From Russia With Love (1963)

Dr No received mixed reviews, but as we know, that's not what matters. What is the big result is how it does at the box office, and Dr No was a huge hit, grossing 59 times its $1 million budget worldwide. From Russia With Love was the next film in the pipeline, and maybe a good reason for that is President John F. Kennedy saying it was one of his favourite books. United Artists green lit a sequel and gave them double the budget of Dr No, and the crew saw many returning faces but a few new ones. The legendary John Barry stepped in as composer. Ken Adam was working on Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) and so he was replaced. Maurice Binder, who made the title sequence for Dr No, was away doing other commitments so was replaced by Robert Brownjohn for this film and the next. Finally, stunt coordinator Bob Simmons was replaced by Peter Perkins, though Simmons did perform stunts.

The formula had been evaluated and some new things were brought into the basic foundations that still remain today: Dr No had introduced the gunbarrel sequence, the title sequence, and MI6 briefing scenes, but that was really it. From Russia With Love brought to the table a pre-title sequence, the character of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Desmond Llewelyn as Q giving Bond some cool gadgets (in this, a super-cool briefcase that gives you a face full of tear gas if you open it the right way), and a 'James Bond Will Return' line in the end credits.

From Russia With Love was released in the United Kingdom on October 11th 1963, and it is the final film John F Kennedy watched at the White House, before going to Dallas where he was famously assassinated merely days later.

It follows S.P.E.C.T.R.E staging a vendetta against James Bond for the death of Dr No by luring him into a complicated scheme involving a Russian agent Tatiana Romanova who claims to have become infatuated with him, and a Russian crytographic device called the Lektor. In a sense, you could say that Dr No and From Russia With Love are a loose two-parter, and if they are, From Russia With Love is definitely the better half.

The film is a lot more complicated than Dr No. If you want to watch From Russia With Love, you need to understand this and you need to pay full attention. It's a cleverly-written piece of political espionage that really is a strange diversion for modern fans who know Bond films as fast-paced shoot em' ups. Also, the pace is a lot slower than normal, which is very fitting - if it was any faster, it would feel like it was tripping itself up with all of the exposition it's trying to get across to us.

Even then, the first half still manages this in places. In the first forty-five minutes or so, there is a lot going on, I mean a lot. The film is easily, like I said earlier, one of the most complex and rich films in the series in terms of plotting, and this first act is engaging, though whether you understand the plot or not is down to two things.

1. Your concentration.

2. The sheer amount of filler in the first act.

If you prefer a more straightforward action narrative, then the next film in the series Goldfinger will probably do this for you. This film definitely won't.

On the other hand, there is so much going on in this portion of the film that it's hard to keep up. You're trying to work out whose friends and whose enemies, as well as wracking your brain trying to figure out why we suddenly have belly-dancing ladies at a gypsy camp, which only really serves for a gunfight that ensues which sets up Bond's eventual confrontation with Grant.

This leads me to what is easily my favourite part of this film: the ensemble of villains.

This movie doesn't give us just one: it gives five. Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya), Donald 'Red' Grant (Robert Shaw), a hidden Blofeld, Kronsteen (Vladek Sheybal), and Morzeny played by Walter Gotell, who will go in to portray the recurring character of General Gogol in some of the Roger Moore films.

This colourful characters all bring something pleasing to the table: Red Grant is a menacing deceitful assassin played wonderfully by Robert Shaw here, Rosa Klebb is a figure of stern authority, and Kronsteen's straight-faced quiet nature at all times never fails to give me goosebumps.

This eclectic mix of villains all combine their forces to create genuine peril for our hero, but even they come with a couple of downsides.

It kind of fits in to my main problem with this film of their being too much thrown at us, and indeed Morzeny and Kronsteen feel superfluous to the main hook. Kronsteen has a couple of scenes and then dies of all things, and Morzeny just sort of blends in to the background. The only time he really shows off his talents is in the boat chase, and that's only because he's set on fire.

Despite this, the picture's main highlights is all the action on the Orient Express. It's a claustrophobic setting and from the outset, there is an aura of uneasiness that especially comes into fruition when we see Grant disguised as an agent named Nash, who had been assigned to assist Bond in the safe delivery of the device. These next ten minutes with Bond slowly realising there's something not right about this guy are absolutely riveting, and when his cover is well and truly blown, we get one of the best fights in all of Bond.

It's dark, it's loud, it's brutal, and doesn't go on too long like some other combat scenes of its kind. It ends with Bond using his garrotte watch to dispatch of Grant in a tense ending that's just the capper after a fantastic twenty minutes of film.

With the sheer amount of stuff that's going on in this film, you may be surprised to hear that I have nothing else to say. I used to love this film but I was probably blinded by the general conceit that this is one of the best James Bond films, which I respectfully disagree with.

On rewatch this film kind of lacks the appeal that it did on first viewing, and the sheer amount of plots that are woven into this film is just a little overbearing for me and makes the plot a little misguided here. Nevertheless, it gives us a lovely set of villains, Sean Connery is once again effortless as the character of 007, and the train sequence is simply superb, which elevates this film to be given a B.

Despite my thoughts on the overstuffed storyline, From Russia With Love fully established the formula Dr No had started playing with, and because of this, the general structure of every other Bond film to come was laid. Goldfinger is considered the quintessential Sean Connery adventure, and that's what we will be looking at next time.