Bondathon: From Russia with Love

If Dr. No was a good introduction to the Bond series From Russia with Love was a great follow-up and showed the series starting to hit its stride.

Following the events of Dr. No SPECTRE set up an elaborate plan to get revenge against Bond. This involves the recruitment of a beautiful Soviet cipher clerk, Tatiana Romanov (Daniela Bianchi) who’s tasked to seduce Bond. SPECTRE entice MI6 by offering them a Lektor, a Soviet cryptography device. Bond gets sent to Istanbul to conduct the mission.

Dr. No was a small scale adventure with the focus being on espionage and detective work. This was due to the limited budget. From Russia with Love had double the budget so the filmmakers were able to increase the scale. The film had more locations – Bond travelled to Istanbul and Venice (cities that were used in later Bond films) and Bond travelled on the Orient Express. From Russia with Love showcased Hagia Sophia and Basilica Cistern in Istanbul and was filmed at Pinewood Studios, Scotland, Spain, and Switzerland.

There were also more set-pieces, not just saved for the end. There was the raid on the Gypsy camp, the bombing of the Soviet consulate, and the Adriatic Sea. These sequences required more extras, stuntmen, and special effects. The Gypsy camp raid saw a small army attacked the camp which led to Bond being in the middle of the action. Whilst the Adriatic chase started with Bond getting grenades thrown at him from a helicopter and the spy getting chased by SPECTRE agents on the high seas.

Whilst From Russia from Love was a bigger scale film, at its core it was an espionage story. The idea of MI6 contacting a potential defector and getting access to some Soviet technology was standard Cold War stuff. The East and West did this sort of action all the time during the Cold War. It was amped up by the SPECTRE’s subterfuge.

Like in Dr. No, Bond in From Russia from Love had to take countermeasures and investigate during his mission. He swept his room for bugs and got a new hotel room. For his mission Bond had to look at the blueprints for the Soviet consulate and compare them with the catacombs below. From Russia from Love marked the appearance of Desmond Llewelyn as Q and give Bond his first gadget – a briefcase with a throwing knife, 20 rounds of ammo, a 25 AR-7 sniper rifle, and a secret canister of tear gas. These were all items that were in the realms of reality.

From Russia with Love was the first film in the series to have a pre-title sequence which short but sweet. But the title sequence was one of the least creative in the series. All it did was show some dancing girls with names getting projected of them. The theme song by Lionel Bart was played at the end.

From Russia with Love marked the final appearance of Eunice Gayson as Sylvia Trench. The original plan was to have a running gag where Bond and Sylvia do couply things but before they can do anything more risqué Bond gets called to onto a mission. Tatiana was an improvement as a Bond girl. Whilst Honey Ryder was iconic, she didn’t do much in Dr. No. Tatiana was one of the driving forces of the plot because she was ordered to make contact with Bond. I do find it funny that M and Bond know the mission to Istanbul was a trap yet Bond thinks with his penis when he sees a picture of Tatiana.

From Russia with Love had a great collection of villains with Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya) and Red Grant (Robert Shaw.) Klebb was arguably the main villain of the film and that would make her the first of two main female villains in the series. Despite being a small woman Lenya was able to make the character a non-nonsense operator and intimidating presence – whether it was punching a ruthless killer with brass knuckles or her interactions with Tatiana. Whilst Grant was the first anti-Bond character who was well-dressed and had a similar set of skills to the British agent. The pair had one of the great fights of the early series when they get into a brawl on the Orient Express and I love that Bond grew suspicious of Grant due to his dinner order.

There are some things in the film that some audiences may find problematic. These would be the two gypsy women fighting a man, the portrayal of Klebb’s implied homosexuality, and the moment Bond slaps Tatiana. But this was a case that From Russia with Love was a product of its time and it wasn’t any different from other films from the period.

From Russia from Love took what worked from Dr. No and refined it. The film resembled more of what the series would become and was an entertaining standalone spy-thriller.