Dr. No (1962)

Tagline: NOW meet the most extraordinary gentleman spy in all fiction!…JAMES BOND, Agent 007!

Dr. No movie storyline. James Bond 007, seductive British secret agent, has been sent to the West Indies to investigate the disappearance of British agent John Strangway and his secretary. Once arriving, 007 becomes suspicious of scientist Proffesor Dent, who was the last person to have seen Strangway before he disappeared.

After learning Professor Dent is working for a terrorist with a metal hand Dr. Julius No and Strangway is dead, 007 meets CIA agent Felix Leiter and his assistant Quarrel in Jamiaca. 007 and Quarrel head to the tropical island Crab Key, after encountering the beautiful Honey Ryder, 007 finds the island is Dr. No’s secret lair and 007 and Honey are captured but Quarrel is killed. Where 007 learns Dr. No is has been disrupting the American rocket launches at NASA and he is out for world domination and plots to unleash his vengeance on the United States of America. Can James Bond defeat Dr. No and save the world?

Dr. No is a 1962 British spy film, starring Sean Connery, with Ursula Andress and Joseph Wiseman, filmed in Jamaica and England. It is the first James Bond film. Based on the 1958 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming, it was adapted by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, and Berkely Mather and was directed by Terence Young. The film was produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, a partnership that would continue until 1975.

In the film, James Bond is sent to Jamaica to investigate the disappearance of a fellow British agent. The trail leads him to the underground base of Dr. No, who is plotting to disrupt an early American space launch with a radio beam weapon. Although the first of the Bond books to be made into a film, Dr. No was not the first of Fleming’s novels, Casino Royale being the debut for the character; the film makes a few references to threads from earlier books. This film also introduced the criminal organisation SPECTRE, which would also appear in six subsequent films.

Produced on a low budget, Dr. No was a financial success. While critical reaction was mixed upon release, over time the film has gained a reputation as one of the series’ best instalments. The film was the first of a successful series of 24 Bond films. Dr. No also launched a genre of “secret agent” films that flourished in the 1960s. The film also spawned a comic book adaptation and soundtrack album as part of its promotion and marketing.

Many of the iconic aspects of a typical James Bond film were established in Dr. No: the film begins with an introduction to the character through the view of a gun barrel and a highly stylised main title sequence, both created by Maurice Binder. It also established the iconic “James Bond” theme music. Production designer Ken Adam established an elaborate visual style that is one of the hallmarks of the film series.

The Introduction of James Bond

The character James Bond was introduced towards, but not at, the beginning of the film in a “now-famous nightclub sequence featuring Sylvia Trench”, to whom he makes his “immortal introduction”. The introduction to the character in Le Cercle at Les Ambassadeurs, an upmarket gambling club, is derived from Bond’s introduction in the first novel, Casino Royale, which Fleming had used because “skill at gambling and knowledge of how to behave in a casino were seen … as attributes of a gentleman”.

After losing a hand of Chemin de Fer to Bond, Trench asks his name. There is the “most important gesture [in] … the way he lights his cigarette before giving her the satisfaction of an answer. ‘Bond, James Bond’.” Once Connery says his line, Monty Norman’s Bond theme plays “and creates an indelible link between music and character.” In the short scene introducing Bond, there are portrayed “qualities of strength, action, reaction, violence – and this elegant, slightly brutal gambler with the quizzical sneer we see before us who answers a woman when he’s good and ready.”[67] Raymond Benson, author of the continuation Bond novels, has stated that as the music fades up on the scene, “we have ourselves a piece of classic cinema”.

Following the release of Dr. No, the quote “Bond … James Bond”, became a catch phrase that entered the lexicon of Western popular culture: writers Cork and Scivally said of the introduction in Dr. No that the “signature introduction would become the most famous and loved film line ever”. In 2001 it was voted as the “best-loved one-liner in cinema” by British cinema goers. In 2005, it was honoured as the 22nd greatest quotation in cinema history by the American Film Institute as part of their 100 Years Series.

Directed by: Terence Young
Starring: Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Bernard Lee, Jack Lord, Joseph Wiseman, Anthony Dawson, Zena Marshall, John Kitzmiller, Eunice Gayson, Lois Maxwell, Yvonne Shima, Marguerite LeWars
Screenplay by: Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, Berkely Mather
Production Design by: Ken Adam
Cinematography by: Ted Moore
Film Editing by: Peter R. Hunt
Art Direction by: Syd Cain
Makeup Department: John O’Gorman, Eileen Warwick
Music by: Monty Norman, John Barry
MPAA Rating:
Distributed by: United Artists
Release Date: October 5, 1962