Dr. No

Dr. No
So this is where it all began, one of the longest-running franchises in Hollywood history, the introduction to one of cinema's greatest heroes and the progenitor of the modern action film.

Our first James Bond adventure takes us to the Caribbean.  A British agent John Strangways disappears in Jamaica and James Bond (Sean Connery) is sent to investigate.  Almost immediately, he is targeted for assassination.  The attempts on his life grow more frequent as he closes in on Strangways' killers, signaling that the murdered agent was on to something really big and potentially explosive.  But what does all of this have to do with the mysterious scientist with metal hands named Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman).

I will be honest, it can be a bit difficult to review Dr. No objectively.  After all, this is where the formula originated: the smug and charming know-it-all agent, the women, the fanciful villains...it's a classic!

But is it really?

Well, it must be.  Everyone says so.  But again, is it really?

Look, make no mistake.  Dr. No is a fine film.  I really enjoyed it.  And it is a fascinating piece of cinematic history, but it is hardly a classic piece of filmmaking.  Let's start with director Terence Young, who deserves a lot of credit for making the franchise what it is and for helping mold Connery into what the character could be, but this is hardly visionary directing.  His pacing seems sluggish at times, the fights are rather silly, the dubbing is poorly done, the climax is anti-climactic, and the camera remains detached, contributing nothing to the escalating tension we are supposed to be feeling.  I actually never actually felt Bond was in any danger throughout the entire film except for his encounter with the spider and when he meets Dr. No himself, and that has more to do with the fact that I don't like spiders and because Joseph Wiseman's performance is so deliciously malevolent.

At first, I just figured that it was a different time, with a different standard of filmmaking and I should cut the film some slack.  But then I realized that this reasoning was a bit ridiculous.  Dr. No is lacking even when you compare it to other films made in the 1950s and 1960s.  Look no further than North by Northwest (1959) or To Catch a Thief (1955), both inspirations for the Bond series and both infinitely better.

I was also admittedly uncomfortable with the way Bond treats his black colleague Quarrel, a character whose introduction is badass but who then quickly devolves into a Caribbean stereotype. Bond just bosses him around with colonialist superiority that I could not help but feel a bit offended.

But what I can say is there must have been a learning curve - for the director, the writers, the producers, the composers...really, for the whole darn production team.  And they learned quickly because they came together and made one of the very best films of the series when they produced the sequel From Russia With Love. But they are fumbling a bit in this first film.

Okay, I know this all sounds bad, so now it is time to backpedal a bit.  Remember I said I liked the film?  I actually really do.  I like the fact that it is mostly an investigation, with Bond interviewing Stangways' friends and doing actual spy stuff, instead of bursting into rooms with guns a'blazing.  I love how ruthless and cutthroat the character was in the early 1960s.  They softened him a bit as the franchise continued, but this movie features Bond murdering unarmed men and also having a female enemy spy arrested only after he sleeps with her.  These are reminders that Bond is not a role model. And he's not supposed to be.  But these actions do make him an infinitely more interesting character.

I feel like this review would not be complete unless I mentioned the Bond girl and the villain!  For the Bond girl, you have Honey Ryder, played by the volcanic Ursula Andress.  Most people consider her one of the best, probably because of the iconic moment when she steps out of the ocean in her bikini with a knife strapped to her waist (no better way to capture the franchise's obsession with sex and violence in the same image!).  Andress is fine in the role, but after that first scene she doesn't really have much to do.  So I wonder if the reputation is based less on the character and more on that entrance and the fact that Andress is so explosively attractive.

For the villain, I gotta say I am a fan of Wiseman's Dr. No.  He is cruel and calculating and so unemotional, it is downright eerie.  He also begins the two Bond traditions of having a strange physical attribute (metal hands) and monologuing about what his master plan is.  Though I give credit to Dr. No for actually giving the villain a good reason to monologue - he is trying to recruit Bond to join the ranks of his organization, SPECTRE.  While the final fight between No and Bond is a let-down, it is still a memorable performance and a very cool villain.

So there you go.  I know I spent a lot of this review complaining about Dr. No, but I want to make it clear - this is a solid movie.  I enjoyed it and it is intriguing to watch how everything got started.  And it is very clear from the beginning that there is something cinematically magical about Bond - and especially about Connery playing Bond.  It is no wonder the film was a success.  But let's be careful about calling it a classic.  Because it most definitely is not.

RANKINGS:

So I will be ranking all the Bond films as I watch them. Obviously, there is only one film so far, so we might as well let Dr. No enjoy its brief time in the sun before From Russia With Love comes a'calling.

MVP:
"Bond.  James Bond."

And with that short phrase, two stars were born - James Bond and the legendary actor who played him, Sean Connery.  Connery just owns this role.  Even if he had only made one film, he still would have an easy claim to being the best Bond ever.  Other Bonds generally excelled at one or two of the character traits that are essential to character.  Roger Moore handled the one liners quite well.  He was charming, suave with the ladies, and adept at handling Bond's ambivalence (or pretended ambivalence) to danger.  But I never really believed him in a fight.  Timothy Dalton brought danger to the role, but was completely unbelievable when flirting, Brosnan could handle himself equally in an action set piece and in the bedroom, but the over-the-top antics they put him through kept him from ever being truly believable, George Lazenby...well, let's just skip George Lazenby, and Daniel Craig, who is my second favorite Bond behind Connery, has completely inhabited the role of a brawler who has turned himself into a sophisticated man of the world, but he has yet to show me the nonchalance and the charm that is so essential to the character.  It all goes back to Connery.  He did it all.  He inhabited it all.  Without Connery, Dr. No would have been well received by audiences, it may have even warranted a sequel, but it would be remembered now by only spy film enthusiasts and Ian Fleming fans.  Connery made Bond a legend.  He's the MVP!


BEST LINE:

This is a tie between one of my favorite Bond pickup lines and when Bond ruthlessly kills one of his enemies.  First, the pickup line, spoken just after Honey Ryder comes to shore from the beach.

Honey Ryder: Are you looking for shells?

Bond (clearly ogling her): No, I'm just looking.

And then the great line when Bond kills an enemy whose gun has run out of bullets:

Bond: That's a Smith and Wesson, and you've had your six. (boom)

TRIVIA:
The hunt for Bond was an arduous one.  Connery came late in the search. As fans of North by Northwest, Broccoli and Saltzman first asked Cary Grant, who would only agree to one picture and who also expressed a concern that he was a bit too old for the part (he was in his mid-50s at that point in his career).  Broccoli and Saltzman then asked North by Northwest's villain, James Mason, who also would not agree to a multi-picture deal.  Several actors were thrown into the discussions, such Steve Reeves (Hercules), Roger Moore (who would go on to play Bond in later films), and Stanley Baker (Zulu).  But they liked Connery.  He was manly, a former body builder, but still moved gracefully "like a cat."  Ironically, Fleming did not like the casting at first, but was so taken with Connery's performance that he began to write with him in mind in the later stories.