1963 - From Russia With Love
Alternate Title - We Bought A Train
PG - 115 minutes
Director - Terence Young
Stars - Sean Connery, Robert Shaw, Lotte Lenya
This movie begins with a training scene in which Bond is killed. However it is revealed that it was only a man with a Bond mask. Let it be known that before the man is killed he looks exactly like Sean Connery and then when they take the mask of he looks like a melted pile of wax. Evidently 1960’s mask technology is either horrible or so advanced that the mask itself falls apart when the person wearing it dies. It must be stage one of the technology used in the Mission Impossible movies.
Possibly my favorite phrase of any Bond movie is in this one. We see that Spectre is yet again the antagonists. Klebb, an ex-member of the KGB that has defected to Spectre lands in a helicopter and is greeted with, “Welcome to Spectre island!” I sure hope they don’t put that shit on maps because it just makes a shortcut for James Bond.
The first shot we see of Bond is pretty much his balls as he’s splaying in a canoe in Larry Bird length swim trunks. After seeing all of these movies I just want an ugly girl to play his love interest. Seriously, every single girl he meets is supermodel hot and he gives that “I’m getting my dick in this” look. I don’t know about you but most of the women I see on a daily basis aren’t someone I want my dick in. Especially in Bond’s cavalier raw-dog style.
Moneypenny. She’s in every Bond movie from 1962 until 1985 and every single time we see her she’s dripping buckets over the idea of Bond taking her out. I think these are his biggest asshole moments in any of the movies. Instead of telling her she’s too homely for some Bond-ing (a phrase I’m starting for unprotected sex) he convinces her that she is the only girl he thinks about. He drags her in just long enough each scene that she won’t dare get her own life before the next time she sees him. This is the equivalent of when a boyfriend/girlfriend breaks up with you but keeps coming around for just the right amount of time that you think it will all work out and that you shouldn’t commit to moving on. So, Moneypenny sits at that desk, smoking and wasting away 23 years of her life while the love of her sad life shape-shifts and bangs dozens of girls every year. I wish she had her own spin-off series where it’s just her drinking alone in her apartment filled with cats and pictures of James Bond on the walls while she’s trying to keep her shit together as images of Bond nailing another model clutter her head. In any reality the reason she didn’t continue into the Dalton years is because that character hung herself in her closet while gripping a signed photo of Bond. Is this dark enough for you? Because Bond could have prevented this in those 23 years by simply saying to her, “You know, Moneypenny….you’re just gross and aging at rate that I don’t prefer. Plus you smell like cats. Well, I’m going to get my dick wet in an exotic locale.”
There is a 12 second establishing shot of Istanbul. This might not sound that crazy but 12 seconds is a really long time to be looking at a building. Did the producers feel that the longer we see it the more we will believe that the interior shots were actually filmed there?
This movie proved me wrong. All those times I said, “There is no way I could get sick of gypsies in a movie.” Don’t I feel like a fool? Just after the gypsy scenes there is a scene where the bad guys watch and film Bond fuck a girl through one-way glass. Not only are they evil, they’re voyeurs. Personally, this made me like the bad guys more because I’d totally watch Bond fuck from inches away. What better way to learn?
The next 31 minutes of this movie is on a train. That’s a third of the movie in which nothing much happens other than disposing of a henchman. Don’t get me wrong here, it wasn’t unbearable but it was about 20 minutes longer than I wanted to be on that train. If I’m going to be on a train for half an hour I at least want to end up two counties away, having successfully evaded the police instead of in the same chair staring angrily at a screen.
They finally get off the train immediately rip-off North By Northwest when James is chased by a helicopter. Bond himself looks like he’s in a Monty Python sketch more than an action movie.
Yet another Bond cliché in this movie. The villain presses a button and IMMEDIATELY a henchman opens the door and walks in like he’s the next guest on the Spectre Tonight Show. A show undoubtedly filmed on Spectre Island, of course. Do these henchman have such specific duties that Spectre can afford to have someone stand outside the door with this hand on the doorknob in case a button is pushed? What a boring fucking job. Spectre better have some amazing benefits to make that job worth going to and risking your life. At least a good dental/vision package.
The movie ends with the female Spectre agent, Klebb, being shot, having an intense orgasm and then dying. Cut to Bond on a boat with a hot girl, throwing the James Bond porno into the water. Thus denying the world one of the first celebrity sex-tapes.
Overall it’s a pretty decent Bond movie. It had way more going on than the first one did. Another thing that’s awesome at the same time it’s dull is that they were clearly trying to stretch out the Spectre storyline so you never really got to feel like he was going to bring them down at any point. It’s great as an idea but when you’re watching it you want him to take on Number One and get him to show his goddamn face already.