Review of Dr. No (1962) - The Consummate Pilot Film

In Dissecting Bond, we now tackle the cinematic classic: Dr. No. When you have a beloved character from a best selling series, who most men want to be and most women want to be with, how do you handle that pressure and make an entertaining film? The answer: pretty effortlessly when you have Sean Connery as your leading man.
Next in the series: From Russia With Love.
Note: the reason I didn't use the score from Dr. No for this review is because the music is surprisingly difficult to get ahold of for me, and what I could get was pretty low quality. So, I substituted it for something else. Don't worry; I will start using the proper score to each film starting with the next one.

[@kellenorourke2155]

truthfully, I've always been a fan of Dr. No, I wouldn't call it the vanilla of the series like most people do. Right away you knew Bond was gonna be huge and Connery was born to play him.

[@tomchris60]

One thing I always loved about Bond's introduction is the way Connery alters his performance when interacting with other characters. With Miss Trench he's suave and confident. With Moneypenny he's relaxed and playful. But with M he's docile and somewhat ill at ease. It appears James Bond would rather battle wits with Dr.No than face his crusty superior officer. A smart, incisive, and skillfully edited review! Looks like I'll be busy with your take on Bond for a while.

[@bronickle]

Adding to your fine series of reviews (I’m working backwards). Your astute comments on the “Monty Norman” score are interesting. As far as I know MN was a songwriter of musicals and wasn’t equipped to write an orchestral score so that job was handed to Eric Rogers, then in the midst of scoring most of the Carry On films. For these he had a 30 piece orchestra (as opposed to the 100+ musicians used by David Arnold’s orchestrator Nick Dodd) which explains the poor (and mono) sound. Totally agree it’s very unimpressive. John Barry was surprised to hear his “James Bond theme” track being used so many times, and legend has it that he agreed to this provided he was engaged to write the entire score for FRWL. Which is a fine score, still using a small band but with much more success.

[@FATPIGPRDUCTIONS12]

I’ve watched this, I’m going to watch your review of from Russia with love and all subsequent reviews. Keep it up

[@motionpictureplus]

Great point about how Dr. No is like the pilot for the whole series, also a great adventure in its own right. Light, fantastic, and beachy

[@DocDevious23]

One thing I enjoy about this review and your other videos is how you touch on production design, like the film score and costumes. I feel like those aspects of the franchise (and many movies in general) go rather underappreciated

[@stephenjarvis534]

I've taught theatrical design at a university level, so I tend to notice them a bit more than a casual viewer (sometimes to the annoyance of my wife). This series is so wonderfully lavish with high production values a lot of the time, and since any design work (production, sound, music, costume, etc) is a part of the piece as an intentional creative choice, it only makes sense that they can be as important as a story or cast when reviewing a film's perceived successes and failures.

[@DocDevious23]

@stephenjarvis534 Wholeheartedly agree, every aspect of that filmmaking process comes together to make the movies we appreciate today. Excellent video, one of several great ones you've made. 👏

[@jacobinman7054]

Really looking forward to following this series! Off to a great start.

[@Stevofaves]

Mate, I'm loving your videos! Great takes on Bond, even if i don't agree with all of them. Looking forward to seeing your channel grow :)

[@lochnessmunster1189]

Excellent, Stephen!

[@DoctorQuackenbush]

Bond’s Beretta 418 jammed in the From Russia With Love novel.

[@backtoklondike]

What's funny is that Fleming wasn't sure if he wanted to continue the series or not, so he wrote that as an ending in case he didn't. Which would've made a very anti-climatic end to the character, gun jamming and he gets poisoned and dies.

[@henrykujawa4427]

I know GOLDFINGER was the most popular, but it's long bugged me that ABC started running the films with that, then the 2 previous ones later (and I forget in which order, but I suspect they ran RUSSIA before NO). I actually read the novel first, so I enjoyed the parts that followed the book, and am STILL annoyed where they deviated from it. I've heard they didn't have the budget for the giant octopus, so why start with this film other than that it was originally conceived as a FILM project before Fleming wrote the novel? (And, of course, THUNDERBALL was under a lawsuit at the time.) I kinda wish they'd started with MOONRAKER, back when building a nuclear missile to level London would have not seemed out-of-date. And Honor Blackman would have made a perfect "Gala Brand", with H. Marion Crawford being the perfect "Sir Hugo Drax". Joseph Wiseman did a fine job; it's only a slight shame they didn't get Christopher Lee, as that's who Fleming had in mind when he wrote the unproduced screenplay. I like Ursula Andress in other films, but her "Honey" NEVER reminded me of the girl in the book who was such a favorite of mine. And I really wish they'd gotten David Hedison to play Felix in all the films. When I watch the 1st season of "VOYAGE", I keep thinking he would have been the best Felix. He's got WAY more personality than Jack Lord. One of my big gripes about the movie is how M blows the plot before Bond leaves his office, so there's NO MYSTERY. Another fan online once helped me assemble a far-better soundtrack album than the official one. It's ironic that most of the music on the LP is not in the film, and most of the music in the film is not on the LP! I put all the movie music together in sequence, and all the unused tracks at the end as bonuses. It gave me a much-improved appreciation for Norman's score. It's not great... but it's pretty good for what it was. Of course, Barry's RUSSIA score remains among my top faves. Something that never occured to me until just recently... if they'd ever had any interest in actually doing Fleming's version of Bond onscreen, Edward DeSouza would have been perfect as the book version of Bond. (It's funny that he has a cameo in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME.) He's in both the 1962 PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and KISS OF THE VAMPIRE.

[@akshaytrayner1960]

Great vid

[@zacharycat603]

Jack Lord wanted to play Leiter again I heard, but wanted equal pay and film time to Connery which killed that idea.

[@fizz1580]

Intresting Retrospective! Should do a retrospective of the original Superman films (1978-1987) would be a treat!

[@stephenjarvis534]

Funny enough, I just finished rewatching some of them. Should I include Superman Returns?

[@fizz1580]

@@stephenjarvis534why not? Superman Returns is a homage! Also should the Mission Impossible

[@MK-ci3xk]

nice, will u review all james bond movies like this now ?

[@stephenjarvis534]

Yep. I'll be taking a break from Bond by doing another franchise retrospective, and then the one after that will be either the Russia review or Bond Henchmen.

[@MrCodyWarner]

I WILL NOT stand for even slight criticism of National Treasure good sir!!!!!!! Haha great video though!

[@stephenjarvis534]

Thanks. I said it was successful to a degree. I have a soft spot for it and its sequel as well.

[@MrCodyWarner]

@@stephenjarvis534I know, just giving you a hard time haha!! I have an unreasonable love for that movie. I legitimately watch 1-2 times a year. It’s my “sick day” movie. Definitely agree it’s no Raiders of the Lost Ark though!

[@animationfanatic2133]

When are we getting doctor yes *crying

[@fizz1580]

Great! Will this turn into a new series ?

[@stephenjarvis534]

Indeed it will.

[@DoctorQuackenbush]

Dent’s death is NOT a cold kill, FCS!

[@siechamontillado]

Here's a suggestion for a ranking: rank every movie and actor portraying the fictional detective Philip Marlowe. Alternatively, rank every movie/film/actor's interpretation of the Zorro character.

[@stephenjarvis534]

Interesting. I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I don't have much experience with Raymond Chandler and his stories, whereas I have some experience with Zorro. I'd have to brush up on some incarnations (it's been a while since I've seen some interpretations), but that could be fun.

[@siechamontillado]

@@stephenjarvis534 Well then, it sounds like this is a good excuse to brush up on Raymond Chandler and shoot, throw in Dashiell Hammett for good measure!

[@CDubya.82]

Music again is so high in the mix on these reviews.

[@stephenjarvis534]

You're not wrong. I mixed these in a soundproof studio, and they sounded OK there. I've been trying to do better, and I think several of the later reviews (Live and Let Die, Golden Gun) came out much better.

[@williamarthurfenton1496]

There's little I find more annoying than the general rough concept of 'make the sequel bigger and MORE." Which then means every subsequent film has to outdo this. It's why I think the sequels to the first Lord of The Rings film are inferior-- because they need to have more epicness. It's also why I think the Hobbit films were pretty mediocre at best, because they once again had to replicate the first three adaptions but be 'more'. I know the stakes raise considerably in say You Only Live Twice, but I'm talking more about how the film is made from a cinematography point of view. It's larger yes, but not to the point of silliness and it does calm down in later films again.

[@masudaharris6435]

My first Bond film was Goldfinger and I went backward so I was a bit disappointed with Dr. No. Since Bond was already threatened with a laser between his legs, a tarantula seemed incredibly lame.

[@stephenjarvis534]

Fair enough. I honestly can't remember which was my first Connery film, but it was probably Goldfinger.

[@DoctorQuackenbush]

Loose the friggin’ annoying, unneeded, and distracting background music. It’s difficult to hear you. Thank you.

[@stephenjarvis534]

As I explained on another video, I'm sorry it's distracting for you, but it's not going away until I feel differently. I have my reasons for having it currently, though I'm not ruling it out permanently. Is it the volume of the music that is the problem, or is it something else?

[@Rippafratta]

Nahhh, for me it works perfectly for this format. And, though I‘m friggin old, I have no problems hearing the commentary.