17 replies to this topic

[Zen Razor]

Okay so today I watched Dr.No I had seen it before but I never got to pay attention to it as much. After sitting down and actually paying attention and I was completely amazed by how good the film was. Nonetheless I want to talk about Bond's intelligence did anyone else notice that during Dr.No Bond had to be at his smartest he's ever been. Daniel era now seems like he always run straight into the traps and so Connery at times but I was amazing by how he used so much of his intelligence. The scene where he taped the closet to see if anyone would open it was intelligent. Not to mention him tricking the professor when he came in, Bond literally sat their for hours playing solitaire until the his arrival he even knew he was going to come. The part that impressed me most was after he returned to his hotel instead of pouring the liquor like he normally does he actually checked to see if it was drugged or not. Not normally we would see Bond fall into some of the most silliest traps but I have to say he was on his top game in this film. I'm guessing it has something to do with him being more experienced but I just found it amazing. What do you guys think do you think he was at his best or do you think Bond can be better?

[Colossus]

Wow really good viewpoints there. He was definitely on point here and that intelligence is definitely cool; the smarts he employed was something that should return. Nevermind being a Bond flick this is just a damn fine standalone film if the rest of the series never existed.

[Turn]

I don't think the intelligence has ever really left, just pushed further back on the priority list in favor of action and moving the plot along. We still have touches of it here and there. It was more acceptable to have little touches like that back then. I've always felt Bond is almost a hard-boiled detective as much as secret agent in Dr. No and it is always refreshing to watch in the wake of what came later on with the character becoming more of a superhero.

 

Along these lines, I always get a bit annoyed at the common misperception that Bond doesn't do anything in Goldfinger, when it's his intelligence and wits, and a lot of luck admittedly, that help foil Goldfinger. No handy gadgets to get him out of trouble and keep him alive, not brute force, just quick thinking.

 

And I can't dismiss the Craig Bond's intelligence that quickly either. Not only is his Bond still early in his career, but I found things like the distraction at the hotel to find the surveillance tape in CR an inspired move.

[Zen Razor]

@Colossus Agreed

 

 

@Turn  I feel the same way Goldfinger was a great example of his witts. I just found it intriguing that he was using lots of his wits in that film. It certainly has always been there but he used it a lot in those films. I feel Craig shows a lot of what Bond can do hand to hand. The older Bond films Bond didn't seem like a great fighter but with Daniel he looks like he can kick ass. The scene in Casino Royale where he crashes the car on purpose was great. It's one of the reason I love Bond films they always show what he's capable in different ones.

[dtuba]

I love some of the little details in DN, like when we see the wall of Bond's flat and the wall is decorated with little sillhouttes of old-timey race cars. Of course the only other time we see his house is in LALD. which has a garish, '70's decor.

[AMC Hornet]

What I noticed primarily is how sensual Connery's Bond was in Dr. No, and by sensual I mean how alert all his senses were: he was constantly feeling, tasting and smelling everything around him (Pussfeller's bar counter, his iced martinis (poisoned and otherwise), Miss Taro's perfumed towel, etc.). It certainly made him appear very predatory, like a wolf constantly alert to his surroundings.

 

Peter Hunt tried some of this with Laz, having him constantly glancing about, but I think that was to help with looping his dialogue in post.

[hoagy]

You may enjoy the books, if you've not read them, in this regard.

Bond did not "tape" the door in DN.  He plucked a hair from his head, licked it, and stuck over the gap where the bi-fold doors meet, touching each door.  Upon return, he could tell if anyone visited in his absence.  It is described at least once in the books as "an old trick."

In FRWL he also checked his hotel room, and found a microphone in a button in the middle of a tuft.  He purposely left it.  He always would check his fruit for pinholes, and glasses for fingerprints or telltale scents.  If uncertain, he'd get another glass.

It was part of the move away from Terence Young, director of the first two.  There were certain routines and intentional "keepers" at first.  You can see the return of some of it in TB, when T Young returned (though he did not finish the job entirely).  Showing the gleaming commercial jetliner, the hotel entry and the lady at the desk admiring Bond, the room-check...in the early 1960s this stuff was considered pretty glamorous.  After a while, these things were available to and enjoyed by many "regular" folks.  Nowadays slobs go to casinos and hotels in wifebeaters and sandals.

OK, I digress...

[Major Tallon]

Yes, Bond's setting of the hair on the door is from Fleming's novel.  In addition, Bond's sniffing of the whiskey (presumably for the scent of bitter almonds) is an adaptation of a bit of the book, where Bond finds a fruit basket in his room, marked as a gift, and minutely checks each piece until he finds the tiny pinprick left by a poisoned syringe.  And AMC Hornet makes a wonderful point about Connery's sensuality in the film.  It tells us a lot about Bond's approach to life.

[Iceskater101]

That intelligence really stems from the books I feel like. Casino Royale had a lot of that where Bond was really aware of his surroundings and he would look around everywhere and not be so easily swayed to go into a trap. 

[Hansen]

He has also a lot to do with instinct. In the airport scene, where he uses his hat to hide his face in front of Margaret LeWars, of the fact he calls the governor house to check if a car was indeed sent to fetch him.

These aspect are very present in the first films.

I love the way he manipulates Grant in the climax of FRWL in regards of the attaché-case. Either Grant let him open it and he can grab a gun, either Grant opens it and get the gas in his face. He could not lose. It is a great example of the chess pattern that colors the whole film.

It is a pity that we lost this subtilies all along the serie to come to some very stupid things (Skyfall...)

I love also AMC's point about Connery's sensuality. Very true and logical when you think that he got the job because of his "animality"

[billy007]

007 making up the bed dummy in Dr. No movie also comes from Fleming.

007 made up bed dummy in Spy Who Loved Me novel, using pine needles as fake hair on a pillow and hanging his shirt on a chair implying he had gone to bed.

 

I think all fans will agree that Dr. No movie really stands the test of time. I love Sir Roger's run but they can appear dated to the casual movie viewer.

[Guy Haines]

I've just listened to the Reloaded audio CD of Dr No, read by Hugh Quarshie. He's a Ghanaian born British actor who does a fine job, not only with Bond but with M - as crusty as ever - Honey Ryder (a white girl with a very Jamaican accent) and Dr No (nothing like Joseph Wiseman's version - more Chinese-American, with a hint of Caribbean, but no less menacing).

 

Hugh Quarshie is interviewed at the end about his interpretation of the novel, as all the actors in this audio series are, and he makes an interesting point. During the interview with M as Bond is about to be sent to Jamaica, we have the scene when Bond has to give up that "damned Beretta" because it let him down at the end of his previous mission. As Bond leaves, he tries to retrieve it, but M spots it and stops him. By contrast, during the dinner scene in Dr No's headquarters, the arch villain completely fails to stop Bond smuggling a knife and a lighter from the dinner table. Was that deliberate - giving Bond a chance to have at least a small "armoury" as he takes on the Doctor's fiendish obstacle course? Or was it a failure of observation and intelligence on the part of the villain? This, by the way, being a villain who clearly believes he thinks of everything his adversaries might do.

 

Hugh Quarshie thought that, in the intelligence stakes,  Dr No was no match for M. Neither, I suspect, was Bond.

[billy007]

Stealing the knife so easily was corrected in the movie version of Dr. No.

Bond was caught during his attempt to conceal the knife.

[Major Tallon]

The first two films played little tricks on the audience, depriving Bond of the tools he'd used in the novels to save his life.  In "Doctor No," it was the table knife that he lifted during dinner; in FRWL it was the cigarette lighter that he used as improvised body armor.  Both were taken by Bond's "captors" during the corresponding scenes in the movies, requiring Bond to save himself some other way.  Whether the films were as successful as the books in portraying this is another question.

[Simon]

............; in FRWL it was the cigarette lighter that he used as improvised body armor. 

 

Cigarette case.  Gunmetal.

[Major Tallon]

You're right, Simon.  My mistake!

[Guy Haines]

"Clumsy effort Mr Bond, you disappoint me. I'm not a fool, so please do not treat me as one. And that table knife, please put it back." Exactly! My comment above was about the Bond of the books, but having posted it I realised that in the film Doctor No was far from unobservant at the dinner table. Another example of the film improving on the novel? (Goldfinger being the most obvious example.) I wonder if Ian Fleming let the "bad" Doctor's eyes wander momentarily so that Bond could assemble an armoury - the author having planned the horrors ahead for his main character and on reflection wondered how on Earth a completely unarmed Bond would overcome them?

 

Either that or the film producers couldn't afford a giant squid and therefore Bond having a knife was irrelevant.

[billy007]

Another obvious example of movie improving on novel:

GOLDFINGER--- 007 discovering a dead gold painted Jill Masterson instead of being told of her death by sister Tilly..

 

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