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.

As the worldwide spy craze peaks, the James Bond series settles in for the long, tongue-in-cheek haul with this often maligned but very enjoyable entry, introducing the world to both ninjas and the original Dr. Evil. It also might have been the final appearance of Sean Connery as 007, except that it wasn’t.

“You Only Live Twice” (1967)

The Plot

A United States space capsule is hijacked, killing one astronaut. Naturally, the Americans assume the Soviets are at fault and world war seems a real possibility. There’s only one thing for the level-headed English to do: Stage James Bond’s death and send him on an undercover mission to Japan to expose SPECTRE head Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s plot to dominate the world by partially destroying it.

The Backstory

With enormous success comes enormous pressures and change was very definitely in the air as “You Only Live Twice” began production. Now one of the world’s most bankable stars after the mega-success of “Thunderball,” Sean Connery was contractually on board for only one more film and starting to be seriously fed up with all the 007 insanity.

Behind the camera, original Bond director Terrence Young had had his fill and “Goldfinger” helmer Guy Hamilton was unavailable. Editor and second unit director Peter Hunt, who had been instrumental in the series’ creative success, badly wanted to helm the project, but producers Albert “Cubby” Broccoli and Harry Saltzman apparently weren’t ready for a first timer for Bond #5. Therefore, a new recruit was sought out to join the small fraternity of James Bond directors.

An old hand at period pieces and war films, Lewis Gilbert was hot off an Oscar nomination for a classic-to-be about a compulsive womanizer who could give Bond a run for his money. “Alfie” starred Connery’s good friend, fellow movie spy, and now award-winning box office rival, Michael Caine.

Lewis Gilbert also brought along one of the very few directors of photography who could have reasonably stepped into the very big shoes of series regular Ted Moore. Freddie Young had won the first of his four Oscars a couple of years prior for David Lean’s visually stunning 1963 70mm masterpiece, “Lawrence of Arabia.” For the sake of keeping things consistent, all the other key collaborators, were back on board in their regular roles, i.e., composer John Barry, credit designer Maurice Binder, and production designer Ken Adam. For once, they’d all have a nice budget to play with, too.

The script, however, was an issue. The novel “You Only Live Twice,” was the last Bond book published in Ian Fleming’s lifetime and the story was problematic for more than one reason. For starters, it was actually the third and final installment in what literary Bond fans call “the Blofeld Trilogy.” EON’s original intent had been to film the books in their original order. That way Blofeld, who had been teased as a character starting in “Dr. No,” would get his long-delayed onscreen introduction in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” and finally suffer James Bond’s revenge in the follow-up, “You Only Live Twice.” Unfortunately, logistics made the ski chalet setting of “Majesty” impractical for the summer release EON and United Artists had their hearts set on.

The other problem was that the plot of Ian Fleming’s novel, which involved Blofeld setting up a lavish sanitarium for wealthy suicides, just didn’t seem to be the stuff of a James Bond movie. It also ended with Bond fathering a child with Kissy Suzuki. Only a few elements from the book would remain in the finished movie, most notably the Japanese setting, love interest Kissy, and friendly spy boss Tiger Tanaka.

There was also a problem with finding a writer. Richard Maibum, who had worked on every Bond up to this point, was deemed unavailable. A rumored screenplay by renowned author Kingsley Amis had been reportedly dismissed. Another script was commissioned by writer Harold Jack Bloom, but little of his work would remain in the finished film.

The final choice of screenwriter turned out to be an interesting one. Decades after his death, Roald Dahl remains one of the world’s most popular children’s writers with such film-friendly classics as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” “The Witches,” “Matilda,” and “James and the Giant Peach” all too his credit. He might have seemed a far likelier choice for writing an adaptation of Ian Fleming’s children’s book, “Chitty Chitty Bang-Bang,” the gig that was apparently keeping Richard Maibum busy. Nevertheless, Dahl had written his share of adult thrillers and had actually performed wartime espionage and been friends with Fleming. Scads of 007-inspired spy spoofs were upping the humor ante and this would be a somewhat more tongue-in-cheek Bond. Dahl’s dark sense of humor would be a plus.

The main thrust of the film’s new plot was apparently invented by Cubby Broccoli, however. Upon seeing a dormant volcano while scouting locations, he came up with the idea of using it as a giant villain’s lair. With the U.S.-Soviet space race at full swing, the Russian-Chinese split a topical news item, and terrorism on the rise, the idea of SPECTRE hijacking spacecrafts in order to start a world war on behalf of Red Chinese clients seemed like a natural.

The Bond Girls (Rule of 3 + 1)

Once again, 007 does the espionage nasty with three beautiful women on his Japan adventure. Shockingly, however, the movie’s main love interest is not one of them.

Ling (Tsai Chow) — This lovely lady of Hong Kong engages in mildly racist pillow talk with Bond and then reveals herself to be an accomplice in the spy’s elaborately faked death. Though her part is small, actress Tsai Chow was already a recording artists and a major star of the London stage in “South Pacific” and “The World of Suzie Wong.” Her very long film career would include parts in “The Joy Luck Club,” “Memoirs of a Geisha,” and the 2006 Bond reboot, “Casino Royale.”

Helga Brandt (Karen Dor) — The latest Bond villainess with preying mantis-like tendencies, the dangerous Ms. Brandt is the secretary/in-house assassin of the wealthy SPECTRE operative, Mr. Osato. She has her way with Bond, then fails at killing him. It’s only natural that she winds up a victim of SPECTRE’s signature approach to personnel management, which in her case means being fed to the CEO’s pet piranhas. Actress Karen Dor has enjoyed a very long career in German films and television that continues to this day. She also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s unsuccessful spy thriller, “Topaz,” and the modestly titled horror flick, “The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism.”

Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi) — The lovely Aki at first appears to be an enemy agent, but quickly turns out to be an able helper and a willing Bond sex partner, until her untimely end. Actress Akiko Wakabayashi is known to genre geeks around the world and not just for “You Only Live Twice.” Monster mavens know her for appearances in two films by “Godzilla” co-creator Ishirō Honda: “Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster” and “King Kong vs. Godzilla.” The name of the lead character was changed from Suki to Aki at her request.

Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama) — Unusually virtuous by Bond girl standards, Kissy never actually gets to home plate with Bond, at least not during the actual movie. Nevertheless, this student of Japanese spy chief Tiger Tanaka proves an able aid to Bond, assisting in his not-so-believable transformation into a Japanese peasant and in foiling SPECTRE’s evil plans.

Actress Mie Hama was originally assigned to play Aki/Suki and was nearly let go from the project because of her difficulties learning English. As the story goes, Hama suggested the shame of being fired might force her to commit ritual suicide and the producers buckled. Her part, like that of nearly every other foreign player in an early Bond film, was eventually dubbed by another performer. Other roles include appearing alongside Akiko Wakabayashi in “King Kong vs. Godzilla.” She also made waves by promoting “You Only Live Twice” via a nude appearance in Playboy.

Friends and colleagues

Dikko Henderson (Charles Gray) — The avuncular, kimono-clad representative of MI6 in Japan only lives long enough to get Bond’s most famous cocktail preference wrong. The late actor, Charles Gray, was a wonderfully distinctive presence in well over 120 films and television productions. Today he is mainly remembered as the narrating “no neck” Criminologist who taught the world to dance the Time Warp in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” — a film musical he claimed to have never seen. Gray would also have the rare distinction of being killed by SPECTRE and later heading it. He would return to the Bond series as none other than Ernst Stavro Blofeld in “Diamonds are Forever.”

Tiger Tanaka (Tetsurō Tamba) — Bond makes a new friend who, for a change, survives the film. It makes sense as the bold but crafty head of Japanese intelligence has a personal subway train and routinely forces guests to arrive via trap door as a precaution. Actor Tetsurō Tamba was a venerable presence in sixties Japanese cinema and had also worked in England, making him a natural leader among the Japanese cast. With 242 credits listed on IMDb, he has appeared in a number of films well known to Western cinephiles and cultists including “Pigs and Battleships,” “Harakiri,” and the notoriously gory and campy 1991 midnight-show staple, “Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky.” Also noted for his work as a spiritual teacher, Tamba passed on in 2006.

Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell) and M (Bernard Lee) — Bond’s unimpressed boss and his partner in flirtatious byplay return, this time dressed in full UK navel regalia. The comic business aboard one of her majesty’s atomic submarines is spry but brief, though they make an unusual appearance in the film’s final scene. Moneypenny/Lois Maxwell, we should say, looks adorable in uniform. We understand, however, that her hairstyle was thoroughly non-regulation for the English navy. Shocking.

Q (Desmond Llewelyn) — With gadgetry now a major part of the series, an appearance by the irascible armorer is now mandatory. This time, the perpetually annoyed Q finds himself forced to trudge to Japan to deliver “Little Nellie” — a thoroughly souped-up and tricked out autogyro. If Desmond Llewelyn’s irritation seems believable, it might have helped that the actor disagreed with director Lewis Gilbert’s costuming choices. Japan might be a warm country, but Llewelyn wasn’t thrilled with the military-style shirt and shorts he was given to wear. He didn’t think the very proper Q would permit himself to wear anything other than his standard business attire

The Nemesis

Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasence) — After being teased for years, the face of Bond’s most intractable enemy finally appears onscreen in “You Only Live Twice.” He is, of course, as diabolical and likely to feed an underperforming employee to carnivorous pets as ever. Sporting Blofeld’s trademark white Persian cat and a nasty scar on his right eye, the great character actor Donald Pleasence was already familiar to movie fans for hits like “The Great Escape” and “Fantastic Voyage.” He went on to even greater recognizability to horror fans for his portrayal of the heroic Dr. Sam Loomis in the “Halloween” series of slasher films. By the time of his death in 1996, Pleasence had racked up well over 200 film and television credits.

Lesser Bond Baddies

Assuming they aren’t personally killed by Mr. Bond, the hench people in “You Only Live Twice” have somewhat greater longevity than they did in “Thunderball.” Still, SPECTRE’s personnel practices remain below industry standard.

Mr. Osato (Teru Shimada) — Helga Brandt’s industrialist SPECTRE employer tries to have James Bond killed innumerable times, with predictable results. He manages to avoid the pet piranas that finally get Miss Brandt, but he still winds up getting a surprise bullet in the chest from Blofeld. Japanese-American actor Teru Shimada had recently appeared in 1966′s “Walk Don’t Run” with Cary Grant, but was actually nearing the end of a decades long career that began in the early 1930s.

Hans (Ronald Rich) — Blofeld’s gigantic body guard is repaid for his loyalty and diligence by being allowed to live long enough to get killed during the final battle. English actor Rich’s career appears to be a short one, but TV geeks should note that he did appear as the giant alien Trantis in the 1965 season of “Dr. Who” and in various roles in the 1968 run of “Benny Hill.”

SPECTRE #3 and #4 (Burt Kwouk and Michael Chow) – It would be easy to ignore these two very minor characters if it weren’t for the interesting guys playing them. You may remember that Burt Kwouk, the very talented performer who brilliantly portrayed manservant Kato opposite Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau, also appeared in a similar, slightly larger, role in “Goldfinger.” As for Shanghai-born character actor and citizen of the world Michael Chow, he is best known in the West as a classy restaurateur. The first Mr. Chow location opened in London in 1968, followed by editions in Beverly Hills, New York City and, eventually, Miami and Las Vegas.

License to kill

Bond’s career in extra-judicial killings of often disarmed enemies began with the unlucky Prof. Dent in “Dr. No,” but it reaches a new high here. Admittedly, there are several moments where the morality of the situation might be vague — or where we’re not sure whether Bond has actually killed an assailant or merely subdued him. Bond very definitely instantly slays the killer of his MI6 contact, Dikko Henderson (Charles Gray), however. True, the man’s act was cowardly but, morals and legality aside, it might have made more sense to keep the assassin alive and find out what was up. He also immediately dispatches both Aki’s poisoner — before he even knows what the intruder is up to — as well as the quickly disarmed would-be assassin who assaults him with a bo (a Japanese quarterstaff) in the ninja dojo.

The gadgets

Production designer Ken Adam, efx man John Stears, and the whole EON team attempt to create an airborne companion to Bond’s Aston-Martin with “Little Nellie,” a tricked up autogyro that’s a sort of cross between a helicopter and a toy plane. The film version is equipped with enough armory to take out a banana republic with machine guns, flamethrowers, and missiles. Minus the fancy weaponry, it was the very real and serious creation of designer Ken Wallis, a retired RAF pilot.

Many other gadgets are so casually integrated into the “You Only Live Twice” storyline you might almost miss them. Below are some of our favorites.

* Ninja cigarettes that eject bullet-like projectiles.

* The water-proof sarcophagus used to stage Bond’s “burial” at sea

* The “Bird 1″ ship, with a front opening used to capture U.S. and Soviet spacecraft.

* Trap doors that both Blofeld and Tiger Tanaka use to create unwelcome surprises for coworkers.

* A giant magnet on a helicopter deployed by the Japanese to pick up a car filled with SPECTRE henchman and drop it in the nearby Pacific. (Since it seems unlikely the occupants could have lived, we wonder if Japanese secret services also have something like Double-O authority.)

* Mr. Osato’s spiffy X-ray desk for spotting concealed weapons.

* A pocket safecracking doodad which would come in handy if Bond ever decided to go full time to the wrong side of the law.

Note: Both the Murphy bed used in Bond’s fake assassination and Tiger Tanaka’s personal subway are sometimes considered Bond gadgets. However, since both were examples of what was very common mid-sixties technology, we don’t think they qualify as Bondian gadgetry any more than would a blender or an electric can opener.

The exotic locales

With the exception of the opening, just about all of “You Only Live Twice” takes place in Japan and the film’s exteriors were shot largely in the then-emerging economic powerhouse. Producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, director Lewis Gilbert, and cinematographer Freddie Young spent considerable time scouting Japanese locations. Their work paid off both in terms of visuals and, at least in the aforementioned case of the dormant volcano which became Blofeld’s lair, story ideas.

The outrageous villains’ lairs and good guy haunts

With the Bond films established as a series of reliable blockbusters, resident production design genius Ken Adam was allowed to go to town with a series of extraordinary sets, which meant more work and frayed nerves than ever. Adam has said that he and his staff were all but “living on valium” during the production of the film.

The most overtly spectacular set was obviously SPECTRE’s volcano-based super-bunker. Featuring a crater lake on top as camouflage, a rocket launch pad, and an internal light rail system, the Pinewood Studios set was very possibly the largest interior built for a film up to that point and one of the most expensive at $1 million. Ken Adam reportedly bragged that more steel was used in the set’s construction than in the London Hilton.

A more modest Adam classic is the lattice-work dome in which hot-headed U.S. and Soviets are persuaded to put off worldwide thermonuclear war while the intelligence boys at MI6 do their work. The design seems to have been influenced by R. Bunkminster Fuller’s then trendy geodesic domes.

Moving on, we’re also impressed by the apartment of the short-lived MI6 contact, Henderson. It’s a cheerful mix of British and Japanese design cliches. Tiger Tanaka’s underground office is, however, more up to the minute. Clearly, the EON team had noticed Japan’s increasing fascination with futuristic technology which was fueling the nation’s post-war economic renaissance. Similarly, the offices of bad guy Mr. Osato are an angular, half-insane variation on an ultra-modern mid-sixties interior.

The Opening

The “You Only Live Twice” pre-credit sequence is a departure from the “Goldfinger” and “Thunderball” openings in that it is not actually a Bond mini-adventure. Instead, it’s a more complicated variation on the opening of “From Russia with Love”; it’s primarily a prologue designed to set up the story and tease us with another fake Bond death. Bond doesn’t even try to kill anyone. (He’ll make up for that later.)

We begin in outer space as a mysterious vehicle snatches an American space capsule, murdering an astronaut in the process. Next, we are in some kind of super-high level diplomatic meeting room in which the calm, thoughtful British must mediate between jingoistic Americans and nasty Soviets to avoid a rush to global thermonuclear war. Finally, we are in a garish Hong Kong boudoir as Bond has finished making love with the seemingly treacherous Ling (Tsai Chow). She traps Bond in a Murphy bed, where he meets an apparent quick end at the hands of machine gun wielding thugs. Afterwards, a police officer who appears to have known Bond philosophizes that, at least, Bond met his demise “on the job.”

A close-up of a shot of (presumably fake) blood fades out into an animated design reminiscent of a Japanese umbrella and we’re off for another striking credit sequence by Maurice Binder. As the lyrical title song plays, we are given Japanese-inspired abstract designs, shots of lava flowing inside a volcano, and the usual female silhouettes. Once again, we are being promised adventure, a bit of tasteless exoticism, violence and, naturally, sex, sex, sex.

The Music

By now, it was a foregone conclusion that composer John Barry would provide both the score and the title song. Barry’s “Goldfinger” lyrical collaborator, show tune specialist Leslie Bricusse, returns for one of the better songs in the Bond cannon. Barry seems to have decided to abandon the brassiness of “Goldfinger” and “Thunderball” for a more romantic tune along the lines of “From Russia with Love,” only better.

Nancy Sinatra and her famous father, Frank, were friends of the EON team. So, it was only natural that she was brought on to perform the song, even though an earlier version had already been recorded by English singer Shirley Rodgers. The only difficulty was that the younger Sinatra, whose recent recording of “These Boots Were Made for Walking” had been a monster hit, was much more a rock and roll singer than a polished classic pop chanteuse. As Nancy Sinatra herself tells it, it took countless takes and a lot of editing to produce the sexy and charmingly wistful “You Only Live Twice” title track.

As for the instrumental score, composer Barry adds a bit of Japanese beauty to the mix, but it was the cosmos that inspired the most influential work. The haunting and majestic “Capsules in Space” is a definite influence on John Williams’ music for “Star Wars.”

Action Highlights

“You Only Live Twice” was instrumental in popularizing Asian martial arts in Western films and also for establishing ninjas as go-to pop culture badasses. The final battle, in which hundreds of ninjutsu-trained operatives invade Blofeld’s mega-lair, is certainly among the most spectacular fight scenes in the 007 cannon. It’s also probably responsible for a number of increasingly elaborate, you might even say overblown, Bond finales to follow.

An arguably even more thrilling set-piece, however comes much earlier in the film as Bond and Aki are pursued at the Kobe docks by a number of local SPECTRE henchmen. In a bold move, director Lewis Gilbert and camera-great Freddie Francis film part of the fight via a thrilling aerial shot of the ongoing action. Speaking of aerial shots, the airborne battle in which Bond and Little Nellie fend off “improper advances” from four machine-gun equipped aerial helicopters is an enjoyable blend of exciting aerial footage and back projection close-ups.

For those who enjoy a bit more hand-to-hand combat, we’re somewhat fond of a relatively brief but delightfully brutal fight between Bond and a sword wielding opponent, portrayed by uncredited Samoan-American pro-wrestler and fight choreographer Peter Fanene Mavia. Mavia, who unfortunately passed on at age 45, is today best remembered as the grandfather of wrestler-turned-action star Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson.

The ninja camp training sequence is also an enjoyable spin on the “Spartacus”-inspired SPECTRE training camp in “From Russia With Love.” It was probably the first time a truly gigantic Western audience was exposed to Asian martial arts in a major motion picture. It also contains a surprisingly faithful homage to the fight scenes in the Japanese samurai films that were then being discovered in art houses throughout America and Europe.

The one-liners

James Bond (Prior to making love to the evil Helga Brandt): The things I do for England!

Hong Kong Policeman #2: [finding the fake-deceased Bond in Ling's Hong Kong boudoir] At least he died on the job… he would have wanted it that way.

Kissy Suzuki: No honeymoon. This is business.
James Bond: [pushing aside a plate of oysters] Well, I won’t need these.

Mr. Osato: You should give up smoking. Cigarettes are very bad for your chest.
Helga Brandt: Mr. Osato believes in a healthy chest.
James Bond (observing Brandt’s upper torso): Really?

Tiger Tanaka (showing Bond a projectile equipped cigarette): It can save your life, this cigarette.
James Bond: You sound like a commercial.

James Bond: Well, if I’m going to be forced to watch television, may I smoke?
Blofeld: Yes. Give him his cigarettes. It won’t be the nicotine that kills you, Mr. Bond.

James Bond (having just dispatched an adversary into Blofeld’s piranha-infested indoor pool): Bon appetit!

Tiger Tanaka: You know what it is about you that fascinates them, don’t you? It’s the hair on your chest. Japanese men all have beautiful bare skin.
James Bond: Japanese proverb say, “Bird never make nest in bare tree.”

[About to have his chest hair waxed so he can pass for Japanese]
James Bond: Why don’t you just dye the parts that show?

James Bond (greeting Q, who has brought Little Nellie to Japan): Welcome to Japan, Dad. Is my little girl hot and ready?
Q: Look, 007, I’ve had a long and tiring journey, probably to no purpose, so I’m in no mood for juvenile quips.

Cocktails and other beverages

Bond’s drinking is more under control than usual here, though the super spy gets to show his knowledge of the finer points of Japan’s native beverage, the rice wine known as saki. It’s usually served warm — 98.4 degrees Fahrenheit, he reminds us. Bond seems considerably less enthralled with some Siamese vodka. Most famously, 007 politely endures confusion regarding his cocktail preferences by the soon-to-be-slain Dikko Henderson. The MI6 man offers him a vodka martini “stirred, not shaken,” in an incorrect Tom Collins glass, which Bond accepts without complaint. At another point, he is tempted into some morning drinking by a bottle of Dom Perignon 1959.

Random facts

* There are a number of jokes about cigarettes and cigarette smoking in “You Only Live Twice.” Considering the historic U.S. Surgeon General’s Report definitively naming smoking as a serious health risk had only come out in 1964, the same year heavy smoker and drinker Ian Fleming had died at age 56 of a heart attack, it was a highly topical subject. (To this day, you will find more smokers on film sets than elsewhere.)

* Donald Pleasence was actually a last-minute replacement as the first fully on-screen Blofeld. Czech actor Jan Werich was originally cast in the role and shot a few days worth of scrapped footage. The EON team decided that the bearded thespian’s grandfatherly appearance was too benign for the ultra-ruthless super villain.

* For whatever reason, Ernst Stavro Blofeld would, from this point on, be played by different actors with radically different looks in each film. Future Blofelds would include the relatively hulking “Kojak”-to-be Telly Savalas in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” who at least was as bald as the somewhat diminutive Donald Pleasence had been in the role. Blofeld would miraculously sport a full head of hair, however, when he was played by the aforementioned Charles Gray in 1971′s “Diamonds are Forever.”

* Donald Pleasence’s appearance and manner as Blofeld is pretty obviously the primary inspiration for Mike Myers’s Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers series. (Evil’s speaking voice is just as obviously inspired by “Saturday Night Live” producer Lorne Michaels.)

* Fans trying to put together a complete biography of Bond have made much of the ever humble 007′s reminder to Moneypenny that, “You forget, I took a first in Oriental languages at Cambridge.” This is a contradiction with the novels, where Bond was ejected from Eton College for an unsurprising infraction with female cleaning personnel and had to finish his education in Scotland.

* “You Only Live Twice” is actually the second time that Sean Connery, as a pre-coital Bond said, “The things I do for England!” The line was also shot during the filming of “Thunderball.” It made it into that film’s promotional material but was cut from the actual movie. Being too good a line to waste, it was re-used and included here.

* Ironically, screenwriter Roald Dahl’s World War II intelligence experiences were in some ways more Bondian than those of Ian Fleming. It was, in fact, his youthful gift for starting affairs with prominent women that seems to have attracted the attention of British spies working in North America trying to draw the United States into the war prior to Pearl Harbor. His most famous conquest in England’s service was playwright and conservative Republican politician Clare Booth Luce, the wife of the founder of Time magazine.

* When Mie Hama was unable to swim for her scenes, she was doubled by Australian actress Diane Cilento, an able swimmer who was married to Sean Connery at the time. Cilento, who passed on in 2011, is probably now best known for her supporting role in the 1974 cult classic, “The Wicker Man.” She also appeared in such notable 1960s features as “Tom Jones,” “The Agony and the Ecstasy,” and “Hombre.”

* Some have mistakenly said that the title, “You Only Live Twice” comes from a poem by Basho, Japan’s most famous poet. It’s actually from a not-quite haiku Bond attempts to compose in Basho’s style in Ian Fleming’s novel.

“You only live twice
Once when you’re born
And once when you look death in the face.”

Leslie Bricusse’s lyrics for the song, “You Only Live Twice,” equate the second life to falling in love. Much more romantic.

* By all accounts, Sean Connery and Diane Cilento had a pretty miserable time making “You Only Live Twice.” Spy mania and an aggressive Japanese press in particular seems to been a huge problem for the star and his bride. By the time “You Only Live Twice” was released, Connery had made it public that he would cease playing Bond. It turned out to be the first of three times that would happen.

The Romantic Ending

“You Only Live Twice” is, we think, the only Bond entry where the main romance seems to have gone not much further than passionate necking. Kissy abandons her resistance to Bond by the end of the film, but they are interrupted by an inopportune submarine and Moneypenny seems only to anxious to cut off any more funny business. All the more tragic as it looks like Bond and Kissy might not be allowed to see each other again.

“James Bond Will Return”

“The end of You Only Live Twice but James Bond will be back On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” read the final titles this time around. A similar credit was originally included at the end of “Thunderball” and later removed. In fact, James Bond did come back, but he would be George Lazenby.

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.

The Backstory

It’s not surprising John F. Kennedy could relate to stories about an international man of mystery with whom he shared a vice or two. It’s more surprising he admitted to it in public. For a U.S. president to openly endorse a series of risqué potboilers was unheard of in the early 1960′s. Instead of hurting himself, however, Kennedy helped the books and turned a reasonably successful series into an early sixties publishing bonanza.

Seeing a potential to make a killing with a low-budget film of the character, an American expatriate producer residing in England, Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli, teamed with Canadian-born Harry Saltzman, who’d been holding on to the Bond film rights. At first, the newly written “Thunderball” was to be the first film in the series. That project, however, got waylaid by an issue regarding the rights to that story which would haunt the producers for decades.

Perhaps because of its simplicity and memorable title villain, “Dr. No,” the sixth novel in the series, was then selected as the basis for the first James Bond movie. Numerous hands would produce material that made it into the finished screenplay, but the final version was largely the work of American screenwriter Richard Maibum. He would remain with the series through the remaining decades of his career.

As for casting Commander Bond, at first producers Broccoli and Saltzman sought a major star. Cary Grant apparently considered the role, but it was a no-go: the self-aware 58 year-old knew that his leading man days were numbered and he would have no part of a sequel. Patrick McGoohan, already famed as a TV spy in the UK as “Danger Man,” turned the part down and eventually became a cult television legend with the surreal, weirdly Bond-influenced, “The Prisoner.” Shakespearean actor Roger Johnson would also reject the idea of committing for several films. He would later play one of Bond’s pulp predecessors, Bulldog Drummond, in a pair of mid-sixties spy spoofs.

When the winner of a “play James Bond” contest was rejected by Broccoli, the producers looked elsewhere. 1n 1962, Sean Connery was known, if he was known at all, for playing a male ingénue role in Walt Disney’s live action “Darby O’Gill and the Little People.” Described as “merely tall, dark, and handsome” by New York Times critic A.H. Weiler and admittedly a bit roughhewn to play the ultra sophisticated spy, the 30 year-old Scotsman was nevertheless selected.

By that point, journeyman director Terrence Young was already on board. Young was a fortuitous choice. Seen by his colleagues as the suave, well-dressed, lady-killing model for the movie Bond, he took charge of the production and set about creating that thing we now call “a James Bond movie.” Crucially, he understood that also meant the image of Bond himself. A grateful Sean Connery would later credit him with helping to smooth out the rough edges he needed to embody the super-suave, super-deadly spy.

Just as important, Young managed to create an extravagant look on a modest budget while shooting at London’s Elstree studio and within spitting distance of Goldeneye, Ian Fleming’s Jamaica estate. The rest is about as historic as pop cinema gets.

Meeting Mr. Bond

Director Young must have realized he had a great screen presence on his hands with Sean Connery. He certainly gets the credit for crafting an introduction that ranks just behind the first appearances of Orson Welles’ Harry Lime in “The Third Man,” John Wayne’s Ringo Kid in “Stagecoach,” and Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine in “Casablanca” in terms of sheer movie panache.

Set in a swanky London casino, the scene delays our first good look at Connery/Bond for about as long as it can. As he beats a beautiful opponent in the high-stakes game of Chemin de Fer, first we see an extreme close-up of the spy’s hands picking up his two-card hand. Then, we see that hand lighting a match. Next, Bond’s attractive new acquaintance introduces herself to the handsome stranger as “Trench, Sylvia Trench.” Only then do we finally see the tuxedo clad Bond/Sean Connery, lighting a cigarette hanging carelessly on his lips. “Bond, James Bond” he replies in his distinctive Scottish accent. Cue the Bond theme. In a matter of seconds, Sean Connery’s 007 was sold to the world.

The Bond Girls (Rule of 3)

James Bond is, of course, the most ridiculously effective womanizer in English-language popular culture. Moreover, regular viewers of the series know that Bond usually manages three romantic conquests per adventure, roughly one for each act of the screenplay. (In the novels, Bond is relatively chaste while on the job, sometimes delaying gratification until after the last page.) Despite the fact that seeing even married people sharing a bed together was still a naughty novelty in 1962, “Dr. No” pushed the censorship envelope and boldly established Bond’s sexual rule of three.

Sylvia Trench (Eunice Gayson) — Bond’s first ever onscreen hook-up, Miss Trench is every bit as sophisticated and in control as Bond, even if her Chemin de Fer strategy may be open to question. She was intended to be Bond’s ongoing on-again-off-again girlfriend throughout the series, but the stunning and statuesque Eunice Grayson would only return for the initial sequel, “From Russia with Love.”

Miss Taro (Zena Marshall) — A embassy secretary secretly in the employ of Dr. No, the Chinese-Jamaican Taro is the first in a long line of treacherous beauties upon whom Bond would turn the sexual tables. She is also Bond’s first in-the-line-of-duty dalliance. (Sylvia Trench is strictly recreational.) In the manner of the time, Marshall was an English actress whose “exotic” looks often got her cast as women of various ethnicities. This was, needless to say, a less politically sensitive era in movie-making.

Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress) — Ian Fleming famously described professional seashell collector Honeychile Ryder’s naked emergence out of the Jamaican surf as resembling Botticelli’s Venus being birthed full-grown from the sea. Art and mythology aside, blonde and buxom Andress’s bikini-clad introduction set the stage for millions of youthful sexual awakenings. Almost a complete amateur during the making of “Dr. No,” Andress would go on to enjoy a significant film career despite the fact that her “Dr. No” performance was dubbed in later by another actress on account of her thick Swiss accent. Later films would include “What’s New, Pussycat?” opposite Peter O’Toole and “The 10th Victim” with Marcelo Mastroianni. (Check out a clip of this scene and more photos of Ursula here)

Friends and Colleagues

James Bond isn’t exactly the kind of guy to get misty-eyed thinking about the importance of friendship. Yet his working life does bring him into contact with an assortment of memorable characters. Not everyone was on board for the first Bond opus, but three of the series’s recurring characters do show up for the first time.

M

As portrayed by Bernard Lee, Bond’s boss is all business; both respectful of his underling’s heroics and a bit concerned about his love of danger. The part was dryly played for decades by the eternally miffed Bernard Lee. We’re told that in real life Mr. Lee was a witty raconteur and quite the life of the party. It’s called “acting” folks.

Moneypenny

“Dr. No” is the first of 14 appearances of the wonderful and thoroughly hot Lois Maxwell as the eternally smitten but entirely sensible Miss Moneypenny, M’s trusted secretary and the only person on earth the movie Bond may actually love. The backstory developed by Maxwell, Sean Connery, and Terrence Young, was that Bond and Moneypenny had enjoyed a youthful fling together, but both realized that a romance was incompatible with their respective roles at MI6. And so, cute and sexy repartee would have to substitute for actual sex. In this case…

Bond: Moneypenny! What gives?
Moneypenny: Me, given an ounce of encouragement.

“Dr. No” also marks the first appearance of a recurring bit of business where Bond would toss a hat onto a coat rack when entering Moneypenny’s office, the odd part being that Bond rarely wears a hat.

Felix Leiter

Bond’s opposite number in the American C.I.A. is the closest thing he has to a buddy in the series, though it’s a million miles from a full-blown bromance. In “Dr. No,” Leiter is Jack Lord, later to become legendary to 1970′s TV viewers as stolid, teetotaling supercop Steve McGarrett of “Hawaii Five-O.” Here, he drinks a little; you can’t not drink around Bond. Leiter would return frequently, but Lord never reprised the part. Instead, Bond’s counterpart would be portrayed over the decades by an assortment of actors of differing ages and ethnicities.

The Nemesis

Dr. No

Ian Fleming attributed the inspiration for the titular baddie to Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu, now almost universally seen as a viciously racist anti-Chinese stereotype. Fleming, who often included racial asides in the Bond novels, was clearly unperturbed by that. Even so, No’s half-German ancestry may have something to do with Germany’s Dr. Mabuse, who director Fritz Lang and others had turned into a symbol of international evil in a series of influential films. (Bond villain-to-be Gert Frobe of “Goldfinger” was already playing Mabuse and future “Man With the Golden Gun” Christopher Lee would soon be recreating Fu Manchu in a Bond-inspired series of mid-sixties British cheapies.) Since he’s in only one movie, Dr. No proves a lot easier to kill than his ancestors, even with his death-dealing metal hands. Still, he’s a memorable villain who sets the pattern for future Bond baddies, with his cool stoicism and odd politeness.

Once termed “the spookiest actor in the American theater,” Jewish-Canadian Joseph Wiseman seems to have had a solid understanding of his character, an ultimate outsider. That aspect also played into his status as a member of SPECTRE, the non-ideological amalgamation of bad guys bent on world domination which allowed the Bond producers to tone down the cheerfully strident Cold War politics of Fleming’s novels. In the book, No was more simply in the employ of the Soviet assassination outfit, SMERSH.

Lesser Bond Baddies

The crew of assassins, toadies, and femme fatales we’ve come to expect in all Bond films appears in “Dr. No.” This time we’ve got the “Three Blind Mice,” a trio of Jamaican hit-men — all played by uncredited actors — the unfortunate Prof. Dent (Anthony Dawson), who we’ll discuss below, the alluring though downright slutty Miss Taro, and also a pretty photographer who’d rather have her arm broken than say word one about Dr. No. (Marguerite LeWars, Miss Jamaica 1962)

License to Kill

Even after several decades of mindlessly brutal so-called heroes, James Bond’s first onscreen use of his Double-O license to commit murder remains oddly one of the single most disturbing moments in the Bond cannon. Not surprisingly, it took a bit of persuasion to get the “unsporting” killing of the conniving double agent, Prof. Dent, through censorship.

Don’t get us wrong, Bond has his reasons. However, Dent is unarmed by this point, having discharged all the bullets in his gun into a bed he thinks contains a sleeping Bond. Moreover, Bond is actually destroying a valuable intelligence asset, and there is still something slightly sickening about a putative hero killing a man in cold blood, even a loathsome and cowardly multiple murderer. But that’s what makes it so memorable. The scene gave rise to a quotable Bond line reportedly often repeated by UK schoolboys: “You’ve had your six!”

The Gadgets and Guns

Does a gun count as a gadget? Bond is forced by M to switch from his beloved Beretta to his signature Walther PPK for reasons that we understand make little ballistic sense. Then, there’s the armored-tractor tank-like thing with an attached deadly flame thrower which is almost comically disguised as a dragon. Is that a gadget?

The fact of the matter is that it was early days in 1962 and thrifty Cubby Broccoli wasn’t about to spend a ton of money on an unproven property. The elaborate doodads would come later.

The Car

Along with the guns and gadgets, most Bond fans obsess about the cars as well. The cars take on more importance as the series progresses, but Bond gets off to a nice start in Dr. No by driving a Sunbeam Alpine 1961 Series II along the Jamaican countryside during the obligatory automotive chase scene.

The Exotic Locales

Bond’s only trip this time is to Jamaica. However, Ted Moore’s great cinematography gave sixties audiences a real eyeful on a small budget, and we’re not just talking about Ursula Andress. The amazing sets and the beaches of Jamaica are a visual treat. See the restored version on Blu-Ray or projected in a state-of-the-art theater, if you can. Amazing.

The Outrageous Villain’s Lair

Ken Adam, who remained with the series through 1977′s “The Spy Who Loved Me,” is easily one of the two or three most distinctive production designers of all time. Here, he makes the most with least. His sneakily tongue-in-cheek approach to minimalist set design includes an almost bare holding cell with a single circular skylight casting a cross-hatched shadow — all the better to make poor Prof. Dent seem even more small and pathetic.

And let us not forget Dr. No’s living room with the giant fish tank. It was actually, a film projection which editor Peter Hunt was forced to hunt down at the last minute, and so the fish in it were much larger than they ought to have been. According to Hunt, that led to some new dialogue between Dr. No and Bond about “minnows pretending they’re whales.”

The Opening

This is the only official Bond film without a pre-credit sequence. Thank the spy gods, however, designer Maurice Binder was already on board for the credits themselves.

Firstly, Binder created the signature intro, now so much a part of the Bond mystique, in which we see a silhouetted Bond (actually stunt man Bob Simmons this time ’round) through a gunman’s site. Bond turns around and shoots at the audience/assailant, and then the screen is covered in a wash of animated blood. As stylized as it is, it’s almost shockingly graphic for its day. It’s also probably the most effective logo ever designed for a film or television series.

That’s followed by a spiffy and abstract Saul Bass-influenced credit sequence set to the James Bond theme. Then the music changes to a calypso version of “Three Blind Mice” and we see the colorful silhouettes of the trio of assassins who set the events of “Dr. No” in motion. It’s hard to imagine a more memorable opening, except that we know that even better ones will be following.

And speaking of that great James Bond theme…

The Music

There’s no doubt that composer-conductor-arranger John Barry’s compositions and orchestrations for the Bond films set the standard for spy music. There’s just one little difficulty that comes up with “Dr. No”: Barry is not the credited composer. The film’s score, including that incredibly recognizable Bond theme, is supposed to have been written by Monty Norman.

That leads to a question: Who the hell is Monty Norman? Well, Norman is an otherwise little-known theater composer and pop musician who has remained otherwise little-known despite having his name on one of the two or three most recognizable pieces of film music ever written. Something seems odd here and there has been libel litigation over it in the United Kingdom, which Norman nevertheless won.

Though he stopped short of saying he’d actually written the Bond theme, Norman’s credit for the melody always seemed to stick in the late John Barry’s craw. Barry, who arranged and conducted the music for “Dr. No,” would point out that he was the person who would be asked back and write a great deal more music in the same vein, and it’s an impossible point to argue with. It’s also true that the score for this first film is entirely undistinguished compared to the great work to follow, though many point out the Bond theme is similar to an earlier composition by Norman. Regardless, the only memorable pieces of music in it are variations on the Bond theme, whoever wrote it, and the silly but catchy calypso number, “Underneath the Mango Tree,” which Norman pretty definitely wrote.

The One-Liners

“Dr. No” has it’s share of witty badinage, some of it quoted elsewhere, but the jokey asides, often made after a killing, were mostly still to come.

The Cocktail

First a Jamaican room service waiter and then no less than Dr. No himself inform the audience of Bond’s movie cocktail of choice: vodka martini, twist of lemon, shaken not stirred. Cocktail aficionados will note with horror that the Jamaican hotel serves the drink in what appears to be a very small Tom Collins glass — shocking! Dr. No provides the superior service, serving the beverage in an appropriately shaped, small cocktail glass. Probably perfectly chilled, too. Just one thing, that martini is extremely tiny by modern standards, though surely made with 100 proof vodka.

Random Fact

Prior to becoming a major force in reggae and rock music, a young Anglo-Jamaican named Chris Blackwell served on the “Dr. No” production in several capacities. He had been an acquaintance of both Ian Fleming and Monty Norman. The Island records founder can be heard extensively on the “Dr. No” DVD/Blu-Ray commentary.