When people think of ropes in the James Bond films like the pre-title sequence or even the character of Q. Alot of people seem to think that they all started in Dr. No and when it comes to the Q character they are technically right however alot of what we love about the James Bond films actually started with the film that i'm going to be talking to you all about today and so then join me as I review the film that sees an iconic actor join this truly iconic franchise with the film in question being called simply just "From Russia With Love" enjoy.
The plot of this film is James Bond is sent to Russia to supposedly help a woman defect but has to stop SPECTRE who plan on getting revenge on Bond for killing Dr. No. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good with the films plot being more of a direct sequel to Dr. No given what SPECTRE's main goal in this film is but at the same time tho it really doesn't feel like it's a direct sequel as the main plot of the film has Bond and this girl trying to outrun SPECTRE at every chance that they get and to make matters worse Bond doesn't know that the girl is secretly working against him with this being something that does come into play alot f the time as it makes you wonder just who you can trust in this film with the only thing that lets the films plot down being the fact that the film does pick up and drop it's plot alot of the time so much so that it does feel like the characters are just doing these random things purely for the sake of it and not because the plot demands it but it's when this film does focus on it's plot that we get to see just how brilliant that this film can be as we do get scenes where Bond is left wondering who he can trust as those that come across as friends do seemingly betray him in some form and while the plot doesn't focus on that all that much the few times that it's there does give us some wonderful insight into who Bond is a character with the plot of this film being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Of course starring in this film is Sir Sean Connery as James Bond , Bernard Lee as M , Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny , Eunice Gayson as Sylvia Trench and Desmond Llewelyn as Q. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good with all of the MI6 regulars turning in the kind of performance that they are known for in these films with that being something that does work really well for this film as this is only the second film in the franchise and yet they've already nailed down there characters pretty much perfectly with the only exception to this being of course Desmond Llewelyn as Q as he is taking over the role from Peter Burton with him playing the role a little bit more rough round the edge and less refined which is fair enough as the character doesn't get alot of screen time in this film with the best actor when it comes to the MI6 regulars being Sir Sean Connery himself as even tho this is the second ever James Bond film you can see that he is far more cooler and more confident in the role with hm now being able to take the character to these more emotional levels that he wasn't confident enough to do in the previous film and while of course he would get better in Goldfinger and while he was really good in Dr. No Sir Sean Connery still found new and really unique ways to knock it out of the park in this film something that does go to show just how good he was at playing this truly iconic character.
Also starring in this film is Pedro Armendáriz as Ali Kerim Bey , Lotte Lenya as Rosa Klebb and Robert Shaw as Donald Grant. Also starring in this film is Daniela Bianchi as Tatiana Romanova , Barbara Jefford as the voice of Tatiana Romanova , Walter Gotell as Morzeny , Francis De Wolff as Vavra , Aliza Gur as Vida , Martine Beswick as Zora , Vladek Sheybal as Kronsteen and Anthony Dawson as Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good with all of the films guest actors being just as good as what the films MI6 regulars are and while yes there are some pretty bad performances in the film like for example Daniela Bianchi as Tatiana Romanova just isn't that good or as good as the rest of this films actors but even she still turns in a good performance in this film with the best actor in this film being Lotte Lenya as Rosa Klebb as she made what was a pretty none threatening character on paper somehow seem like a really threatening character who you could believe could take down Bond with her adding her own unique charm to the character in the process with the acting that's in this very film really being helped by the fat that this films script is just so good that all this films actors have to do is just say the lines as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturally which is something that really does help to raise the overall quality of the acting that's in this very film.
This films Bond girl is of course Tatiana Romanova who is played by the seriously stunning Daniela Bianchi. With her character not really being the best Bond Girl out there not that she's a bad character or anything like that but rather it's because of the fact that she's both bland and doesn't really do all that much in the film with her spending more time being captured and in need of rescue then she does quite literally anything else in the film and while this is fine for her character as she does seem like the kind of character who wouldn't know what to do if a fist came flying at her face it is still something that should have been addressed at an early enough stage as by all rights she should have been a good character as the very idea of her unknowingly helping out SPECTRE is a good enough idea and there is alot that could have been done with that from a character point of view and yet the makers of this film don't do anything with her that makes her interesting and in fact the only time that she really struggles with the choice that she made at the start of the film is at the end of the film when she gets the choice to either shoot an kill Bond or kill Klebb by which point it's far to little to late whereas if she had more moments like that earlier on in the film it is something that could have made more interesting as it would have shown us the audience that ever someone who is meant be pure of heart can at times be convinced to do the wrong thing for the wrong people and the yet the makers of this film don't take that chance with that being something that does result in her character being a very bland and generic Bond Girl who has nothing interesting about her to make her stand out from all of the others.
As was mentioned earlier on in this film this film is the very first James Bond film to feature Desmond Llewelyn as Q. With him taking over the role from Peter Burton with this version of the character being someone who right now in thia film doesn't have that much going for him due to the fact that he only has the on scene in the film but even in that one scene you do get a feel for the magic that we would get over the decades with the character as while he doesn't have that playful love hate relationship with Bond in this film you can tell that he's still the same stuffy man that does care about his work and that takes great pride in this work in the process. Yet he's the only new thing that we got in this film as this is the film that officially saw the introduction of the pre-title sequence something which much like the character of Q would get refined and better as the series went on as here there's no big action set piece and nothing that we typically see in the stereotypical James Bond pre-title sequence as the only thing that we see is Grant practicing to kill Bond before it being revealed that we are actually at a SPECTRE training camp and that's really it and even then that scene was meant to be played after the films opening titles and yet it was either editor Peter Hunt or director Terence Young that made the call in post production to have it moved to before the titles of the film and it was a smart move as now we the audience are essentially given a cliffhanger as we are left wondering just who this deadly person is and what it is that they want with Bond in the first place with that being a great hook for the film to have and while it still would have worked without that scene where it is having it placed before the titles is a great way to get us into the film itself.
Doing the production design for this film Syd Cain who was of course taking over from the great Sir Ken Adam. With Syd creating some really well done sets for this film with his sets more then holding up against the sets that Sir Ken Adam himself created for the previous film somethin which couldn't have been an easy feet to reach as even those sets even tho they were made on a smaller budget to this films sets still looked really good with this films sets being as wonderfully large and impressive as you'd want them to be and while it could be argued that his sets aren't on the same level as those created by Peter Lamont as depending on the film he did create some really good James Bond sets the sets in this film visually look a lot more better weather that be because of the fact that there was money put into the them or weather it was because of the fact they were lit more better on the day of filming who knows but one thing that is clear and that is the fact that Syd Cain really did know how to capture the world of James Bond in a set as the world of James Bond is that here everything is bigger the action is bigger and the characters are bigger and therefor the sets need to be bigger as well otherwise they would look out of place with the one set that he created for this film being a good example of that as the chess tournament set is a visually impressive set that more the holds up against the more modern films due to the fact that it was built for real with it looking like that you could turn the corner in the hallway of that set and it would continue on to another room with there being a great attention to detail in that set that it makes the film more then worth watching just for that one set alone and while yes the main SPECTRE sets doesn't look all that impressive as we would get a better one just a few films later in Thunderball that one average looking set doesn't take away from the fact that Syd Cain did create some truly wonderful sets for this film.
Whilst it is usually Maurice Binder who did the opening titles for the James Bond films for both this film and the following film Goldfinger then honor went to Robert Brownjohn with his titles for this film OK at best due to the fact that he just has credits shown in the body of a woman which at times does make it hard to tell who is getting credited and who isn't thankfully he would use a better method of this film in Goldfinger tho. This film does also kin of have a James Bond theme song I say kind of as it doesn't play over the opening titles as rather it plays over the films ending credits and does does appear in the film itself with the song in question being called "From Russia With Love" and was sung beautifully by singer Matt Monro with the song itself being a really good love ballad type of song and whilst it is also a bland song especially when you take into account all of the other James Bond theme songs as well it could be argued that that's kind of the point due to the fact that the makers of this film had no intention of it playing over the films opening credits and the only time that it appears in the main film is briefly on a passing radio and therefor there would be no reason to put alot of effort into the song as no one would have been listening to it in the first place and yet the song itself still did turn out pretty good with even an instrumental version of the song playing over the start of the films opening titles and while there are more better James Bond theme songs out there given the fact that this was really the first one or at the very least the first James Bond theme song as we know them to be this song did turn out pretty good its just a shame that the opening titles as impressive as they are are barely readable alot of the time.
Now then this film has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly one hour and fifty five minuets and twelve seconds. With this being a pretty solid running time for this film due to the fact that it does have so much plot to cover and yet at the same time tho it's running time is the biggest thig that's holding the film back as we the audience spend so much time ahead of Bond interms of information that we are left waiting for him to catch up with us when it should have been the other way around and yet this film odes have the right amount of plot there to cover that incredibly large amount of running time with the film even using it's running time as wisely as it could gave as due to the fact that the film does spend alot of the time early on in the film in giving us all of this information that puts ahead of James Bond the films plot does oddly feel more fleshed out as we do get to see just how SPECTRE put everything in there latest plan together and see how it all works in the progress and while the films guest characters don't really feel all that fleshed out this is something that doesn't really effect the film in a more negative way as we are so engaged with the plot that we don't even notice it with the films returning characters like for example James Bond feeling more fleshed out just due to the fact that we do get scenes no matter how brief that they are that show us aspects of his personality like for example when he gets to Istanbul the first thing that he does in his hotel room is check that its not been bugged and at the end of the film when Tatiana kills Rosa Klebb he just sits down in the chair with his head down with both of these scenes telling us that he doesn't really trust anyone not because he doesn't want to but because if he does it could mean him being killed which is a great way to get across just what his personality is like but I really will admit that this film really does have some really good pacing to it tho.
So now then as this is an action film that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then inn all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. With it being obvious that even tho the makers of this film did put alot of thought and effort into this films plot they put just as much in to this films action and because of that we do get what could be considered the franchises best action scenes and heck the best train fight in the franchise is one that happens in this film and yet with that mind that's not the best action scene in this film as that honor goes to the boat chase scene in the third act as while the train carriage fight is the more intense of the two scenes it's the boat chase scene that's the more exciting as we get to see Bond and Tatiana struggle to out run several boats all filled to the brim with SPECTRE agents shooting at them and just doing whatever possible to defeat them for good and yet when one of them shoots the barrels on the back of Bonds boat Bond gets the idea to us them as a weapon and so he unloads the lot and fains giving up so that Tatiana can give him an air gun which he uses to explode the barrels just as the boats are passing them which is a good idea as it's something that requires Bond to use his wits and not his gadgets and while the train fight scene is also really good that fight has him use his gadget and not his brains this is despite the fact that that action scene much like the rest of them in this film are all really good action scenes in there own right in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Overall this film is one that proves that Dr. No was no fluke as it's just as good if not better then what that film is with this film refining on the things that that worked in that film as well as giving us things that we didn't know that we wanted all of which do work really well in there own right in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very film in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very film really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 7.5 out of 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girl and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from Tenor , IMP Awards . Com and Google Images. With my personal favorite website to use to get the images that I used in this very review being Google Images just simply due to the fact that pretty much all of the images that are featured / presented to us and are currently up and also on Google Images are all fairly high quality and as well as being fairly high definition and well then boys and girls just freaking like James Bond I will return.
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