With
Dr. No out of the way and James Bond firmly installed in the cinemagoing public's hearts,
From Russia With Love wastes no time plunging us into a labyrinthine Cold War spy thriller. We haven't quite got Bond right yet - playing the crashingly loud theme over a scene of 007 bimbling about in his hotel room is a rare misstep - but this is still both a glorious snapshot of 1960s cinema and a film years ahead of its time.
Before
Goldfinger's needle found the series' groove there was still time for subtlety in Bond, and
From Russia With Love contains some of the most understated moments in the franchise. Rosa Klebb's terrifying seduction / recruitment of Tatiana Romanova, Red Grant's silent guardianship over 007 for most of the film, Bond's tender squeeze of Kerim Bey's arm when he finds his dead body - all these and more point to writing and direction that rarely felt so confident again until Timothy Dalton took over 24 years later.
Triumphantly, all the sneaking about in the shadows and mumbling secret codes that could have made
From Russia With Love a catatonic yawnfest are not just beautifully shot, edited and scored, but are contrasted perfectly with the action scenes - the revolutionary nature of which often goes overlooked. Take the brutal, bone-crunching
fight on the Orient Express between Bond and Grant, who, incidentally, is so hard that when he whacks Bond in the chops he momentarily becomes Kenneth Williams.
The fight begins when Bond's standard issue "ordinary black leather case" explodes in Grant's face and ends exactly two bruising, breathless minutes later with 007 calmly straightening his grenadine silk tie and buttoning his Anthony Sinclair suit jacket. Between these two now-iconic elements of Bond lore, several people go to work on one of the greatest fight scenes in Bond - and cinema - history.
As soon as the fight begins, director Terence Young makes three genius decisions. First, he refuses to have music over the fight. He wants us to hear every punch, kick and grunt. Second, he has Grant inadvertently shoot out the light in the carriage, bathing everything in a disorientating, nightmarish moonlight blue. And third, Grant's flailing arm smashes the window, allowing the roar of the train wheels to flood in and heighten the mood even further.
Almost every sound you hear in those two minutes was created by dubbing editor Norman Wanstall and his team of noise wizards. Many of the crashes, bashes and smashes are exaggerated to the point where it sounds like someone shoving a drum kit down a stairwell, yet it never sounds unrealistic. Just very, very painful.
Young rehearsed for two days with Connery, Shaw and stuntmen Jackie Cooper and Peter Perkins to choreograph the scene to within an inch of its life. By the time it came to cut it together, Connery and Shaw had the ballet down so well that only one shot of the stunt doubles was required, and it's almost impossible to tell which shot this is.
Which brings us to editor Peter Hunt. With footage from three cameras at his disposal, Hunt cut the fight like nobody had ever cut a fight scene before. Many of his edits make no sense in isolation or are deliberate jump cuts - watch when Bond shields his face with his arms - but in context they transform the fight from a bog-standard punch-up to a gladiatorial rumble. There are quick cuts to heighten the tension, but Hunt isn't afraid to linger on the odd shot to show how titanic this struggle is. And, most importantly, it's completely possible for the audience to keep up with who's kicking whose ass during the bout - something crucially forgotten during the editing of
Quantum Of Solace's fights.
It's no exaggeration to suggest that between them Terence Young and Peter Hunt changed the action genre forever with
From Russia With Love. Every on-screen scrap since owes something to those amazing 120 seconds in a tiny set at Pinewood Studios.
It's a proper spy thriller
Made during a particularly chilly part of the Cold War,
From Russia With Love is shot through with paranoia, double-crosses and shadow-cloaked deaths at every turn. Everyone's being followed by everyone else, people use ridiculously convoluted recognition codes, and there are hidden cameras and microphones everywhere. It's arguably the only Bond film that could be labelled a "spy thriller" before the series became a genre in itself, making it not just a great Bond film, but a great film full stop.
John Barry's score
"Tania Meets Klebb"
If you've ever skulked about in a Turkish mosque, watched two improbably beautiful gypsy women scratch each other to shreds or stolen a Macguffin from the Russian consulate in Istanbul, this is the music you would have been humming to yourself along the way. Perfect in almost every way.
Red Grant
Where the book's Grant becomes a raving psychopath with every full moon, Shaw sensibly goes for the cool, calculating, brick shithouse approach, setting the template for Bond henchpersons for the next five decades. The way he puts his gloves on before he kills anyone makes me do a little poo.
And finally: All hail the first barely-disguised reference to Little James:
BOND
You're one of the most beautiful girls I've ever seen.
TATIANA
Thank you, but... I think my mouth is too big.
No, it's the right size... for me, that is.
Further BlogalongaBondareading here
