From Russia With Love
Right off the bat (with a bizarre opening sequence showing a Bond clone being killed in a training exercise), the viewer can see the improvements over the stylistically weak Dr. No: The villains (including the first appearance of Ernst Stavro Blofeld) are introduced early, and are good; the budget, locations, and production value are of better quality; and Sean Connery himself becomes fully ingrained as Bond in the viewerâs mind, succeeding in making the character more sleek, dangerous, and charming than before. The plot involves Bond being sent by M to answer an apparent booty call, a female Russian defector who promises an important piece of spy equipment if Bond would only screw her day and night. But in truth, itâs all a set-up by SPECTRE (a more sophisticated version of Al-Queda, complete with training camp, with Blofeld as its proverbial Bin Laden figure) to pit the East against the West and make them destroy each other, so that they may move in and pick off the remaining scraps of the conflict and rule the world. To this end, Blofeld employs some quality henchmen: Rosa Klebb, a battle-axe Russian defector with lesbian overtones (daring for 1963) and played by Lotte Lenya, and her recruit, Donald âRedâ Grant, a convicted murderer who escaped from prison before being recruited and indoctrinated to put his murderous skills to good use. As played by Robert (Quint From Jaws) Shaw, he certainly has more menacing presence than most later henchmen in the series, shadowing Bond throughout the mission like a guardian angel, before making his presence felt when Bond has the device on board the Orient Express, although, one has to wonder if itâs a requirement of these operatives to explain exactly HOW theyâre going to kill Bond as well as the entire details of the master plan before actually doing anything to disable Bond (which allows 007 a chance to turn the tables), certainly an annoying clichĂ© that the series has a hard time shaking. In other roles, Pedro Armendariz essays the part of the Turkish sidekick assisting Bond, and while he seems a little too jovial at times, one has to realize that the actor was suffering horribly from terminal cancer at the time, and knew he would be dead less than a month after shooting his scenes (which he was), so props to him for maintaining a good humor onscreen; As the unknowing female Russian operative delivering the device to Bond, we get Italian beauty queen Daniela Bianchi who, while attractive, comes off as one of the worst written and acted Bond girls, especially with her naivetĂ© that she actually thinks that Bond will marry her when they get back (yeah right honey); as well we get Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell as M and Moneypenny along with the first appearance of series icon Desmond Llewelyn as Q. The film also suffers from a sagging pace at times (an issue with almost all Bond films) including a boring cat and mouse game in a Turkish mosque, along with an extended celebration in a Gypsy camp to which Bond is an invited guest, all of which could have been cut down to make the story more brisk. Regardless, the effort to make a better Bond movie than before is evident, and should not go unnoticed (and a certain segment of fans DO consider it the best) and it was also notable as being the last movie ever viewed by President John F. Kennedy (in a private White House Screening on November 20, 1963). Overall, proof positive that Bond was a work in progress, getting better as it went alongâŠ
7/10