FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
(1962)With Sean Connery, Daniela Bianchi, Pedro Armendáriz, Robert Shaw, Lotte Lenya, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewlyn, Eunice Gayson
Directed by Terence Young
Reviewed by JL and JB
For many James Bond
purists, especially
those familiar with the Ian Fleming novels, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
remains the greatest Bond film ever made. It's basically a
simple
spy story with the good guys and the Rooskies chasing down the same
MacGuffin, or "Lektor Decoder," if you will. The plot is
secondary to the colorful characters (including memorable baddies Lotte
Lenya and Robert Shaw), one of the loveliest Bond girls (Daniela
Bianchi), and the well-staged action and fight sequences. In
his
second outing as Bond, Sean Connery claims complete ownership of the
character. Some may opt for next year's GOLDFINGER as the
gold
standard of the Bond franchise, but FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE demonstrates
how good the series was before the producers discovered that an
abundance of girls, gadgets and gags sold more tickets. 
- JL
The original Ian Fleming novel had a very
innovative structure: James Bond did not appear until the second half
of the book. The first half featured the bad guys planning their trap
for Bond, the second half featured the trap itself. In the
book's
final paragraph, Bond is kicked by a poison-tipped shoe and we are led
to believe that he has died. It might have
been Fleming's way of getting rid
of his spy, the way Sir Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes
in his short story The
Final Problem. Like Doyle, Fleming
brought his hero back again, in his next novel, Dr. No, which opens
with Bond
recuperating in a hospital.
From RUSSIA WITH LOVE is
unlike any other
James Bond film, and may very well be the best. It features only one
gadget (a briefcase with a handful of helpful spy tools), no
elaborate Ken Adams sets, a handful or realistic action sequence and
the grittiest, best-edited fight in the entire series. Like DR. NO
before it and unlike just about every Bond film to follow, FROM RUSSIA
WITH LOVE is a straightforward spy story colored with fantastical
elements. Remove Blofeld and SPECTRE, and FROM RUSSIA WITH
LOVE
would simply be a spy story about an English agent trying to steal a
Russian decoder.
The cast of FRWL is perhaps
the best of all 22
films so far. Sean Connery had become an overnight star with
DR.
NO, and he is joined by famed German actress Lotte Lenya
as Agent
#3 Rosa Klebb, defected from Russian intelligence to SPECTRE, and the
great Robert Shaw as murderous psychopath Grant, ordered by SPECTRE to
kill Bond and retrieve the stolen McGuffin. There is also
Pedro
Armendáriz as good guy Kerim Bey, one of the few characters in
the whole series that feels like an actual friend to Bond and not just
another fill in the blank friendly agent. Daniela Bianchi may
have been an unknown but she exudes the kind of girlish charm
and
innocence that few future Bond girls could match. Finally,
Vladek Shebal
as Agent #5 Kronsteen has an unforgettable villainous
face, a
cross between Peter Lorre and Buster Keaton, and is the kind of
character
actor you rarely see in a Bond film these days. - JB
The Stuff You Gotta Watch Home Page
HOW TO TALK LIKE A BOND VILLAIN
"My orders are to kill you and deliver the Lektor. How I do it
is my business. It'll be slow and painful.
WE WERE SAILING ALONG ON KERIM
BEY
Mexian actor Pedro Armendáriz gives one of the most memorable, well-rounded performances in the entire Bond franchise as Turkish agent and all around gregarious rogue Ali Kerim Bey. Armendáriz was gravely ill during the shooting of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. He insisted, however, that he would finish the film, and director Terence Young quickly rearranged the shooting schedule around Armendáriz's needs. In June of 1963, four months before the premiere of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, Armendáriz took his own life.
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Copyright © 2008 John V. Brennan, John Larrabee