Bondathon #2: Dr. No (1962)
The James Bondathon continues with the one that [officially] started it all, Terence Young’s Dr. No. The film introduced to the world Sir Sean Connery as James Bond, Agent 007, and the world the film establishes; how the MI6 operates, M. (Bernard Lee), Q (Peter Burton) and Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell), characters in which we will become familiar as soon as the series progresses. In this inaugural mission, James Bond is tasked to investigate the murder of John Strangways (Timothy Moxon) in Kingston, Jamaica, after collecting radioactive rock samples from the Island of “Crab Key”, an Island owned by a Chinese “doctor”, Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman), a member of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Bond is licensed to kill No and stop them from disrupting the launch of Project Mercury in Cape Canaveral.
The villain of Dr. No is highly interesting — a Napoleon paradox who plans to dominate the world with S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Look closely at the scene in which Bond and Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress) dine with No. Before he sits at the table, Bond observes a painting of Napoleon, before telling No that “Our asylums are full of people who think they’re Napoleon…or God”. Joseph Wiseman brings great menace to the character of No, a man hell-bent on World Domination, thinking that “The successful criminal brain is always superior…it has to be.” The dinner scene which pits No against Bond in a battle of wits, is the film’s best sequence because it gives us a glimpse of who Dr. No really is. It’s a shame that Joseph Wiseman is hella-underused in this 110 minute film. You hear his name, the film builds him up by having his henchmen after Bond and try to kill him, but fail all the time, until No decides to do it himself. I do love how the film points out the villain’s biggest weakness is his biggest strength. No felt superior with his “metal hands”, and demonstrates it with crushing a statue, until he is pitted against an unsurumountable obstacle — metal. Metal on metal hands slips until No dies in a pool of acid. It’s the only fitting end that this villain could’ve received, however, the fight preceding it is wholly underwhelming.
The entire action sequences in Dr. No are absolutely terrible. The editing is a mess; cuts are made at random times, which renders the appreciation of these action sequences almost impossible. In the film’s first scene, in which Strangways and his secretary get killed, the cuts are absolutely horrible and its music even worse. Look, I know this movie came out in the 60s, but there are films that came out before Dr. No that had better music. Minus the John Barry theme and the songs “Jump Up Jamaica!” and “Three Blind Mice” which are quite catchy, the music is horrendous. Particularly the sequence in which Bond viciously kills a spider with his shoe. When the spider lands on his pillow, he bounces off his bed and runs to kill it with the overly dramatic music BLARING (the DTS 7.1 mix almost exploded my TV) and every time James Bond kills the spider with his shoe and hits the ground, one LOUD NOTE would blare. For god sakes it’s just a slightly large spider, nothing to worry about until thatsaid spider would bite Bond, but it’s not the case! Many other fight sequences are brief, so there’s no time to appreciate them. The final fight between Bond and No lasts, I don’t know, 35 seconds, or some shit, and it’s incredibly underwhelming. Action sequences end briefly as well, particularly the one where Bond and Honey are fired upon. They stop firing and say “We’ll be back, we’ll be back with the DOGS!”, retarding another “action” sequence that will take place after.
Aside from some asinine action sequences and a horrible music score, Dr. No is an enjoyable Bond film; nothing more, nothing less. It introduces us to an iconic performance, Sean Connery as James Bond 007, the best iteration of the character (in my opinion), a great female character (albeit with an interesting background in which she killed her rapist with a black widow; that was a fucked up story that I didn’t paid attention to as a kid), a menacing, but underwhelming villain due to the screen time he gets and his death in one of the most uninteresting climaxes in Bond history. James Bond ostensibly gets more over the top and its action sequences more bombastic, but as a stand-alone film, Dr. No isn’t that memorable compared to the series’ other movies. If you’re going to watch this movie and thinking this’ll be James Bond’s first action-packed film, be prepared for disappointment as there are barely any action sequences, and when there are, they last literally SECONDS. However, enjoy the first [official] Bond film as the series will become better over the time, more over-the-top and thrilling with subsequent films such as Goldfinger, Thunderball, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Live and Let Die, Skyfall, among others.
✯✯✯½
