By Sean Chavel
The second James Bond film From Russia With Love was the entry that
started to set the standard for the Bond formula. The elaborate action sequences,
the gadgets, the exotic women and the formidable nemesis are on check here.
Mostly fun and occasionally campy, it’s a film that like any other of
the early Bonds certified Sean Connery as a breathing legend into author Ian
Fleming’s creation of the famous secret service spy. Connery romances
a couple of women here, his sex appeal is inexhaustible. Connery also gets himself
into a couple of good fights marked by rigor and potency.
This is a film that features one of the greatest hand to hand combat fights
in movie history. Aboard the Orient Express, Bond goes brawn to brawn with trained
killer Robert Shaw in a fight to the death. The characters fight in confined
spaces, using the cabin’s panels and floorboards to shove and slam their
opponent. Following the fight there is an exciting helicopter attack with Bond
attempting to dodge it and a boat chase that ends with Bond shooting a flare
into an oil spill with explosive results.
As for the plot, it’s both convoluted and too simple at the same time.
The evil organization SPECTRE (find the hidden menu which explains the background
of SPECTRE on the special features page) has the intent to amplify the Cold
War by selling top government secrets to adversaries, thus causing global chaos
and unbalancing the league of nations. Mostly we’re distracting by Bond’s
romance with the stunning Soviet defector Tatiana (Daniela Bianchi). They’re
initial tryst in a hotel room is incredibly sexy for a 1963 movie. Later, in
one of the film’s most discreetly funny scenes, Bond asks Tatiana to cooperate
with him by answering questions that he will transmit to his superior administrators
back home, but Tatiana can’t stop marveling at Bond’s sex drive
and stop her own curiosity about his other female exploits.
From Russia with Love doesn’t have the greatest megalomaniacal villain
or the greatest plot for a Bond movie. But coming off the heels of Dr. No
(1962), James Bond was proving that it could become a legendary, and undying,
franchise. The series peak would hit with James Bond entry number three, Goldfinger
in 1964. From Russia doesn’t have that film’s classic adversary
Oddjob who kills with a flying razor-edged bowling hat, but it does have the
fiendish Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya) who kills with lethal blade-tipped shoes.
The new edition of From Russia With Love has been digitally remastered
for superior sound and picture quality. On the DVD, there’s a small but
satisfying grab bag of extras including a “Villains and Mayhem Montage”
that shows the best of all the Bonds in action. The “film trivia”
section will be appealing to Bond fans and the original theatrical trailer is
worth a chuckle or two – only to see how overwrought those trailers used
to be packaged in the yesteryear. The disc offers play in both standard and
widescreen versions. Movie: ***1/2 Disc: ***
