Tatiana an underrated Bond girl?

Gave FRWL a watch today and found a new appreciation for Tania. Now she's always been a favourite of mine but thinking about her coming straight off the back of the iconic Honey Ryder (not literally, but what a vision that is!) I find her to be a huge improvement in character. With so much intrigue and depth, she's integral to the plot like only few other Bond girls are (Natalya, Elektra, Tracy...)

And Bianchi's performance is actually very good, especially given her background as a model and Miss Universe. Further, the dubbing work is a huge improvement over that of Honey's in Dr. No.

She's the very definition of 'Bond girl' in my eyes. Anyone else feel she might be overlooked because she's bookended by Honey and Pussy?

She's definitely overlooked in some respects as she's one of the least exotic female leads because she's a more grounded character, but she's perfect as she is for FRWL. If I can apply one criticism, it's that we don't get as much depth from her as in the novel, but that's more of a niggle.

Grounded but certainly no less exotic. The likes of Honey and Pussy are pure fantasy but there's more enigma to Tanya than British Pussy. Russian is about as exotic a Caucasian can get, even today!

Interesting to note that Bianchi had long blonde hair in her audition that she cut, not thinking Young would mind. He did, apparently. Suppose he intended to replicate the visual success of Honey in his second Bond film.

MP wrote:

If I can apply one criticism, it's that we don't get as much depth from her as in the novel, but that's more of a niggle.

Always the case with cinematic adaptations.

Python beta me to the punch. I like the film Tanya and she's absolutely stunning...but then you read the book and just get wrapped up in the poor girl's story so vividly that the film version really loses out.