Shaken, Not Stirred takes a (brief) look at the James Bond canon from Eon Productions. Twice a month, Chris and Jon share their impressions of each film, both on its own terms and in terms of the cultural landscape as well as the genre it helped to create, not to mention its intersection in the Cinema Dual hosts’ lives.
FROM THE (LETTER)BOX(D): NOW MEET THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMAN SPY IN ALL FICTION! Agent 007 battles mysterious Dr. No, a scientific genius bent on destroying the U.S. space program. As the countdown to disaster begins, Bond must go to Jamaica, where he encounters beautiful Honey Ryder, to confront a megalomaniacal villain in his massive island headquarters.
WHAT CHRIS THOUGHT: I’m taking a slightly different approach to this series because of the personal connection to the character. This was one of the touchstone series that united my father with all of his children, not just me, and so I invited my brother over for pizza and reminisces about our father as Dr. No played and brought us back to our childhood.
It’s been years since I first saw this movie, and watching it now, having the entirety of the Eon series behind us, it’s refreshing to see just how much is in place from the start, and seeing some of the similarities between Connery’s portrayal and later characters was a fun exercise. There’s a cruel callousness to his performance that I think isn’t so much a “this is how Connery is.” I know his reputation later in life, but we’re talking about near enough to the beginning of his career after his stint in the Royal Navy (the new 4K transfer does a great job making those tattoos clear) and his brief but colorful bodybuilding career, where I think the cruelty is a facet of what we’d see Daniel Craig embody with slightly more humanity during his tenure.
Director Terence Young does a great job setting a stage that is at once realistic and heightened—the Jamaica location shooting looks phenomenal, and similar to what I caught watching Billy Wilder’s films, Young lingers on shots, only cutting away when he has to. He also keeps the story relatively grounded, setting up a world stage where Bond, early in his 007 status, is sent to Jamaica to investigate the sudden disappearance of an agent mid transmission. He meets up with the CIA via Felix Leiter (who looks so much like Willem Dafoe at times it was distracting), who it turns out was working with the missing agent on mysterious jamming signals interfering with a US rocket launch. The time spent around this, and around establishing Bond’s bona fides, are the highlights of the film.
WHAT JON THOUGHT: While I am not a complete neophyte when it comes to James Bond, a lot of the specific details of the franchise, especially in the pre-Brosnan years, end up blurring together. What I’m most excited about for this series then is tracking the specifics of the franchise as it grows, evolves and even calcifies. My main takeaway from this film, Dr. No, is how the formula has yet to be perfected. I was surprised that Bond’s delivery of his iconic catchphrase “Bond, James Bond” is a reasonable response to Sylvia Trench introducing herself in the same way. Other than a radiation detector, Bond doesn’t really have any gadgets this time around, and Q’s only real contribution is to tell him that his Beretta sucks and to switch to a PPK. I counted a couple references to his preferred way to prepare martinis but it’s so casual, they barely register. These might be small details to latch onto, but these will become their own cliches in time and it’s refreshing to see them employed without that kind of weight.
On a similar note, I find Dr. No‘s relatively modest ambitions charming. Jamaica’s exterior locations certainly look fantastic on screen, but otherwise most of the film sets look relatively standard. The interior of Dr. No’s base at Crab Key looks like a factory floor, complete with well labeled signs that designate each stations’ function. Dr. No’s goal isn’t world domination, and Bond’s plan to foil him is to beat him up a little bit and turn a wheel. I want to reiterate here that these are not complaints. Dr. No is a fun start to this project and I look forward to seeing where we go from here.
ANYTHING ELSE, CHRIS? Joseph Wiseman as the sinister Dr. No is a fantastic physical presence for Bond—he looks like an urban myth come to life, and his lack of facial movements is especially disturbing. But unfortunately, his island machinations and ultimate plan (he’s the mouthpiece for the introduction of SPECTRE, and he’s looking to sabotage both the East and West to achieve the organization’s nefarious ends) fall flat. He’s not even introduced until the last 25 minutes of the film, where suddenly everything has to wrap up quickly with perhaps the silliest underground battle I’ve seen—with Bond in a too-small-for-him radiation suit desperately turning a wheel until the indicator reaches the clearly labeled “DANGER!” in the middle, which brought to my mind the question of why whoever built these machines didn’t move the danger level more to the right?
You know there’s an issue when I’m thinking about This Is Spinal Tap and Reiner’s “why don’t you make 10 louder?” question to Nigel Tufnel.
Also RIP Rob Reiner.
Anyway, aside from a very silly final 20 minutes my brother and I were surprised at how effective this launching of the character was, and how much he reminded us of our father.
ANYTHING ELSE, JON? I probably shouldn’t get out of this first entry without my thoughts on Sean Connery’s performance as Bond. I like the phrase that Chris used “cruel callousness” to describe Connery in this movie. I am aware of the critiques that have amassed of the Bond franchise over the years, but when I actually sat down to watch this movie, Bond’s callousness is the only thing that threw me off. He doesn’t even seem to enjoy the multiple intimate relations he has that much. I think it is an interesting choice in the same sense of not yet being bound by the rules of the franchise. However, I would be lying if I said I wanted this flavour in my Bond every time for the next year and change.
As for the rest of the cast, sadly there is not too much to report. Joseph Wiseman as Dr. No certainly is a strong first villain for Bond, though as Chris mentioned he arrives late in the film. I liked John Kitzmiller as Quarrel, the fixer for Bond. But Ursula Andress, while being in more of the film, is given almost nothing to do, and barely registers. Of Bond’s love interests in the film, I was most entranced by Eunice Gayson as Sylvia Trench, who is able to match wits with Bond. The typical Bond support characters of Felix Leiter, M, Q, and Miss Moneypenny all appear, but aside from Leiter, you wouldn’t notice them at all if you didn’t know they were going to recur throughout the series.
THE FINAL WORD(S): For Chris, Dr. No is a welcome introduction that maybe misses the balance in the end, but sets everything up quite nicely to return. For Jon, Dr. No is fascinating because it represents a franchise starting to figure itself out in real time.
NEXT TIME: THE WORLD’S MASTERS OF MURDER PULL OUT ALL THE STOPS TO DESTROY AGENT 007! WE RETURN FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE!
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