From Russia With Love: Your 3 Favourite Scenes

1. Gypsy Camp
The entire sequence could possibly be my favourite sequence in the series. It encapsulates so much that I love about Bond: culture, sex, danger, colour, great music. Leila dancing, the cat fight and the shootout are all well choreographed and always a pleasure to watch.

2. Krilencu's assassination
It's great to see Bond help out a pal and it's great to see it so well done. The curious escape hatch for Krilencu is fantastic and slightly absurd, and Bond's quip: "She should have kept her mouth shut" is one of my favourite lines.

3. Bond vs Grant
Not just the awesome fight, but even the bit before where Bond learns about SPECTRE's involvement. Such a brilliantly written scene and perfectly performed by Connery and Shaw - especially seeing a bit of vulnerability from the former.

1. Gypsy Camp
2. Bond vs. Grant (or the whole train sequence for that matter; Bond and Grant first meeting is suspensful)

1. Bond vs. Grant
This might be cheating but I think it's worth saying all the scenes between these two are great and deserve my top spot. Both actors do a tremendous job here especially Connery's slight nervousness in his voice when Grant has Bond on his knees and Bond asks says he'll pay for the cigarettes. The fight has been written about so much I don't think I need to add to why it was so great.

2. The Krilencu Assassination
For the same reasons FieldsMan said.

3. Bond Dodging the Helicopter
Yeah, it might be a rip-off of North by Northwest to some but it's still a thrilling scene. It was fairly difficult to pick this over The Gypsy Camp battle, Bond taking the Lektor (Russian clocks are always correct) or Bond taking care of Spectre's fleet with some oil and a flare gun but ultimately I like the concept of the scene the most.

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

1. Gypsy Camp
The entire sequence could possibly be my favourite sequence in the series. It encapsulates so much that I love about Bond: culture, sex, danger, colour, great music. Leila dancing, the cat fight and the shootout are all well choreographed and always a pleasure to watch.

2. Krilencu's assassination
It's great to see Bond help out a pal and it's great to see it so well done. The curious escape hatch for Krilencu is fantastic and slightly absurd, and Bond's quip: "She should have kept her mouth shut" is one of my favourite lines.

3. Bond vs Grant
Not just the awesome fight, but even the bit before where Bond learns about SPECTRE's involvement. Such a brilliantly written scene and perfectly performed by Connery and Shaw - especially seeing a bit of vulnerability from the former.

I want to add Bond meeting Tanya in this but not sure what to switch out. Or perhaps even Tanya's meeting with Klebb. Gypsy Camp will probably always be my favourite sequence in any Bond film, but the other two are so damn good. As I've said elsewhere, a perfect movie this is.

Nice choices Fields, looks like I've not mixed it with some of these threads.

*thinks*

1. Bond and Grant
I'd include here, in the dining car. The look Bond gives Grant as he eats, I'm sure of course Bond noticed Grant slipping a mickey into the drink. It's a subtle performance as it's Fleming Bond. Nothing too flash. Then the fight. Connery seemed to have moments where he can get into a proper, desperate scrape in a confined space (vs Franks.)

2. Gypsy Camp
I'd go for this as well. For reasons Fields list but a particular moment I always like, the 007 Theme is going hell for leather, and Kerim Bey overturns the table to bash away with his gun.

go different and say 3) 007 Takes the Lektor

the music, the casualness of Connery's Bond in doing his job.

honourable mentions to Fields' no.2 choice, Kerim Bey and his missus and the PTS. When I was little and saw this I was agog. They killed Bond! No, says Dad, of course he's not dead.

I'll be watching FRWL this weekend, and I'll do so with this thread in mind.

I look forward to it, PK.

Hilly wrote:

Nice choices Fields, looks like I've not mixed it with some of these threads.

*thinks*

1. Bond and Grant
I'd include here, in the dining car. The look Bond gives Grant as he eats, I'm sure of course Bond noticed Grant slipping a mickey into the drink. It's a subtle performance as it's Fleming Bond. Nothing too flash. Then the fight. Connery seemed to have moments where he can get into a proper, desperate scrape in a confined space (vs Franks.)

2. Gypsy Camp
I'd go for this as well. For reasons Fields list but a particular moment I always like, the 007 Theme is going hell for leather, and Kerim Bey overturns the table to bash away with his gun.

go different and say 3) 007 Takes the Lektor

the music, the casualness of Connery's Bond in doing his job.

honourable mentions to Fields' no.2 choice, Kerim Bey and his missus and the PTS. When I was little and saw this I was agog. They killed Bond! No, says Dad, of course he's not dead.

Ha! And for it to take 20 odd minutes before seeing Bond back in action, as it were.

Good choices. I bolded what I thought really captured what makes Bond, Bond. I enjoy watching Connery observe Nash with a great degree of contempt and disgust during dinner. Red wine with fish was just the cherry on top.

I wonder what Fleming made of FRWL. He lived to see it of course. By then I think he had come round to the idea of Connery being Bond, image-wise at least.

To be honest if I was Bond, my gander would have been up from the off. 'Nash' was far too chipper. Or maybe Nash was that chipper, poor swine.

1. "Overjoyed!" "Back to the salt mines..."

2. Kronsteen gets SPECTRE's message during the chess match.

3. The infamous fight with Krasno Granitskii.

Good picks there, PK. The bird badgering Bey for a bonk was always a favourite of mine.

Similarly Kronsteen getting the call out from SPECTRE was also a great little scene. The way he wipes his mouth with the napkin. It's the little moments you remember.

"bird badgering Bey for a bonk"

Bonzer.

And notice the way Kronsteen resolutely brushes aside those who wish to shake his hand after he's disposed of McAdams. Kronsteen was the Jascha Heifetz of chess.

A world where all the female characters (bar the Klebbs and Bunts) were really something to admire. Creates Bond's world as that fantasy. I love the way she pats down her dress before taking a step toward Kerim.

The chess game... What an efficient way to establish Kronsteen as an elite planner, the navigator of the complex maze of espionage, and further, the web that Bond would seen be drawn into. Foreshadows so much so cleanly. Chess and Cold War espionage really do go hand in hand, don't they?

Sound choices, PK.

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

I love the way she pats down her dress before taking a step toward Kerim.

Yes! Nice little touch (literally).

Such an elegant, well-made film.

Why do they even bother making Bond movies in this vomitous, ugly age of ours?

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

A world where all the female characters (bar the Klebbs and Bunts) were really something to admire. Creates Bond's world as that fantasy. I love the way she pats down her dress before taking a step toward Kerim.

The chess game... What an efficient way to establish Kronsteen as an elite planner, the navigator of the complex maze of espionage, and further, the web that Bond would seen be drawn into. Foreshadows so much so cleanly. Chess and Cold War espionage really do go hand in hand, don't they?

Sound choices, PK.

Those are good points about the game of chess. We tend to think of chess as an area in which cold, clinical, rational, linear genius flourishes. The fact Kronsteen is a Grand Master heightens his intellectual puissance in the mind of the viewer and lends added deadliness to his plan. And, of course, given that Russians so long dominated the chess world, there is a pronounced Cold War tie-in. I can only think the NATO countries saw Bobby Fischer as something of a weapon against the Rooskies.

CJB wrote:

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

I love the way she pats down her dress before taking a step toward Kerim.

Yes! Nice little touch (literally).

Such an elegant, well-made film.

Why do they even bother making Bond movies in this vomitous, ugly age of ours?

I think of Bond films--yes, even SP--as an antidote to the aesthetic sump in which we are enmired. Above all, Bond films should be about beauty in all its manifestations. And that is why incursions of ugliness such as the songs "Die Another Day" and "Another Way to Die" are so incredibly vexing. They are hideous and jangle against the beauty we rightly expect from Bond films. There was no ugliness--except where it belonged, with SPECTRE--in FRWL.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

A world where all the female characters (bar the Klebbs and Bunts) were really something to admire. Creates Bond's world as that fantasy. I love the way she pats down her dress before taking a step toward Kerim.

The chess game... What an efficient way to establish Kronsteen as an elite planner, the navigator of the complex maze of espionage, and further, the web that Bond would seen be drawn into. Foreshadows so much so cleanly. Chess and Cold War espionage really do go hand in hand, don't they?

Sound choices, PK.

Those are good points about the game of chess. We tend to think of chess as an area in which cold, clinical, rational, linear genius flourishes. The fact Kronsteen is a Grand Master heightens his intellectual puissance in the mind of the viewer and lends added deadliness to his plan. And, of course, given that Russians so long dominated the chess world, there is a pronounced Cold War tie-in. I can only think the NATO countries saw Bobby Fischer as something of a weapon against the Rooskies.

Absolutely. Pawn Sacrifice, an enjoyable if flawed film about Bobby Fischer, certainly demonstrated that he was America's answer to the Russians dominating the chess scene. I feel it's the ultimate visual metaphor for the game of espionage.

The series has done well establishing villains, especially in the 60s:

• Dr. No's file, then his silhouette and hands.
  
• Blofeld unseen.
  
• Kronsteen winning chess.
  
• Oddjob's silhouette with the accompanying musical cue.
  
• Fiona as the seductress.
  
• Koskov's defection
  
• Alec as Bond's equal.
  
• Carver digitally briefing his global empire
  
• Silva's entrance
  

Perilagu Khan wrote:

CJB wrote:

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

I love the way she pats down her dress before taking a step toward Kerim.

Yes! Nice little touch (literally).

Such an elegant, well-made film.

Why do they even bother making Bond movies in this vomitous, ugly age of ours?

I think of Bond films--yes, even SP--as an antidote to the aesthetic sump in which we are enmired. Above all, Bond films should be about beauty in all its manifestations. And that is why incursions of ugliness such as the songs "Die Another Day" and "Another Way to Die" are so incredibly vexing. They are hideous and jangle against the beauty we rightly expect from Bond films. There was no ugliness--except where it belonged, with SPECTRE--in FRWL.

Plays on the recurring theme of good vs evil. The beautiful and charismatic are more often than not the former, and the ugly the latter. Of course there are exceptions - Vesper, Elektra, Fiona - but it's equal parts a refreshing and nostalgic an idea in a world where the notion of Western guilt deprives one of seeing sense.

Gave Risico a reread last night and what is striking is how Bond feels uneasy about Kristatos and how he's drawn to Columbo at the dinner scene, and his instincts are dead on. Always quite interesting in how Fleming captures that - Kristatos' dialogue is butchered to showcase the heavy accent whereas Columbo's dialogue is articulate and seamless.

From russia with love was of course Connerys favourite Bond movie not just to make but also content wise. Although we had the briefcase it wasn't until the next film Goldfinger that the franchise became gadget heavy so Connery felt FRWL was the series quintesential espionage thriller without the need for any bells and whistles.

1. Bond and Grant train fight...Both Connery and Shaw really went for it here, one of the better punch ups in the series, the confined space adding to the peril, seen again in DAF between Bond and Franks

2. Sophia mosque... atmospheric and stealthy with a fitting score from John barry, always enjoyed this scene short as it is

3. Gypsy camp... The films best action scene, beautifully choreographed and the payoff of course Bond gets laid ....twice!

It's a close adaptation of the novel, if memory serves (although one can understand small changes like Bond killing Grant with his own strangulation device instead of stabbing him in the femoral artery and him 'bleeding out' all over the train cabin).

silverjoe wrote:

the payoff of course Bond gets laid ....twice!

Does he get laid twice or does it happen at the same time?

[quote="Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang"]

silverjoe wrote:

the payoff of course Bond gets laid ....twice!

Does he get laid twice or does it happen at the same time?


Ooooh, now there's a thought to conjure with

Honestly, I always thought it was a threesome.