming out in colors was just aligned to this creativity. The movie became a symbol of escapism because it allowed audiences to see exotic places as they were, with their true colors. On top of it, the Cuban missile crisis came at the same time when Dr. No was released. The movie was at the right place, at the right time.

Going to the theaters in 1962 to watch the very first James Bond movie might have seem outdated in your eyes, but in 1962, that was as exhilarating as movies got. The Bond music you hear at the beginning was heard for the very first time ever even if nowadays it’s one of the most well known themes in the world. You see all of these circles and colors going crazy with the music blazing out. I really wonder what this must have been like in '62...For the first time you can see the signature gun barrel, created by designer Maurice Binder. Keep in mind that since this is the very first movie of this ongoing franchise, the budget they got really wasn't that high at all. Chances are that you won't like this movie much as a newcomer. Anyway, the movie switches into a sketchy Jamaican song and we see three blind guys walking along on Jamaica. Also in Jamaica, is this British secret agent called Strangways playing some bridge with his club of wooden actors, that leave you hoping that the rest of the movie isn't as wooden as this beginning. Luckily, the acting is a lot better in the rest of the movie. Then the three blind guys turned out to have perfect eyesight and kill Strangways, they drive over to his house, kill his secretary and steal the files on Dr. No and Crab Key with an overly dramatic outdated music playing. And then the movie switches over to London, where we meet our suave hero for the very first time.

We are in one of the rooms of the most exclusive Club Les Ammbassadeurs de Londre, where an attractive brunette dressed in a shiny red dress is playing baccarat against a tall man wearing an elegant smoking. The lady loses a few times in a row and asks the croupier for more fiches. The man then speaks for the first time I admire your courage Miss...?, Thrench, Sylvia Trench. I admire your luck, Mister...?. The man in smoking takes one of his Morlands from his cigarettes holder, lighten it up slowly and responds with a line that will become one of the most popular in the entire movie history, Bond, James Bond. With that simple line Connery proved that he was the coolest damn guy in the whole world. It was the 7th October 1962, the day of the global premiere of Dr. No. To me, this guy is Bond. You want to be him, he has everything he needs to be him, the looks, the style, the self confidence, the walk. It’s no wonder Connery quickly became a star. Bond gets called off for business but not before giving Ms. Trench his card so that he can 'see' her later on. When he gets to the office, we get introduced to Ms. Moneypenny played by Lois Maxwell, who would continue to play Ms. Moneypenny for the next 13 Bond movies coming after this one. The chemistry between her and Bond is immediately perfectly shown in this movie. We also get introduced to M, head of the British secret service, played by Bernard Lee, who would also continue to play this role for a very long time. He informs Bond about Strangways' disappearance in Jamaica and he wants Bond to find out what happened to him.

Then we get introduced to Major Boothroyd, played in this movie by Peter Burton. The character would be played by Desmond Llewelyn in the following movies and then be better known as Q (that stands for quartermaster). Bond movies are of course known for Q's special gadgets, but in Dr. No, that really doesn't play much of a role yet. Bond does however get his signature gun here, a Walter PPK. Now, in the novels Bond’s gun was initially not a PPK but a Beretta 418 caliber 6.35 Browing. This was a short range gun with a very small weight and size with his short barrel, eventually not allowing a decent precision. Eventually Fleming decided to change the Beretta to the PPK after firearms expert Geoffrey Boothroyd, a fan of the novels, sent several helpful letters to Fleming, suggesting to improve the accuracy of firearms in the novels. So Bond ends up with the German PPK (short for ‘Polizei Pistole Kriminal’) caliber 7.65 Browing. This is the same gun Adolf Hitler used to kill himself on April 30th 1945 by the way. Bond will keep this gun under his armpit in a Berns Martin holster. The gun is held in position by a spring, which releases as soon as the gun is pulled so for a quick extraction. Also, the gun does not need to lift the hammer and that helps Bond to be ready to shoot right away. Probably because Fleming used a Beretta himself while in the British Navy, he never made Bond liking this gun. We can think that this is the reason Bond likes to use a silencer, a mechanism that yes, reduces the precision but also the violence related to the shot as well.

Back to the movie, Bond sets off. At his apartment he finds Ms. Trench, with no clue how she even got in the first place. Bond doesn't seem to care. He quickly has sex with her before starting his mission in Jamaica. Bond strolls in at the airport with the Bond theme playing in the background like a total bad ass. The scene with Connery in the phone boot is, by the way, Connery's very first scene they ever filmed. Anyway, lots of mysterious people at the airport seem to be aware of Bond's arrival, like a mysterious man with sunglasses and a mysterious photographer-girl, who gets all worried when Connery walks past her. And then there is another mystery guy, a driver who claims that he was sent out to pick up Bond. But Bond immediately gets suspicious of this and checks at the government house if they actually sent out a car for him, and obviously it turned out they didn't. So he gets into the car anyway to find out whom this guy is working for. Later, in a secluded area, Bond tries to persuade him to talk but the man doesn't want to say a word at all so this leads to a little fighting scene with some music playing that seem to be taken out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Yeah, luckily the music massively improves in the next movies. Anyway, the driver says that he will now talk if he can have one of his cigarettes, so Bond lets him have a cigarette but it turns out there is cyanide in the cigarette and this guy commits suicide.

In the next scene Bond arrives at the government house to make his very first one-liner Sargent, make sure he doesn't get away. Upon arrival there, Bond immediately starts his investigation on what happened to Strangways. He goes all CSI and visits Strangways' house to look for clues and he finds a blood patch and a picture of a fisherman with Strangways. Bond drinks his very first Vodka-Martini at his hotel and proceeds with some cool spy routine. We see him powdering his briefcase with Talcum powder and putting a hair on his closet. Both of these things were taken straight out of the Casino Royale novel and I really like that they have put them in here, especially since you don't really see this spy stuff any more in the later movies. Bond continues his investigation by talking to Strangways’ bridge buddies. One of them is Professor Dent, who I will talk about later on. He finds out that the fisherman in the picture is called Quarrel, so Bond visits him but like everybody in this movie he decides to play all mysterious and doesn't say much leading you to believe that he is actually a felon. Bond ends up in the back room of a café and gets into a fight with Quarrel and the café owner but he manages to outsmart them until the sunglasses guy from the airport shows up. It turns out that he is CIA agent Felix Leiter, played here by Jack Lord and they all turn out to be allies because letting you know immediately that they were friends would have probably been just too easy I guess.

That evening Bond hangs out at the café with Felix and Quarrel and you have some Jamaican music playing, cheerful people dancing and a random guy who looks like he is having a seizure...Also the photographer-girl from the airport is there again so Bond tries to find out whom she's working for but just like the driver before she doesn't want to talk. She even gets out a light bulb, breaks it into Quarrel's cheek, and he's all casual about it. I don't know what’s up with that as I'm pretty sure I would have responded differently. Anyway, they don't really get anything useful out of her. The movie really goes for this mystery tone around watching how Bond is slowly trying to unravel it. He also learns about this island called Crab Key, a place that seems to be feared by everyone. It belongs to a Chinese guy and there isn't much known about him except his name, Dr. No. In the next scene, those 'blind' men from the opening appear again and they try to kill Bond but they fail. They might have succeeded in damaging his ears though with the music playing in the background.

The next morning Bond visits Professor Dent and asks him some questions about Crab Key. Dent just acts all suspicious and he right away sets out to Crab Key himself to warn Dr. No about Bond. In this way it’s kind of revealed that Dent is a villain, in case you didn't already find out by yourself by now. We still don't actually get to see Dr. No but we at least get to hear his voice. And I just really like this part. You've got the big empty room made by Ken Adam, a guy that made a lot of the cool film sets for the Bond movies. And there is the dark voice of Dr. No which really makes him even more mysterious and menacing. He orders Professor Dent to pick up a deadly spider meant to kill Bond, because shooting him would be too easy. By the way, even if Tarantulas are proven not to be deadly, I still buy the fact the spider used in the movie can kill.

And then it's already night - again! Wow! A day just flew by! What the hell did Bond do except for visiting Professor Dent in the morning? Anyway, Bond finds out that somebody has been in his room as his hair in the closet is gone and there are fingerprints in his briefcase. Then, when he goes to sleep he is woken up by the spider. They tried to make this scene all dense and I guess they kind of succeeded even though the glass on which the spider actually walks is clearly visible in some parts. But still I think this is really well done stuff especially for 1962 standards. Bond ends up killing the spider with the hilarious music playing along. The next day Bond asks for the files on Dr. No and Crab Key but as we know those were deliberately taken away at the beginning of the movie. He finds out that Ms. Taro, the secretary, was meanwhile listening along through the keyhole so he becomes suspicious of her. And what does he do? Well, he asks her on a date of course! So Bond eventually goes to her place and at this point the three blind men assassins show up once again triggering one of the most outdated car chases in the entire franchise. I mean, this might have been exhilarating excitement in 1962 but I really can't help but just find this hilarious every time I see it. I know this is the first of its kind so you have to cut some slack and I know that the budget wasn't so high. However, the budget was high enough to make the sudden explosion of the car though. I mean, what the hell was that about? Bond shows up at Ms. Taro's house and she's all surprised that the assassins didn’t kill him so we know that she's a bad girl and it's quite clear that Bond knows this as well. And what does he do? Well, have sex with her, naturally. The thing with Connery is he's just a damn charming guy and I could really buy that this woman would easily fall for his charms and sleep with him. At the same time he has something dangerous carrying with him as well. That just makes him the perfect Bond to me.

Anyway, Bond has sex with her and lets her be arrested afterward, clearly just using her. Call me misogynist but that's just an awesome move. She's a fill-in so it's fine. You can imagine now that this was quite something else in 1962, especially since this was once one of the movies in the big screen to actually show naked people being in bed together. Back then it was definitely a big deal. Bond knows that eventually somebody would show up at Ms. Taro's house to kill him, so he puts some pillows under the bedsheets and wait until this somebody shows up. It turns out that Professor Dent is the person meant to kill him. He enters the room and shoots the sheets. But Bond just sits there being cool and even if the Professor is trying to reach his gun again, Bond let's him do this and says: It’s a Smith and Wesson...and you've had your six. One of the coolest and cold-hearted moments in the series and it’s just ridiculously awesome. So awesome that one doesn't even notice the fact that in one shot Bond wears the tie and in the next one he doesn't have it anymore. And, by the way, what Dent uses to shoot is actually a Colt 45, not a Smith and Wesson. Details.

In the next scene, Bond and Quarrel set out to Crab Key and spend a night there. The next morning Bond wakes up to the singing of this movie's Bond girl, Honey Ryder, played by Ursula Andress. This scene became very iconic in the franchise. You can already imagine the teens in the 60's witnessing her coming out of the water, in a bikini, in full color! Ursula Andress eventually became the quintessential Bond girl, one of the most famous, if not the most famous, out of all of them. The producers cast her after they saw one of her pictures in a wet t-shirt. That was apparently enough to get her the part. I always had to laugh at Quarrel's expression here, you can tell that he was really thinking like Holy cow, where did he pick up this girl? Crab Key turns out to be a very dangerous place indeed. There are patrol boats, guards walking around in the swamp with dogs, and Quarrel even mentions a dragon. There is even a Danger sign, so, you know, it must be dangerous there. Here we can tell that both Quarrel and Honey are very superstitious and scared about the fact there might actually be a dragon roaming around. Bond, you know, has to try and get some common sense into them. So when the supposed dragon appears it's almost kind of funny. A dragon that runs on diesel engines, says Bond. Quarrel and Bond try to shoot the machine hoping to find a weak spot, but then Quarrel dramatically gets burned to death and that's actually quite sad. The scene leaves you with this angry feeling, almost. Although, to be fair, Quarrel could have at least worn something less obvious than a bright red t-shirt...

Bond and Honey get captured by Dr. No's men and get taken to his secret lair. It turns out that there was quite some radiation on the island so Bond and Honey need to be decontaminated from radiation by taking a shower. And no, I'm sorry gentlemen, but Ursula Andress isn't really naked in this scene, believe me, I checked. After that Bond and Honey are all of a sudden treated like first class guests. They even got their own rooms! Their own rooms in the villains lair! That's something quite exceptional!

I really like how this is done. Essentially, they are prisoners but eventually that is not how they are treated. Bond and Honey however get drugged and fall asleep and at night we finally get a glimpse of Dr. No. It never really happens in a Bond Movie that the story holds off the villain for such a long time. We are well over an hour into the movie by now and we get to know more about Dr. No, such as he has metal hands. In the evening Bond and Honey have to get properly dressed to prepare for dinner with Dr. No. Yup! Dinner with a villain, something that will become typical for a Bond movie. Bond and Honey arrive in Dr. No's suite, which is another beautiful Ken Adam film set. Then, after one hour and twenty minutes, Dr. No is finally revealed. Joseph Wiseman is portraying Dr. No and even though he doesn't really look Chinese at all, he has the creepy and intelligent treat perfectly done. A nice little Easter egg here in the movie is that they put the painting of the Duke of Wellington in the suite because the actual painting happened to be stolen around the time the movie was made, just a little funny inside joke.

The dinner scene is pretty classic as well. Dr. No reveals that he is a member of S.P.E.C.T.R.E., Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. SPECTRE is the criminal organization that Bond has to face in a lot of the early Bond movies and then finally re-appears in the 2015 Bond movie nothing less than in its title. Now, Dr. No's evil scheme is to disrupt a space launch from Cape Canaveral using an atomic-powered radio beam. The plan is kind of irrelevant and boring but it doesn't matter that much. I guess the plan was probably suitable for its time, as the whole Cold War era and the Cuban missile crisis were still going. The movie did update the original plan from the novel which has something to do with guano by the way. But all of the plan has nothing to do with Honey, so Bond requests Dr. No if she can be let out of this and Dr. No agrees. But much like Honey, Bond also gets imprisoned. He does try to escape through the air vent but that doesn't immediately work. In the official Dr. No novel, it was explained that Dr. No had this air vent made for Bond to be tortured in it. That's why he first fed him with good food and gave him sleeping pills. He wanted full stamina on Bond's body so he could test his human endurance. However, none of that stuff is mentioned in the movie, which is kind of a shame really. In the movie the air vent is actually used as an escape route for Bond and his obvious stunt double. Bond manages to make his escape and disguises himself in a radiation suit to infiltrate Dr. No's operation. This is where the final climax scene will take place, another great Ken Adam film set. While Dr. No is overseeing the big space launch, attempting to disrupting it with his little radio beam, Bond overloads the nuclear reactor just as the US rocket is launched. Panic emerges and Dr. No and Bond end up in a fight above the nuclear cooling water pool. Ultimately Dr. No loses the fight because of his metal hands and boils in the water to death.

I have to admit this final climax scene was quite disappointing but, like I said, you don't really watch this movie for Dr. No's scheme anyway. The US rocket is saved and Dr. No is killed but Bond still has to save Honey while the place is blowing up in the meantime. He finds her tied up to drown to death because villains just hate to kill you the easy way. By the way, they originally planned to have crabs there to slowly eat Honey alive but eventually they scrapped that idea. The pair manage to make their great escape just as the whole place explodes. Felix Leiter shows up to give them a little hand also. And the movie ends with Bond having sex with Honey in the boat, and we are once again reminded that the movie has a terrible score.

And that was the very first James Bond movie and to me it’s a pretty good start for the franchise. The movie became an international success and kicked off a franchise that is still running to this very day. That is something to give credit for. As you might have found out from this initial chapter, I'm a pretty big fan of Connery, as he just immediately nailed the role, and he's just quite simply perfect in my eyes. I'm sure the movie suffers from some bad moments, not a great score, outdated, fake-looking rear projections, a climax that really wasn't that great either. It does, however, feature some of the most iconic moments in the franchise. Ursula Andress, despite having quite a bland acting, is however one of the most respected Bond girls in the series.

Fleming mentioned that he was not happy of having to cut two scenes. The first was when Bond receives a number of cane beatings by Dr. No goons, and the second is when Honey is tied and left at the mercy of giant crabs under the order of Dr. No. The producers thought that both scenes were too violent for their times. Wiseman as Dr. No was solid, despite not having much screen time. Notice how he never blinks in the movie. Now, if you're new to the franchise chances are that you aren't that blown away by this first entry, but I'm willing to bet that some of the next ones will definitely blow you away.

From Russia with love

WITH the release of Dr. No, audiences were given something they have never seen before. Here you have this suave agent that would charm beautiful women to bed, kill in cold blood, and transport you to the most exotic locations where all kinds of exciting and dangerous adventures would take place. Bond was the ultimate representation of escapism, so much needed for the time, and audiences simply loved it. Dr. No immediately became a worldwide hit. It managed to grow 59 million dollars at the world box office out of its mere 1 million dollar budget. So it was absolutely no doubt that a second Bond novel was going to get adapted. In this chapter we are taking a look at what happened next.

When on the 17th March of 1961 President John F. Kennedy publicly stated in a Life Magazine interview that From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming was – along with the Bible – among his ten favorite books that he would have brought to a desert island (the novel figured at no.9), the novel immediately gained more popularity and became a best seller. The producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman made a logical choice of adapting From Russia With Love as their second, big James Bond movie. This was actually the last film that John F. Kennedy ever saw apparently.

Now, since many readers, critics and even the President of the USA saw the novel as one of the best, the film makers felt only minor changes from the novel were needed. In the book, for example, Bond is up against SMERSH (acronym for ‘Smiert Spionam’, or ‘Dead to the spies’), the real 40,000 men Russian counterintelligence headed in the real world by General Grubozaboyschikov and still covered by a thick layer of mystery. But the filmmakers wanted to avoid any potential political controversies so they decided the movie would feature the fictional criminal organization, SPECTRE. SPECTRE was of course already mentioned in the first Bond movie and besides that, it also appeared in the later Fleming James Bond novels. Other than some minor details, the movie became pretty faithful to the original novel. Most of the crew that worked on the first film remained the same. Once again Terence Young was the director and Richard Maibaum once again wrote the screenplay. However, John Barry now took care of the score, replacing Monty Norman's Tom and Jerry sound as I called it in Dr. No's chapter, which is a major improvement in my opinion. John Barry became pretty closely associated with Bond and he worked on many of the other future installments. Most die hard Bond fans often say From Russia With Love is among the best of the best in the entire franchise. It's even Sean Connery's personal favorite Bond movie.

The gun barrel sequence we are introduced to in the first movie returned and it now became a tradition to always open a Bond movie with it. The movie immediately throws us into a dense start as we see Bond snooping around in some dark yards while he is being chased by a big, scary, blonde guy called Red Grant, played by Robert Shaw. I really like how they immediately build up tension here. You can tell that something is not right as Bond seems to look scared and there's the fact that he gets killed immediately. But of course it turns out to be one big SPECTRE training exercise and the guy that got killed is just some random dude with a ridiculously convincing Sean Connery mask. And then the movie drops us into the title sequence. This would also become tradition in every Bond film following. First you would get the gun barrel, then the pre-title sequence and then, the title sequence.

And as every Bond fan knows the title sequence is mainly there to warm us up for the Bond adventure awaiting. You know, you get a lot of half naked women dancing around, and yes, also, the names of the whole cast. It's just some tradition they always maintained after this movie. After the titles we move to Venice where a chess game is going on with this creepy guy called Kronsteen. And it doesn't take much observation to notice that Kronsteen is a villain. One that is working for SPECTRE, in fact. SPECTRE is the evil organization that Dr. No was also part of and features in most of the early Bond movies. This time we actually get to see the head of SPECTRE. Well, its actual head and name is revealed in a much later movie, but we do see his hands and how he is menacingly stroking his white cat as he lays out his evil plans or, well, approves the plans that Kronsteen makes. Anyway, it’s here that immediately the complicated plot kicks in and unlike the previous movie where the plot was basically An agent's gotten killed. 007, go find out who did it, will ya?. Here the plot gets slightly more complicated than that so I'll try to stick with the simplified version here.

Basically, Kronsteen has devised a plan to avenge the death of Dr. No by luring James Bond into a trap by using a cryptographic decoding machine or a Lektor as bait because the British Secret Service apparently wanted one of Lektors for ages so that's why it's used as the bait. SPECTRE agent number three Rosa Klebb, which is an old Russian woman also at the head of the Russian Secret Service, is put in charge of the operation. So she's basically part of both SPECTRE the Russian Counterintelligence, if that makes sense and she's just one mean, crazy old bitch. That's all you need to know. And in order to make Kronsteen's plan actually work, Rosa Klebb has recruited two people. The first one being the assassin from the pre-title sequence, Red Grant, whom Rosa Klebb seems to get all horny around. And the other one is the movie's Bond girl, Tatiana Romanova, played by then Miss Italia (she also came second in the Miss Universo competition), Daniela Bianchi. She also seems to kind of turning on Rosa in some way.

Tatiana Romanova is just an innocent Russian woman working in Istanbul in the Russian Consulate building and she doesn't know that Rosa is working for SPECTRE. Rosa gives her this assignment which is to fall in love with Bond, give him the Lektor and let him take it back to England with her. She has to pretend that she has to defect to the West. And all she thinks is that she is doing this for mother Russia, completely unaware that she is doing it for SPECTRE. And if she doesn't obey these orders then, well...she will be shot! So, yeah, Hooray communism!

That basically should explain the whole trap that 007 is supposed to fall into. Meanwhile Bond is having sex with an old booty call from the previous movie, Sylvia Trench, when Moneypenny calls him to the office where M basically explains exactly the same thing as I just did, i.e. that a Russian girl supposedly fell in love with him and wants to defect to the West. Both realize that it's probably a trap but hey, there's a Lektor that they can obtain here, so come, Bond, you need to go to Istanbul.

But not before he receives some of his gadgets. And here we are introduced to Q even though he is not actually called Q yet but he is now played by Desmond Llewelyn who would continue to play the role for years and years to come. Desmond Llewelyn once stated in an interview that when he saw Connery he wanted to go and introduce himself. He was James Bond after all. But Terence Young, the director of the movie, stopped him by saying ‘No, you should not care about him. You don’t like him simply because he does not take your job seriously and always jokes with your inventions!’ Of course things changed with time but the rivalry between the two characters always comes up at every Bond movie in very intelligent ways.

Q gives him really high tech gadgets, a briefcase, which is so much cooler than it actually sounded because it contains a throwing knife, and a tear gas, booby trap if you open it in a certain way, and even an attachable sniper rifle. You can really imagine real spies in the Cold War era would have such a cool briefcases as this one. You can already tell that at some stage Bond is eventually going to need it and that's always really cool. Bond heads down to Istanbul and you nearly get sucked into this world of espionage right away. I mean there just isn't a Bond movie that gets this authentic Cold War spy filled down as much as From Russia With Love did. There are cool spy code lines to see if a person is really trustworthy. And since Istanbul holds the ground for both the British of the West, and the Russians from the East, similar to Berlin at that time, you have the Russians always tailing the British and the other way around. It all just adds to the charm of the era.

Bond is assigned to Station T, where the T stands for Turkey, and here we meet the head of the station, Kerim Bey, who is one of the best Bond allies in the series. He is played by Pedro Armendariz who unfortunately had cancer during the filming of the movie but desperately wanted to film all of his scenes to provide for his family, which is exactly what he did and then once in the hospital he committed suicide. It's a really tragic background story but he's definitely a wonderful human being. He shares some really great scenes with Connery. Pedro Armendariz was actually suggested by Fleming himself as he met the actor back in 1955 during his travel in Istanbul.

In the next scene Bond goes to his hotel and despite the movie being really authentic and cool it’s also here that you notice that it’s quite dated as the Bond theme is constantly playing at moments that it really shouldn't. I mean, all Bond really does in a scene is to tip the door man and look for bugs in his room and the Bond theme makes it seem like its a huge action scene. Bond does find that his room is bugged so he requests to move to another room which is exactly what the villains want.

Meanwhile, SPECTRE is setting up the British and the Russians against each other by killing a Russian agent. This causes tension between the two groups so that the Russians think that the British are responsible for it and decide to blow up Kerim Bey's office just as he is spending some quality time with a hot girl. Bond goes back to Kerim's place and they obviously are both surprised by the sudden Russian attack because they are supposed to have an understanding truce, not realizing of course that SPECTRE has caused the war between them.

So they decide to have a look at what the Russians are doing by going to an underground aqueduct that he has access to. They are able to get directly under the Russian Consulate building and spy on them using a periscope, which is actually quite awesome. They find out that the Russians have hired a guy named Krilencu, which is a Bulgarian. Basically the Bulgarians are used as hit man for the Russians. Here Bond also gets a first glimpse at Ms.Romanova. That night then Bond and Kerim visit a Gypsy settlement. Basically, Kerim uses these Gypsies in the same way as the Russian use the Bulgarians. You get this scene of two hot Gypsy girls fighting each other over some guy, pretty much all completely irrelevant to the plot, but you know, I have to admit I always took good pleasure in watching this scene.

However, the fight is rudely interrupted by Krilencu and his gang of Bulgarians and one big fight emerges between the Gypsies and the Bulgarians. Everybody starts shooting each other and Kerim even gets shot in his arm and Bond also almost gets killed as well but Red Grant actually saves him because he's secretly spying on it all. He kills the dude behind Bond because you know, SPECTRE still needs the Lektor and thus, they still need Bond alive at this point. Many here point out to the fact that Connery keeps loading his gun, an evidence that obviously blanks have been used in the scene. Eventually the Bulgarians retreat and Kerim wants revenge in killing Krilencu. But obviously Bond gets to have sex with both of the hot Gypsy girls first. They then set out for revenge. They use Bond's sniper to kill Krilencu at a hide out in a really cool scene.

Back at Bond's hotel, in his new room, the bridal's suite actually, Bond is up for a bath. So he goes to the bathroom and opens the faucets, when he hears some noise. Alerted he goes to the bedroom where he finally meets Tatiana Romanova...in his bed. Bond starts having sex with Tatiana and meanwhile, behind the mirror, SPECTRE is secretly recording the whole thing. Yup! SPECTRE, 'Special Executives for Candid models, Porn, bondage Erotica.' Nobody anyway seems to care about the faucets left open by Bond in the bathroom a minute before he started having sex with Tatiana. Oh well...The next day Bond and Tatiana secretly meet up in Hagia Sophia and Tatiana leaves the floor plans of the Russian Consulate building so that Bond and Kerim can devise their plan to take the Lektor from the building. And they proceed with this plan by blowing up a bomb underneath the Russian Consulate building. This is not found in the novel by the way.

Then Bond, Tatiana and Kerim escape Turkey with the Lektor on the Orient Express. In the novel it was actually mentioned why Bond and Tatiana took a train back to the West instead of a plane and it’s kind of a shame that the movie doesn't address this at all. You can actually spot Fleming himself in the scene shot at the station. Fleming in fact, was very much vested in the movie at this point. He visited the set many times and gave suggestions to make sure the story was still consistent with what he wrote. The best scenes in the entire movie all take place now, on board of the Orient Express. Of course Red Grant also slipped aboard the train and you can constantly feel his presence and danger at every turn. It’s all just brilliant espionage cinema here.

There are some genuine sparks between Bond and Tatiana and even though we as viewers know that she is actually used as a pawn in SPECTRE's plan, Bond remains obviously suspicious that something is going on but he doesn't know that SPECTRE is involved in it anyway. And Kerim Bey also shines with another great line when he encounters a Russian agent. Unfortunately, Kerim and the agent both get killed and we, as the audience, of course know who is responsible for this. However, Bond is not aware of SPECTRE at all yet. Even if we, as the audience, are ahead of Bond, it's still all very thrilling and that's one of the many things that makes this movie so good. When Kerim gets killed, Bond starts to question Tatiana and he becomes a bit annoyed which is understandable, you know, he's still unaware of everything. As the train stops somewhere in Yugoslavia, Bond meets one of Kerim's sons and requests him to let M know that he needs back up. But of course Red Grant overhears the whole conversation and he starts to pose as the man called Nash that M supposedly has sent as a back up for Bond and he kills the real Nash. Bond is completely unaware that Grant is actually a villain and he and Tatiana have dinner together. Nash orders red wine with fish, which comes into play a bit later. And he also drugs Tatiana's drink which Bond does notice but he decides to keep his mouth shut while becoming a little bit suspicious of Nash. He then starts questioning him but Grant manages to talk his way out of it and wins back Bond's trust. Until he catches Bond when he's off guard and, you know, basically SPECTRE's brilliant plan have succeeded all the way until now so Bond is pretty much screwed.

Red wine with fish. Which gentleman would order red wine with fish? I mean, come on! Bond’s doubts on Grant were confirmed. Grant starts explaining the whole plan that we, as the audience, would pretty much already know. But he also mentions about the film took while Bond and Tatiana were having sex in the hotel and how they plan on using that to humiliate Bond even further. But here's where Q's briefcase comes into play and Grant falls directly for the tear gas booby trap and one of the best fighting scenes of the entire series starts. A fight ensues and it's mostly Connery and Shaw himself fighting here as it's all very real and full of tension. We already learned how dangerous Grant is in the pre-title sequence so things get really tense. The fight is the highlight of the movie. At the end Bond uses his throwing knife to stab Grant to death.

Bond and Tatiana get off the Orient Express at the location where Grant was supposed to get off and they steal the truck that he was supposed to escape in. Back at SPECTRE's headquarters they hear that Grant was found dead in the Orient Express so Kronsteen gets killed for it with a poison tipped shoe in true Bond film fashion. And here we get the typical SPECTRE's ring moving from the head of SPECTRE's left hand to the right hand, something that you would notice after the 100th time you are watching this movie, anyway. The SPECTRE goons are ordered to kill Bond and some action scene starts involving a helicopter and grenades and it's not really one of the best action scenes in the franchise but it’s definitely a step up from the silly car chase from the first movie. From Russia With Love after all had a budget that was double of what allowed for Dr. No.

Bond uses his sniper once again to shoot the guy in the helicopter who drops his grenade inside it making it exploding. Bond and Tatiana escape then by boat but another action scene quickly follows, which is a better one, by the way. Bond uses a flare gun to set off a huge explosion and there's people on fire and panic everywhere and it’s all great here, but you know, the film set ended up in real panic here because things got out of hand at a certain point and that's why these scenes seem so real. It's just cool stuff.

And after all that, Bond and Tatiana are safely back into Venice (at the Danieli Hotel) and within the capitalistic borders of the West. So now they're safe, are they? Klebb shows disguised in a maid's outfit and she is about to take the Lektor until Tatiana interferes starting a final fight between Bond and Klebb. Rosa has the poison tipped shoe previously used in the movie and she tries to stab Bond with it. In novel she actually succeeds in doing so as Bond actually does get poisoned and collapses to the floor, but here it's Tatiana who after some doubt shoots the bitch down. It's kind of a shame that they didn't go with the original ending like in the novel but I can perfectly understand a happy ending will be more fitting here. Bond and Tatiana are then in the Grand Canal of Venice, romantically kissing as Bond throws away the movie that was made of the couple, as he waves his goodbye to it, which is a bit silly I admit. And that concludes the movie with the film makers confident enough to let us know that Bond would return in Goldfinger.

From Russia With Love is often acclaimed to be one of the best Bond movies out there. Plot-wise its certainly one of the best in the entire franchise and, yes it’s completely clear to me why people would say that. Is it my favorite? Well, no, although I do rank this one in my upper half of my personal top ten Bond movies. From Russia With Love is indeed one of the best plot but the movie seems to fall in the so called 'pre-Bond formula'. At this point the franchise was still getting into itself. It doesn't have all the elements yet that you might expect from a Bond movie. And this is not necessarily a bad thing at all. With no doubt, From Russia With Love is an amazingly thrilling spy thriller and as a stand alone film is definitely one of the best.

And as a Bond movie it ticks a lot of boxes. Connery is once again superb in the role and pretty much all the other main characters are all top notch as well. However, it does have its dated moments like the fake rear projections and the Bond theme playing in a hotel for no reason. But those are mainly minor things.

From Russia With Love remains a widely recognized Bond movie that is often ranked at the top of everybody's list, including mine. I certainly appreciate what the movie is. A faithful adaption of one of my favorite Fleming novels, a great spy thriller and a classic movie.

Goldfinger

THE first two Bond movies had made James Bond insanely popular but probably nobody could have foreseen what would happen when the third one came into the world because by then James Bond became a cultural phenomenon. Producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman had one mission and that was to make Bond's third cinematic adventure the biggest one so far. Terence Young who directed both Bond movies so far was unavailable so Guy Hamilton, a relatively unknown director, was chosen to direct the movie. And that movie, of course, which came out in 1964, was Goldfinger. It became a worldwide hit. Everywhere around the globe audiences wanted to see 007's third adventure. Sean Connery, which now became an international star, dropped women's panties everywhere around the globe. He probably was one of the coolest guys alive at that time.

Goldfinger became the classic of all classics, the quintessential Bond movie. And James Bond himself at that time was bigger than ever. He was the trendsetter. There was a true Bond mania going on, merchandise everywhere. There hardly was anything more popular than this guy. I always found it fascinating to look back into the history of one of cinematic greatest franchises ever and see how big it initially was back then. You can only imagine how amazingly exciting it must have been to be alive during that time.

Unfortunately, Bond's creator, Flemming, couldn't live to see the immense popularity of his character. He passed away during the production of Goldfinger in 1964. He probably would have never believed you if you told him that Bond movies would still be made for decades and decades to come. And it's still going on until this very day. But that's exactly what happened and you could argue that in many ways that we have to thank this movie for it.

Once again the same gun barrel opens the movie, and I've not mentioned this before but the guy in the gun barrel in the first three movies is actually not Sean Connery but a stuntman by the name of Bob Simmons. The movie opens up with a fun little mini adventure which has nothing to do with the main plot. We see Bond coming out of the water with a fake duck on his head. He climbs a wall, sneaks into a facility with his hair still perfectly in shape as he plants a bomb. As he escapes he takes off his wetsuit to reveal a perfect white tux. It's a bit silly but with that the film makers just already show us that they're just going to have fun here. But really, this may not be as far fetched as one may think. During the World War II, a real life MI6 agent was assigned to rescue two agents in a Nazi-controlled casino. According to the historians, the agent was wearing for the mission a special wet suit that would have kept the tuxedo completely dry. Once he reached the shore he splashed some alcohol on himself and acted drunk to pass the guards and successfully rescued the captive agents.

Anyway, Bond smoothly walks to some bar close by, and Connery probably looks the best he ever looked here as he watches some hot dancer girl and perfectly lights his cigarette in sync with the explosion like a complete bad ass mode. Bond comes back to his hotel room where, of course, the hot dancer girl is waiting for him who. And by the way, she is the same actress who played Kerim Bey's girl in From Russia With Love. They start kissing but Bond finds out by looking into the girl's eyes that the kissing is used to distract him. He sees the reflection of a bad guy sneaking up on him and he quickly reacts by using the girl as a shield and starts a fight with the guy.

He ends up throwing the guy in the bath tub full of water and kills him by throwing an electric fan directly in the water with the one famous liner Shocking, positively shocking. And with that silly but epic opening that always just leaves me with a smile, we're launched into the title sequence with quite possibly the most famous Bond song ever, sung by Shirley Bassey. The whole title sequence just always gets me excited to watch this movie, no matter how many hundred times I've already seen it.

The movie proceeds in Miami at this fancy hotel where we see CIA agent Felix Leiter, that this time is played by Cec Linder and that's just one of the minor things that I dislike about the Bond movies. Felix is always played by a different actor and he always looks completely different. I mean, this Felix doesn't even bear a slight resemblance to Jack Lord that we first saw in Dr. No, who I would have loved to see him returning. Felix tells Bond about a certain Mr. Auric Goldfinger that M wants him to keep an eye out for. So we meet our main villain himself, played by the German actor Gert Frobe, who, by the way, was dubbed throughout the whole movie given his poor English so to avoid random sentences such as 'I imagine you are Lousiana', used by the actor just as an excuse to move his labials. But this is so seamless you wouldn't even notice. It turns out that he's really rich and he cheats at playing Gin for whatever reason (probably the producers introduced some elements of the novel Moonraker here), and gee! I wonder how he does that? Here we get one of the scene that aged less well in the franchise. It is when Bond pat the backside of the girl she is with when Felix arrives. Definitely a different time, the '60s. The girl in the scene, Margaret Nolan is somewhat unique in the movie as she appears as Dink in this sequence in Miami, but also as the golden girl in the titles sequence where scenes were projected on her body. So Bond goes all 'Hey! Maybe it has something to do with the gigantic ear plug in his ear' and just casually walks into Goldfinger's suite and easily sneaks into it using an innocent maid. And of course, there is an innocent girl with barely any clothes on Goldfinger's balcony called Jill Masterson, played by hot actress Shirley Eaton, who uses binoculars and a radio to share Goldfinger's opponent's cards with him. That is until Bond walks up to her all casually and very smooth. And not only does he completely embarrasses Goldfinger by forcing him to lose a couple of grands but he also steals his girl and starts having sex with her in his own suite. And after all that Bond walks to the fridge and takes a piss at The Beatles. Most people never got why he said that drinking a bottle of Dom Perignon 1953 at the wrong temperature is as bad 'as listening to The Beatles without earmuffs', since during the time of filming The Beatles were already pretty darn big and Paul McCartney would even sing the title song for "Live And Let