Dr. No vs. Thunderball. Which is better?

I find these two comparable for some reason, but hard to say why.  Perhaps the Caribbean locations is part of it, but I also find both to have similar Bond girls as well in Domino and Honey.

But also feel like routine entries in the series, or just more vanilla for me.  It's weird saying that the first one feels routine, since it's the first but it kind of does, compared to say FRWL or GF, if that makes sense?

Which do you think is better and why?

Both are interchangeable in my list also, however I regard them more highly. They sit in and around my top 5-10.

No contest. It's DR. NO. It really helps not being so utterly bloated. Also the best performance by Connery.

Also, just added a poll to this one.

Have to say I deliberately gave TB and DN a rewatch on account of this thread and I had a better time with DN this time round. Tighter film overall. I love Thunderball, particularly the dialogue, Fiona and Barry's score, but I think there's a cracking pace and greater economy with DN. And as MP mentions, Connery gives his best performance too - I've long maintained that the best 007 performance in the series is found in the first film.

I think DN is about as pure a Bond film we'll ever get.

A week ago i would have put TB ahead of DN by a mile but after watching DN again just a few days ago that opinion has changed dramatically. Both films are amongst my favourites but i feel (like many) that the underwater sequences in TB really are often too long and despite being action scenes they really slow the film down, DN however has great pace and i love the "parred down" feel, sure we all love the gadgets but i found DN a welcome break from all that.

The underwater scenes in TB I'm intrigued by. I do think the underwater showdown is particularly inventive and nowadays I quite the mechanics of Largo's scheme unfolding.

But, as you say, DN whips by at a cracking pace. Bond unravelling the mystery that has manifested in Jamaica is particularly riveting - more so than, say, a record breaking explosion that we're treated with in SP - and Bond's focus is so perfectly pitched in the writing, directing and acting. Connery gives the best James Bond performance in the series.

Agreed on all points but i always clench my buttocks when our hero is questioning Leiter and Quarel in pussfellows bar, i half expect Leiter to give him a slap

I think the best underwater stuff has nothing to do with the battles. It's the more quiet moments like Bond watching Domino swimming before she's caught. Dodging sharks in Largo's pool. Evading grenades. The battle is ambitious, but I feel Bond gets kind of lost in the shuffle with so much footage dedicated to other scuba, cutting to sea animals. I do wish we had the ending of the climax as it was in the book, rather than on the yacht with the bad bluescreen effect. It's the one thing NSNA does kind of right, even if I still think it could have been done better like in the book where Bond is just worn out by the end.

Good point about the quieter underwater scenes. Hadn't given it much thought but I'd probably agree that the quieter moments are more inviting. I love the shot of Bond and Domino sinking behind the rock and the burst of bubbles. But the best would be his first meeting with Domino.

silvertoe wrote:

Agreed on all points but i always clench my buttocks when our hero is questioning Leiter and Quarel in pussfellows bar, i half expect Leiter to give him a slap

Why's that?

Connery is really hamming it up here and Bonds manner is so obnoxious, it just makes my teeth itch.

I understand that, because Connery Bond is usually more collected and calm, so to see him come off as irritable and impatient seems out of character, especially in light with the rest of his run.

I think that small moment is just a carryover from Fleming Bond, who was typically written to be a more prickly character, unlike the more unflappable cinematic Bond. I think of moments like in CR when Mathis informs Bond that he'll be assisted by a pretty woman and Bond gets very cranky about it, to the amusement of Mathis. It's not the kind of reaction you expect from the cinematic Bond as established in the 60s.

Makeshift Python wrote:

I think that small moment is just a carryover from Fleming Bond, who was typically written to be a more prickly character, unlike the more unflappable cinematic Bond.

This.

These kind of moments help cement Connery's DN performance as the best in the series. Much like his scene with the Photographer, Quarrel and Leiter at Pussfella's and his biting "suitable for what?" to one of the Sisters at Crab Key.

The other moments are fine and fit well with Connery's overall portrayal, but I agree silvertoe that the bit with him looking like he's losing his cool at the night club feels out of place, specifically when he says this line:

"Look, you were talking about Crab Key. What's so special about it? Why can't we go over there?"

Less commanding and more cranky. Not how I picture Connery Bond in the rest of the film.

Well after watching Dr. No again, although I feel that Domino is a more lighter, flatter version of Honey Rider, she is given more to work with in the story plot wise, where as Honey Rider, you could cut her out and it wouldn't matter to the plot, so maybe that is a strength of TB over DN?

You could say that. I think the Honey of the novel is a lot better. One bit I liked was that she actually freed herself as part of showing how self reliant she was and that she could handle herself. It was also fun because she's attacking Bond in the dark initially thinking he was one of Dr. No's goons.

The novel Honey always chimes that quote by Noel Coward to Fleming: "A boy's bottom? What were you thinking?"

She had 'teeth' in the novel, Andress captures some of it but Honeychile was it.

Makeshift Python wrote:

The other moments are fine and fit well with Connery's overall portrayal, but I agree silvertoe that the bit with him looking like he's losing his cool at the night club feels out of place, specifically when he says this line:

"Look, you were talking about Crab Key. What's so special about it? Why can't we go over there?"

Less commanding and more cranky. Not how I picture Connery Bond in the rest of the film.

For some reason I thought silvertoe was referring to the scene where Bond first meets Leiter.

Regardless, his snappy 'suitable for what', grabbing Taro by the scruff and asking "explains what", etc. is consistent with the delivery of the above Crab Key line.

Well when it comes to comparing which movie was better, was Dr. No a more controversial movie for it's time than Thunderball? Dr. No shows Bond in a more sexually moral questionable behavior perhaps, and it shows his coldest kill out of the whole series possibly.

So was it more of a controversial for it's time, where as Thunderball, may have been considered a more safe movie?

DN certainly had to be more controversial in 1962. By 1965, a movie like TB wasn't as shocking because people would have already been accustomed to what's expected of Bond. I don't think a Bond film would come off as controversial again until LTK upped the violence and darker tone.

Oh okay, but if Thunderball was the first Bond movie in 1962 instead, would that have been just as controversial as Dr. No?

Broadly speaking, heroes didn't have casual sex or kill in cold blood pre-Bond. Dr No certainly caused ripples in its day.

Oh okay. But would TB have caused less of a ripple if it was the first Bond movie, since Bond doesn't have any cold blood kills in that one, unless the Colonol in the opening was just as cold of a kill?

ironpony wrote:

Oh okay.  But would TB have caused less of a ripple if it was the first Bond movie, since Bond doesn't have any cold blood kills in that one, unless the Colonol in the opening was just as cold of a kill?

You might say the killing of Vargas was cold bloodied, the sexually deprived teatotaller was only walking in Bonds direction on the beach

But Vargas was coming up behind Bond while screwing a silencer to a pistol, so wasn't bonds killing more in self-defense then?

ironpony wrote:

But Vargas was coming up behind Bond while screwing a silencer to a pistol, so wasn't bonds killing more in self-defense then?

Not sure that would hold up in court, the question here is because you think somebody might possibly be thinking of shooting you do you have the legal right to shoot him/her first without question?
secondly Bond spins round harpoon in hand and shoots Vargas without the time to judge whether Vargas posed a danger, it was just "Vargas is behind you" and not "Vargas is pointing a gun at you"