Doomsday Machine - The Unofficial James Bond Film Companion E-Book

Tom Chapman

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 315

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Doomsday Machine is the ultimate one-stop shop guide to the James Bond films! This book is Packed full of James Bond trivia, fascinating facts, production details, what might have been, box-office, gadgets, cars, stunts, locations, opinion and so much more. So pour yourself a vodka martini and prepare to celebrate the greatest film franchise of all!

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Doomsday MachineThe UnofficialJames Bond Film Companion

Tom Chapman© Copyright 2025 Tom Chapman

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ContentsIntroductionDr No (1962)From Russia With Love (1963)Goldfinger (1964)Thunderball (1965)You Only Live Twice (1967)On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) Diamonds Are Forever (1971)Live and Let Die (1973)The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)Moonraker (1979) For Your Eyes Only (1981) Octopussy (1983) Never Say Never Again (1983)A View To A Kill (1985)The Living Daylights (1987)Licence to Kill (1989)GoldenEye (1995) Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) The World Is Not Enough (1999)Die Another Day (2002)Casino Royale (2006)Quantum Of Solace (2008)Skyfall (2012)Spectre (2015) No Time To Die (2021)Photo CreditINTRODUCTIONDoomsday Machine is the ultimate one-stop shop guide to the James Bond films! Packed full of trivia, fascinating facts, production details, what might have been, box-office, gadgets, cars, stunts, locations, opinion and so much more. So pour yourself a vodka martini and prepare to celebrate the greatest film franchise of all!DR NO (1962)There were several attempts to launch a James Bond television series in the 1950s and the screen rights to the character - and various Bond novels - were bartered around for a while. Ian Fleming's books were very popular so it was a matter of when rather than if Bond became a screen property. Barry Nelson played an American version of Bond in a low budget Casino Royale television special but its existence now is more of a trivia question than something people might watch. In that same decade the writer Jack Whittingham and Irish film producer Kevin McClory entered the fray and - for a time - looked set to make the first ever James Bond film in collaboration with Ian Fleming. The film never went into production but all hell broke loose when Fleming, in an act of stupidity or arrogance depending on your point of view, used the film screenplay they'd all worked on as the basis for his Thunderball novel without telling Whittingham or McClory or giving them any credit or royalties. The stress of the court case that followed (which Fleming of course lost) is widely believed to have hastened Fleming to his grave from a heart attack and the victorious Kevin McClory was left with legal rights to make his own Bond film based on Thunderball.McClory had commissioned spectacular art to show what a Bond film should look like - the art evoking the imagery of the films that Broccoli and Saltzman would make with Sean Connery in the next decade. Alfred Hitchcock had been actively pursued to direct (they were even prepared to let James Stewart play Bond if Hitchcock wanted) this proposed Bond film in the 1950s and Hitchcock was interested but eventually went off to make Psycho instead. Then Fleming started to get cold feet about McClory, feeling he was too inexperienced when it came to money and business matters. The Bond film fell apart and legal wrangles were soon on the horizon. Richard Burton's great nephew said in 2007 that his illustrious relative once told him that Ian Fleming had asked in 1959 if he would agree to be the first screen James Bond in a film they were planning to make. Memos from Fleming at the time confirm that he liked the concept of Richard Burton playing his famous fictional hero. It was Canadian producer Harry Saltzman who first optioned the rights to Ian Fleming's popular series of spy novels and his partnership with American counterpart Albert R Broccoli (together they formed the production company Eon - "Everything or Nothing") would eventually establish James Bond as box office gold. Broccoli had got the idea to secure the rights to Bond independently of Saltzman and so when he learned that someone else had the same idea as him it made sense to go into business. Broccoli was business partners with Irwin Allen before Bond. Irwin Allen told Cubby the Bond books were terrible and trying to turn them into films would be a waste of time. The novel Dr No was based a pilot script Ian Fleming had written for a proposed NBC television series called Commander Jamaica. Although it was used as the basis for the first Bond film, Dr No was actually the sixth Bond novel. Eon wanted Thunderball to be the first Bond film but this idea was nixed by the legal quagmire that book had dredged up. The most immediate concern was the identity of the actor who would bring Fleming's hero to the silver screen. Many names were mooted and discussed including Patrick McGoohan (who had no interest in the part on moral grounds - he thought Bond was a bad influence on children), Roger Moore (considered too boyish at the time), Michael Craig and even Cary Grant (the Hollywood legend, already close to retirement, was not very interested). The late film director John Frankenheimer claims he was also in the mix to play Bond. A model named Peter Anthony impressed all in a Daily Express "search for Bond" talent competition while Ian Fleming was said to be keen on David Niven. The other finalists in the Express competition were salesmen Gordon Cooper and Anthony Clements, a former teacher named Frank Ellement, and an engineer named Michael Ricketts. Another Express finalist was a stuntman named Bob Simmons. Simmons would (in a fashion) become the first Bond because it is him and not Sean Connery we see in the gunbarrel intro for Dr No. It was reported in the media in 1961 that Broccoli and Saltzman were having a rather difficult time trying to find their James Bond actor for Dr No and had the production pushed back to give them time to conduct a more thorough search. None of the famous names they approached seemed terribly keen and there was still a sense that they didn't know quite what they were looking for. Some of the actors they tested were very young but they still hadn't ruled out casting someone more mature and famous. As the search rumbled on, Ian Fleming continued to float names which were not terribly realistic or very forward thinking. Fleming suggested that Trevor Howard or Stewart Granger might make a good Bond but both of these names were more of past bygone eras than a modern new franchise for the Swinging Sixties. This was equally the case with Edward Underdown - who Fleming also suggested. Most of the names that Fleming proposed were simply too old for the part (which does tend to suggest that Fleming saw James Bond as a mature sort of character). The handsome if slightly sinister looking Undertown, who later had a small part in Thunderball and was a prolific film actor, was in his fifties and nearly thirty years older than some of the young actors they were looking at. Undertown clearly wasn't a great candidate on the grounds of age alone. Another mature actor who was courted to play Bond in Dr No was James Mason. Mason was offered a three film contract but declined the offer because he didn't want to be contracted to a series of spy films. One can only presume some of these names were floated on the grounds the producers and Fleming thought it might be easier to finance and sell the film with a well known actor attached. Deep down they must have known that what they really needed was an exciting young actor who came with no baggage and therefore would be accepted by audiences as 007 straight away. Another of Fleming's suggestions was Richard Todd. Todd was in his early forties at the time so slightly more realistic in terms of age than some of the other candidates. He was known for films like The Dam Busters and The Hasty Heart and a very old-fashioned type of leading man. Despite his ability to play stiff upper lipped war heroes, it's hard to see how a Richard Todd version of James Bond would have launched the series into the stratosphere in the manner that Sean Connery did. Todd just seemed too old fashioned for sixties Bond mania. It all became academic in the end anyway as Richard Todd could not be considered for Dr No due to scheduling commitments on other films. The Australian actor Rod Taylor, riding high at the time after his lead role in the fantastic cult film The Time Machine, was an obvious person to consider for James Bond in the early sixties. Taylor was in his early thirties, square jawed, handsome, and had a likeable screen presence as well as an ability to be be physical. However, Taylor didn't really understand the potential of James Bond and declined Cubby Broccoli's offer of a test. Taylor later made light of this error of judgement in an interview in the 1980s. "I refused because I thought it was beneath me. I didn't think Bond would be successful in the movies. That was one of the greatest mistakes of my career! Every time a new Bond picture became a smash hit, I tore out my hair!"One name at the top of the list for 007 was the Northern Ireland born Hollywood actor Stephen Boyd. Boyd was about thirty years-old and had appeared in films like Ben Hur and The Bravados. Boyd was handsome, urbane, and had a fantastic deep voice. In fact, there was a Connery-esque quality about Boyd. You could picture him playing James Bond in the 1960s. Alas though, Boyd was not interested in the part and declined the invitation to be considered for Dr No. He later appeared in films like Fantastic Voyage and Shalako (with Sean Connery). Sadly, Stephen Boyd died far too young in 1977. The widow of the great Welsh actor Stanley Baker claimed that he was offered a three film contract to play James Bond - beginning of course with Dr No. Baker was on the cusp of becoming a star at the time and a few years later would take the lead role in the classic historical war film Zulu. Baker, according to his widow, did not want to be tied to a long term contract and so declined the offer.The swords-and-sandals star, bodybuilder, and actor Steve Reeves said that he turned down an approach to play Bond in Dr No because the offer was $100,000 and he was already making more than double that on his Hercules pictures in Italy. Reeves was a handsome fellow but whether he had the acting chops to play Bond is another matter. And would you really want James Bond to have the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger? Another actor who was on a list of Dr No Bond candidates was George Baker. Baker was about thirty years-old at the time and had appeared in films like The Dam Busters. In the end Baker could not be considered for Dr No because he was contracted to another film. Baker later had parts in On Her Majesty's Secret Service and The Spy Who Loved Me (in addition to an uncredited role in You Only Live Twice). His many television roles included I, Cladius and The Ruth Rendell Mysteries.The headaches of finding a Bond actor were matched by the headaches in finding a director on Dr No. Guy Hamilton, Guy Green, Ken Hughes, and Bryan Forbes all turned down an offer to direct the first Bond film. This opened the door for Terence Young. Young was an experienced and competent director but more importantly than that he was also rather like a real life James Bond. Young was refined and sophisticated and enjoyed the finer things in life. He was an expert on fashion and food. Young took on an active role in the search for a James Bond actor when he was hired as director. Young was quite dismayed by some of the candidates he was viewing but he had an idea that he believed would be the solution to their problems. Young's idea was that Richard Johnson should play Bond. Richard Johnson was 34 year-old, from the Royal Shakespeare Company and at the beginning of his film career. He was handsome, dark-haired, and a very competent actor. Young urged the producers to sign Richard Johnson and so, in light of the fact that none of the other candidates had blown their socks off, Broccoli and Saltzman offered Johnson a contract. At this though Richard Johnson recoiled and turned the part down. Johnson, like many of the actors offered the part of Bond in Dr No, did not find the prospect of signing a long term contract with Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli (both of whom were relative unknowns at the time) very appealing. You can get a rough idea of what Richard Johnson as Bond would have been like by watching the sixties spy caper films Deadlier Than the Male and Some Girls Do. Johnson played Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond in these Bond spoofs. With the clock ticking down the role was finally won by a little known actor named Sean Connery. Connery came to the attention of the producers when Cubby Broccoli's wife Dana saw him in a Disney film called Darby O'Gill and the Little People. Ian Fleming was said to be unimpressed by the choice at first but changed his mind when the dapper Terence Young (who was also initially deeply unimpressed by Sean Connery) took Connery in hand and smartened him up. Terence Young got Sean Connery a Saville Row suit for Dr No and told him to sleep in it! Young wanted Connery to feel like an expensive suit was like a second skin. Young had his tailor Anthony Sinclair cut Connery’s suits. The friendship between director Terence Young and Sean Connery on the early Bond films is said to have mitigated the fact that Connery didn't like the producers very much. Terence Young once said, "If you asked me what were the three ingredients for James Bond, it was Sean Connery, Sean Connery and Sean Connery!"When he was cast as James Bond, Sean Connery worked with a dance teacher named Yat Malmgren so he could learn how to be more graceful and panther like in his movements and gestures. Sean Connery's tattoos had to be covered up when he played Bond in the Eon films. You can see them in Never Say Never Again though. Sean Connery did not have to audition when he became James Bond. He insisted that he wouldn't do a screen test. Sean Connery is the only Bond actor who had to wear a toupee for most of his films. In the original script for Dr No, writer Richard Maibaum had a villain named Buchfield and Dr No was merely the name of Buchfield's monkey. Cubby Broccoli thought this was complete nonsense and canned the script. Needless to say, Maibaum was ribbed about his Dr No monkey idea for years to come by the Bond people. Jack Lord was the first person to play Felix Leiter (in Dr No). The Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum said Lord didn't return because he demanded equal billing with Sean Connery and a much bigger fee for the next picture. Jack Lord didn't seem to realise that these were James Bond movies - not James Bond & Felix Leiter movies! It has been suggested that the Leiter actors became plainer after (the rather dashing) Jack Lord to make Bond look better. A few years later Jack Lord turned down the part of Captain Kirk in Star Trek because they wouldn't agree to his request to have a sizeable ownership of the show. Lord later starred in the popular police show Hawaii Five-O from 1968 to 1980 - which made him a very wealthy man. Jack Lord's Felix Leiter is more of an American analogue of Bond than later versions of Felix. Jack Lord is handsome and dashing and Bond's equal. Terence Young said that Sean Connery could easily have been killed shooting the scene in Dr No where Bond drives between the crane. "He’s very lucky to be alive. We damn near killed him. When we rehearsed it, he drove about five or ten miles an hour, just to see if he could go under it, and he cleared it by about four inches. But as we were shooting it, he was coming at forty, fifty miles an hour —and he suddenly realized the car was bouncing two feet up in the air, and there he was with his head sticking out. It so happened that the last bounce came just before he reached the thing and he went down and under — or he would’ve been killed." During production on Dr No, Sean Connery took a dozen takes to throw Bond's hat on the coat tree in Moneypenny's office. He got much better at this as the films went on. Bond originally shot Professor Dent six times in Dr No but the censors thought this was too violent and sadistic and ordered cuts to be made. A real tarantula was used in the film. Bob Simmons was used as a skin double for the close-up of the spider walking on Bond’s arm. The shot of the spider crawling towards Connery’s face was achieved by putting the spider on glass over him. In Fleming's Dr No book, it is a deadly centipede rather than a tarantula that is placed in Bond's bed. Fleming's Dr No novel has a passage where James Bond grapples with a giant squid. It's probably no surprise that this sequence has never been adapted in any of the movies. The weather in Jamaica was quite bad when they made Dr No and they couldn't shoot half the scenes they'd planned. United Artists threatened to pull the plug on Dr No when the film overran its production budget. It's a good job they didn't. The entire course of cinematic history might have been altered!There's no Desmond Llewelyn as Q in Dr No but Peter Burton makes an appearance as Major Boothroyd and attempts to persuade an unconvinced Bond to swap his Beretta for a Walther PPK. "Walther PPK, 7.65 millimetre, with a delivery like a brick through a plate-glass window. The American CIA swear by them." Burton could have been Q in the following films but declined the invitation for other work. He later regretted this decision. Noël Coward and Christopher Lee were suggested by Fleming to play Dr No but Coward declined and Joseph Wiseman had already been cast when Lee's name came up. Coward was Fleming's friend and neighbour in the West Indies while Lee was Fleming's cousin. Dr No is a suitably challenging and unhinged opponent for 007 and based on Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu. Dr No has Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington in his art collection. This portrait had been stolen in real life when Dr No went into production. Anita Ekberg and Julie Christie were considered for the role of Honey Ryder. Terence Young discovered Ursula Andress in a pile of photographs on the desk of a producer. Ursula Andress was overdubbed by actress Nikki Van der Zyl because her accent was too thick. A deleted scene in Dr No had Honey Ryder tied up as bait for giant crabs. They axed this sequence because they thought it lacked tension and drama. In the film Dr No, Bond is an MI7 agent. There is on such thing as MI7 in either the Fleming books or real life. Lois Maxwell was originally offered the part of Sylvia Trench in Dr No but she preferred the part of Moneypenny. In an interview many years later, Sean Connery said that no one had the faintest idea if Dr No was going to become a success when they were making it. "Everyone who said that the first one was going to be a success is a liar because they didn’t know. The film costs less than a million dollars. They didn’t make one immediately afterwards because they still weren’t sure. Everybody forgets that. Believe me, nobody could have foreseen that all these years later, we’d be sitting here discussing James Bond." Peter Hunt, the editor on the early Bond films, said they only realised what a sensation they had on their hands when they screened Dr No for an audience. Before that, they genuinely didn't know if audiences would like Dr No or not. Peter Hunt felt that Dr No was a success because it was so different from the other films being made in Britain at the time. "You must remember that the climate of the audiences at the time was very kitchen sink. It was all for actresses doing the washing up, and the housework, the sleazy back room about hard lives, which I guess the audience had become a bit bored with. Here was an absolute breath of fantasy, glamour, and they loved it." Dr No had a budget of $1.1million and made $59.5 million. It was a huge hit and turned Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli into important film industry figures almost overnight. The gamble these two men took on making a James Bond film payed off more handsomely than either of them could ever dream of in the 1960s. In the plot of Dr No, when the British Secret Service lose touch with their resident agent in Jamaica, James Bond 007 is tasked with the mission of finding out what happened to him. The Americans are very interested in this part of the world too because of sabotage involving their Cape Canaveral rockets. While the template established by the Bond series from Goldfinger onwards is yet to completely fall into place, one can anticipate the blueprint to come with Dr No. The relatively restrained (by James Bond standards at least) nature of Dr No and the palpable respect it has for its source material has enabled the film to overcome its unavoidably dated elements to still rank highly in fan lists even today. What really lifts Dr No above the action/adventure fare of the day are iconic elements that still resonate all these years later. Ursula Andress emerging from the sea in THAT bikini ("Are you looking for shells too?") and of course Sean Connery's memorable introduction playing Chemin de Fer with Sylvia Trench. The James Bond music theme is at once familiar and timeless. Fantastical elements are also present even at this early stage in the series with some exciting sequences in Dr No's futuristic laboratory (take a bow Ken Adam) and Joseph Wiseman is nicely urbane and eccentric as the villain. There are cliffhanger situations (one of course involving a rather furry looking tarantula) and beautiful locations. The colourful escapism and occasional sadism marked a new type of cinema and ushered filmgoers into a new exciting decade. Most of all though it is the casting that makes Dr No such a firm foundation for the series. We accept Sean Connery as James Bond as soon as we see him and it is now impossible to imagine anyone other than Connery playing Bond in these early films. All of the James Bond actors had to stand in the shadow cast by the incomparable Sean Connery. Connery had screen presence, charisma, perfect timing, machismo, acting chops, and wit. He was the complete package. None of the other Bond actors (whatever their individual strengths) were quite able to tick every box in the way that Sean Connery did (and with considerable ease too). Connery's Bond could be cruel and ruthless but he was also charming and funny. No other Bond was able to project an irresistible blend of power and panache in the fashion that Connery could. Connery's Bond was dangerous but he was also fun. That was the perfect template for the cinematic version of Ian Fleming's character. Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell prove to be solid choices for M and Moneypenny respectively. Jack Lord (later of Hawaii Five-O fame) is also well cast as the first Felix Leiter. It's a shame the actor didn't return as Leiter in the rest of the Connery films. Any review of Dr No must also mention John Kitzmiller's exuberant performance as Quarrel, a friend/contact of Bond. 1962 was the year of Lawrence of Arabia and the other big box-office hits were The Music Man, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Longest Day and That Touch of Mink. Dr No was something completely different though. It was modern, action packed, sexy, risque, and dangerous. Dr No ushered in a new type of cinema and invented the modern action franchise. One of the keys to the success of Bond was that Broccoli and Saltzman went out of their way to find the best team possible to work on these films. The best technicians, designers, stunt people. The team who made the sixties Bond films were pretty much unbeatable. Dr No stylishly sets the tone for the series' signature elements — exotic locales, high-stakes espionage, beautiful women and an array of gadgets. Would the James Bond phenomenon have blasted into orbit the way that it did without Sean Connery though? Connery was the main piece of the Bond jigsaw and one of the most inspired pieces of casting in cinema history. CAST & CREW - Director: Terence Young, Screenplay: Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, Berkely Mather (from the novel by Ian Fleming), Music: Monty Norman, Producers: Harry Saltzman & Albert R Broccoli, Cast: Sean Connery (James Bond), Ursula Andress (Honey Ryder), Joseph Wiseman (Dr Julius No), Jack Lord (Felix Leiter), Bernard Lee (M), Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny), Anthony Dawson (Professor RJ Dent), Zena Marshall (Miss Taro), Eunice Gayson (Sylvia Trench) Quarrel (John Kitzmiller), Major Boothroyd (Peter Burton)FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963)From Russia with Love was chosen as the second film adaptation after President Kennedy named the novel as one of his favourites. After the success of Dr No the budget was doubled and Sean Connery was awarded a bonus for his second appearance as 007. When Peter Burton became unavailable, the part of Bond's gadgetmaster was taken by Desmond Llewelyn. Llewelyn would remain a regular supporting player in the series until the 1999 Pierce Brosnan film Tomorrow Never Dies. Desmond Llewelyn said that Terence Young wanted him to play Q as a Welshman. This idea was scrapped though - much to Desmond's relief. "What he wanted was me to play it as a Welshman," said Llewelyn. "I had a helluva fight with him because I told him it wouldn’t work as I could only do a broad Welsh accent, and a south Welsh accent. He wouldn’t have been a Major with that type of accent. In the end I said is this what you want: (breaks into a strong Welsh accent) "... and This lovely case I got here, I just press a button and out comes a knife!" He said no, no, so I played him as a toffee nosed Englishman ever since."Music maestro John Barry contributes the first of his superlative scores for the series and he would become a regular on and off fixture for the series until 1987's The Living Daylights. Maurice Binder (who would go on to design title sequences through to 1989's Licence To Kill) was replaced by Robert Brownjohn on this film while the great Ken Adam was unavailable due to his commitments on Dr Strangelove and replaced by Syd Cain. Len Deighton wrote the first draft of From Russia with Love. Deighton later worked on Kevin McClory's aborted Warhead film in the 1970s. From Russia with Love is a classy entry in the James Bond series that benefits from never straying too far from its literary source. One change they did make is having SPECTRE pit MI6 and the Soviets against one another. In the novel the scheme was one planned by the Soviet intelligence organisation SMERSH. SMERSH is the consolidated version of the Russian phrase smert shpionam, meaning death to spies. The change here was doubtless to tie From Russia with Love in with the previous film Dr No. The film has the first appearance by Ernst Stavro Blofeld (voiced by Eric Pohlmann) although his face remains unseen. His familiar white cat is present. The acronym of Blofeld’s villainous organisation SPECTRE stands for Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, Extortion. The most inspired casting is Robert Shaw as the villain Red Grant. Interestingly, Shaw was best known as a playwright at the time and didn't act much. His Red Grant remains the most dangerous customer Bond has tangled with in the entire series. Shaw dyed his hair blond for the role and worked out to look physically imposing and his encounter with 007 onboard the Orient Express is famously tense. The brutal fight in the train compartment, between James Bond and Red Grant, lasts only a few minutes on-screen, but took three weeks to film.Daniela Bianchi is also memorable as Tatiana although she gave up acting in 1970 and her voice in FRWL was dubbed by Barbara Jefford. Daniela Bianchi was Miss Universe in 1960. In 1967, Bianchi starred in Operation Kid Brother (aka O.K. Connery), an Italian James Bond knock-off featuring Sean Connery's brother Neil. The film also featured Bond regulars Lois Maxwell and Bernard Lee. Neil Connery wasn't an actor and the film was roundly panned. Legend has it that an embarrassed Sean tried to buy all the prints. Ingrid Bergman's daughter Pia Lindstrom tested for the part of Tatiana in From Russia with Love. Fleming described Tatiana as looking like Greta Garbo. 'Fine dark silken hair brushed straight back from a tall brow and falling heavily down to the shoulders, there to curl up slightly at the ends (Garbo had once done her hair like that and Corporal Romanvova admitted to herself she had copied it), a good, soft, pale skin with an ivory sheen at the cheekbones.' The scene where Connery orders breakfast and then finds Tatiana in his bed was used by Eon Productions to test potential Bonds. You can see footage of James Brolin and Sam Neil playing this scene in their 007 screentests on the internet if you look. From Russia with Love marks the introduction of many elements that would become staples of the Bond series, like the pre-title sequence and title credits with dancing girls - or in this case a bellydancer. Goldfinger is generally considered to be the film that established the Bond formula or blueprint. Cubby Broccoli felt however that From Russia with Love was the movie which set in stone the Bond template. From Russia with Love is the first Bond movie that establishes gadgets as a big part of the franchise. Bond is given an attache case containing tear gas talcum powder, a knife, fifty gold sovereigns and a sniper rifle ("That's a nasty little Christmas present") and there are poison tipped shoes and wristwatches that can produce piano wire to garrote people. Harry Saltzman was said to be obsessed with gadgets - much more so than Cubby Broccoli. So the tradition of gadgets in Bond films probably stems from Harry. The knife shoe used by Rosa Kleb was an actual weapon used by the KGB.The helicopter sequence in From Russia with Love owes rather a lot to Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest. Roger Thornhill's adventures in that film were plainly an influence on the early Bond pictures. Both North By Northwest and the James Bond films feature some interesting parallels in that both are glamorous travelogues with high-living sophisticated characters matching wits and feature enigmatic, beautiful women who may or may not be trustworthy. Plus, of course, explosions and stunts and set-pieces at famous locations and landmarks, suggestive dialogue banter, dry quips from an urbane, witty villain, and double-dealing and spying in general with a 'vital' object (MacGuffin) thrown out there to supply plot and character motivation. Terence Young said he liked From Russia with Love best out of the Bond films he directed. Out of the Bond films he made, Sean Connery also said From Russia with Love was his favourite. Martine Beswick, who had small parts in From Russia with Love and Thunderball, was one of the dancing girls in the title sequence for Dr No. Harry Saltzman was the person who came up with the idea of having a pre-credit sequence in the Bond films.Ian Fleming lived long enough to see Dr No and From Russia With Love made into movies but - sadly - he died just before the release of Goldfinger. Fleming therefore never quite got to experience the peak Bondmania that his famous character created in the 1960s with Goldfinger and Thunderball. Sean Connery said he only ever read two James Bond novels. He liked Ian Fleming as a person but didn't care for the Bond books much. Ian Fleming supposedly has a small cameo in from Russia with Love during a train scene. When the Bond movie franchise began, Ian Fleming was allowed to sit in on production meetings and add his tuppence to the script discussions. Sean Connery said he enjoyed making the early Bond films but it became a drag in the end. "The first two or three were fun. The cast made it fun. Jumping out of planes was entertaining although it was tough on my hair piece. It eventually became too dominant in everything I was doing. There was no way to compete with it and try to get any justifiable balance." Connery's irritation with Bond would mostly come down to two facts - his desire to do other things and his feeling that Broccoli and Saltzman were not giving him a fair share of the profits. Well, there was a third factor too. Connery disliked the fame and the intrusion on his privacy. This was all the near future though. For now at least he was happy playing James Bond and well aware this was a big break for him. From Russia with Love made $79 million from a $2 million budget. In contrast to other franchises, which spewed out sequels on the cheap and were willing to accept diminishing returns, Broccoli and Saltzman took the opposite approach. Each new Bond film was bigger than the last one. You couldn't really call it a gamble because if anything was a sure thing at the box-office it was a Sean Connery Bond film in the 1960s. From Russia with Love is alleged to be the last film John F. Kennedy watched before he was assassinated. It actually takes seventeen minutes for James Bond to make an appearance in the movie! In the books, Bond often drives his beloved Bentley. The car appears in this film for the only time in the series.The plot of the film has nefarious criminal organisation SPECTRE preparing a scheme to acquire a Lektor decoder devide from the Soviets and humiliate the British Secret Service. Tatiana Romanova, a Russian clerk in Turkey, is to be used as a pawn. She will offer to steal the device for the British in return for asylum in the United Kingdom but will only work with James Bond. Once Bond has been made to believe that he has successfully stolen the Lektor he will be murdered by deadly assassin Red Grant. The atmospheric and stylish From Russia with Love cemented Connery as the definitive James Bond and gave him his greatest ever foe in Robert Shaw's Red Grant. A real sense of intrigue lifts this into the top echelon of James Bond films. It owes more than a little to Hitchcock's classic 1959 comic thriller North By Northwest (which one could argue was the first James Bond film - at least in part) but the sense of style and panache is pure James Bond and heightened by a sense of danger we rarely get from later films in the series. You truly fear for Bond during his climactic encounter with Red Shaw and Lotte Lenya's razor shoed Rosa Klebb is another classic villain.  Shaw is impressive here, playing dual roles in a sense, in his guise as the friendly "Captain Nash" and his real identity as a psychotic SPECTRE assassin. "How I do it is my business. It'll be slow and painful." His irritation at Bond's snobbery and elegance is nicely played. From Russia with Love has lush wonderfully over the top opening title music by the great John Barry but what doesn't work quite so well to modern ears is Matt Monro's dated crooning of the title theme song (played over the end credits in the actual film). Pedro Armendáriz is excellent as Bond's Istanbul contact Ali Kerim Bey and Daniela Bianchi makes a memorable Bond girl in Tatiana Romanova. The first hint of the gadget obsession of the series is present here with Bond's weapon laden briefcase. John Barry more than makes his mark with his score. The European atmosphere and sixties superspy intrigue of Bond was absolutely perfect for the sound that Barry trademarked. Bond rankings are of course purely subjective but From Russia with Love is widely regarded to be one of the best films in the series. CAST & CREW - Director: Terence Young, Screenplay: Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood (based on the novel by Ian Fleming), Music: John Barry, Producers: Harry Saltzman & Albert R Broccoli, Cast: Sean Connery (James Bond), Daniela Bianchi (Tatiana Romanova), Pedro Armendáriz (Ali Kerim Bey), Lotte Lenya (Rosa Klebb), Robert Shaw (Red Grant), Bernard Lee (M), Walter Gotell (Morzeny), Vladek Sheybal (Kronsteen), Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny), Desmond Llewelyn (Q)GOLDFINGER (1964)Thunderball was excluded in favour of Goldfinger as the third James Bond screen adaptation because of the Kevin McClory court case (see the following Thunderball entry for details). With an eye on the North American market, Goldfinger was set mostly in the United States and given a huge budget for the time (the cost of the previous two films combined). Ken Adam returned with some eye-popping production designs and the film introduced 007's gadget laden Aston Martin DB5. When Terence Young declined to return  (preferring to make The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders instead), Guy Hamilton (who had turned down the chance to direct Dr No) replaced him. Guy Hamilton's approach to Bond was to lighten the material somewhat. Make the films less political/connected to the real world and have more humour and fantasy.The producers originally wanted Orson Welles to play Auric Goldfinger, but he was too expensive. Austrian actor Theodore Bikel unsuccessfully tested for the role of Goldfinger. Titos Vandis also tested to play the villain Goldfinger. Although Gert Fröbe won the part he was dubbed by Michael Collins. Frobe had to be dubbed as Auric Goldfinger because when he spoke English no one could understand a word he was saying. Goldfinger was briefly banned in Israel when it was reported in the media that Gert Frobe was a former member of the Nazi Party. Frobe left the Nazi Party in 1937. It transpired that Frobe had actually helped hide and rescue Jews during the war. Honor Blackman was chosen as Pussy Galore through her work on the iconic spy series The Avengers while Cec Linder became the second screen Felix Leiter after Jack Lord asked for too much money and equal billing with Sean Connery. Austin Willis was originally cast as Leiter but swapped places with Linder (who was originally going to play Goldfinger's gin rummy partner). Honor Blackman actually quit her role as Cathy Gale on The Avengers to appear in Goldfinger. "Before Bond, the parts I used to play in films were demure, sweet, antiseptic and antisex," Blackman said. "I wasn't even allowed to think like a woman. Pussy Galore and 007 worked wonders for me." Honor Blackman was in her late thirties when she made Goldfinger - making her the oldest Bond 'girl' until Monica Bellucci. The producers were worried that the name 'Pussy Galore' was too risque and considered changing it to Kitty Galore at one point. Sylvia Trench was supposed to return in Goldfinger but Guy Hamilton axed this plan when he took over as director from Terence Young. Shirley Anne Field and Joan Collins both declined the role of Jill Masterson - which went to Shirley Eaton. When Goldfinger came out, there was an urban legend that Shirley Eaton had died as a result of being covered in gold paint. In reality, Shirley Eaton was (and still is) very much alive and you can't actually die from painting your skin. Shirley Eaton said it was a pain trying to wash all that gold paint off her skin. "It didn’t take long to get it on. About an hour I think. But getting it off was awful. I had to scrub it off with soap and water, then have several Turkish baths." Harold Sakata, unforgettable as the silent, menacing henchman with the steel brimmed hat, won a silver medal for the United States in Light-Heavyweight wrestling in the 1948 London Olympics. Milton Reid, who later played Sandor in The Spy Who Loved Me, was also up for Oddjob but didn't get the part. Reid suggested he and Sakata should have a wrestling match for the role!