Well, in my best Leslie Phillips, hello chaps. Here we go.
Some of this might well be what I've said before but so be it.
It's 1962, Most of Fleming's work is out. This is the first serious attempt. You are a fan of his work, a fan of the books and go to the cinema, to anyone else it's another film based upon a book. There's nothing special really. Who's Sean Connery? Well a chap who's done the likes of Hell Drivers?
Yet here we are. The title sequence sets us up for what lies ahead. The Binder work, the locales...
Yet we also have the dubbing of the likes of Strangway.
The gunning down of Strangways and his sec' is brutal. Too brutal for a film of the early 60s? Maybe.
Here we get the aspect of the early films that I like, the cut to SIS' communication floor. The closest to IF's world, in this context, as we'll ever get.
Young has a certain touch and here we have it at the club. Here the 50s and 60s collide. The chap who goes to get Bond is right out of the late 50s.
It's down to ol' Sylvia to lay the line that everyone and their dog apes since.
I doubt he did, but to me this moment owes Connery everything after. What to him was probably another film, becomes this huge hit, beyond that it becomes a sensation. Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, Broz and Craig...
It spins arguments, debates, etc
The one problem is that musically the Bond theme gets knackered.
And there's dear Lois Maxwell. Just shy of being the voice of Atlanta Shore in Stingray. One of ITC's staple of actors. Fancy being in a spy film? Sure, just another gig surely?
It's hard ever not to picture Fleming's M as anyone but Lee. Again, as far as Lee's concerned, just another gig. No idea that he'd be doing this role for the next 17 years. The likes of say Dunkirk have come before.
There's dear Peter Burton who we'll never see again as the Quartermaster but did all sorts of TV and film.
Got to love M chiding Bond over the beretta etc.
"The American CIA swear by them"
And why should we? But the times are a 'changin'
For a secret agent, the fact a woman can get into his flat so easily is a touch concerning.
The first two films had an unique touch, that is a chap letting someone know they're 707 landed.
The Bond theme feels a bit much here. Later we associate it with acts of derring do, not as Bond meets a 'chaffeur'
Got to love Connery's expression after hanging up.
Jack Lord is Leiter, a shame he never did at least one more.
I always like the chap in Jamaica. Plus the copper, even dubbed.
Dr No must've been unique to cinemagoers, the locales. Majority of films at the time rarely did overseas filming. If they did, it can't have been to the level that happens here.
Bond both on form but not (even after getting the gun on Pussfeller and Quarrel, Leiter gets his gun in)
"You Limeys..."
I 'depicted' Lord's Leiter with Lazenby's Bond in DAF. Tempting to imagine I think.
"Want me to break her arm?
-Another time."
What a bitcheroonido
Anthony Dawson being one of the core of chaps who did all sorts of films at the time.
I wonder what Fleming made of the Jamaicans in the film. I think of Gonzalez in FYEO for example.
Great sets really.
It also has that Young touch of the receptionist looking lovingly after Bond that was last seen in OHMSS.
Personally, the spider scene has extra umph by the fact that Connery couldn't stand spiders. Plus the fact Barry times the music to the thwacks.
It's a nice touch, he says, that Bond staggers into the toilet to throw up.
Like how Bond discreetly checks out Taro when she comes into the office.
Dr No has that feel of a 50s film in how they go about things. Overseas filming or not, there's no thrills, there's certain actors involved. The budget was surely most than any other film of the time (bar Lawrence of Arabia) but Dr No is refined.
Aye, aye, the car chase.
It works in the long shots but sadly, the back screen...well, come on, the pursuing car is several times larger...
"I think they were on their way to a funeral."
Taro's capture is all the better for the very British chap.
Dent's goodbye works too for the close up on Bond as he works the gun and the "you've had your six"
As we go to Crab Key, we cross into a different world.
Here perhaps the Bond everyone and their dog knows starts. Connery's reply to Ryder and what follows.
Yet sad to think Andress is one of the only ones, if not the only one, left.
If I recall from Andrew Lycett's book, Fleming and co were one day casually walking up the beach and were shouted at by Young as they were ruining a shot.
The Jamaican here reminds me of Fleming in FYEO, Gonzalez, the Americanised way folk were speaking.
Always like Bond's barely restrained annoyance about 'dragons'.
Personally the fetch my shoes line doesn't smack of racism. Bond is busy dragging Honey to where her boat is and takes off at a trot. Plus Quarrel hesitates looking after the bad guys. We could've got away without Bond needing his shoes but I hardly think it's the controversy many go after.
Got to like Bond's reaction after Honey mentions the black widow.
"Thish time I want to see it!"
"A dragon that runs on diesel engines"
Bond's little smile after he knocks out a light
Poor Quarrel.
We now enter the Thunderbirdseque sets, the genius of Ken Adam. It's funny that according to Essential Bond folk got all whatever over Andress being 'naked' but you clearly see the cladding.
There seems to be an instant understanding between No and Bond. The dining scene is great.
Britain can still pull its punches.
Poor Honey can't twig what Bond is trying to do.
Aha, SPECTRE.
You know before it was what it became lately.
Got to love, too, that No thought he could get Bond into his organisation.
So it all goes pear shaped inside the last ten minutes.
Not for the last time the Marines show up.
And so that's the first Bond. Hard to believe twenty odd films, half a dozen actors and the rest follows.
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