Ursula Andress – Action Hero Movies

This is the first of only two Bond movies ever produced outside of Eon Productions. It’s meant to be parody-style action comedy. It starts off looking quite unwatchable, but it’s nice to see John Le Mesurier make an early appearance (this movie was released 1 year before the first episode of Dad’s Army where Mesurier plays Sergeant Wilson very well). Unfortunately he only has a fleeting minor role here.

The humour remains pretty dead for at least the first quarter an hour. The actors all have dry personalities and aren’t at all funny for my taste, so I have to call this an unwatchable movie – I fast forwarded a bit and it didn’t seem to improve. The genre is nothing like other James Bond movies – it’s more like an old Carry On film minus the funny actors. The storyline is related to James Bond but only so far as satire goes. I wouldn’t list this movie in with other Bond movies because it has a completely different genre and its ‘comedy’ is so poor. There’s no cross-over appeal, for action hero movie junkies – even those who like fresh action comedies will find this movie terrible dull and a waste of time.

David Niven plays the Bond character in this movie, but it’s nothing like the James Bond we know & love – he just plays a Carry On style fool minus the comedy value, which makes it a pointless drama for my taste.

Other key cast members include famous names like Peter Sellers and Woody Allen, as well as Swiss actress Ursula Andress – the main Bond girl from the first genuine Bond movie, Dr No.

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.