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I suppose that’s what makes Connery’s first swing at Bond such an oddity in the series. His character is still magnificently executed, and you can’t take your eyes off him whenever he’s on the screen, but he really can be an unlikable jerk at times.
Is the thing about Dr No surviving an assassination attempt because his heart is on the right hand side of his body in the film? That's a lovely bit of oddness which feels like it should have made it in.
If there's another thing that may have made Dr. No a bit more interesting is had they added a lot more into Honey Ryder's character, for me, she's an interesting one in the book: a woman who grew up into the wilderness and knows survival way better than Bond, she became Bond's guide in the Crab Key, she's distinctively intelligent, but in the film, she just kinda turned up a damsel in distress, she's just there, I liked Honey Ryder's introduction in the film with her presence made the audience think she's threatening Bond with her knife, but after that, I've felt that she's just being dragged off.
Again, that's why I really think Live And Let Die would've been really good as the first Bond film, because Solitaire fits the mold of what Honey Ryder had became in the film, exotic, yet a damsel and naive.
Yeah, LALD is a good introduction to Bond but all the racial issues in the early 60's...
As I read through more and more posts I am seeing that there is a great deal of DN that didn't make the big screen. Some of it quite interesting. I recall talk when NTTD was not yet released and people saying Saffin was really Doctor No. Using the heart thing to explain why he wasn't killed by the shots from Madeline at the start of the movie. But sadly this was either not the case or ended up on the cutting room floor.
Lets move on to the second film in the series and dive into what, if any missed opportunities there may have been? In many people's eyes this is a classic and one that is near the top of most fans lists.
But, was there a missed opportunity here? Was there something that might have made the film even better? Or is FRWL the classic that didn't miss any notes?
What say you mi6 community? What are the missed opportunities of From Russia with Love?
But on the great scheme of things, it doesn't really add to anything, surely. I mean there might be weaker elements here and there, but not really a bona fide missed opportunity.
I agree the movie is pretty much note perfect. The casting is top notch and the script is tight. There was a deleted sequence before the gypsy camp of Bond and Kerim getting the drop on the Bulgarians. However the son of Pedro noticed that the man in the car had already died in a previous sequence in the film and so the whole thing was cut.
And I liked the style of the book with Spy vs. Spy kind of thing set up, I think that's a bit underplayed in the film, like you have explicitly Russia vs. Britain in the book, there's that build up, I liked that to be more in the film.
I'm wondering how Hitchcock would've done this film though, even though it's near perfect as it is, because some aspects of the film felt Hitchcockian.
My hot take of the day is that I think the Helicopter sequence in this film is much better than the Cropduster scene from ‘North By Northwest’, anyone agree/disagree?
Agreed
Is this film the gold standard of Bond films? For many 1964's Goldfinger is a note perfect film. Some would say it's 24 karat and that there are no missed opportunities within the movie.
However, we have a jumbled countdown at the end as the producers decided to make the bomb stop on 007. We have a film where Bond is a captive for the movie and doesn't really do anything. We have a film where a character in the book was a lesbian and that subject isn't broached in the film. Different time I suppose.
What say you community? What are the missed opportunities within the film of Goldfinger?
It would have been nice for Felix to be written with a consistent tone and feel.
He's pretty incompetent in this film as he led the Masterson sisters (Jill and Tilly) to death, then held captive by the villains, even failed to detonate a bomb (if not for an old man just simply turning it off).
What had he done in this film? Slap a woman's rear? Turn a boyish gangster pilot by simply forcing himself on her in that barn? What else? For me, I couldn't think of anything he had done useful.
If anything, it's Felix Leiter who's the real hero of the operation, he's the one who's hands on of the operation, Pussy Galore even worked with him to foil Goldfinger's plot, and he did all of that without getting captured.
I prefer what Bond did in the book, say what you guys say about Bond being Goldfinger's secretary, but it made Bond's spy skills more better, with him working as Goldfinger's secretary while gathering intelligence inside of the gangsters meeting, knowing them one by one and knowing Goldfinger's plans, and writing a secret back up letter to Felix Leiter and the CIA.
Bond's portrayal in the film are just lauded for the coolness and suaveness, but in a whole, it's a crap portrayal of Bond, Bond's bad portrayal in this film was only edged for me by Bond's portrayal in The Man With The Golden Gun.
Actually, GF is a pretty solid adaptation as well. I agree with others though, they kinda flubbed Leiter (the Hamilton Leiters really are the worst of the series, with the exception of Hedison, and I think much of that was simply due to his performance).
Well, he was a total loser in Skyfall.