Mutant Reviewers from Hell do
“World domination. The same old dream. Our asylums are full of people who think they're Naploeon. Or God.”

1962 PG / Action Thriller Directed by: Terence Young Starring: Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman

Tagline

The first James Bond film!

Summary Capsule

Secret Agent 007 James Bond must infiltrate an island hideout, drink like a fish, meet a good lookin’ girl in a 60’s era bikini, fight a dragon, and save the USA moon rocket!

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DVD | Soundtrack (Score)

PoolMan's Rating: It’s fun, but it almost boggles the mind to think that THIS spawned 40 plus years of sequels.
PoolMan's Review: Ah, the 60’s. Although I’m fast-becoming a grouchy old man (28 is apparently near ancient, according to my wife), even my vast lifespan doesn’t reach back quite far enough to include the Decade of Love. From the looks of it, the 60’s were a simple time, a fun time… a poorly coloured time.

"Sean Connery was The Man as Bond. Pierce Brosnan’s a bit wimpy, Timothy Dalton was just all wrong, and Roger Moore was so old by the time he took the role they had to dub over the sounds of his hips creaking."

To think that all Bond films essentially start here, with the simple story of a British secret agent apparently doing the USA’s dirty work for them on a teeny island off Jamaica. As the ever so creative tagline would suggest, this is the first "real" Bond movie (preceded by a 1954 TV adaptation of Casino Royale featuring an American Bond… um, no thanks), and it’s Bond at its simplest, starting with so many of its key elements and not much more.

Our man James has been dispatched by Britain’s MI-6 to investigate the interruption of an agent’s inbound report concerning an unknown source interfering with the Americans’ rocket launches using radio waves to tamper with their navigation equipment. The potential to wreck the first moon orbit exists, and obviously that’s something Britain cares about. Um… so, moving on.

Bond hits Jamaica and immediately starts laying out the foundation of what will one day become an incredibly long-lived legacy of film. Starting with the briefing by M and the flirting with Ms Moneypenny, continuing through several vodka martinis, and rocking right on through to the evil tyrant with the physical defect, 007 begins to blaze his way onto the path to fame. He quickly discovers the presence of one Dr No on a private island who apparently has a dragon guarding the beach. He naturally infiltrates the island, gets jailed, escapes into a ventilation shaft (that periodically flushes with WATER), and fights the steel-mitted Doctor while wearing an inflatable radiation suit. Occasionally, his hair falls out of place, but it’s mercifully infrequent, and three women are slept with along the way.

Let’s get this out of the way, seeing as it’s bound to come up. Sean Connery was The Man as Bond. I’m not an enormous 007 fan as a rule, but I can definitely see why audiences loved him so as the spy who won’t die. Pierce Brosnan’s a bit wimpy, Timothy Dalton was just all wrong, and Roger Moore was so old by the time he took the role they had to dub over the sounds of his hips creaking (he was already nearly fifty when he took the role in Live and Let Die, and was closing in on 60 when he did A View to a Kill). Connery was all suave looks, knowing glances, and subtle charms. I don’t even know why people debate the fact. Plus, he even spells "Sean" correctly. When someone asks how to spell my name and they start with "S, H…" I can conveniently just say "No no, like Sean Connery." And it works.

Sorry, where was I? Anyways, we’ve established that there’s a good actor playing the lead character and the fact that to date there are more Bond movies than I have fingers and toes (I think… it’s been a while since I counted my toes); the foundation is good, is the movie? Well, yes and no. It’s filled with all kinds of those little plot holes that I guess 60’s screenwriters just weren’t clever enough to catch. Distractingly so. Dr No’s driving motivation seems to be poutiness that the USA didn’t let him come work for them, thus setting the stage for him to disrupt rocket launches and therefore rule the world. Uh, sure, seems about right to me. Without really meaning to, the gang I watched it with more or less started going MST3K on it. I mean, they send a hearse after Bond. A HEARSE. Of all the cars you could send to chase down an international agent, they pick the one designed for 3 mile-an-hour funeral parades.

But at the same time, you can really see why it would eventually become such an enduring and popular franchise. Between Connery’s natural charms in the role, the glitzy locales, the parade of beautiful women, and the action setpieces, Bond was born a winner. The fact that we still have him around after forty years is pretty amazing. He may be a misogynistic dinosaur, but he obviously started with (and still has) teeth.

"Hey, can you help me? I’m stuck in this tube, and I- AARGH!" "Anybody else smell Honey?" "Why yes, my mother does dress me! However did you know?"

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• The boat captain’s voice still sounds like it’s being amplified by the bullhorn even when he pulls it away from his face.
• Hm. That bright red stuff must be blood! It certainly couldn’t be paint!
• Indiana Jones must crib notes from James Bond… just like Harrison Ford would one day use a pane of glass between him and the snake (Raiders of the Lost Ark), Connery has a pane of glass between him and the tarantula on his arm.
• At one point, Bond stops to look suspiciously at a painting in No’s hideout, but it’s never elaborated as to why. The painting, a Goya portrait of the Duke of Wellington, had actually been stolen in 1960, weeks before filming started.
• I didn’t know tires screeched on dirt roads!
• Where did all the water in the ventilation shaft go?
• So many of the later staples of the series are distractingly missing here, like Bond’s "shaken not stirred" line and the gadget scene... the closest we get is Bond being forced to trade in his gun, and that’s it.
• The Smirnoff bottle hasn’t aged a day! (thanks Madler!)
• Why exactly do the three assassins have to pretend to be blind? And why are they wearing the shades at night?
• The cure for radiation poisoning: soap and water. Ah, the science of the 60’s.
• Despite appearances to the contrary, Ursula Andress was indeed wearing a flesh toned bikini during the shower scene.
• It’s over an hour and a quarter before the title character (Dr No) finally makes any kind of onscreen entrance, and even then all we see is his metal hands and fancy formalwear.
• So in the middle of this base, run like "a concentration camp", they have friendly Asian hostesses with impeccable manners and clean luxury cells?
• Check out that one black guy dancing in the bar… he looks like he’s about to die from an excess of funky on the brain.
• Did the Empire design No’s reactor room? It’s all low security and no handrails over the dangerous pits of doom!
• Everyone keeps delivering Bond’s "shaken not stirred" joke FOR him!
• Bond licks and sticks a hair from his head across a closet door so he can tell later if anyone has opened it. With that much grease on the hair, I’m surprised the burglar could even open it.

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

Not really, no. This is the only Bond film that features the gun barrel camera at the start AND end of the film, and it’s the only Bond film that DOESN’T have a "James Bond will return in…" tagline at the end. But if that’s all it takes to float your boat, you need to get out more.

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

The role of Dr No was offered to several actors, including Christopher Lee (of LotR fame) and Max von Sydow. The role of Bond was supposed to be offered to Roger Moore from the get-go, but Moore was committed to doing The Saint at the time.

The character of Sylvia Trench, whom Bond first meets in the casino scene, was supposed to become a recurring character, her romantic intentions continually foiled by Bond's missions. She reappeared in From Russia with Love (1963) - the only Bond girl to appear in two films (as the same character) - but the character was dropped from the series after that.

The title "Dr No" cause a translation issue for the Japanese release, where it was barely caught in time before being released as "We Don’t Want a Doctor".

The song that would eventually go on to be known as the James Bond Theme was originally called Bea’s Knees.

Honey’s voice is dubbed; it’s not actually Ursula Andress speaking.

Groovy Quotes

Dr. No: The Americans are fools. I offered my services, they refused. So did the East. Now they can both pay for their mistake.
James Bond: World domination. The same old dream. Our asylums are full of people who think they're Naploeon. Or God.

[Honey has just come up out of the surf in a bikini]
James Bond: Don't worry. I'm not supposed to be here either.
Honey Ryder: Are you looking for shells too?
James Bond: No, I'm just looking.

[A hearse full of bad guys chasing Bond has gone over a cliff]
Worker: What happened?
James Bond: I think they were on their way to a funeral!

M: If you carry a 00-number it means you have license to kill, not get killed!

Felix Leiter: Ahoy, Mr. Bond! Ahoy, Mr. Bond!
James Bond: Well, well. What's the matter? Do you need help?
[Honey stands up into plain view]
Felix Leiter: Quite sure you don't.

James Bond: Bond. James Bond.

DVD Review

Oh, you’ve GOT to check out the original trailers. Holy cow, that’s some comedic gold. They basically give the whole movie away while a narrator cheesily eggs on the proceedings. There also some good featurettes on the making of the movie, natch.

Soundtrack Review

The James Bond Theme rules the day here, although the dance sequence in the bar has some exceptionally funny moments to it. Interesting to look back on how relatively quiet the movies of the 60’s were… compared to today’s soundtrack-laden movies, it was almost silent!

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Thunderball
• From Russia With Love
• Goldfinger