James Bond 007 contre Dr. No

I first saw this in the late 80s on a vhs. Revisited it recently. It is the first film in the Bond series where Bond is sent to Jamaica to investigate the disappearance of a fellow British agent. The trail leads him to Dr. No, a former member of a Chinese crime syndicate but currently working for SPECTRE. Here Bond faces dragon-disguised swamp buggy, venomous tarantula spider, 'three blind mice' n a villain with metal hands. Fortunately Bond has three amazing ladies to cool off, Eunice Gayson, Zena Marshall n Ursula Andress.

Some interesting facts from the novel which is missing in the movie. The Chinese gangsters tortured Dr No, cut off his hands n shot him through the left side of the chest and left him for dead. Dr No survived due to a condition called dextrocardia in which his heart is on the right side of the body. He later joined SPECTRE n got his metal hands.

No matter whether or not you like this film in the end...if you don't get some feeling of joy the first time Sean Connery says "Bond. James Bond." at the card table, I feel sorry for you.

This Bond film has a lot less stuff going in it than most, but for what it's worth, and what it has inspired, it's a classic.

People who can't tolerate and appreciate older cinema from the 60's might laugh at the action scenes, set and costume design of the movie, but if one considers the year in which this was made, it's all rather exquisite. The film is also full of things that would be considered politically incorrect, and the way Bond and Moneypenny flirt in the office would ensue mass sexual harassment lawsuits in this day and age.

The film has an underused villain in Dr. No. Joseph Wiseman sets the standard on how Bond villains, and the majority of how other movie villains, act. One of the things that I love about Bond films is that you will see things that you will never see in other movies. I mean where else but a Bond film would a half Chinese, half German man with metal hands and a compulsive paranoia about radiation, with metal hands live on an island with a "dragon-mobile"?

Dr. No is a definite good start to the Bond series. Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder may only be there for eye candy...but she's great eye candy. Sean Connery is Bond, and pure enjoyment while in this role. So if you are looking for a classic enjoyable movie, this is just what the doctor ordered.

"Dr. No" is not my favorite James Bond film. But I'm glad it succeeded, because it led to subsequent 007 films that were really very entertaining, especially "Goldfinger". Everything about "Dr. No": the story, the music, the special effects, the dialogue, even the acting is so ... tentative. The film lacks the self-confident flair and cinematic flamboyance that characterize later 007 films from the 1960s. That is not a criticism, given that "Dr. No" was the first Bond film, and was low-budget. No one knew how the film would be received.

Through the years Sean Connery is the only actor who has done justice to the James Bond character, in my opinion. Although his acting in "Dr. No" is probative at best, he still manages to convey an aura of intelligent charisma. And that charisma would become less restrained in later films.

The visuals in "Dr. No" are very dated. What seemed futuristic in 1962 seems stodgy now. All that engineering design, those clunky computers, and that modernistic interior decor, all included to wow viewers then, seem, half a century later, quaint, obsolete, even archaic. The film's story, about an evil genius out to scuttle the U.S. missile program and dominate the world, likewise seems dated. I must admit, however, that Joseph Wiseman, as the villain, is well cast, with his passive face and those eyes that seldom blink.

That the James Bond character and his adventures have survived all these years demonstrates the enduring appeal of cinematic heroes who, like superman, embody all that is good and strong, in their successful efforts to conquer evil. I just wish that contemporary 007 films had the cinematic credibility of those 1960's Bond films: "You Only Live Twice", "From Russia With Love", "Thunderball", and of course "Goldfinger", all of which owe their existence to the success of "Dr. No".

Commenting on DR NO is a little like being asked to review 'Genesis" or "The Gospel According to Matthew." It IS what it is! Connery WAS Bond from the instant he appeared on screen and remember Ian Fleming, his creator was still alive at this stage. (Fleming in fact saw the first three Bonds but died before the release of THUNDERBALL)

DR NO set the standards, albeit with a limited budget, for the entire series. Action, pretty girls, one-liners and impossibly cashed-up enemies. My own father was a confirmed Bond addict (having worked in army intelligence during WW2) and had been greatly looking forward to the release of this film. Cruelly, he died just a couple of weeks before its premiere in London in 1962. I made up for it however by seeing it four days running. At the time, just about as exciting as films got, it was an enormous box office smash and vindicated the studio's decision to sign Connery. Fleming in fact had wanted Roger Moore for the role, who was then riding high with THE SAINT worldwide and was unavailable for filming. Connery, who's only claim to fame at the time was as a part time male model and bit-part actor, his biggest role having been as a truckie in HELL DRIVERS three years earlier.

Of course DR NO is dated now - its 40 years old! and deserves to be looked at from that standpoint The action sequences were raw in parts, pretty good in others. Sure the car chase scenes in Jamaica with the laughable back-projections are a cackfest now but none of this matters. The sets were imaginative, the fights good stuff, Ursula Andress enough for any young man's wet dream and Wiseman as DR No himself probably the best villain of them all, despite his very limited screentime. Very imaginative sets for the time and pyrotechnics to please.

When it came to my home-town I took several days off college and watched it with fellow students. This was way better than Latin and calculus!

Yes, most of Dr. No is cheesier than an Afghani shepherd's lunch. But this is one of my favorite Bonds anyway. I like the music, the "underneath the mango tree" thing. Doing the intro with just the regular theme song is a nice contrast to all the following films. The introduction to Bond is without comparison in the series. It's perfect.

Maybe I'm simply enraptured by her tropical innocence combined with her encyclopedia reading, but Ursula Andress is not only my favorite Bond girl, but the ideal woman, except for maybe Viveca Lindfors in Stargate. I fully realize that that should make me an object of scorn or pity. But her lines about seeing a praying mantis, blah, blah, is so rewind-worthy. And the look on her face when Bond kills the guy in the river is so hilarious/alluring/acted that I can't help but love it.

Then of course they have to kill off Quarrel, the ultimate non-white sidekick since Tonto, who believed in the "dragon." But despite all that, it remains a great example of a human action film. Action is such a de-humanized genre now. Oh for the days of yore, when secret agents actually ran out of breath and had to do little things like place a hair on the closet door to see if anyone opened it. Now they'd just have a laser sensor that would kill any intruder. Sigh. And the spider, and especially the spider music.....