Terence Young's FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE was released in 1963, one year after its predecessor, the first James Bond offering DR. NO, took the world by storm. The latter was a very exciting introduction to the world of secret espionage as vividly created in the Ian Fleming novel it was based on; but how well does the follow up Ian Fleming adaptation, with greater production values, John Barry's now famous musical score and the movie franchise's first hip title sequence, do in comparison?
007 is a licence for English Secret Service Agents to kill. It is a great honour and few agents have it. James Bond is one of them. One of England's finest he is sent to Istanbul to retrieve a much sought-after decoding machine, which can access Russian state secrets, from a defecting Russian agent, who, working in Istanbul, is risking her life bringing the decoder, and herself, to the attention of England. Indeed, it appears she is somewhat in love with the tall, dark and handsome James Bond and so the question, as Bond makes his long and treacherous journey back to England on the famous Orient Express, with one eye on the decoder and a wandering eye on the beautiful Russian defector, is whether it's all on the level, whether she's on the level or a femme fatale, everything a mystifying and deadly set-up.
Ian Fleming wrote the novels of all but the most recent James Bond films, and, except for GOLDFINGER released a year after this, this is by far the best cinematic adaptation, and, so, the best of the Bond films. The most recent Bond films, in fact every Bond film after GOLDFINGER, is, however electrifyingly exciting, dreadfully self-congratulating. The smirking character of James Bond would gradually become more important than the story, the outcome of this being the clear dependency on his campy one-liners and increasingly extravagant gadgetry, all in place of any real characterisation. Of all the James Bond novels of Ian Fleming the writer comes closest to explaining Bond's true essence in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. By pitting Bond against Red Grant, his Russian parallel, a dangerous psychopath trained as an assassin, he mischievously insinuates what lurks beneath the sophisticated surface of Bond's cool exterior, his impeccable tuxedo'd appearance, his untouchable manners, which is a well-coiled animal, a tiger or a lone wolf, a cold warrior deceptively intelligent enough and aware of his own brutal capabilities to take advantage of being top dog of England's Secret Service. The film thankfully refuses to go one further than this and Sean Connery (the definitive Bond) nails the insinuations perfectly, leaving only one hell of a paranoia trip onboard the Orient Express to enjoy. The other characters are all played with tongue-in-cheek aplomb, the best of which is a butch former KGB agent on the trail of the decoder, and as the menacing Red Grant, Robert Shaw is icily sharp. Everything, in fact, is sharp, a sharp Hitchcockian recreation of the brilliant novel and so, in around two hours, a sharp realisation of the paranoid world of the Secret Service. Great fun.
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From Russia With Love
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The evil organization SPECTRE has hatched a plan to steal a decoder that will access ... more
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Nov 26th, 2006
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