Stars : Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman and Jack Lord
Watch on : Prime Video
It sounds presumptuous to attempt review of such an iconic and vintage spy film that possibly all cinema buffs from our generation (1960-70s ) would have seen, some like me quite a few times for the macho ‘Bond’ genre. In fact ‘Dr. No’ is the first film in the James Bond series that started out with the splendidly suave Sean Connery (as he’d say ‘’Bond, James Bond”) and who’s remained ingrained in our hearts as best ever ‘Bond’, though many good actors followed him to keep the legend of ‘007’ alive and fighting !
It’s pretty cool of Prime Video to start airing ‘Bond’ flics which in our time was shown in theatres with an ‘A’ rating and the posters of Sean Connery with the gun in one hand and a ravishing girl on the other, quite fascinated us as students. In fact my first ‘A’ film venture was a Bond film ‘You Only Live Twice’, but incidentally to which, the fussy Theatre Manager denied entry as I looked too young to be exposed to Bond’s escapades. Undeterred, I & my buddies persisted in bonding with ‘Bond’ for the next few decades.
True to tradition that continued in all the earlier Bond movies with Connery (& later Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan and others) this first film has the usual suspects – the inscrutable Intel Chief ‘M’ entrusted by England to save the world with Bond’s help, Ms Moneypenny , the redoubtable secretary, who has a crush on ‘James’, the gadget genius ‘Q’ makes a brief appearance. There’s an array of beautiful women who Bond inevitably engages with. Here there’s also glamourous star Ursala Andress as ‘Honey’ & there’s a cool scene with her emerging from the sea that male audiences all over, still rave about !
Bond films must have a ‘larger than life’ evil character who’s out to destroy or dominate the western world. Here Bond is sent to Jamaica to investigate the disappearance of a fellow British agent. The trail leads him to the underground base of Dr. Julius No, who is plotting to disrupt an early American space launch from Cape Canaveral with a radio beam weapon. As he himself explains he’s adopted the title of Doctor and changed his name to Julius No to symbolise his rejection of his father, whose name was Julius.
Being the first of the series, I felt that we’ll find Bond a bit subdued than his later more violent and amorous avatars in the subsequent films but Connery in elegantly tailored suits and showing droll humour, is debonair as ever. We mustn’t forget to mention the edgy signature music that accompanies ‘Bond’ films and his vodka ‘shaken not stirred’ ! It launched a genre of secret agent films that flourished thereafter and Bollywood got spy films like ‘Farz’ and had gadget loving evil ‘Gang Lords’ thriving in exotic islands ! Should you revisit a dated film like ‘Dr No’? Yes, as Sean was forever- our James Bond !
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