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Producers: Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman
Director: Terence Young
Script Writers: Johanna Harwood, Richard Maibaum, Berkley Mather
Score: Monty Norman
Title Song: Monty Norman
Locations: Jamaica, Pinewood Studios
Running Time: One hour, fifty-one minutes

Players:
James Bond - Sean Connery
Dr. No - Joseph Wiseman
Honey Ryder - Ursula Andress
M - Bernard Lee
Quarrel - John Kitzmuller
Major Boothroyd (Q) - Peter Burton

     Dr. No was produced by Eon Productions in 1962. Albert Brocolli and Harry Saltzman were both Bond fans, and teamed up to get him on the big screen. The movie had some troubles. First off, the first two choices for actors to play Bond, Cary Grant and James Mason, would not do a series of movies. This left Terrence Young looking for an unknown actor to play Bond. They found the perfect person in Sean Connery, a truck-driver turned actor. He had been a body builder, so he had the masculine physique, and he also had an air of sophistication and light-heartedness that became Bond's personality. Of course, he could also be very serious, and very sensual. In short, Sean Connery became James Bond.
      The movie was shot with a limited budget, but still managed to have plenty of pyrotechnics, action, and adventure. James' first on screen mission starts off with James Bond, 007 of MI6, being sent to Jamaica to investigate the murder of a fellow agent, Strangways. However, he quickly gets wrapped up in a fiendish plot by Dr. No of SPECTRE, to use a new technology to re-direct (topple) rockets with a radio beam. Why would Dr. No want to do this? Why to fulfill the goals of SPECTRE, The Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion. While investigating, Bond meets friends (Quarrel, Leiter), beautiful women (Honey Ryder) and plenty of guys who want to kill him. The plot reaches its climax when Bond is captured by Dr. No. on his island off crab key. Bond escapes, and after a deadly showdown with Dr. No above a pit of boiling water, destroys the island, and thus Dr. No's insidious plans.
Did you know...
*Sean Connery is deathly afraid of spiders, making the scene where the tarantula is on his arm one of the hardest scenes he ever had to do.
*Dr. No grossed $15 million dollars in ticket sales. This was very good for its time.
*In one scene where Bond is escaping through the pipes, he falls. The man who falls can be quite clearly seen as not being Sean Connery, but rather his stunt double.
*Sean Connery slept in his suit in order to get used to it.
*The scene with Honey Ryder almost being drowned was originally supposed to have king crabs crawling over her, but the crabs were partially frozen during transport, and looked dead.
*Monica van der Zyl provided the voice of Honey Ryder, since Ursula Andress had too heavy an accent.
*Major Boothroyd's name came from a real person, Jeffer Boothroyd, a gun expert that the producers asked what gun Bond should carry. He suggested the Wulther.

My Grade: A   Bond makes his jump to the silver screen in grand style. This movie set a new standard for all action movies to follow, including other Bond movies.

Best Moment: The fight between Bond and Dr. No on the lift above the boiling water. This is a classic scene of good vrs. evil, with James Bond reigning victorious.

Also Notable: Honey Ryder coming out of the sea with her bikini and a dagger on her thigh. This was quite provocative in its time. Also, Ursula Andress set a very high bar of physical beauty for other Bond girls to follow. Even Hugh Hefner, that well known connoisseur of women, calls it one of the sexiest moments in all movie history, and "quite delicious".

A note about the James Bond theme Song.-A call from Noel Rodgers late one Friday night set John Barry to work on the two minute James Bond theme. John Berry was popular at the time, with his group, John Barry Seven, a jazz group. So, for less than $1,000, John Barry set to work on the song. He never got to see the movie before hand, and only knew of James Bond from a brief appearance in a comic strip. Barry borrowed his own previously composed "Bea's Knees" instrumental, and created the wonderful strains that we hear at the start of each Bond movie. The song hit #13 on the U.K. charts, and Barry would return to score eleven Bond movies.

Connery says...the line

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