One of the first and one of the absolute best Bond films! After the immense success of Dr. No, the question stood if EON were to make a sequel. Of course, they were! Sean Connery reprises his role as James Bond and Terence Young returned to direct having previously directed Dr. No! With those two together, what could possibly go wrong? This time the producers drew inspiration from Ian Fleming's Bond novel entitled "From Russia With Love" and used it as the basis for the film. The film would stay with the same charm and stylish feel that the audience witnessed in Dr. No, making it a straight up cold, spy thriller of the best sort!
The movie became (like it's predecessor) an instant hit, and proved to be an even bigger! It's many fans' favorite Bond movie, it's Connery's favorite of those he did, and it's my favorite!
The movie takes out with MI6 receiving a letter from a Russian cypher clerk from a Russian embassy in Istanbul. The letter says that she will hand over a so called "Lektor" (a decoding machine) to MI6 on one condition: that James Bond were to escort her and the Lektor all the way to Britain, personally. Bond agrees to her demands, and heads to Istanbul to meet Kerim Bey and team up with him. In reality it is SPECTRE (the villainous terrorist organization mentioned in Dr. No) that has devised a plan to take the Lektor for themselves, kill Bond in retaliation for their operative Dr. No, and thereby humiliate MI6. The story evolves into an expertly told spy thriller about loyalty, romantics, violence, action and above all: realism. As I said, it's all told in such a fascinating and intriguing way, that you'll never EVER get bored! This is one of the only Bond movies that is in fact realistic, and portrays Bond as a spy!
Sean Connery reprises his role as MI6 agent James Bond, and again he does a marvelous job! I think, Connery delivers his finest performance in this film. He delivers everything the script and the director wants him too. Can't really give him more credit than that! Daniela Bianchi is our new Bond girl, and she is my favorite! She has much more to do and work with than Ursulla Andress in Dr. No, and she gets more screen time! Her performance is so real, innocent and sometimes kinky, that it makes her character even more realistic and human, which makes you like and care for her! Plus, her chemistry with Connery is superb! She is one of the only Bond girls that is really, really important to the plot, and is arguably the most important! A friggin' fantastic Bond girl! Lotte Lenya is our villain in the creepy and sadistic Rosa Klebb. I like her and her character very much! Her character is weighed much on the characters creepiness, and Lenya does a remarkable job with it! Pedro Armendáriz is Bond's ally, Kerim Bey. I love the chemistry he shares with Connery! His character is also very important to the story, and he is given many good quotes. I'm gonna go ahead and call him the best ally Bond has ever had in the entire series! Robert Shaw is our first indestructible henchman in the series as a whole. In my opinion, he is also the very best! He plays the sadistic, murderous, psychopathic, sociopathic, calculating and villainous Donald "Red" Grant. His character sat the standards for many coming henchmen, with his height and blond hair. This character has it all. He gets a spectacular intro which is the best for any Bond henchman ever! Trust me, you'll know when it's there. His performance is so realistic and creepy, that it blows all those simple-minded and blond-haired other henchmen away. He is mostly seen in the distance observing Bond or offing some of Bond's allies, and I love that! It's much more realistic and fits the story much better. But when he does meet Bond and talk with him it's worth the wait! The dialog is so interesting and intriguing as we slowly learns who SPECTRE is and how they operates! One of my favorite scenes in the entire series! And he delivers my favorite line from a Bond villain ever which is "My orders are to kill you and deliver the Lector... How I do it's my business." Plus, it can only help when Grant and Bond shares the best and most realistic fight in the entire series! Shaw as Grant is my favorite henchman ever! Vladek Sheybal and Walter Gotell also creates creepy and memorable Bond henchmen. Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell reprises their roles as M and Moneypenny, respectively. Desmond Llewelyn is awesome as Q for the first time! Last, but certainly not least, we get the first on-screen appearance from none other than Ernst Stavro Blofeld! The sight of him stroking that white cat of his but never see his face is so haunting! Blofeld is a villain without comparison! He is THE villain! He's the head of SPECTRE! Nough' said! His scenes in this movie are my absolute favorites of all the scenes the character has! No other villain will ever be as memorable as him!
When you mix all these wonderful ingredients up, what you get is: a fantastic film, a wonderful cast, memorable performances, realism, violence, humor and a damn good James Bond movie, arguably the best of the entire series! Terence Young returns with the same energy and stylish direction and takes it all up one notch. In my opinion, this movie is better than Dr. No, purely because I like the story more, and it's much more intense! But as an introduction to the Bond universe, no movie could work better than Dr. No! However, From Russia With Love is still a better movie in general, and many fans' favorites (including mine) of all the Bond films! This movie is absolutely friggin' awesome!
10/10