Sun 9 Oct 2011
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: DR. NO (1962).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Suspense & espionage films[18] Comments
DR. NO. United Artists, 1962. Sean Connery, James Bond, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman, Jack Lord, Bernard Lee, Anthony Dawson, Zena Marshall, John Kitzmuller, Eunice Gayson, Lois Maxwell. Director: Terence Young.
What can I say? This was one of those movies that hit me at an impressionable age and gave me the notion that it might be fun to Fight Crime for a living. Watching it now, in the Wisdom of my advancing years, I tried to figure out just how it got so dated; I mean, here’s the Hero, running around in a button-down suit, with a dumb hat like my Uncle Wayne used to wear, cracking corny jokes and slicking his hair down with Vitalis.
Then I realized just how long it has been since I was Young and Impressionable.
Let me try to put it in Historical Context: The Movies learned to talk somewhere around 1930. This film was made in 1962, some 32 years later. How much time has elapsed since the making of Dr. No and the writing of this piece?
I tell you, it’s enough to make a man think.
It may be, then, that in not so many more years, Dr. No will seem as charmingly energetic as The Westland Case and The Mystery of the Hooded Horsemen. It certainly has a lot going for it, what with fights, car crashes, bad back-projection and the improbably-cantilevered Ursula Andress in her screen debut.
Maybe so.
October 9th, 2011 at 11:34 pm
Cary Grant turned this thing down, but John Payne years earlier had optioned the character. No takers. Barry Nelson did Casino Royale on television as part of The Climax series. You knew that. I never liked the character or the concept. To prove that, my favorite Bond, though not by much, was Roger Moore.
October 9th, 2011 at 11:51 pm
Me, I echo Dan’s first two lines. This movie hit me at a young and impressionable age. I can understand anyone liking Roger Moore’s performance as Bond, but to me, that’s all it was, a performance. He was an impostor, though a very good one. Sean Connery was and always will be James Bond.
PS. As a footnote, try as I can I simply do not remember that Jack Lord was in this movie. It is time to watch it again, and for some synchronetic reason, I just bought a copy on DVD last Wednesday at Barnes & Noble, at 50% off.
October 10th, 2011 at 12:52 am
Well, the passage of -cough;cough- years since DR NO was released has something to do with it seeming dated, but I suspect that the relatively small budget also has something to do with it. Look at FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE or GOLDFINGER; they haven’t dated half so badly. This feels like a superior thriller from the period, but it didn’t have the really big bucks that the rest of the series did, so it doesn’t feel quite as special. There was a very funny article in THE TIMES from the late Alan Coren some years back. It talked about how he had never been able to take Bond seriously after attending the original screening of DR.NO. This was because Bond was seen driving a Sunbeam Alpine, the same car that Coren had just driven to the cinema. He claimed that this was just about the slowest car ever created, and the idea of using it in a car chase was just laughable. This is perhaps the difference between DR.NO and the rest of the series; the difference between an Aston Martin and a Sunbeam Alpine.
I’m a ‘Roger Moore as Bond’ man, myself. But then, my first Bond movie was LIVE AND LET DIE.
October 10th, 2011 at 2:33 am
When this movie came out, I was two years old.
Later, in my pre-teens approaching ten, I was fascinated by everything James Bond- related.
It was a different time, with people loving progress in technical matters, and imagining using gadgets like that in their lives.
Exotic places, fast cars, beautiful women, archetypical malefactors ,super gadgets…
a dream world, if you had to go to school.
And nowadays, these films trigger fond memories, if I don’t overdose on watching the reruns.
The Doc
October 10th, 2011 at 7:21 am
“A Western Movie Review”?
I think not.
Jack Lord was Felix Leiter, if I remember correctly. And DR. NO was no FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE even then.
As for Roger Moore being the best Bond, surely you jest.
October 10th, 2011 at 9:26 am
Re “Western Movie Review,” it was a case of not enough Cut and too much Paste.
I’ve fixed it. If I did it well enough, no one else will ever know what you were talking about, Jeff.
Thanks!
October 10th, 2011 at 9:25 am
I have noticed that with any series character that has had different actors playing the role, we tend to favor the actor we first saw play the character.
I am a Connery fan. To me Roger Moore was too slapstick, too many jokes about kicks in the groin, too many silly villains (Jaws makes me laugh unlike Odd Job), too many over the top movies (MOONRAKER,etc).
But if this was your first Bond, it is also what attracted you to the series. So it is no surprise some like Moore best. Heck, even Dalton has his fans.
October 10th, 2011 at 10:10 am
I didn’t say the best Bond, I said, my favorite. Essentially, I don’t like any of them. Thought Charade both the best Bond film never made, and the best Hitchcock.
October 10th, 2011 at 10:41 am
I like this one, as sometimes corny as it seems today. It and From Russia and Thunderball. It seemed to me that later in the series they got the more SF they became and the books didn’t – quite – do that.
As for Moore, pfui and bah. I can’t even watch him in the role.
October 10th, 2011 at 10:48 am
MY dad and I went to see this when it first came out, and both of us having read the book, thought that the who nuclear reactor section was pretty lame. And I agree, From Russia With Love is not only one of the best Bond films, it is probably the only one that is close to the book. I was also shocked several years ago when I learned that Gert Frobe’s entire dialog in Goldfinger was replaced with another actor’s because his accent was too strong.
October 10th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
I’m very fond of Moore generally (I grew up watching THE SAINT and THE PERSUADERS). He’s a likeable personality, and from what I’ve heard is generally a pretty nice person in real life. That likeability tends to bleed into his Bond persona, making him far less intense than Connery (I’ve heard it said that Connery V Moore is the difference between the school bully and the school prefect as Bond). I like this more relaxed 007, but I can see why some don’t.
That said, people have very selective memories about Moore’s Bond. He could be quite as hard nosed as Connery. Think of FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, where he kicks the hired killer to his death as revenge for killing Bond’s lady friend, or THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, where he spits hatred at Scaramanga when told that he and Bond are alike. Daniel Craig is convincing as a hard man, but Bond is not just a hired thug. You have to believe that he could convincingly fit into a Royal Garden Party, and then go and win a bar-room brawl in some seedy dive. He’s a gentleman as well as a killer, and Moore could suggest that.
October 11th, 2011 at 6:10 am
Steve,
As far as “Western Movie” well, it *is* set in the West Indies.
October 11th, 2011 at 11:12 am
I was 13-years-old when DR. NO showed up at our local theatre. What teenager could forget the sight of Ursula Andress in that bikini!
October 11th, 2011 at 11:31 am
It was an educational film, all right, there are no two ways about it.
October 12th, 2011 at 1:04 pm
I saw DR NO in the theater when it first came out and I’ve seen it two or three times on TV. Since I have it on dvd I watched it again last night and have to admit I enjoyed it once again as an action adventure film.
What I remember most about the Bond series centers around some of the villains. I’ve found the best Bond movies are the ones with an outstanding villain. I’ve just read that Javier Bardem has been signed to play the next villain and if his acting is anywhere near the level of the monster in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, then we will be in for a treat.
October 12th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
Walker
I have it on DVD too, and I’ve been meaning to watch it. I don’t think I’ve seen since the very first time in the theaters. My TV viewing time has been limited in the last couple of weeks, as the Tigers are still playing. Limping along, but still playing.
In any case, as soon as their season is done, DR. NO is high on the list of priorities.
You’re right about the villains, though. The good ones are the characters you remember the most. If Bond didn’t have good adversaries, the series certainly wouldn’t have lasted as long as it has, no matter the spectacular stunts, nor the actor who might be playing him.
December 22nd, 2011 at 9:05 am
The first James Bond film was so patheic and bad awful when it started it was too boring I find it lacked the gadgets, the excitment, the action, the adventure and a lot of it is now become a mess, and beside Sean Connery is a bad choice to play James Bond he’s a englishman and not a scotsman, James Bond doesn’t speak with a weird accent what the hell!
December 22nd, 2011 at 11:43 am
I dunno, but it sounds like you’re a whole lot younger than most of the rest of us, DC — and please don’t be offended if I’m wrong! And maybe the rest of us are whiffing the fumes of nostalgia more than anything else…