We are continuing our reviews of all the Eon-produced Bond films...and up next is the second film in the series, From Russia With Love, which is universally considered one of the classics. The original film of the franchise, Dr. No, is also considered a classic, but I found it to have a few considerable flaws that keep it solidly in good, but not great territory - the biggest issue being that everyone seems to be still finding their way with the character (with the huge exception of Sean Connery, who just knocks it out of the park with his first performance of the character). So what about From Russia With Love? Does it deserve the title of classic?
Oh, without a doubt. The film has the same team (including director Terence Young and writer Richard Maibaum), but they showed that they are fast learners and From Russia With Love is an improvement in every way.
With the Cold War at its height, the villainous organization SPECTRE sets out to steal a secret Russian encryption device, called The Lektor, which they will then sell to the highest bidder. Of course, they will play the Western allies and the Russians against each other, upsetting the delicate Cold War balance in the process. SPECTRE's intricately woven plan, which involves tricking a Russian agent Tatiana (Daniela Bianchi) into thinking she is duping the British Secret Service into stealing the Russian Lektor, might be a bit overly complicated, but it's also rather ingenious. And of course, SPECTRE specifically targets the British agent who messed up their operations in Jamaica and killed their lead scientist Dr. No in the previous movie - James Bond.
There's a lot going on in From Russia With Love. And more-so than any other Bond film, this one feels like a true espionage thriller. Though there are a few fight scenes, this is not an action film. Instead, there is a lot of lurking about, snooping, delivering secret passwords, getting fake passports, and other deeds of intrigue you would generally see in a more realistic spy film. The pace is deliberate, but unlike Dr. No, it never drags. The cast is terrific - Connery shows yet again why he is the best Bond, and he is ably supported by a solid Bond girl in Bianchi, a terrific ally in Pedro Armendariz (in his last film), and two iconic villains with Robert Shaw as Red Grant and Lotte Lenya as Rosa Klebb.
Admittedly, I do have a few problems with the movie. There is an excursion to a gypsy camp that just seems like a sexist tangent, and an excuse to have two Gypsy girls viciously fight it out over a man they both want, conveniently tearing at each other's clothes in the process. I don't care if the scene is in the book. It's just strange. I also was a bit underwhelmed by the climactic scenes. Minor spoilers here - even if there is not a lot of action in From Russia With Love, it does still contain the greatest fight scene in the franchise, a brutal fistfight between Bond and Red Grant on the Orient Express. The fight is so good that both the helicopter fight and boat chase that follow pale in comparison. They just seem a bit limp. Now, a film professor friend of mine said that I need to put myself in the mindset of the early 1960s. Audiences were not used to seeing helicopters, not until Vietnam. So the scene where Bond is running in a field, chased by a helicopter, knocked audiences out of their seats back in the early 1963. He remembers being knocked out of his seat. So there is no way the climax of From Russia With Love is ever going to have the impact that it did 50 years ago, and I'll never quite understand why it was so exciting at the time. But even if I can intellectually admit that, I still can't help feeling letdown after the Red Grant fight.
All in all, these are quibbles. From Russia With Love is a huge improvement over Dr. No. It should be said that audiences noticed, too. It wasn't Dr. No that was the huge hit and cemented the franchise. It was From Russia With Love (I suppose it helped when President Kennedy talked about how much he loved the book).
RANKINGS:
Easy. From Russia With Love moves ahead of Dr. No on the list.
So here is the list which is taking shape...
1. From Russia With Love
2. Dr. No
BEST LINE:
Bond approaches the clerk in the Russian embassy.
Bond: Your clock, is it correct?
Clerk: Always.
Bond: But of course. (he walks away, checks his watch, then comes back) Excuse me, you did say your clock was correct?
Clerk: Russian clocks are always - (Bomb explodes in the embassy)
TRIVIA:
Lots of good trivia in this one. Ultimately, I am going to go with a near fatal accident involving director Terence Young. A helicopter carrying Young during the climactic scene crashed into the water, trapping him beneath the surface. There was a small air bubble in the helicopter canopy that kept him alive until the crew managed to dive down and save him. Safely back on shore, his injured arm in a sling, Young just shrugged it all off like it was nothing and went right back into filming. Wow, that is pretty badass.
MVP:
As good as Sean Connery is in this film, he is challenged in the MVP spot by Robert Shaw, playing one of the super spy's better adversaries, Red Grant, a brilliant killer in the employ of SPECTRE. Grant is every inch Bond's equal...in fact, you could say that for most of the film, he is running rings around Bond. Shaw embodies the role perfectly. Audiences who have only seen Shaw as the craggy, grumpy, and dirty Captain Quint in Jaws need to see From Russia With Love so they can see him play the polar opposite. Clean, tall and muscular, quietly efficient and brutal beyond words, this character is no joke. People fear him. I get the sense that even Bond is afraid of him, and that is the most telling thing of all. Bond? Afraid of anybody? To make that believable, you better cast the right actor. And the producers did. They got Robert Shaw. He gets the MVP.
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