DR. NO (1962 - BOND FLICK / ACTION / THRILLER / ESPIONAGE) **** out of *****
(Introducing Bond, James Bond - Her Royal Majesty's Poonhound)
CAST: Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman, Bernard Lee, Desmond Llewellyn, Lois Maxwell, Eunice Grayson, John Kitzmiller.
DIRECTOR: Terence Young
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and some retro-proto-Bond antics straight ahead....
IT'S LIKE THIS: You'd have to be a formidable psychic to be able to predict that a little action/thriller called DR. NO released 50 years ago in 1962 would kickstart the most enduring and robust film franchise in cinematic history. But that's exactly what happened, folks. This year, SKYFALL, the 23rd James Bond flick, was released and is kicking serious asses and taking down box office records around the globe. It's kind of like meeting a guy who looks average, with a seemingly bland personality, whom you date because you kind of feel sorry for him - only to find out he is a roaring lion in the bedroom who can go for hours and hours like a really horny Energizer bunny. If this keeps up, I may not survive to see the next Oscars. But it will have been so fucking worth it.
But I digress. Anyhow, DR. NO is a pretty good flick - but to think that it would spawn 22 other movies like it spanning the next half-century? Well, that's a bit of stretch. But yet here we are in 2012 with Daniel Craig doing his best to put the memory of Sir Sean Connery to rest. And that memory started with DR. NO, folks. This flick introduces everyone's favorite British Secret Service Agent / World Traveler / Pussy Ravager: Sir James Bond. And he looks an awful lot like Seannie C. At least in this flick. We also get to meet Bond's boss, M (Bernard Lee), as well as gadget geek Q (Desmond Llewellyn) and loyal admirer/secretary Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell). As would be the norm for the series, Bond zips all around the world trying to solve some mystery while also avoiding getting his ass turned into fertilizer by various baddies - while fucking anything with a vagina or even just a moist hole.
However, unlike some future Bond flicks which have plots so complex and byzantine that you would need a UN interpreter, nuclear chemist, dead languages expert, and all-weather compass just to figure it all out, the plot of DR. NO is so simple and streamlined as to almost possibly be cobbled together by my cats Casper, Guido, and their soon-to-be-little brother, Leo.
For the love of edible body oil, I have friends who are flummoxed by the plots of THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH and SKYFALL! If I have to tell one more person one more time that Elektra brainwashed Renard - not the other way around - I think I'm going to have to choke someone to death with my thighs. And don't get me started about how they're so confused about Severine and the whole Shanghai assassination scene in SKYFALL: newsflash, folks: she was in on it. Is this honestly so hard to grasp?
Well, anyhow, they will have no problem grasping DR. NO's plot. It might as well have been called DR. SEUSS. Basically Bond follows some leads, fucks some ladies, follows more leads involving radioactive stones (or something), fucks some more ladies, avoids assassination attempts, follows even more leads - before winding up on some thoroughly unappealing-sounding island called Crab Key with his Jamaican sidekick Quarrel (John Kitzmiller). There, they meet the luscious Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress), who basically emerges from the sea carrying some big-ass shells and wearing nothing more than an itty-bitty white bikini. Yes, folks, she is the first official Bond Girl - and she is a fucking hottie.
Unfortunately, Honey was collecting sea shells from the wrong place at the very wrong time, because it appears that Crab Key is the lair of the fearsome... Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman). And he's not too keen on the idea of a British pussy marauder, Jamaican bitch-boy, and white bikini-wearing seashell collector of indeterminate nationality trespassing on his island, thank you very much. So he sends his goons after our heroic threesome. Well, it doesn't stay a threesome for very long, because Quarrel, the dumb shit, gets crispy-fried by one of Dr. No's mechanical dragons (do not even ask). That leaves only Bond and Honey now, who get taken hostage and imprisoned in Dr. No's hideout.
What does Dr. No have planned for our hero and heroine? Will they be able to figure out what Dr. No's master plan is? Will they be able to thwart it in time? What happens when a nuclear reactor in Dr. No's hideout starts counting down to kaboom? Will Bond and Honey get off Crab Key in time? Will they survive to fuck another day? Or is this the end of the Bond franchise?
A-fucking-hem, people...
BUT, SERIOUSLY: In our review for SKYFALL (review # 489), we talked about how there was no reason to believe that DR. NO's release 50 years ago in 1962 would signal the beginning of the most resilient and successful film series in cinematic history. That's not because DR. NO is inferior in quality. It is, in fact, a very good film. It is just not as larger-than-life or grandiose as successive Bond films would be. Make no mistake, though: while GOLDFINGER and THUNDERBALL would officially set the template that the Bond franchise would use and tweak over and over again, this very first adventure plants the seeds for that template. And that is what has been key to the survival of the Bond empire - its ability to change with the times and adapt to the current trends while staying true to its roots. That is a lot more difficult to manage than you can imagine. But yet the arrival of SKYFALL (and its record box-office take both here and abroad) last month signals yet again that the franchise knows exactly what it is doing - and is doing it very well.
What's really interesting about DR. NO is how it has echoes of Alfred Hitchcock and THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. Bond, Honey, and Quarrel's third-act adventures on Crab Key have the distinct flavor of GAME, and this generates some genuine suspense that you don't find in many later Bond films, which often emphasized over-the-top action and gadgets. As with the best Hitchcockian thrillers, DR. NO is minimalist Bond, and like other minimalist Bond flicks in the canon (CASINO ROYALE, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, SKYFALL, LICENCE TO KILL, ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE), the setpieces are fairly down-to-Earth and believable - which is a key ingredient in generating suspense. You have to be able to imagine yourself in the same scenario. Over-the-top Bond flicks like DIE ANOTHER DAY, TOMORROW NEVER DIES, MOONRAKER, and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE may be enjoyable, but I would hardly call them suspenseful.
The cast is top-notch across the board. Heading the group is, of course, the great Sean Connery in what is surely his most iconic role. I would say that 8 of 10 people, if not more, would cite Connery as their favorite Bond - and they have every reason to do so. Connery expertly blends cockiness, intelligence, cunning, sensuality, and uncertainty to such perfect degrees that he turns Bond into a fascinating character. While Timothy Dalton still remains my favorite Bond, Connery and Daniel Craig tie for a close second. Connery would go on to fine-tune his portrayal even more with the subsequent entries, but his debut remains a very strong one and created one of the most memorable screen icons in movie history.
Desmond Llewellyn, Lois Maxwell, Bernard Lee all deliver vividly as the colleagues whom we would get to know just as well as we know Bond. M, Q, and Moneypenny are just as iconic and classic as Bond himself, and with their new incarnations in SKYFALL in the forms of (SPOILER alert!) Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, and Naomie Harris, the tradition is rightfully continuing. These folks are just as important as 007 in the Bond universe.
As for the Bond Villain and Bond Girl, two other vital components of the Bond mythos, the very first ones are equally solid. As the mysterious and deadly Dr. No, Joseph Wiseman underplays gracefully, turning silence and stillness into threatening devices. He eschews the flamboyant bombast that future Bond Villains would adopt, packing much danger and menace in quiet glances, and this serves the character (and the film) well: Dr. No is a strong first baddie in the series.
Then there's the Bond Girl, the innocent seashell collector who gets pulled into the fray, Honey Ryder. There are several types of Bond Girls: (1) The Female Bond, usually a fellow trained agent; (2) The Villain's Henchwoman or Girlfriend, usually a baddie loyal to her boss or a mistress eager to help Bond to topple him; (3) The Technical Hottie, usually a scientist or similarly-trained egghead who becomes Bond's Ally; and finally: (4) The Ordinary Girl, usually an innocent bystander who gets pulled into the mix when her and Bond's paths cross.
The Ordinary Girl is my favorite Bond Girl Type, and my Top 3 Bond Girls are of this kind: Natalya Simonova from GOLDENEYE (she could also possibly be considered a Technical Hottie like Dr. Christmas Jones from THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH), Teresa "Tracy" Di Vicenzo from ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, and Kara Milovy from THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. Honey Ryder falls into this category, and like Natalya, Tracy, Kara, and Christmas, she is just going about the humdrum of her daily activities when Bond enters her world and upends everything. While Honey doesn't really have much of a showcase because she enters the action fairly late in the game, she demonstrates a sufficient amount of intensity, spunk, and resilience - and doesn't turn into a quivering damsel in distress even when she is in threatening situations. Ursula Andress/Honey Ryder often top the lists of TOP 10 Favorite Bond Girls for many fans. While they are not in my personal Top 10, they comfortably occupy a spot just outside it at # 11. Good work from Andress which helped paved the way for future heroines in the Bond films.
Ultimately, DR. NO is a very good first entry in the resilient and resourceful Bond franchise. Future Bond films would further expand upon its elements and themes and create the classic Bond Movie template, but this first adventure nicely sets the tone for the series.
