My memory told me that Dr. No (1962) was not the first James Bond movie.  Perhaps this is an indication of a decline in my faculties due to old age because it turns out that I was wrong.  The film is based, of course, on Ian Fleming’s novel of the same name, which came out in 1958.  That is a short period of time between publication and cameras rolling, so it does not seem likely that anything came between the two.  For whatever reason, I thought somebody else other than Sean Connery filled the role of the famous British spy at the outset, but I guess I was mistaken.  Since I am finally going to get around to reviewing the rest of this franchise, I am sure I will see from whence I got this idea.

I was a little surprised with the beginning of Dr. No that we did not first meet the iconic James Bond (Sean Connery).  Instead, we see three supposedly blind men making their way through the streets of Kingston, Jamaica.  The reason for the prevarication is because they are on their way to assassinate John Strangways (Timothy Moxon), the person in charge of the local branch of military intelligence, section six (MI6).  They do so outside of his club (this is an English thing, not what you think), but do not stop with his death.  They also go to his office and murder his secretary, taking with them a file labeled “Dr. No.”  We will meet him (Joseph Wiseman) later.  This occurs just as the Jamaican operatives are checking in with London.  When headquarters experiences a loss of communication, they know something is wrong.  The person they summon to investigate this situation is James, though he is busy pursuing leisurely activities of his own.  Nonetheless, he is eventually found and brought to M (Bernard Lee), the head of MI6.  He informs James of the deaths of the two agents and orders 007, James’ codename, to leave immediately for the Caribbean.  James, being who he is, has a liaison before boarding the plane.  He is immediately spotted upon his arrival on the other side of the Atlantic.  The initial one is a taxi sent by the government house, but this is a front for the driver’s true intention, which is James’ demise.  He gets to the building with a dead man in the back seat and begins looking into the crimes.  One of his moves is to meet with the trio of people last seen with John.  James is also taken to John’s office, where he notices a picture of the deceased with a local fisherman.  This gentleman is Quarrel (John Kitzmiller), and he is wary of James’ showing up unexpectedly.  To deal with this potential threat, Quarrel takes James to a local bar, where he tries to subdue the British officer with the aid of the bartender and proprietor.  This is when we learn the identity of the other man who took note of James’ presence when he got to Jamaica: Felix Leiter (Jack Lord), who works for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  He has been working with Quarrel, and previously with John, in keeping tabs on Crab Island, the base of the mysterious eponymous villain.  There are a lot of mysterious things going on with this atoll, but the next day at the government house is when James discovers that the information on Dr. No is gone.  There is a tantalizing clue, though, in the form of Miss Taro (Zena Marshall), an office worker secretly in the employ of Dr. No.  James walks in on her surreptitiously looking in on his conversation Pleydell-Smith (Louis Blaazar), the Secretary General of Jamaica.  In typical 007 fashion, James asks Miss Taro out.  Avoiding an attempt on his life on the way to her house, he arranges for her to be arrested while he sets a trap for the next person to come to try to kill him.  This is Professor R. J. Dent (Anthony Dawson), one of the men who had been playing cards with John on the night of his murder.  Professor Dent is a geologist working for Dr. No.  He had earlier claimed that there is simple iron ore on Crab Island, but there is something more nefarious happening.  James aims to find out, and with Felix and Quarrel’s help, lands on the remote strip of land.  In the midst of staying hidden, there randomly appears on the shore Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress).  She is there to collect seashells to sell, regardless of the danger, and ends up being saved by James when they are spotted by Dr. No’s henchman.  Eventually, they are captured, Quarrel dying in the process, and taken to Dr. No’s base.  There they are treated as honored guests, though they are drugged.  Once they come to, they are invited to dinner where the villain reveals that he is part of an organization known as the Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion (SPECTRE), with the usual designs of world conquest.  For now, they are focusing on disrupting plans by the United States for continuing their rocket testing with hopes of sending someone to the moon, hence the Felix being on the case.  When James refuses to be a part of this mad plan, he is tortured and thrown into prison.  Yet, he is able to affect his escape, steal the uniform of one of the nuclear reactor workers, and switch the device to overload.  In the ensuing chaos, James and Dr. No tussle, with the latter dying in the rapidly boiling water of the reactor.  This leaves James to track down Honey, which he does in time for them to make it off the island before the resulting explosion.  The last we see of them is in a boat being towed by Felix and a group of American soldiers, Honey and James letting go of the rope to have some alone time.

While watching Dr. No, and with a ready mental list of all the usual Bond tropes, one cannot help but look for them in this first installment of the series.  There are enough of them present, but it is not why I put it on, or any movie for that matter.  In talking with my spiritual director today, I mentioned how others have told me how critical I can be of films, and that I like so few of them.  My response to such people is that I feel that I must give my honest opinion.  I do not think there is anything wrong with such a statement, but my spiritual director pointed out something that I had to admit that I forget to do before I begin writing: pray.  Ironically enough, I did not do this before beginning this piece.  Still, there is nothing in this picture that has to do with prayer.  James does not strike one as the type that puts in any time with the Lord, and this is to the detriment of his soul.  We pray because God desires a dialog with us.  To this end, there is an interesting statement by Quarrel when he is trying to dissuade a landing on Crab Island.  He tells Felix and James that it is not good to “tempt providence.”  Normally, this is written as not tempting fate.  “Fate” is a word with which many are preoccupied.  It is natural for us humans to want to know what is going to happen to us.  However, this is not how God asks us to approach Him.  Instead, we are asked to surrender to His will, to entrust ourselves to Him.  This is a difficult thing to do.  In a sense, though, I feel it is something that characters like James demonstrate.  To be clear, he would not put this in terms of a relationship with God.  What I mean is that a person in James’ position must go into a situation with the thought that some things are out of his control.  It may seem strange, but there is some wisdom in this for us Christians.

As alluded to in the beginning of this review of Dr. No, prepare for a series.  Given the era in which it was made, and the fact that it was the first, there is some hokeyness here.  I was also surprised to see a brief moment of full-frontal nudity with Honey, though it is partially obscured.  Still, it is shocking to see for a movie made in the early 1960s.  As such, I would not say this one is a must-see, but it is always good to see the original.