Dr. No

James Bond Chases Dr. No (Germany)
007 Is The Killing Number: Dr. No (Japan)
Licence To Kill (Italy)

Released: 1962
Produced by: EON

Best line:
"Bond... James Bond."

Worst line:
Miss Taro: "I'll make you a Chinese dinner here..."
Bond: "No -- I'm feeling Italian and musical."

Most unfortunate line:
Connery singing "Underneath the Mango Tree."

Poster at left from the 1962 Spanish release: Artwork by Macario "MAC" Gómez

"Bond, James Bond"

The first Eon Bond film, starring Sean Connery, who beat out Terrence Cooper, Roger Moore, and many other actors.

Connery's first line is considered one of the greatest screen entrances in history.

"Well, we're not going to make any money out of this. How can we show a picture which has a limey truck driver playing the lead?"
- U.A. executive after the first studio screening.

Good Cut

An early draft featured a pet monkey named Dr. No, instead of the main villain, who was now named Buckfield. Broccoli refused to allow the change and co-writer Wolf Mankowitz was so annoyed that he had his name removed from the credits (he later co-wrote the spoof Casino Royale).

Undercover

After the film's release in Italy, the Vatican issued a special communiqué expressing its disapproval at the film's moral standpoint.

Eunice Gayson was originally to have been a recurring character in the series, as "Sylvia Trench." Each film would have started with Bond about to bed her character, when he would suddenly get called away on a mission. The idea was dropped after From Russia With Love, however.

Director Terence Young: "I knew Ian, funnily enough, but I never particularly liked him. We became, eventually, enormously good friends, but I thought he was a pompous son of a bitch, immensely arrogant, and when we met just after I'd been signed to do the picture at some big press show put on by United Artists, he said, 'So they've decided on you to fuck up my work.'"

"Well, we're not going to make any money out of this. How can we show a picture which has a limey truck driver playing the lead?"
- U.A. executive after the first studio screening.

Broccoli and Saltzman decided that Bond should not get involved in politics (curious for someone in the spy profession). So Dr. No's Russian backers were replaced with the terrorist group SPECTRE from the novel Thunderball.

The budget was only $1,000,000 but when costs over run by $100,000 United Artists tried to pull the plug fearing they would never recoup its outlay.

Connery met with the producers in a surly mood. He refused a screen test, ranting and pounding the table with his fists. After his aggressive outburst, the producers agreed that they had their man.

Terence Young taught Connery how to be Bond. "I had a very clear idea of what an old Etonian should be. I was a Guards officer during the war, and I thought I knew how Bond should behave." He took him to his personal tailor and purchased his clothes, shoes, jackets and ties. Connery's sweat shirts and jeans were discarded. Young continued this practice through Goldfinger, when he taught Connery golf (Connery continued to play fanatically from then on).

Fleming originally asked Noel Coward to play the part of Dr. No, Coward replied in a telegram "Dear Ian, the answer to Dr. No is No, No, No, No!". He also recommended his cousin Christopher Lee (See also The Man With the Golden Gun). After the film's release in Italy, the Vatican issued a special communiqu? expressing its disapproval at the film's moral standpoint.

The voice of Honey Ryder is not that of Ursula Andress, but lawyer Nikki van der Zyl. Ursula's voice was described by producer Max Arnow as that of a "Dutch comic."

Connery is afraid of spiders. So the shot of spider in his bed was originally done with a sheet of glass between him and the spider, but when this didn't look realistic enough, the scene was re-shot with stuntman Bob Simmons. The glass is still visible in one shot.

The Japanese office of United Artists originally translated the title as "We don't want a doctor," and even had posters printed with that title. Fortunately, the mistake was discovered at the last moment.

When asked to name his favorite Bond girl, Connery said: "Perhaps the one that lingers in my mind most is Ursula Andress, because she was in Dr. No, the first Bond film, and we became friends. Very beautiful woman, obviously." Connery and Andress were also rumored to have had an affair. Producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli reportedly first spotted a picture of Ursula wearing a man's T-shirt, soaked to the skin and the nipples on her breasts poking prominently through the material. Broccoli insisted they sign her at a thousand a week, even before meeting her. Ursula reluctantly agreed, saying, "It seemed easy. All I had to do was run through the film with nothing on."

Director Terence Young said Ursula Andress was "strangely built... she had the shoulders, stomach and legs of a boy, but with this great face and breasts." Fun In Acapulco co-star Elvis Presley said: "Body like a man - no hips, and shoulders broader than mine. I was embarrassed to take my goddamn shirt off next to her."

While shooting Ursula Andress coming out of the water in her bikini, four men walking up the beach ruined the shot. Director Terence Young screamed at the men and waved for them to lie down. A half hour later, he remembered the four men, still in the sand. They were Ian Fleming, Noel Coward, poet Stephen Spender, and author Peter Quennel.
Andress would appear in one more Bond movie during the sixties, the "unofficial" entry, Casino Royale, in which she played the heroine of the original Fleming book, Vesper. Co-star Jacqueline Bisset (at left) said: "I never thought a woman like Ursula Andress could be adorable, but she was. I was going through my 'hide my bosom' period, and finally she said to me, 'Hmmm. You walk very badly, hunched over. Why are you hiding your bosom, Bisset? You should be proud of it. Stick it out, Bisset, stick it out!"

United Artists decided to premiere the film in London first, to test market it before committing to an American opening. In fact there were plans to banish the film to the Midwestern drive-in circuit. But fortunately the critical and public response in London was strong enough to insure future Bond films.

The voice of Honey Ryder is not that of Ursula Andress, but lawyer Nikki van der Zyl. Ursula's voice was described by producer Max Arnow as that of a "Dutch comic."



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