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The international crime syndicate SPECTRE hatches a devious
plot to play the British and Russian governments off against
each other, and to take revenge on James Bond for the death
of their operative, Dr. No...
More
than any other Bond film, From Russia with Love can
truly be described as an espionage thriller. Later entries
would veer further into action/adventure territory, with varying
degrees of espionage thrown in as a secondary consideration,
but this one has enough twists, suspense and intrigue to stand
comparison to the works of Hitchcock. And despite a noticeably
larger budget than that of Dr. No, the gadgets have
not yet taken over. Bond has only an exploding attaché case,
his Walther PPK and his wits to rely upon. This is particularly
evident during his gritty fight scene with SPECTRE agent Grant
(portrayed with chilling sadism by Robert Shaw) on board the
Orient Express.
This
film marks a number of firsts for the Bond series. The aforementioned
attaché case is introduced by Desmond Llewelyn, although his
character is credited here as Boothroyd rather than Q, and
he displays none of the famous condescension towards Bond
that Q would adopt from Goldfinger onwards. Also for
the first time, we see a pre-credits sequence, although this
is more of a teaser to the main story than the "mini action
movie" format that would become typical of the later films.
From
Russia with Love also features the first Bond song to
share the title of the movie, as sung by Matt Monro, although
unlike the standard adopted later, the song is not combined
with the title sequence. Finally, this is the first Bond movie
to feature a musical score composed by John Barry. Having
previously conducted Monty Norman's soundtrack to Dr. No,
Barry provides a rousing score of great range - marred only
by the slight overuse of the James Bond theme as 007 searches
his hotel room for listening devices, which makes it appear
as though Bond is actually trying to find out where the music
is coming from!
However,
what is most remarkable about From Russia with Love,
as the "making of" documentary reveals, is not that the film
was so good, but that it was completed at all. The production
was bedevilled by potentially fatal accidents involving leading
lady Daniela Bianchi and director Terence Young. A problematic
script, in which the Russian villains of Ian Fleming's original
novel were replaced by SPECTRE, required last-minute rewrites
in order for it to make sense to a cinema audience. During
filming it also become apparent that Pedro Armendariz (who
played the Turkish agent Kerim Bey to perfection) was terminally
ill. The movie was literally saved on the cutting room floor
with the aid of some ingenious editing by Peter Hunt.
Also
featuring a documentary about co-producer Harry Saltzman,
this is a great package of a fine movie.
Richard
McGinlay
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