Eunice Gayson – Action Hero Movies

This is the second Bond movie in the whole saga. Here we see a lot more gadgets & gizmos than in the first movie, Dr No – not just for Bond but for the enemy (Spectre) too. We’re also introduced to three women in Bond’s life within the first 25 minutes: the guy he’s busy making out with when called in to work (Sylvia Trench, played adequately by Eunice Gayson – the first girl we met in Dr No); plus Miss Moneypenny (a secretarial agent at MI6 HQ, played fine by Lois Maxwell); plus Tatiana Romanova (‘Tanya’ – the woman who Bond’s mission involves befriending – played quite well by Daniela Bianchi).

Ironically though, the most beautiful women in this movie were probably Martine Beswick (British-Jamaican actress) and Aliza Gur (Israeli actress) who played Zora & Vida respectively – a couple of gypsy girls who cat-fight for the right to marry their chief’s son. Why weren’t they promoted to primary bond girls? I can only assume it’s because they didn’t do all the necessary ‘favours’ for the relevant directors, producers & decision-makers. Either that or someone important had no taste, or wanted to make some kind of fashion statement by prioritising a certain look.

Bond’s demeanour in this movie is a little less suave, a little more rough around the edges, compared to his demeanour in Dr No, but not massively so. The vibe of the movie is a bit rougher in the middle too, but not in a terrible way. It’s probably a bit more detailed in its core script this time round, and the music is a bit more varied and suspenseful.

This particular movie is responsible for one of the most iconic & memorable scenes in all of James Bond history, where James is held at gunpoint on a train by his main adversary (Red Grant – an enemy agent from Spectre, played quite well by Robert Shaw). James gives him some gold sovereigns from one suitcase, then his next suitcase explodes tear gas in the enemy’s face.

Lotte Lenya plays Red Grant’s boss, Rosa Klebb very well.

You may notice the scenery looks vaguely familiar in the helicopter and boat scenes at the end of this movie, because they were both filmed in Scotland – the vegetation and rock formations here are typical of British mountainous terrain. These final action scenes were pretty well made too – plus of course the train scenes – they’re not extremely buzzing by modern standards but were still impressively smooth and captivating considering this movie was made in the 60s.

I rate this movie OK since some of it is pretty good but some of it is a bit boring as you would expect from any movie this old. It’s more action packed than Dr No, but is a bit messy in the first hour. The second hour is particularly strong, from when Bond steals the Russian device, right the way through the train scenes and the boat scenes to the hotel scene at the very end.

Interestingly, the closing credits of this movie are used to promote Sean Connery’s subsequent Bond movie, Goldfinger, which was released just 1 year later. The filming for Goldfinger began just 3 months after From Russia With Love was released, and they must have had high hopes for it. Goldfinger today is rated the best Bond movie of all time according to mainstream film review sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, with From Russia With Love then Dr No being second and third according to both of these metrics. But what do they know, since they both rate Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale and Skyfall as the 4th and 5th best Bond movies of all time – what a load of rubbish – Daniel Craig is not at all convincing in the role of James Bond – no way is he better than Roger Moore or Timothy Dalton – these drama freaks need to stop reviewing these action hero movies because they just don’t understand the genre. The casting of Daniel Craig absolutely ruined the last 20 years of the James Bond movie saga. Pierce Brosnan before him was cringe but tolerable; while Connery, Moore and Dalton were all excellent at being James Bond and are the real reason it became the monster brand that we know & love today.

Dr No is a classy movie, thoughtfully made. It has more slow scenes and less exciting action than the best James Bond movies of all time, but with Connery’s charisma and the overall quality of production it still manages to sustain an action fan’s attention if he hasn’t seen this movie in at least the last few years.

This was Sean Connery’s first outing as James Bond, and was the first movie ever made in the entire James Bond franchise. This movie was followed by From Russia With Love (1963), then Goldfinger (1964) which is the highest rated Bond movie of all time according to the big mainstream review sites, but they rate Daniel Craig above Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton so what do they know! They’re neither understand nor appreciate what made James Bond the monster brand that it is today.

Dr No warms up nicely after about half an hour in, as James Bond identifies suspicious island called Crab Quay worth investigating in connection with his colleague’s murder. None of the local fisherman dare go near it, but Bond surely will.

As classy as it is, it still lacks the level of fast action that you’d expect from a strong modern movie – in this way it’s kind of like Bruce Lee’s last movie, Enter The Dragon – I guess this was the peak of what was produced in the 60s & 70s but by today’s standards I have to rate it just OK – no more, no less. It’s definitely at least a level or two below the best Bond movies by Roger Moore (who played Bond from the 70s till the mid 80s) and Timothy Dalton (in the late 80s). Budget may have also been a factor, since Dr No was also the lowest budget Bond movie by a long way, even after adjusting for inflation. The next movie – From Russia With Love – had twice the budget, after adjusting for inflation, then it was increased by the same amount again for the third movie, Goldfinger, and it pretty much kept going up with each next movie in the saga. So all things considered, they did a great job here.

Sean Connery‘s acting was superb, as the star of the show – a slick-talking, slick-moving MI6 agent who pretty much never puts a foot wrong. Near the start of this movie, James’s boss ‘M’ explicitly referred to MI6, but this was later dubbed over so what you’re likely to hear him say now is MI7 even though his lips are clearly saying MI6 still.

Ursula Andress played the lead female in this movie – a shell collecting woman called Honey Ryder – although she only appeared in the second hour. She did a fair job of it.

Earlier on, Zena Marshall did a decent job a double agent working as an administration assistant at the local agency.

And prior to that, Eunice Gayson played Sylvia quite adequately – she was the first significant female James Bond bumped into – initially at the casino, then they had a brief liaison after that.

Joseph Wiseman played the main villain, Dr No himself. He did a fair job of it.