James Bond 007 contre Dr. No

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.

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.....

Dr. No is a 1962 film directed by Terence Young and based off of Ian Fleming's novel of the same name. It is the first film to feature James Bond, the world's most famous secret agent. This alone has earned it a spot in history as the start of one of the longest running and most significant film franchises ever made. At the time of my writing this, there are 25 films spanning 58 years, with a 26th to be released in three months. For this reason, Dr. No will always hold a special place in the hearts of many fans, from many generations. As a latecomer to the series, I do not share this nostalgia, but the film still holds up very well. Watching it today, one of the most notable things about Dr. No is the overabundance of tropes. It checks every box you would come to expect from a James Bond film, and come to resent from their many copycats. Nonetheless, it is a film that is absolutely oozing with style. Sean Connery pulls of the lead roll with seemingly effortless sophistication and charisma, and I would give him a large part of the credit for this film's success, and by extension the success of the franchise. The story that Dr. No tells is simple and straightforward, but I generally feel that this works in its favor. We are thrown right into the action, and we are shown with great efficiency and effectiveness exactly the type of character that Bond is. This is not a film that wastes your time. The first 80 minutes of Dr. No are everything you want from a Bond film, but near the end I sadly feel that it falters somewhat. Though it still far from terrible and retains every ounce of the style that makes this film so great, the storytelling in the final act is simply not as good. I do feel that a lot of this may be due to it not necessarily aging the best. Dr. No is an incredibly clichéd villain, and although it should certainly be noted that this film is largely responsible for most of the tropes it presents, it can still feel somewhat tiresome. Dr. No is a ridiculously overdramatic villain, and between his private island and his robotic hands he fits the mold for a 'Bond villain' perfectly. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when it comes to the final act a villain that is supposed to be very menacing and incredibly intelligent ends up coming across as incompetent. This leads to an ending that feels quite abrupt, and even a little anticlimactic. The Bond franchise is also notorious for its 'Bond girls,' female leads who are usually throwaway characters, included entirely for sex appeal. Dr. No is no exception. The character of Honey Ryder in this film has no real bearing on the story, and everything could have played out in exactly the same way without her inclusion. Bond always has, and always will be a womanizer, a character trait with which I have no problem, but this often comes at the expense of the female leads. For this reason, I am glad that, while certainly very present, these aspects of Bond's character are less extreme than they are in some of the later films. Honey Ryder is an unfortunately irrelevant character, but she is also a very small one. The film doesn't spend too much time on these parts of the story. Dr. No is not the best Bond film, but it is the first, and for that it deserves recognition. It does an excellent job of establishing Bond's character, and it is gripping from start to finish. If you want to watch a Bond movie, then Dr. No will give you everything you expect to see, and very little else. It is far from a masterpiece, but it established all of the tropes you expect to see from a Bond film, good and bad, and that at the very least is laudable.

This movie was pretty good. It started off a little slow but picked up towards the end. The ending seemed just a tad rushed but all the loose ends were tied up.

Maybe my favorite Bond girl to date. She was stunning and so natural.

I wish they could have fleshed out Dr No a little more. They didn't say much about him. He seemed like a pretty cool villain.

Sean Connery again is easily my favorite Bond. He was a natural for this role.

Bond. James Bond. One of the most well-known cinematic icons of all time, Agent 007 has lit up the silver screen and wowed audiences for over 50 years, and this franchise shows no signs of slowing down. The character first appeared in author Ian Fleming's 1953 novel "Casino Royale," but he's best known for the long-lived film franchise by Eon Productions. James Bond has since been ingrained as a major component of popular culture, redefining the film industry upon the release of the early films. Audiences hadn't seen anything like it at the time, and they couldn't get enough of it. Bond has since blown up on a global scale, and it all ties back to this first film, "Dr. No."

Despite being the first film in the series, "Dr. No" is actually based on Fleming's sixth novel in the series. As the inaugural Bond film, director Terence Young had a blank slate to work with. The clichés and archetypes that are instantly connected with the franchise today had not yet been established. Fleming wanted David Niven to play Bond, but the studio ultimately went with Sean Connery, who played a major role in defining what the popular view of Bond would become. He simply exudes confidence through his voice, appearance, and attitude. From that genre- defining first moment where we're introduced to Bond, he instantly slips right into the character. It's no wonder people often cite Connery as the definitive Bond, because his performance laid a lot of that groundwork for future incarnations. He's easily one of the best aspects of the film.

The film sends agent 007 on a mission to Jamaica to investigate the disappearance of a fellow MI6 agent, Strangways. While there, he teams up with CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jack Lord), a native fisherman named Quarrel (John Kitzmiller), and eventually, a woman named Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress) to investigate the goings-on at a mysterious island called Crab Key, owned by the sinister Dr. No, played with an eerie calmness by Joseph Wiseman. The plot itself is relatively standard Bond fare by now, but Dr. No makes for a satisfying villain, his plan is suitably evil ("World domination. Same old dream"), and his affiliation with the criminal organization SPECTRE leads to their recurring involvement in subsequent installments.

"Dr. No" has a unique, naive quality about it. There's no tongue-in-cheek self-awareness here, this is the first glimpse that audiences had to all the different tropes that would develop in the series, and they're done supremely well. I've already gushed enough about how perfect Connery is as Bond, but his supporting cast is also suitably talented. Ursula Andress sets the bar high for all subsequent "Bond girls" that would follow suit, and to this day, she's still one of the best. The production design by Ken Adam, while not yet achieving the grandeur of later films, is still brilliant, establishing the iconic island lair that has since become a staple of the series. Dr. No himself, while underused, is a suitably formidable foe, and Joseph Wiseman makes the most of his limited screen time.

The film is incredibly dated, and in many respects, it doesn't hold up well. However, I don't necessarily fault the film for that. It's definitely a product of its time, and if looked at through the proper context, it functions as a brilliant time capsule film, giving audiences a unique look into the cultural and geopolitical beliefs of the time. I would have loved to see audience reactions to this movie back when it first came out. It's a really revolutionary film, and at the very least, it's worth checking out if only to see where it all started.