Though I currently prefer it to low-budget DR. NO, pedestrian LIVE AND LET DIE, uneventful GOLDEN GUN, only-good-for-one-viewing OCTOPUSSY, canon-shattering NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN, Wayne Newton-wtf LICENCE, blah-riddled TOMORROW. QUANTUM OF CUISINART-EDITED LETDOWN and SPECTRE: YUCCH.
I didn't much appreciate Dr. No the first time I saw it. It didn't have any gadgets or big action scenes. Over the years though it has become one of my favorite Bond movies maybe because it's a more low-key story.
Dr. No is in my Top 6 Bond films. Its almost documentary feel to the proceedings is one of its strengths.
It's rather like the first SHAFT, saving its rare full-on action for the last 500 seconds. I don't know what to say to that....unless you're implying it's faithfulness to the source material.
No, it's budget was so low and its has so little intrusive background music it feels like a documentary film crew is following Bond, Honey Ryder and Quarrel around recording their adventures for posterity. Dr. No has long stretches of nothing but ambient background noise and that's something that didn't stick with the franchise.
Really? I never noticed that; but something I'd come to find conspicuous about DAF is how Blofeld's the villain, but SPECTRE is never mentioned.
It's a look quick or you'll miss it detail but when Blofeld walks out of the oil rig base to make his escape the bathysub has an octopus on the nose. I wonder if the Kevin McClory stuff was startitng to pick up speed by that time and they had to watch how many overt references they dropped? By The Spy Who Loved Me the McClory mess had torpedoed their chances of bringing back Blofeld or SPECTRE as the villains.
Production-wise, this would have been not long after it had been legally established that EON could no longer use Blofeld or SPECTRE...they'd intended to bring them back in TSWLM. The FYEO teaser can be taken as a middle finger in that general direction.
IIRC, SPECTRE was also barely referenced in OHMSS, and it was an indirect one--when Bond name-drops them to Draco before the subject switches to Blofeld.
Yeah, it was the only direct name reference post-You Only Live Twice. After 1967 it basically vanished from the original Bond timeline lexicon.
I first became aware of "OHMSS" when I was in my early 20s. After so many years . . . it's still my favorite James Bond movie of all time. Only 2006's "Casino Royale" came close to surpassing it on my list.
OHMSS is definitely one of my favorite Bond movies, if not the favorite. I've always felt that it was a shame that Lazenby only appeared in one movie.
DAF would probably have been so much better with Lazenby. It would more likely than not have been an actual revenge film and not some "well, the old guy's back now and we're gonna have some fun" attempt to make audiences forget about the events of OHMSS. By 1971 Lazenby's acting skills would have sharpened and he could have become a believable Bond out for vengeance and hunting down Blofeld.
(1) James Bond Theme 007 - Dr. No // The Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Live) - YouTube (1) On Her Majesty's Secret Service - 007// The Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Live) - YouTube
As much as I like Charles Gray…or having Telly back…I might have had Rod Steiger as Blofeld…due to his intensity. For a more European take…Alain Delon.
I keep thinking how one line from Connery as he dunks whom he believes is Blofeld into the hot mud and kills them - "For Tracy" - would have added some weight to the movie. The rest of the movie could have been more or less the same goofy mess but at least one verbal acknowledgment of WHY Bond was hunting down Blofeld with such ferocity would have been nice.