Doctor No (1962) | Bond

Actors and Allies

As I mentioned yesterday, Dr No goes for a deliberately lighter tone than the novels. That leads to lots of quipping by James Bond, but there's also a gleam in his eye that just doesn't exist for the literary version. Sean Connery was a perfect choice to play this version. He's able to switch effortlessly from bemused to deadly and then back again.

That has a lot to do with sheer confidence. Every time Connery's Bond enters a room, he owns it. Whether it's a hotel lobby, a government office, or the villain's lair, he looks completely at ease and in control. In contrast, the literary Bond is filled with self doubt that ramps up the tension, but he always overcomes it. That would be impossible to put on screen without making Bond a weak character, so Dr No swings the pendulum way to the other side. Viewers know that Bond's in trouble, but he rarely seems to.

Because I don't have a better place to put it, I'm also going to use this section for each film to also talk about Bond's allies and how they're cast and portrayed. I mentioned the Armorer and Moneypenny a little yesterday and don't have much to add about the Armorer except that he's admirably played by Peter Burton (A Clockwork Orange) as professional and humorously disparaging of Bond's preference in firearms.

As for Moneypenny, Lois Maxwell does a great job making her flirtatious, but not completely over the moon about Bond. When he asks her, "What gives?" and she replies, "Me, given an ounce of encouragement," she delivers the line with a melodramatic flourish that reads like kidding to me rather than a true, hopeless crush. Maybe I'm choosing to read it that way, but I prefer to think of Moneypenny and Bond as knowing that any kind of romantic relationship is inappropriate and impossible, but finding each other attractive enough to pretend about it anyway. That may become harder to do as the movies roll on, but let's see how long I can hang onto that interpretation.

The other big ally that needs mentioning is Felix. Jack Lord is possibly my favorite Felix ever, but he's not much like the literary version. Fleming's Felix was a lighter version of Bond and part of his role was to balance out Bond's dark side. Connery's Bond doesn't have a dark side, so Felix kind of struggles to find a new purpose in Dr No. He ends up being mostly just a plot device and a way to comment on Bond's womanizing, but Lord has a great look and tons of charisma, so I love the character anyway.

Finally, I just want to call out Louis Blaazer as Pleydell-Smith, mostly because the character is one of my favorites in the novel. Dr No is Blaazer's only movie credit, so I don't know his story, but he does a fine job making Pleydell-Smith a pleasant ally even if the script doesn't give him as much to do as the novel did.

Best Quip



I don't know if you count this as a quip or not, but thanks to Connery's delivery of it, it's the line that consistently gets a legitimate laugh from me every time I hear it. It's when Pleydell-Smith tells Bond that a package has arrived for him and Bond picks it up. His grin and voice are a childish mixture of excitement and embarrassment as he explains, "Present from home." It's an unexpected reaction and that's what always gets me.

Worst Quip



"I think they were on their way to a funeral."

Oh, James, you're not even trying.

The Gadgets

Though gadgets had become a thing in the novels (Bond's heel-knife was standard enough equipment by this time that Fleming didn't even need to explain it whenever it showed up), Dr No doesn't really have any. The closest is the geiger counter, his "present from home," but that's really just equipment.

Bond’s Best Outfit

I know nothing about fashion, but I know what I like and what I don't, so for each movie I'll pick a favorite outfit and one that makes me groan. My favorite for Dr No is this lightweight suit that's perfect for looking great while walking around a tropical island.



Bond’s Worst Outfit

One of the few rules I do know about fashion is that you don't match the color of your shirt exactly to the color of your pants. Faux pas, James.

Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming, Chapters 11 - 23

I covered the first half of Live and Let Die a couple of weeks ago. Since this post wraps up the novel, I'll be spoiling some things about the ending.

As Bond and Solitaire make their way by train to Florida to see where Mr. Big is bringing his pirate treasure into the country, the couple begins to flirt, but agree not to have sex yet. For one thing, Bond's hand is still bothering him where Tee Hee broke his little finger and the spy doesn't feel like he can work his moves properly one-handed. Beside that, they suspect that Big has people on the train wanting to kill them, so they're not too keen on getting naked and making themselves vulnerable. They also have to get up early, because Bond wants to sneak off the train in Jacksonville instead of riding it all the way to St. Petersburg/Tampa as planned. Lots of excuses.

The couple is obviously into each other though and pretty much promise to do it as soon as they get the chance. Bond is attracted to Solitaire - she's an aggressive kisser and seems to be a strong, confident woman - and she believes he's the strong man she's been waiting for. Sadly, that's not just about helping her escape Big, but I'll have more to say about that in a minute.

Bond stays very friendly with Solitaire, but it's worth pointing out that he still doesn't seem to entirely trust her. He asks her lots of questions about Big's organization, but he never offers her any information or confides in her about his mission. Like I mentioned in the first half of the novel, Bond's relationship with Solitaire is absolutely not a repeat of what he went through with Vesper. He's having a fun time getting to know Solitaire and seems at ease around her, but he's not letting her in. That's important to the long-term arc of Bond's character throughout the series. He got burned badly in Casino Royale and though Fleming isn't explicit about saying it, Bond's not letting that happen again in Live and Let Die.

Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming, Chapters 1 - 10

As I mentioned in my intro to this project, I'm a slow reader. I'd like to have a Bond post up each week though, so I'm going to write about however much of the books I've read in the last seven days. Hopefully, that'll also help control the length of some of these posts, because I do tend to ramble.

Before Casino Royale was even published, Ian Fleming had completed his second Bond novel. Inspired in part by the train ride that Fleming and his wife took from New York to Florida before heading to Jamaica where he wrote the book, Live and Let Die has Bond making the same trip as he investigates a criminal named Mr. Big.

Like Casino Royale, Live and Let Die begins with a cold open as Bond arrives in New York City to collaborate with the CIA and FBI, then flashes back to the briefings that sent him there. Bond has mostly recovered from the events of Casino Royale, but still carries emotional scars. How much damage he took from Vesper's betrayal remains to be seen, but at the very least he's passionately bent on taking down SMERSH, the Soviet organization behind most of the troubles in Casino Royale. M knows this, so when a possible SMERSH agent is identified in the United States, M gives Bond the job of verifying the intelligence and - if necessary - eliminating the threat.

The connection between Mr. Big and SMERSH is circumstantial. The British have reason to believe that SMERSH is financed partially by a horde of pirate loot that once belonged to Captain Morgan, and Big has been caught handling some of that treasure. On paper, part of Bond's job is making sure that Big is actually involved with the Soviets, but that fact is mostly taken for granted. Bond is after Big from the get-go.