From Russia with Love

_**SPECTRE agents, Istanbul, Gypsies, beautiful women and the Orient Express**_ Agent 007 (Sean Connery) is sent on a dubious mission at Istanbul to possibly acquire a Lektor cryptography device from the Soviets via their consulate. Bond meets a naïve Russian beauty (Daniela Bianchi) that SPECTRE agent Klebb (Lotte Lenya) recruits to carry out their assassination plan with the help of a brawny Irish Assassin (Robert Shaw). "From Russian with Love" (1963) is a solid sequel in the franchise highlighted by the Istanbul locations, the Gypsy sequence where two women have a catfight (Aliza Gur & Martine Beswick) and, later, a serious train scrap. In addition, Eunice Gayson returns for another cameo as Sylvia Trench and the flick closes with a thrilling clash with a helicopter and a boat chase. Unfortunately, the story’s just not as compelling as “Dr. No” (1962). It’s my least favorite in Connery’s run, although it’s still a solid entry. The film runs 1 hour, 55 minutes and was shot in Istanbul, Turkey; Pinewood Studios near London; and Crinan, Argyll & Bute, Scotland (finale helicopter and boat chase scenes). GRADE: B-

I love this one... surprise, surprise, surprise. Everyone loves this one. I think if there were a true point of contest amongst die hard Bond fans it is From Russia With Love v Goldfinger for the best Bond film. Clearly I'm in the From Russia With Love camp, because it works as a serious spy thriller, it works as a Bond movie, it works as a dramatic thriller and it works as an action movie. It has enough character to be an extremely well made Bond film, and, for a second outing, nobody has done it better.

This is an early Bond movie, and more of a spy movie than the later hay day of 007. It's a pretty good spy movie. We do begin to see a lot of what makes 007 with the hot women, the two hottest being minor characters in a catfight scene. We see some nice locales, nice scenery, and we have some interesting gadgets on both sides. We also have the diabolical Specter leader whom I always call "Blowhard", who seems to kill more of his own employees than his opponents do. There is much going for this, but it's not as spectacular as later Bond movies, and we don't get as much exotic scenery as later movies give us. Still, it is just good enough to be in the upper half of 007 films. There isn't a lot of lull in this.

We used to have a maths teacher at school who was small in stature. When the class got a little unruly, she used to stamp her foot on the floor like a petulant child. We called her Miss "Klebb"! I don't think that she ever had a poisonous spike that protruded from her shoe, but I wouldn't have been surprised. In that role, Lotte Lenya is up there in the league of deadly protagonists faced by 007 in this franchise. Robert Shaw - always underrated, I feel - is superb as "Grant" and Pedro Armendáriz is entirely convincing as the urbane "Karim Bey". The story here is a bit of a stretch, but Terence Young keeps it moving along as Sean Connery vies with SPECTRE to pinch a secret decoder from the nasty Soviets with a lethal briefcase of gadgets and gizmos. It's great!