007 One by One – Thunderball

Critics and filmmakers may prefer “From Russia With Love” and “Goldfinger,” and many complain about those long underwater sequences but, to a lot of fans, Bond #4 remains the ultimate in spy action, intrigue, gadgets, and girls, girls, girls. It also remains the all-time box office record holder of all the Bonds. It’s also only the second, and so far final, Bond film to ever win an Oscar — for special effects of course.

“Thunderball” (1965)

The Plot

Unperturbed by the 007-related deaths of Dr. No, Red Grant, Rosa Klebb, and countless other operatives, the amalgamated baddies of SPECTRE return with their most diabolical plot yet. The plan this time is nuclear blackmail, as SPECTRE Operative # 2 takes possession of two hydrogen bombs and informs England and the U.S. that they’ll either part with £100 million or kiss one or two of their favorite cities goodbye. Without any viable strategy other than complete capitulation, the only respectable option for the free world seems to be sending Bond to kill, copulate, and skin-dive his way to victory over nuclear terrorism.

The Backstory

With the series chugging along at the rate of roughly one movie a year and a worldwide spy craze underway, an observer might well have expected that the James Bond phenomenon had peaked with the blockbuster success of “Goldfinger.” Then again, a lot of people in 1965 were also figuring that those flash in the pan teen idols, the Beatles, had peaked with “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”

The EON Production team led by producers Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli and Harry Saltzman knew that their hot streak was still very much in play. They cannily chose to triple-down with a budget roughly three times higher than the already relatively high ($3 million!) “Goldfinger” budget and all-out marketing and cross-promotional blitz. As luck and skill would have it, the most eagerly anticipated Bond film would ultimately top the box-office success of “Goldfinger” by $20 million with a worldwide take of $141.2 million — not quite enough cash to satisfy a Bond villain, but getting there.

The amazing part is that the film was ever made at all, as the project had been plagued by legal difficulties for years. “Thunderball” began life as a screenplay that James Bond creator Ian Fleming developed with, among others, screenwriter Jack Whittingham and producer Kevin McClory. Fleming eventually tired of the complexities of getting a Bond movie on the screen and abandoned the project. He nevertheless used a great deal of the abortive script’s story in his 1961 novel of “Thunderball.”

Things got complicated when producers Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli and Harry Saltzman entered the mix. Broccoli and Saltman’s EON team originally initially saw “Thunderball” as the best kick-off for the Bond series, even if its action would have to be scaled back considerably to fit their budget. A lawsuit brought by Kevin McClory nixed the idea, even though writer Richard Maibum had already completed a screenplay.

The suit was eventually settled out of court by an ailing Ian Fleming. With Fleming having passed on and an obvious cash cow of enormous magnitude before him, victorious rights holder McClory agreed to an EON-produced film of “Thunderball” on certain conditions, including that he be the sole credited producer.

With McClory on board, it was time to reassemble the Bond team. Though flush with success, “Goldfinger” director Guy Hamilton pleaded exhaustion. In his stead, original Bond director Terrence Young was induced to return for one final outing, while such key personnel as editor Peter Hunt, director of photography Ted Moore, production designer Ken Adam, stunt man/action choreographer Bob Simmons, and composer John Barry all happily returned. As per the writing MO on the early Bond films, the work of American screenwriter Richard Maibum was given a more English make-over by a Brit, TV scribe John Hopkins. To handle the considerable challenge of filming underwater, EON turned to nature film specialists Ivan Tors Productions, who had achieved great success filming aquatic material for television with their hit shows,”Sea Hunt” and “Flipper.”

As for the stars, while the pressures of true superstardom were starting to weigh on Sean Connery, he was still on board and not yet ready to kill the golden but increasingly painful goose that was Bondage. For his leading lady, EON passed on three actresses soon to become superstars — Raquel Welch, Julie Christie, and Faye Dunaway — before settling on their final choice. More about that below.

The Bond Girls (Rule of 3 + 2)

Bond keeps up his sexual batting average with his usual three trips to home plate in “Thunderball.” Oddly enough, while more than maintaining his rascally ways when it comes to women, he manages what appear to be purely professional relations with two of the film’s five “Bond girls.”

Madame LaPorte (Mitsuoaka): The part was uncredited, and we never find out much about the French operative who assists Bond’s revenge mission against Jacques Bouvar in the opening sequence. Even so, the subtly exotic Madame LaPorte definitely lends an air of intrigue to the opening adventure. The French-Eurasian actress, Mitsuoaka, born Maryse Guy, was a former stripper who seems to have spent a lot of the sixties riding the spy wave around Europe, having already appeared in such early sixties capers as “License to Kill” and “Agente 077 Missione Bloody Mary.” She passed on in 1995.

Paula Caplan (Martine Beswick): Bond’s gorgeous “island girl” assistant appears to be an entirely competent MI6 operative. Even though we’ve barely seen them even flirt, Bond is clearly upset when she meets an unpleasant but honorable end under the custody of SPECTRE — though not so upset that he can’t handily boff an attractive enemy operative. Very much a cult star in her own right, this marks either the second or third and final Bond-girl appearance for actress Martine Beswick. She had also played one of the feisty-but-affectionate Gypsy women in “From Russia with Love” and might have appeared as one the dancing silhouetttes in the “Dr. No” credit sequence.

Martine Beswick

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Binder’s Full of Women: The Evolving Art of the Classic James Bond Title Sequence

Bullz-Eye is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first James Bond film with look back at every Bond movie, 007 One by One, along with a series of features about the Bond franchise, all laid out in our James Bond Fan Hub.

Over the years James Bonds came and went. Directors and writers shifted and changed. Vocalists were routinely swapped out. Though not the only constant in the Bond franchise, Maurice Binder, as the primary designer of the instantly recognizable title sequence, was certainly one of the most noticeable ones. For the bulk of Bond’s first 27 years, Binder brought us a cavalcade of swirling colors and curvaceous ladies, typically set to the tune of a current pop sensation. His job was to help set the tone for the film to come by presenting elements and themes from the movie in an abstract, artistic fashion. For many, these title sequences became an important, even necessary part of the Bond movie-going experience, and remain so today, over 20 years after Binder’s passing. Here we take an entirely subjective look at his ongoing contributions to cinema’s longest-running movie franchise.

The first thing ever seen in a Bond movie is the opening gun barrel sequence, and no amount of praise can be too effusive for Maurice Binder’s creation of it. James Bond emerges in profile from the right, caught in the movie viewer’s cross hairs. He then spins around, shoots, and the gun sight fills with, presumably, the viewer’s blood.

It’s become part and parcel of the Bond films ever since, though only in “Dr. No” is it part of the title sequence proper; afterwards, it would be separated from the titles by the now also iconic pre-credits sequence. Coupled with the infamous Monty Norman-composed Bond theme song, the gun barrel sequence is that instantaneous moment when everyone simultaneously acknowledges they’re watching a Bond film.

After the gun barrel sequence, flashing colored lights set to the Bond theme reveal the title “Dr. No” as well as the cast, followed by the silhouettes of people dancing a sort of Jamaican mambo, and, finally, a calypso version of “Three Blind Mice” dovetails nicely into the movie itself. The “Dr. No” titles are a lot fun and unique in the Bond film series; the only real element of them that would come to feature heavily in the future is Binder’s inventive, energetic use of silhouette.

It’s anyone’s guess into what directions the Bond title sequences might’ve gone if Binder had helmed the titles for the “Dr. No” sequel. But he did not, and for the next two films – “From Russia with Love” and “Goldfinger” – the titles are designed by Robert Brownjohn. Both sequences march to the beat of different drum than Binder’s, and even though Brownjohn only ever did these two, his influence on what the Bond titles would ultimately evolve into on Binder’s watch cannot be discounted.

There’s an elegance and class that Brownjohn brings to the table that may or may not have progressed out of Binder as well, but for certain the one thing Brownjohn can be credited with is the fetishized exploitation of the female form, and both of his sequences are loaded with it; the curvaceous fairer figure is all but worshipped, and the dominant centerpiece of “From Russia with Love.”

Brownjohn’s other gimmick – projecting imagery over those lovely bodies – is strikingly used in both sequences. In the former, the credits are projected over the undulating female form, and in the latter, snippets of scenes from the movie itself. However, anything Brownjohn does with the “Goldfinger” sequence is very probably overshadowed by the sounds of Shirley Bassey, as this other imperative element – the pop song – finally drops into its place in the title sequence timeline. Bassey is the true star here, and her vocals remain some of the most iconic in film history.

With 1965’s “Thunderball,” Maurice Binder returned to his post in the franchise, and would remain with the series in this capacity for the next 24 years. Right here, right now . . . BAM! This is where all of the familiar elements finally congeal into the Bond title sequence we all know and love. Silhouettes of floating naked women mingle with silhouetted deep sea divers armed with harpoons. Water bubbles against myriad colors filling the screen. Tom Jones delivers bombastic accompaniment to the intense, widescreen visuals (also a first for the Bond series). This handful of disparate elements combine to create movie history, and our expectations for Bond would never be the same again.

Further, sometimes those silhouettes weren’t all that dark. Perhaps the one area where Binder figured he could outshine his temporary predecessor was to titillate the audience with brief flashes of visible boob and butt, and it worked, ahem, swimmingly.

Binder got even more creative on the next outing, by adding graphics and playing around with his silhouette technique by inverting it, as well as throwing filmed bits of flowing lava, erupting volcanoes, and sexy geisha ladies into the mix. Between the titles for “You Only Live Twice” and “Thunderball,” most of the tools in Binder’s creative box are on display, and he’d use various combinations of the pair in his work over the next 20 years and change. We’d also be remiss to not mention the theme tune sung by Nancy Sinatra, a hypnotic piece of work that’s stood the test of time.

Since “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” was quite the mouthful, composer John Barry opted to create an instrumental piece for the titles, and it’s a rousing bit of work. Because this movie was, for the first time, introducing a new actor (George Lazenby) playing Bond, much of Binder’s work here consists of a montage of clips from the previous films, as the need was felt to stress to audiences that they were still following the adventures of the same man. The trip down memory lane aside, the graphics are borderline psychedelic, bursting with eye-popping color — wholly indicative of the film to come.

With “Diamonds Are Forever” the series moved into a new decade, yet the movie still had a foot in the Sixties, as is evidenced by the return of both Sean Connery and Shirley Bassey; the latter again dominates these proceedings. Binder grabs the iconography of diamonds and Blofeld’s cat to create the titles which brought an end to the Connery era.

When Roger Moore arrived on the scene in 1973’s “Live and Let Die,” the titles exploded around him, via the inevitable hiring of a Beatle (and his wife) to pen and perform the theme. Paul McCartney and Wings arguably delivered the most instantly perfect Bond theme since “Goldfinger,” which is vaguely ironic, since it was in “Goldfinger” that James Bond took a swipe at the Fab Four: “That’s as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs!”

Here Binder deals in the nightmarish, voodoo aspects of the movie, including human skulls and crackling fire, all wrapped around women of color, some covered in tribal paint. An argument could be made that these titles are the “You Only Live Twice” titles on LSD. There can be no doubt that the franchise, and Binder’s work along with it, had firmly entered the 1970s.

The titles for “The Man with the Golden Gun” are a fairly paint by numbers affair, despite the complete and utter catchiness of Lulu’s theme song. Indeed, as a rule of thumb, if the song is the most memorable aspect of the Bond title sequence, then boundaries aren’t being sufficiently pushed, even within the limited confines of the format. That being said, the silhouette gettin’ down about two-thirds of the way through is a fine specimen of woman.

Harsh criticism can in no way be leveled at “The Spy Who Loved Me” titles, which showcase Binder at quite possibly the height of his creative powers. Simply put, everything comes together, in about an ideal a manner as possible. The imagery is slightly more abstract than the norm, mostly eschewing iconography from the movie, though sexy, athletic Russian ladies are a theme. Instead it seemingly invokes Bond’s relationship with women in general, achieved via the inclusion of Roger Moore, under the direction of Binder, as a part of the sequence. This was a first. It wasn’t movie footage, as had previously been done with “Goldfinger” and “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” – this was specially shot, and given the film’s title, it was an appropriate creative call.

Then there’s that perfectly gorgeous theme tune, performed by Carly Simon, and written by Carole Bayer Sager and Marvin Hamlisch, that so effortlessly works hand in hand with Binder. “Nobody Does It Better,” indeed. The marriage of music and imagery here is the stuff the very best music videos are made of, and this compares to ballet. If we were stuck a desert island with only one Bond title sequence, it’d be this one.

It’d be easy at this point to claim it was all downhill for Binder’s Bond after ’77, but that would be to deny a huge chunk of his artistry. Just because he peaked with “Spy,” doesn’t mean there weren’t bursts of beauty afterwards. Sadly, “Moonraker” doesn’t really have one of those moments. Visually it feels like leftovers from “Spy,” but its biggest problem, which is no fault of Binder’s, is the return to the Shirley Bassey well for a third time, a decision that no longer works. She’s from a different era altogether, and out of step with the movie itself, which was thematically looking forward to the future via its sci-fi aspects.

Things get seriously back on track with 1981’s “For Your Eyes Only,” a sequence, which, like “Spy,” features a visual first: The inclusion of chanteuse Sheena Easton’s face and body as a part of the titles. It’d be easy to claim that this was a reaction to the growing popularity of MTV if not for one thing – MTV didn’t launch until about three months after the movie was released. So instead we must assume that the decision was purely an aesthetic one, given that Sheena Easton was pretty enough to be a Bond girl herself. She’s a marvel, and the song by Bill Conti and Michael Leeson is nearly as tight as Carly Simon’s. Finding a current, pretty pop star with serious pipes was the apology after Bassey’s flaccid “Moonraker.”

Binder creates a swirling, sensual concoction here, and this was the last time he was truly on fire, doing the thing that he’s best known for, in the history of cinema.

We need look no further than the titles for “Octopussy” for proof of our previous assertion. Rita Coolidge is a fine singer, but not at all right for Bond, and out of step with the cultural zeitgeist of that moment. Couple her with yet another title that makes for a potentially awkward theme, and we end up with “All Time High,” and likely Binder’s least inspiring work in the series. There’s simply nothing of note here, unless we want to mention the unintentionally laughable bits such as Bond swinging a woman around in circles by an arm and a leg, and the visual around the 1:20 mark, where it appears Bond is humping the model.

With Moore’s swansong, “A View to a Kill,” the series swings back around to contemporary and current by getting Duran Duran on board. Their theme song is exceptional, and Binder gives it his all, in an attempt to deliver visuals to match the audio. This title sequence, much like the year 1985, is a garish, hideous affair, drenched in glow in the dark excess. Not bad necessarily, as Binder seems at his worst when he’s not trying, and here he clearly is, but such a freakshow, you cannot take your eyes off it. He even brings a little something new to the table by featuring silhouetted naked men – on skis, no less! In doing so, Binder sort of proves why he’d never done it before: They appear neutered, like a Ken doll. Clearly the male form does not lend itself well to Binder’s artistry.

As we enter the final stretch of Maurice Binder’s work with the James Bond series, a new actor – Timothy Dalton – has been cast in the lead role, and a new era seemingly begins, even though behind the scenes it was all business as usual, with the same creative minds calling the shots in a cinematic world threatening to leave Bond behind. It was a franchise in a mild creative crisis, punctuated by being only a two-picture affair. It should come as no surprise that Binder’s final title sequences, as well as the songs the play over them, reflect this rocky footing.

The Living Daylights” feels like a straight-up greatest hits compilation. It works well enough, but just. The same can more or less be said of Binder’s fourteenth and final Bond title sequence, 1989’s “Licence to Kill.” Few artists do their greatest work at the end of their careers, and Binder is no exception. While this is workmanlike, and not particularly exceptional, it’s difficult to level too much criticism at this stage, since he’d essentially been reworking variations of the same idea repeatedly since “Thunderball” (much like the franchise itself). But the fact that he was able to do it over and over again, for so long, while simultaneously charming generations of moviegoers speaks volumes to his talent and legacy.

Maurice Binder died at the relatively young age of 66 in 1991. Even if he’d lived to see ’95, when the Bond franchise was revived with Pierce Brosnan in the lead, it seems unlikely his services would have been called upon. Starting with “Goldeneye,” the title sequences (“Quantum of Solace” aside) have been designed by commercial and music video director Daniel Kleinman. On his watch they’ve become elaborate, CGI-driven affairs, which, while taking cues from and paying due homage to Binder’s work, have become their own, different sort of excessive animal.

All 22 of the Bond title sequences are now available to view in one single block (clocking in at over an hour), in gorgeous eye-popping 1080p, on the bonus disc of the recent Blu-ray box set, Bond 50: The Complete 22 Film Collection.

Also available for Bond enthusiasts is a new 2-CD set entitled “Best of Bond . . . James Bond: 50 Years – 50 Tracks.”

  

007 One by One – Goldfinger

Bullz-Eye continues its look back at every James Bond film, 007 One by One, as part of our James Bond Fan Hub that we’ve created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Bond film.

The third Bond film is more than one of the most enduringly popular movies in the series, it’s the  template for James Bond movies from that point forward. In fact, it’s fair to argue that it actually set the pattern for actions films for years to come. It was also arguably the first modern-day blockbuster in that it was intended as an event as well a movie — complete with mega-bucks generating merchandizing opportunities. Sadly, it’s also the first movie in the series that Bond’s 56 year-old creator, Ian Fleming, didn’t live to see completed. He could not have conceived of how insanely popular his creation would become within months of his passing.

“Goldfinger” (1963)

The Plot

007 locks deadly horns with a mysterious millionaire known for cheating at gin rummy, golf, and the exportation of gold. That naturally turns out to be only the tip of the iceberg as James Bond discovers a diabolical plan aimed at destroying the economy of the free world and making portly Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe) the world’s richest man. The aptly named, gold-obsessed supervillain’s target is, of course, Fort Knox.

The Backstory

With the back-to-back success of “Dr. No” and “From Russia With Love,” the cash-conscious EON producing team of Harry Saltzman and Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli were ready to spend big money in early 1960’s movie production terms — $3 million! (The 2008 Bond entry, “Quantum of Solace,” had a reported production budget of $200 million.)

Dashing director Terrence Young, who had launched the series so ably with “Dr. No” and “From Russia With Love,” went for the gold and held out for more pay. True to form, EON decided to go with a more thrifty option and brought in an accomplished journeyman director who was, nevertheless, a new hand when it came to staging elaborate action scenes, Guy Hamilton.

American writer Richard Maibum was back on board, this time with an assist from British screenwriter Paul Dehn. A likely inspiration for the dashing English spy played by Michael Fassbender in “Inglourious Basterds,” Dehn was a former film critic and admitted World War II assassin. His next gig was, ironically, helping to adapt John le Carré’s specifically anti-Bondian espionage classic, “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.”

Most importantly to the financial bottom line, Sean Connery had made himself synonymous with 007 and was also on board for another go round, though he wouldn’t appear on set until he finished off his highly dramatic starring role in Alfred Hithcock’s “Marnie.” Connery was starting to worry a little about this whole business of being typecast as a veritable superhero; he would continue to go out of his way to remind the public he could be someone other than Bond.

Researching the film today, everyone working on “Goldfinger” seems to have understood  the massive opportunity it presented. That bigger budget meant one thing: more — more action, more gadgets, more violence, and an extremely fast pace by the standards of its day. It was just the kind of wretched excess that could lead to a film so enormous it could launch easily the longest lasting and most consistently successful franchise in movie history.

The Bond Girls (Rule of 3 + 2)

Bond keeps to his usual score of three sex partners per movie. However, as befits the more lavish “Goldfinger,” we actually have five legitimate “Bond girls” this go-round. It’s just that Bond respectfully keeps his hands off of one and apparently never quite reaches home plate with another. To be specific…

Bonita (Nadia Regan) — She gets kissed while naked at the end of the pre-credit sequence, but it appears that actually doing the deed with Bond was never in the treacherous beauty’s plans, and she ends up with only a nasty bump on the head for her trouble. The adorable, Serbian-born Nadia Regan was actually on her second Bond go-round, having played a very brief kittenish role in the just-prior, “From Russia With Love,” where she was the Turkish secretary/girlfriend of Ali Kerim Bey (Pedro Armendariz.)

Dink (Margaret Nolan) – This lovely bathing beauty and amateur masseuse appears to be Bond’s very temporary girlfriend during his very short vacation at Miami Beach’s ultra-lux Fontainebleau Hotel. In true super-sexist style, he dismisses her with jovial rudeness and a smart smack to the backside when his American colleague shows up. Actress and model Margaret Nolan would go on to appear in a Playboy pictorial and several entries in the “Carry On” series of British sex comedies.

Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton) – Bond wastes little time in seducing the bikini clad Masterson, who has unwisely taken a job helping a certain highly suspicious gold broker cheat at gin rummy. The superspy clearly takes a liking to the spunky, frankly sexual Masterson. He is devastated when he wakes up from a clubbing-induced slumber to find her suffocated to death by being painted completely gold from head to foot. It’s a tragic death, but it gave the movie its poster and one of the most creepily memorable and iconic images in the Bond lexicon. Shirley Eaton, already a busy working actress in the British film industry, would go on to star in a number of mostly not-so-distinguished films before retiring in favor of motherhood in 1969. She came out of retirement three decades later with a memoir, Golden Girl.

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007 One by One – From Russia with Love

We continue our look at the film adventures of the world’s most beloved killer spy with the James Bond flick many critics and fans consider the best in the series, based on Ian Fleming’s most acclaimed spy novel.

“From Russia with Love” (1963)

The Plot

After the death of their operative, Dr. No, SPECTRE is one rather peeved diabolical organization bent on world domination. Also, they could use some cash. The villains’ collective therefore devises a plan to steal a hugely prized Lektor decoding device from the Soviets by using the superspy responsible for No’s demise as a pawn. Endgame: Sell the device for a huge sum and kill James Bond. The bait will be the defection, with the Lektor, of a beautiful and unknowing Soviet operative working out of the Russian embassy in Turkey. She is another pawn, a loyal low-level agent who is tricked into cooperating and told to develop a romantic fixation on Bond. The proposal is such an obvious trap, and the Lektor such a desirable prize, that there’s no way the British secret service can possibly resist going to Istanbul for a look. It all wraps up in a sexy and violent trip on the legendary Orient Express and an exciting and dangerous (for stunt men) boat chase.

The Backstory

Following up on the success of “Dr. No,” the EON production team of Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli and Harry Saltzman elected to follow the lead of the series’ most famous fan. President John F. Kennedy had singled out Ian Fleming’s novel, From Russia with Love, as one of his ten favorite books in an issue of Time Magazine. Despite nearly 100 opening pages in which Bond does not appear, the story was more or less tailor made for a movie, and the rest was a matter of bringing back “Dr. No” writers Richard Maibum and Johanna Harwood to make the story more Hollywood friendly.

First of all, the relatively simple Stalin-era plot of the original novel was updated and complicated to avoid controversy. In light of the more morally complex Khrushchev era and the recent Cuban missile crisis, many viewers were likely to disagree with Ian Fleming’s extremely hawkish, if somewhat tongue-in-cheek, take on the Cold War. And, so a story about ultra-evil Russians trying to take out the West’s most effective counterspy with maximum collateral PR damage, became a tale involving SPECTRE’s desire to grow its cash and power reserves while manipulating MI6 and the KGB into a costly and unnecessary battle. Seeing as the production code was growing weaker even as the Bond budget was growing larger, the sex and violent action quotients was also bumped up considerably from the novel.

Along with newborn superstar leading man Sean Connery, dashing director Terrence Young returned for his second Bond outing after the success of “Dr. No.” Aside from allowing the talented Young to firmly set the tone for the series, bringing him back proved to be a wise choice. Often described him as something of a real-life James Bond, Young was the kind of steady hand the difficult shoot would require.

The challenges Young would face included several changes in locations, numerous reshoots, plus lots of difficult and dangerous stunt work. A scene involving hundreds of rats proved especially tricky because English law permitted only the use of white rats. When the animal wranglers placed cocoa powder on the rats to give them a less hygienic look, the rats were distracted, licking the tasty cocoa powder off themselves and each other. The scene wound-up being shot in Spain.

Murphy’s law was certainly in force on the second Bond film, but director Young took events in stride. He was reportedly back at work within hours after being involved in an apparently minor helicopter crash, though we’re not sure how a helicopter crash can be anything less than a big deal. More tragically, Young also had to deal with the news that key actor Pedro Armendáriz was terminally ill. (More about that below.)

The Bond Girls (Rule of 3 or, in this case, 4)

Yes, an apparent threesome boosts Mr. Bond usual number of consummated movie affairs. The “From Russia with Love” Bond girls are…

Sylvia Trench (Eunice Gayson) — Bond’s Chemin de Fer opponent from “Dr. No” returns. Trench was supposed to be an ongoing liaison in each of the films, but her lakeside tryst with Bond was to be her final appearance. We’re guessing that even a hint of sexual repetition was seen as too much of a hindrance to 007’s womanizing ways. Ironically, Gayson had originally tried out for the longer-lasting but more chaste role of Moneypenny.

Vida and Zora (Aliza Gur and Martine Beswick) — Bond watches with interest, and some concern, as a pair of extremely jealous Gypsy girls stage a to-the-death fight over a man until they are interrupted by a group of Russian-paid Bulgars gunmen. After Bond helps save the day for the Romany, it is strongly hinted that the hot blooded trio spend the rest of the evening making love, not war. (In the novel, Bond is more of a passive observer of some kinky bloodshed.)

As for the talented and lovely ladies who played Vida and Zora, Aliza Gur was a former Miss Israel and Miss Universe semi-finalist. She would later appear in such spy-themed TV shows as “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “Get Smart.” The Anglo-Jamaican Martine Beswick, who may or may not have been one of the dancing silhouettes from the “Dr. No” credits, would return to Bondage as Paula Caplan in “Thunderball” and enjoy a lengthy career as a busy working actress. A supporting role in 1966’s “One Million B.C.” would be followed by such low-budget productions as 1967’s “Prehistoric Women,” 1971’s “Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde,” and 1980’s “The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood.” More upscale roles from the eighties and nineties included “Melvin and Howard,” “Miami Blues,” and the 1993 version of “Wide Sargasso Sea.”

Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi) — An idealistic operative who thinks she’s working for the Soviets in an operation designed to pass false information to MI6, Tatiana finds it easy to play the role of a love struck defector when she meets the dashing James Bond. Though her loyalties may be divided, her attraction to Bond is undeniable.

Since her character was described as resembling 1930s film star Greta Garbo in the novel, it was a sure bet that former Miss Rome and Miss Universe semi-finalist Bianchi would be lovely and charismatic, if not quite up to the acting standards of the great Garbo. Ms. Bianchi does, however, deliver a credible and very sexy performance, though her Italian accent was removed with a total voice assist from veteran English actress Barbara Jefford. Unfortunately, her best remembered non-“From Russia with Love” outing remains the notorious Eurospy spoof, “Operation Kid Brother,” which starred real-life Sean Connery kid brother, Neil. (Check out this slideshow for more pics of Daniela Bianchi)

Friends and Colleagues

M (Bernard Lee) and Moneypenny (Louise Maxwell) are both back for more banter. By this point, the pattern is being set for the characters’ fun but exposition-heavy scenes that would be a mainstay of the series for decades to come. The scenes are always somewhat the same: It’s Moneypenny’s job to provide some flirtatious silliness and M’s job to make sure the frivolity doesn’t eat up too much screen time. The business with Bond throwing his seemingly unworn bowler hat on the hat stand makes a return as well. However, “From Russia with Love” gives us two additions to Bond’s onscreen colleagues, each in their own way legendary.

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007 One by One – Dr. No

The girls, the gadgets, the stylish violence and absurd deeds of derring-do… It’s no wonder that the handsome and ruthlessly heroic James Bond has been an icon of masculine wish fulfillment and feminine desire for 50 years. Harry Potter and “Twilight” films might sell more tickets at the moment, but Bond belongs to an elite group of internationally popular, impossible to kill, long-running heroes.

One thing that distinguishes Bond from your Superman, Batman and Sherlock Holmes types is that, with three quirky exceptions, the Bond character has been exclusively handled by the same small, family-owned production company which has maintained a tight creative grip on the franchise since the very first Bond movie. This has led to a remarkable degree of consistency, which can be a mixed blessing.

Keeping things fresh is surely a concern on the upcoming 23rd entry in the series, which was intelligently rebooted with 2006’s “Casino Royale,” but it’s been an issue since the Bond craze first kicked into overdrive with “Goldfinger” and “Thunderball” in the mid-sixties. In fact, there’s something enjoyably ritualistic about the Bond films, which repeat the same elements with just enough variation to keep fans returning film after film, even as they might grumble that the series hasn’t been the same since Sean Connery stopped playing Bond. Without the Bond girls, the amazing stunts, the pre-credit sequence and elaborate credits, and especially the theme, Bond just wouldn’t be Bond.

And so, we at Bullz-Eye will be looking at 007 film by film, with a special emphasis on those key ingredients in the Bond martini, both familiar and hopefully somewhat surprising, that have kept so many of us devoted to the series, movie after movie after movie, year after year after year. We’ll start at the beginning…

“Dr. No” (1962)

The Plot

James Bond, an MI6 spy with a “double O” designation which means he is both an investigator and an occasional assassin with a “license to kill,” is sent to investigate the murder of British operative and his secretary in Jamaica. The man behind it turns out to be a Chinese-German millionaire with an unhealthy interest in America’s space program and scores of expendable extras on his payroll. 007 gets his man, kills a few others, and makes a few new female friends.

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