Honey is an innocent, caught up in a scheme she knows nothing of. She has no idea who Bond and Dr No are, and very little of what they're up to, but recognises Bond as a good guy and joins forces with him, willingly falling for his charms in the process. In a sense, she could be described as "child-like" in her character and possibly the most so of any of the leading female characters (no, Bibi doesn't count).
Vesper is in no way, shape or form an innocent. She knows exactly who Bond and Le Chiffre are, precisely what they're up to, and her role in all this. She is under extreme pressure from both the bad guys and the good and struggles against her growing attraction to Bond since this would imperil her (she thinks) existing lover, leading to her tortured situation at the end of the story. She's a grown woman in an adult situation.
Naturally, Bond reacts to these two very different characters in different ways.
^ If it's going to happen, it hasn't so far, since I've also seen similarities between the way that James and Honey interact and the way that James interacts with Tatiana and Domino in FRwL and TB, respectively (the latter of which I'll touch on more in-depth when I post my full review of TB).
Bond has no feelings (besides instinctual) for any of these girls.
That's not the impression I've been left with, so "to each their own".
Just like with Honey, Tatiana and Domino, Bond's charms have fooled you too. :x
Dr. No is one of the best Bond films I've seen. Many iconic scenes that have been mentioned here; Honey Rider walking out of the ocean, Bond's first lines in the casino, Dr. No as a villain (apparently Joseph Wiseman was extremely nervous but I thought he did an excellent job), Sylvia Trench playing golf (well sort of) in a business shirt, the idyllic locations in Jamaica, dialogue, very well cast (M, Miss Moneypenny, Professor Dent, Miss Taro, Quarrell, Felix Leiter) and some memorable quotes that I've attached. One in particular stood out for me that I can't see on this list was:
Sister Lily: Don't hesitate to ring if there's anything else you want. Anything at all.
James Bond: Two air tickets to London?
Not a lot of cons but I agree with a few other posters that Honey Rider could have had more to say and do and came across as much more intelligent in the book.
Finally, I thought Jack Lord was brilliant as Felix Leiter. I may get shot down in flames for this but I thought that out of Bond and Leiter (particularly at Puss Feller's restaurant), Leiter seemed more cool and in control than Bond - not making a comparison as such but that was just my observation.
"Everyone knows rock n' roll attained perfection in 1974; It's a scientific fact". - Homer J Simpson
Finally, I thought Jack Lord was brilliant as Felix Leiter. I may get shot down in flames for this but I thought that out of Bond and Leiter (particularly at Puss Feller's restaurant), Leiter seemed more cool and in control than Bond - not making a comparison as such but that was just my observation.
Not an uncommon opinion among Bond fans, Lord is rated very highly. But cooler than Bond? Not something you hear everyday! ) -{
Dr. No is one of the best Bond films I've seen. Many iconic scenes that have been mentioned here; Honey Rider walking out of the ocean, Bond's first lines in the casino, Dr. No as a villain (apparently Joseph Wiseman was extremely nervous but I thought he did an excellent job), Sylvia Trench playing golf (well sort of) in a business shirt, the idyllic locations in Jamaica, dialogue, very well cast (M, Miss Moneypenny, Professor Dent, Miss Taro, Quarrell, Felix Leiter) and some memorable quotes that I've attached. One in particular stood out for me that I can't see on this list was:
Sister Lily: Don't hesitate to ring if there's anything else you want. Anything at all.
James Bond: Two air tickets to London?
Not a lot of cons but I agree with a few other posters that Honey Rider could have had more to say and do and came across as much more intelligent in the book.
Finally, I thought Jack Lord was brilliant as Felix Leiter. I may get shot down in flames for this but I thought that out of Bond and Leiter (particularly at Puss Feller's restaurant), Leiter seemed more cool and in control than Bond - not making a comparison as such but that was just my observation.
It is an excellent film, the first four Connery films, along with the Living Daylights make up my top 5 -{
It's a good first film of the series. I have a few issues;
What is Dr No's motive for his plan? Is there financial gain for destroying the US space program, or is he just spitting his dummy out because the Americans and the Russians didn't employ him?
No mention of Trueblood's death at all.
IWatching Bond and Leiter making fun of Quarrel is uncomfortable because of how scared Quarrel is of the dragon and his reluctance to go to Crab Key.
Have you ever heard of the Emancipation Proclamation?"
Got the BluRay Box Set for my Birthday and watching them in order with my girlfriend. Time to go through the pros and cons!
Pros:
- Sean Connery is fantastic, looks great, fit. Awesome intro "Bond, James Bond".
- Gunbarrel.
- Ken Adam's sets are awesome, gives the film a really rich feel.
- Jamaica looks lovely, beach scene in particular.
- Quarrel is awesome.
- Jack Wade as Leiter is cool - he and Bond joke well together.
- Dr. No has a solid presence.
- Dinner scene with Bond is excellent. Great writing and provocation.
- Level of detail is good, the hotel tell-tales in particular.
- Ursula Andress is beautiful.
Cons:
- Soundtrack is glaringly bad. Too basic.
- SC's acting during the car chase is poor, doesn't help he was having to fake it in front of the green screens.
- Final battle or destruction of threat is a bit anti-climatic.
- A shame that Ursuala was dubbed.
Observations:
A really great first entry that while is slightly dated, or at least just small in scale, is quite stylistic - sets a really great foundation. I enjoy the slow pacing and major influence on detective elements. By trying to send myself to 1962, the film comes across as very original...
Blu-ray:
Great restoration, clear, rich colours that are natural.
1) Wiseman is very solid as the villain. Considering he was the very first BV, he makes quite an impression.
2) Connery proves himself on his first performance as Bond. He gives an excellent performance, only to be topped (imo) in GF.
3) Jack Lord does a fine job as the first Leiter.
4) The dialogue is solid.
5) For a Terrence Young film, it's paced well enough.
Cons:
1) The scene between Bond and the tarantula.
2) Honey Ryder is an alright BG, but she's been topped by various successors.
3) Why did Dr. No "topple" rockets?
Overall, I like DN, and give it an 8/10.
"Hostile takeovers. Shall we?"
New 2020 ranking (for now DAF and FYEO keep their previous placements)
1. TLD 2. TND 3. GF 4. TSWLM 5. TWINE 6. OHMSS 7. LtK 8. TMWTGG 9. L&LD 10. YOLT 11. DAD 12. QoS 13. DN 14. GE 15. SF 16. OP 17. MR 18. AVTAK 19. TB 20. FRWL 21. CR 22. FYEO 23. DAF (SP to be included later)
Bond actors to be re-ranked later
Pros:
- White Bikinis
-Ursula Andress
- Jamaica
- Bond becoming Bond.
-Eunice Gayson playing golf.
- Money Penny :x
-Giant fish (that was always my favorite part when I was little.)
- The low budget Dragon (tacky and amazing.)
-When Bond lets go of the boat that has come to save him.
Cons:
- awkward discussion of rape (very 1960's)
- Sometimes with John Kitzmiller it read a bit like a blacksploitation movie (also very 1960's)
- Why was Miss. Taro white? (Super 1960's)
- Oh the tunnel. It was in real time.
I've never felt it was one of the best Bond movies but I thought it had a lot of really great scenes and a great villain. I just never found the toppling plot all that interesting or entertaining and even as a kid I thought the dragon thing was kind of dumb. I find it a really enjoyable movie until they head to Crab Key, at which point I think it kind of goes downhill. They didn't really capture the adventure atmosphere the book had.
Got to say, watching the creaky Avengers episodes on True Entertainment, the early ones with Honor Blackman, Dr No must have seemed out of this world. In The Avengers at that point, they didn't even get out of the studio, they make Z Cars looks like Fast & Furious...
It feels like blasphemy to ProsAndCons-ify the first four Connery's. Like listing the Pros and Cons of the Four Gospels.
Surely they are by definition precisely what a Bond film is meant to be, as essential to the existence of the universe as we recognise it as, say, as gravity or light? What can a subjective value judgement even mean to something so fundemental?
PROS
- It is the first. Without it there would be no series to obsess us, and no Bond25 to panic over to day.
-Fleming was not only alive, but involved in the filming. This makes this film (and its followup) a notch more canon-ical than all the rest.
- Connery looks good, mean and lean, and plays it straight.
- Bond is introduced in a luxurious Casino scene that was not in the book. EON didnt have the rights to Fleming's first book, and had to begin their series with a later book. But they still introduce our new hero the same way Fleming did, and we watch him do cool Casino stuff (including effortlessly picking up a chick) before the M's office scene that explains this welldressed swaggering stud is really a secret agent!
- ConneryBond is much more at ease in Pussfellers than MooreBond was in Harlem. If he hadn't picked a fight with one of the regulars he woulda fit right in, and even after that they treat him like he's one the family.
- First half actually resembles an episode of Danger Man (if Danger Man filmed on location and if McGoohan was willing to sleep with strange ladies and kill men in cold blood). It's a murder mystery plot with Bond hanging round the consulate and the clubs where the victim hung out, very similar to a typical John Drake type plot.
- The scenes at Crab Key begin almost precisely at the 1 hour mark. I think Quarrel's boat leaves the dock at 59 minutes, Bond and Quarrel beach it precisely at 1hr, and Honey appears precisely one minute later, Just in case you want to skip the old-fashioned talk-y stuff and jump right ahead to...
- The second half is pure cinematic wish fullfillment, completely different from the typical teevee episode that has come before, and establishes many of the expected setpieces and fine details we would demand ever more of in all the the films to come.
That it all begins with such a magnificient specimen strutting up onto the beach is pure fantasy fullfillment to begin with, and this wetdream then leads into all the stuff with the "dragon", the villains headquarters, the dinner scene, the torture, the sci-fi climax in a lab full of minions, and of course explosion and liferaft to cap it all off.
- There's actually a lot of H Rider Haggard in this story: Dr No's secret headquarters on its own mysterious unexplored island is essentially one of those hidden kingdoms Alan Quatermain was always stumbling across, complete with "native" superstition warning outsiders away.
I'm sure Fleming read Haggard. And get this: Honey Rider = H. Rider! coincidence?
- The villains headquarters and evil scheme borrows a lot from Hope and Crosby's Road to Hong Kong, which was released while Dr No was still filming, and on which production designer Syd Cain also worked. Skip ahead to 38 minutes and compare!
A year later EON would produce its own Bob Hope spy comedy. Repaying the favour?
CONS
- Not enough Barry. Norman does some interesting things with the local musicians and some weird sound effects, but it does not sound like a Bond film.
- The original Q/Boothroyd is a snoozer, glad he got recast.
- Pacing in the first half is a little too leisurely, though that does set up the fantasy of the second half.
-Honey Rider is far less interesting than the character Fleming decribed, and in dropping several of her key scenes from the book is reduced to a bikini clad damsel in distress needing to be rescued.
- I gotta admit Ursula Andress is not a good actress, though I do find her very compelling even in other film roles.
- Ursula Andress and other actresses voices are overdubbed. They are in the film to be oggled only, and somebody else can be paid to read their minimal dialog.
- Quarrel is an eyepopping superstitious stereotype. Though his belief in the supernatural does contribute to the Haggard-liness of the story.
- "one ... million ... dollars!"
That fishtank always did look unconvincing (then theres the lame dialog to explain why magnifying guppies is a good thing). But Mike Meyers has completely ruined that line for me.
- Given they couldnt figure out how to film the fishtank properly, I probably shouldnt complain, but...
I want to ssee the giant squid!!!
A whole decade before Disney filmed a giant squid sequence in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (skip to 3:38), it coulda been done!
Some dumb things keep me from rating it higher (the way the Tarantula scene plays out, the funeral one-liner, and that I find pointless the scene when Bond and Honey are put to sleep).
But having said that, it's really good.
"Hostile takeovers. Shall we?"
New 2020 ranking (for now DAF and FYEO keep their previous placements)
1. TLD 2. TND 3. GF 4. TSWLM 5. TWINE 6. OHMSS 7. LtK 8. TMWTGG 9. L&LD 10. YOLT 11. DAD 12. QoS 13. DN 14. GE 15. SF 16. OP 17. MR 18. AVTAK 19. TB 20. FRWL 21. CR 22. FYEO 23. DAF (SP to be included later)
Bond actors to be re-ranked later
I should have explained that back then, now I dunno what I meant by that back in the day. Oh well, it's what it is.
"Hostile takeovers. Shall we?"
New 2020 ranking (for now DAF and FYEO keep their previous placements)
1. TLD 2. TND 3. GF 4. TSWLM 5. TWINE 6. OHMSS 7. LtK 8. TMWTGG 9. L&LD 10. YOLT 11. DAD 12. QoS 13. DN 14. GE 15. SF 16. OP 17. MR 18. AVTAK 19. TB 20. FRWL 21. CR 22. FYEO 23. DAF (SP to be included later)
Bond actors to be re-ranked later
Comments
Honey is an innocent, caught up in a scheme she knows nothing of. She has no idea who Bond and Dr No are, and very little of what they're up to, but recognises Bond as a good guy and joins forces with him, willingly falling for his charms in the process. In a sense, she could be described as "child-like" in her character and possibly the most so of any of the leading female characters (no, Bibi doesn't count).
Vesper is in no way, shape or form an innocent. She knows exactly who Bond and Le Chiffre are, precisely what they're up to, and her role in all this. She is under extreme pressure from both the bad guys and the good and struggles against her growing attraction to Bond since this would imperil her (she thinks) existing lover, leading to her tortured situation at the end of the story. She's a grown woman in an adult situation.
Naturally, Bond reacts to these two very different characters in different ways.
Just like with Honey, Tatiana and Domino, Bond's charms have fooled you too. :x
Well-played, Sir. Well-played indeed.
Sister Lily: Don't hesitate to ring if there's anything else you want. Anything at all.
James Bond: Two air tickets to London?
https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/movies/dn_quotes.php3?t=mi6
Not a lot of cons but I agree with a few other posters that Honey Rider could have had more to say and do and came across as much more intelligent in the book.
Finally, I thought Jack Lord was brilliant as Felix Leiter. I may get shot down in flames for this but I thought that out of Bond and Leiter (particularly at Puss Feller's restaurant), Leiter seemed more cool and in control than Bond - not making a comparison as such but that was just my observation.
Not an uncommon opinion among Bond fans, Lord is rated very highly. But cooler than Bond? Not something you hear everyday!
It is an excellent film, the first four Connery films, along with the Living Daylights make up my top 5 -{
What is Dr No's motive for his plan? Is there financial gain for destroying the US space program, or is he just spitting his dummy out because the Americans and the Russians didn't employ him?
No mention of Trueblood's death at all.
IWatching Bond and Leiter making fun of Quarrel is uncomfortable because of how scared Quarrel is of the dragon and his reluctance to go to Crab Key.
" I don't listen to hip hop!"
Why? He's scared of something that doesn't exist - a local legend that could possibly only be debunked by people who don't live there.
"Better make that two."
Pros:
- Sean Connery is fantastic, looks great, fit. Awesome intro "Bond, James Bond".
- Gunbarrel.
- Ken Adam's sets are awesome, gives the film a really rich feel.
- Jamaica looks lovely, beach scene in particular.
- Quarrel is awesome.
- Jack Wade as Leiter is cool - he and Bond joke well together.
- Dr. No has a solid presence.
- Dinner scene with Bond is excellent. Great writing and provocation.
- Level of detail is good, the hotel tell-tales in particular.
- Ursula Andress is beautiful.
Cons:
- Soundtrack is glaringly bad. Too basic.
- SC's acting during the car chase is poor, doesn't help he was having to fake it in front of the green screens.
- Final battle or destruction of threat is a bit anti-climatic.
- A shame that Ursuala was dubbed.
Observations:
A really great first entry that while is slightly dated, or at least just small in scale, is quite stylistic - sets a really great foundation. I enjoy the slow pacing and major influence on detective elements. By trying to send myself to 1962, the film comes across as very original...
Blu-ray:
Great restoration, clear, rich colours that are natural.
"Better make that two."
{[]
The old films look great on BR. You would feel like watching them again and again .... Special features are good too
Pros:
1) Wiseman is very solid as the villain. Considering he was the very first BV, he makes quite an impression.
2) Connery proves himself on his first performance as Bond. He gives an excellent performance, only to be topped (imo) in GF.
3) Jack Lord does a fine job as the first Leiter.
4) The dialogue is solid.
5) For a Terrence Young film, it's paced well enough.
Cons:
1) The scene between Bond and the tarantula.
2) Honey Ryder is an alright BG, but she's been topped by various successors.
3) Why did Dr. No "topple" rockets?
Overall, I like DN, and give it an 8/10.
New 2020 ranking (for now DAF and FYEO keep their previous placements)
1. TLD 2. TND 3. GF 4. TSWLM 5. TWINE 6. OHMSS 7. LtK 8. TMWTGG 9. L&LD 10. YOLT 11. DAD 12. QoS 13. DN 14. GE 15. SF 16. OP 17. MR 18. AVTAK 19. TB 20. FRWL 21. CR 22. FYEO 23. DAF (SP to be included later)
Bond actors to be re-ranked later
- White Bikinis
-Ursula Andress
- Jamaica
- Bond becoming Bond.
-Eunice Gayson playing golf.
- Money Penny :x
-Giant fish (that was always my favorite part when I was little.)
- The low budget Dragon (tacky and amazing.)
-When Bond lets go of the boat that has come to save him.
Cons:
- awkward discussion of rape (very 1960's)
- Sometimes with John Kitzmiller it read a bit like a blacksploitation movie (also very 1960's)
- Why was Miss. Taro white? (Super 1960's)
- Oh the tunnel. It was in real time.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Surely they are by definition precisely what a Bond film is meant to be, as essential to the existence of the universe as we recognise it as, say, as gravity or light? What can a subjective value judgement even mean to something so fundemental?
PROS
- It is the first. Without it there would be no series to obsess us, and no Bond25 to panic over to day.
-Fleming was not only alive, but involved in the filming. This makes this film (and its followup) a notch more canon-ical than all the rest.
- Connery looks good, mean and lean, and plays it straight.
- Bond is introduced in a luxurious Casino scene that was not in the book. EON didnt have the rights to Fleming's first book, and had to begin their series with a later book. But they still introduce our new hero the same way Fleming did, and we watch him do cool Casino stuff (including effortlessly picking up a chick) before the M's office scene that explains this welldressed swaggering stud is really a secret agent!
- ConneryBond is much more at ease in Pussfellers than MooreBond was in Harlem. If he hadn't picked a fight with one of the regulars he woulda fit right in, and even after that they treat him like he's one the family.
- First half actually resembles an episode of Danger Man (if Danger Man filmed on location and if McGoohan was willing to sleep with strange ladies and kill men in cold blood). It's a murder mystery plot with Bond hanging round the consulate and the clubs where the victim hung out, very similar to a typical John Drake type plot.
- The scenes at Crab Key begin almost precisely at the 1 hour mark. I think Quarrel's boat leaves the dock at 59 minutes, Bond and Quarrel beach it precisely at 1hr, and Honey appears precisely one minute later, Just in case you want to skip the old-fashioned talk-y stuff and jump right ahead to...
- The second half is pure cinematic wish fullfillment, completely different from the typical teevee episode that has come before, and establishes many of the expected setpieces and fine details we would demand ever more of in all the the films to come.
That it all begins with such a magnificient specimen strutting up onto the beach is pure fantasy fullfillment to begin with, and this wetdream then leads into all the stuff with the "dragon", the villains headquarters, the dinner scene, the torture, the sci-fi climax in a lab full of minions, and of course explosion and liferaft to cap it all off.
- There's actually a lot of H Rider Haggard in this story: Dr No's secret headquarters on its own mysterious unexplored island is essentially one of those hidden kingdoms Alan Quatermain was always stumbling across, complete with "native" superstition warning outsiders away.
I'm sure Fleming read Haggard. And get this: Honey Rider = H. Rider! coincidence?
- The villains headquarters and evil scheme borrows a lot from Hope and Crosby's Road to Hong Kong, which was released while Dr No was still filming, and on which production designer Syd Cain also worked. Skip ahead to 38 minutes and compare!
A year later EON would produce its own Bob Hope spy comedy. Repaying the favour?
CONS
- Not enough Barry. Norman does some interesting things with the local musicians and some weird sound effects, but it does not sound like a Bond film.
- The original Q/Boothroyd is a snoozer, glad he got recast.
- Pacing in the first half is a little too leisurely, though that does set up the fantasy of the second half.
-Honey Rider is far less interesting than the character Fleming decribed, and in dropping several of her key scenes from the book is reduced to a bikini clad damsel in distress needing to be rescued.
- I gotta admit Ursula Andress is not a good actress, though I do find her very compelling even in other film roles.
- Ursula Andress and other actresses voices are overdubbed. They are in the film to be oggled only, and somebody else can be paid to read their minimal dialog.
- Quarrel is an eyepopping superstitious stereotype. Though his belief in the supernatural does contribute to the Haggard-liness of the story.
- "one ... million ... dollars!"
That fishtank always did look unconvincing (then theres the lame dialog to explain why magnifying guppies is a good thing). But Mike Meyers has completely ruined that line for me.
- Given they couldnt figure out how to film the fishtank properly, I probably shouldnt complain, but...
I want to ssee the giant squid!!!
A whole decade before Disney filmed a giant squid sequence in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (skip to 3:38), it coulda been done!
Some dumb things keep me from rating it higher (the way the Tarantula scene plays out, the funeral one-liner, and that I find pointless the scene when Bond and Honey are put to sleep).
But having said that, it's really good.
New 2020 ranking (for now DAF and FYEO keep their previous placements)
1. TLD 2. TND 3. GF 4. TSWLM 5. TWINE 6. OHMSS 7. LtK 8. TMWTGG 9. L&LD 10. YOLT 11. DAD 12. QoS 13. DN 14. GE 15. SF 16. OP 17. MR 18. AVTAK 19. TB 20. FRWL 21. CR 22. FYEO 23. DAF (SP to be included later)
Bond actors to be re-ranked later
I should have explained that back then, now I dunno what I meant by that back in the day. Oh well, it's what it is.
New 2020 ranking (for now DAF and FYEO keep their previous placements)
1. TLD 2. TND 3. GF 4. TSWLM 5. TWINE 6. OHMSS 7. LtK 8. TMWTGG 9. L&LD 10. YOLT 11. DAD 12. QoS 13. DN 14. GE 15. SF 16. OP 17. MR 18. AVTAK 19. TB 20. FRWL 21. CR 22. FYEO 23. DAF (SP to be included later)
Bond actors to be re-ranked later