Dr. No (1962) - film review

When John Strangways, a British intelligence operative, goes missing in Jamaica, MI6 agent James Bond is sent to investigate.  According to Bond’s CIA opposite number, Felix Leiter, Strangways’s disappearance may be linked to attempts to disrupt rocket launches at Cape Canaveral with radio beams.  Before he went missing, Strangways had been collecting rock samples on Crab Key, an island which belongs to the reclusive ore refiner Dr No.  Convinced that the island holds the key to the mystery, Bond goes there one evening with Strangways’s fishing guide, Quarrel.  He finds far more than he bargained for: a beautiful beachcomber, a fire-breathing dragon, and a megalomaniac Oriental belonging to the crime consortium SPECTRE...

And so began the most successful and longest running film series in history.  No one, not even the film’s producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, could have foreseen the popularity of the James Bond films, which they unleashed on an unsuspecting audience in 1962 with this first entry, a stylish albeit pretty routine adaptation of an Ian Fleming novel.  Despite being made on a tight budget (a shoestring compared with what was spent on the later films), Dr No was an instant hit, not the box office triumph that was customary for the subsequent Bond films, but enough of a success to warrant at least a handful of follow ups.  Welcome to the movies, Mr Bond.

Dr No made an instant star of the virtually unknown Scottish actor Sean Connery, whose charisma, dry wit, understated machismo and obvious sex appeal made him ideal for the part of Agent 007.  In the space of just five films, Connery would make the character his own, and many would argue that he is the only true James Bond, the many actors who succeeded him being mere impersonators.  Certainly, no one delivers the line "Bond, James Bond" quite like Connery, and it is a testament to his acting prowess that he was able to pursue a successful career after the Bond movies, and yet still be so closely associated with them.

Less stylised and gimmicky, and somewhat more sober, than what was to follow, Dr No is the Bond film that is perhaps closest to Fleming’s original novel.  Although Connery’s 007 is not quite the misogynistic gun-toting sadist that the writer had envisaged, he is much rougher round the edges and a far more mercurial character than his future incarnations, far more of a maverick anti-hero.   The one constant across the series is Bond’s seemingly insatiable appetite for beautiful young women, which is met in this film by a ravishing Ursula Andress.  Gulp.

Dr No introduces much of the series’ famous iconography – the gun barrel opening titles, the sexy Bond girl, expansive sci-fi fantasy sets, exotic locations, a disfigured criminal mastermind, 007’s flirtations with Miss Moneypenny, the agent’s trusty Walther PPK and, most crucially, Monty Norman’s eternal Bond theme.  This may not be the best in the series, but it was an admirable start, made at a time when the British film industry (propped up by Hollywood finance) appeared to be at its coolest and most self-assured – qualities that would infect all of the early Bond films and ensured their longevity.  Now hand me a vodka martini, shaken not stirred...

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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