Dr. No

Dr. No (1962)

Runtime: 110 minutes

Directed by: Terence Young

Starring: Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman, Jack Lord, Bernard Lee

From: Eon/United Artists

I know, in an ideal world I’d have a war movie to talk about on Memorial Day, as it makes perfect sense. But due to various reasons that will not be happening. Instead, I will at least talk about a positive movie where you get to see a hero do great things in order to serve and protect his country. In this case that man is Bond… James Bond. It’s better that I talk about this film rather than post a review for a downbeat negative film (I have two of those in the can already; I’ll post them sometime in June).

This is the first movie in the official canon for James Bond films, which there are 22 in all. Technically, Bond the character made his debut in the acting field with a televised play version of Casino Royale where the plot’s so different Bond is “American Jimmy Bond” and the actor who plays him looks just like Pat Sajak! Yes, I’m being serious here. I’ll be ignoring that, though… I don’t know how long it’ll take, but I plan on watching all of the Bond movies in order from here until the latest one, Quantum of Solace, something that I’d rather not watch again after I saw it on the big screen and I got pissed off at how much of a poorly filmed waste of time it was, but I’ll do it anyway. Now, onto this very first Bond movie, from way back in 1962:

This debut in the franchise isn’t as extravagant as the others in the series, but it doesn’t mean it’s no good. It just happened to be the first in the series and no one had any idea it’d be as successful as it was (despite the fact that it was based on a wildly popular series of books by Ian Fleming, which I’ve never read before) so the budget wasn’t that high. It still was a quality film, though, and it still looks nice in this year of 2010.

After some groovy early 60’s credits where you hear the Bond theme and then calypso music, including a cover of the old nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice (which plays into the plot; it wasn’t until the next movie where you got the famed opening credits song), you’re set off to Jamaica where intrigue happens and people get killed, including a British spy. MI6 sends Bond over to Jamaica to see what’s going on. It turns out that MI6 and the CIA are working together on a case where they try to figure out who is jamming signals related to the launch of rockets by NASA from Cape Canaveral. Not to spoil anything, but it leads to the discovery of the title villain (played by Wiseman, who remarkably looks like Dave Meltzer!) and why he’s doing what he’s doing. Hint, it involves the introduction of the rival organization that Bond had to deal with most of the 60’s, known as SPECTRE. Along the way, Bond deals with much intrigue and suspense, including attempts to end his life, and several times, things are not what they seem.

Once I get to finishing all of the Bond movies done by one particular actor, I will rank them from best to worst. I’ll say that while this is not as great as Goldfinger or From Russia With Love, it’s still well worth seeing. It’s where many Bond trademarks are established, you have the famous scene of Andress in a bikini emerging from the water onto the beach, you have fun action stuff and spy intrigue, and even a nice war of words between Bond and No. So, if you’re a Bond fan and you haven’t seen this… well, you should watch all of the movies in the series, including the bad ones (as hey, they’ll make you appreciate the rest of the series and how they mainly got it right) and you won’t regret seeing the very first movie starring 007. It’s mainly set in Jamaica-with the local calypso music and the surrounding islands (a lot of the indoor stuff was filmed in England, though) and while it’s not an epic globe-trotting adventure, there’s still a lot to like.

I'll be back by this time next week with at least one new review.