It was an unlikely start for the James Bond series, but as the first of a tentative franchise Dr. No actually makes a lot of sense. The sixth book in Ian Fleming’s series of spy novels, Dr. No makes a safe first movie because its locales are fixed.
Our debonair hero spends 80% of his time in Jamaica, and the rest of it at Pinewood studios back in jolly old England. This kept the budget and risk very low. The film is atypical to the series, for reasons other than its stationary plot. The James Bond character was well established on the page at the time, but was newly feeling out the movie theater.
Glancing at the Imdb.com trivia page for Dr. No, the phrase “only Bond film that” pops up an awful lot. It’s the only Bond film with no pre-credit sequence, it’s singular in featuring the terrorist organization SPECTRE without an appearance by cat loving villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and it’s the only film to date in which we are treated to the dulcet tones of Commander Bond’s singing voice.
Yes, anyone familiar with the big-screen Bond formula will find much to gawk at in this original effort, but, on the other hand, the groundwork for the whole series is laid out skillfully. Dr. No features two scenes that still stand out as some of the best in Bond, and movie, history.
The first comes with our introduction to the hero in a London casino. We see players at a Baccarat table and we know that the host is waiting to talk to agent 007, James Bond. But where is he? Certainly he must be the mystery man obliterating the lovely Miss Sylvia Trench at a game of Chemin de Fer, but where’s his face? The camera focuses only on that player’s hands. This skillful delay pays off in spades with the iconic declaration of his name and revelation of his devilish good looks. “Bond, James Bond,” Sean Connery groans in such an off hand, self assured manner that every person sitting in the audience in 1962 must have known that this was the start of something big, for the actor and the character.
The other iconic scene is the one that really solidified the series as its own genre. Bond had already slept with two other women by the time Honey Ryder strolls out of the ocean in that white bikini but the moment she surfaced no one else mattered. She was the first Bond girl, and for some, the last one necessary. Sure, in large part, it’s due to the fact that Ursula Andress was filling out that swimsuit, and yeah, it’s an admittedly sexist enterprise to trot out fresh eye candy for every new feature sporting little but a suggestive name and a slight accent. But something about the swimsuit itself, from the body hugging curves to the utility belt and knife, not to mention the actress’ steely glare, suggest that Honey, though very sweet, was first in the line of tough, self-confidant woman not to be taken lightly. Unless your name is James Bond, of course.
Outside of those two scenes, what has Dr. No got to offer? To be perfectly honest, not a whole heck of a lot, in the first two thirds at least. We watch the inner machinations of British intelligence agency MI-6 as they face a sudden crisis. One of their top operatives, 006, has disappeared from his post in Jamaica. The audience knows that it was a trio of three faux-blind beggars done shot the spy, but British intelligence being what it is, MI-6 sends in their next best operative, 007.
The trail leads to the mysterious island of Crab Key, ruled with an iron fist (more on that later) by the mysterious Chinese scientist, Dr. No. He’s been toppling US rockets, which means, translated from 60’s spy talk, that he’s using radio waves to disrupt America’s space program for one reason or another. After besting several of Dr. No’s cronies, Bond, with some help from his CIA counterpart Felix Lieter, cruises over to Crab Key, meets Honey, and gets himself captured by two of Dr. No’s nefarious henchman driving a sort of dragon-themed tank. (Does Dr. No do any LARPing on the side?) Up to this point, Dr. No is little more than an average, if darkly jovial, adventure film set in a tropical locale.
But then we enter Dr. No’s underground lair. The atomic powered base seems dated but the originality still shines through. Even the most cynical of modern viewers can see what inspired so many filmmakers, from Brad Bird to Mike Meyers. The massive laboratory sets with human conveyor belts and rows of giant computers, the luxurious quarters given to Mr. Bond and Ms. Ryder, Dr. No’s dining room equipped with giant fireplaces and expansive windows overlooking aquariums. It was the pinnacle of 1960’s over-the-top grandeur.
These sets, and the costumes and the entire production, far outweigh the actual story. Bond finally meets Dr. No, an ex-pat Chinese-German scientist working for SPECTRE experimenting with atomic energy and radio waves. He lost his hands to radiation exposure replacing them with metal ones capable of crushing bronze statues or putting a good dent in our hero’s head.
Bond escapes his prison cell through an air vent (that somehow doubles as a water pipe?) hits the self-destruct button, bests Dr. No in hand to metal-hand combat and rescues Honey Ryder from what appears to be a boat launch. The island explodes; hero and lady escape in a motor boat and make love atop the blue Caribbean waters until Lieter and the CIA show up.
The movie keeps an intense energy level, but behind the breakneck pace Dr. No doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. I would like to say that doesn’t matter, and as part of the series it really doesn’t, much. It sets up the character well, (Connery is charming, rugged and cat-like as Bond) and establishes the all-important tone of the series. While the semi-serious mood would rise and fall with the decades, it all flows from this picture. But as a film viewed individually and not through the context of history it is a rather silly picture with momentary excitement.
The series would quickly establish itself as a premier franchise, (or so I remember, check back next week for a review of From Russia with Love) and irrevocably atone for any unintentional sins committed here (the unabashed sexism and gratuitous violence would continue, to the public’s delight). But little can redeem an impossibly long scene early on in which Bond trades in his Berretta for a Walther PPK. As part of an icon’s birth, it holds a few interesting moments but as a scene in an action movie, it drags unforgivably. Thankfully Dr. No’s originality and charm outweigh sequences such as that one. It may now seem an inauspicious start, but all of the important things were perfect and a sign of great things to come.
Brian Stitt
