Goldfinger ( 1964 )

By Wikipedia

Goldfinger is the third film in the James Bond series and also the third to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Released in 1964, it is based on the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. The film also stars Honor Blackman as Bond girl Pussy Galore and Gert Fröbe as the title character Auric Goldfinger, along with Shirley Eaton as famous Bond girl Jill Masterson. Goldfinger was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman and was the first of four Bond films directed by Guy Hamilton.
The film's plot has Bond investigating gold smuggling by gold magnate Auric Goldfinger and eventually uncovering Goldfinger's plans to attack the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox. Goldfinger was the first Bond blockbuster, with a budget equal to that of the two preceding films combined. Principal photography occurred from January toJuly 1964 in the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the American states of Kentucky and Florida.
The release of the film led to a number of promotional licensed tie-in items, including a toy Aston Martin DB5 car from Corgi Toys which became the biggest selling toy of 1964. The promotion also included an image of gold-painted Shirley Eaton as Jill Masterson on the cover of Life.
Many of the elements introduced in the film appeared in many of the later James Bond films, such as the extensive use of technology and "gadgets" by Bond and an extensive pre-credits sequence that was not a major part of the main storyline. Goldfinger was the first Bond film to win an Academy Award and opened to largely favourable critical reception. The film was a financial success, recouping its budget in just two weeks and is hailed as the series' quintessential episode, still being acclaimed as one of the best films in the entire Bond canon.

- Plot:
After destroying a drug laboratory in Latin America, James Bond—agent 007—goes to Miami Beach. There he receives instructions from his superior, M, via CIA agent Felix Leiter to observe bullion dealer Auric Goldfinger, who is staying at the same hotel as Bond. The agent sees Goldfinger cheating at gin rummy and stops him by distracting his employee, Jill Masterson, and blackmailing Goldfinger into losing. Bond and Jill consummate their new relationship; however, Bond is subsequently knocked out by Goldfinger's Korean manservant Oddjob, who then covers Jill in gold paint, killing her by epidermal suffocation.
In London, Bond learns that his true mission is determining how Goldfinger smuggles gold internationally. Bond arranges to meet Goldfinger socially and wins a high-stakes golf game against him with a recovered Nazi gold bar at stake. Bond follows him to Switzerland, where there is an attempt on Goldfinger's life by Tilly Masterson to avenge the death of her sister, Jill.
Bond sneaks into Goldfinger's plant and discovers that he smuggles the gold by melting it down and incorporating it into the bodywork of his car, which he takes with him whenever he travels. Bond also overhears him talking to a Red Chinese agent named Mr. Ling about "Operation Grand Slam". Leaving, Bond encounters Tilly as she is about to make another attempt on Goldfinger's life, tripping an alarm as they leave; they attempt to escape, but Oddjob kills Tilly with his hat. Bond is captured and Goldfinger ties Bond to a table underneath a laser, which begins to slice the table in half. Bond lies to Goldfinger that MI6 knows about Grand Slam, causing Goldfinger to spare Bond's life to mislead MI6 into believing that Bond has things in hand.
Bond is transported by Goldfinger's private jet, which flown by his personal pilot, Pussy Galore, to his stud farm near Fort Knox, Kentucky. Bond escapes and witnesses Goldfinger's meeting with U.S. mafiosi, who have brought the materials he needs for "Operation Grand Slam". Whilst they are each promised $1 million, Goldfinger tempts them that they "could have the million today, or ten million tomorrow". They listen to Goldfinger's plan to rob Fort Knox before Goldfinger kills them all using some of the "Delta 9" nerve gas he plans to release over Fort Knox.
Bond is recaptured after hearing the details of the operation and tells Goldfinger the reasons why such a plan won't work. However, Bond soon learns from Goldfinger that he has no intention of removing any of the gold from Fort Knox, but to place an atomic device containing cobalt and iodine, which would render the gold useless for 58 years, increasing the value of Goldfinger's own gold and giving the Chinese an advantage resulting from the ensuing economic chaos.
"Operation Grand Slam" begins with Pussy Galore's Flying Circus spraying the gas over Fort Knox. However, Bond had seduced Pussy, convincing her to replace the nerve gas with a harmless substance and alert the U.S. government about Goldfinger's plan. The military personnel of Fort Knox convincingly play dead until they are certain that they can prevent the criminals escaping the base with the bomb.
Believing the military forces to be neutralized  Goldfinger's private army break into Fort Knox and access the vault itself. Goldfinger then arrives in a helicopter with the atomic device. In the vault, Oddjob handcuffs Bond to the device. The U.S. troops attack; Goldfinger takes off his coat, revealing a colonel's uniform, and kills Mr. Ling and the troops seeking to open the vault, before escaping himself.
Bond extricates himself from the handcuffs, but before he can disarm the bomb, Oddjob attacks him. They fight and Bond manages to electrocute Oddjob. Bond forces the lock of the bomb, but is unable to disarm it. An atomic specialist, who accompanied Leiter, turns off the device with the clock stopped on "007".
With Fort Knox safe, Bond is invited to the White House for a meeting with the President. However, Goldfinger has hijacked the plane carrying Bond. In a struggle for Goldfinger's revolver, Bond shoots out a window, creating an explosive decompression. Goldfinger is blown out of the cabin through the window. With the plane out of control Bond rescues Galore and they parachute safely from the aircraft.

- Cast:
- Sean Connery as James Bond (007): A British MI6 agent who is sent to investigate Auric Goldfinger. Connery reprised the role of Bond for the third time in a row. His salary rose, but a pay dispute later broke out during filming. After he suffered a back injury when filming the scene where Oddjob knocks Bond unconscious in Miami, the dispute was settled: Eon and Connery agreed to a deal where the actor would receive 5% of the grosses of each Bond film he starred in. It was while filming Goldfinger that Connery also became a fan of golf.
- Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore: Goldfinger's personal pilot and leader of an all-female team of pilots known as the Flying Circus. Blackman was selected for the role of Pussy Galore because of her role in The Avengers and the script was rewritten to show Blackman's judo abilities. The character's name follows in the tradition of other Bond girls names that are double entendres: concerned about censors, the producers thought about changing the character's name to "Kitty Galore", but they and Hamilton decided "if you were a ten-year old boy and knew what the name meant, you weren't a ten-year old boy, you were a dirty little bitch. The American censor was concerned, but we got round that by inviting him and his wife out to dinner and [told him] we were big supporters of the Republican Party." During promotion, Blackman took delight in embarrassing interviewers by repeatedly mentioning the character's name. Whilst the American censors did not interfere with the name in the film, they refused to allow the name "Pussy Galore" to appear on promotional materials and for the US market she was subsequently referred to by the title 'Miss Galore' or 'Goldfinger's personal pilot'.
- Gert Fröbe as Auric Goldfinger: Main antagonist. A wealthy man obsessed with gold. Orson Welles was considered as Goldfinger, but his financial demands were too high; Theodore Bikel auditioned for the role, but failed. Fröbe was cast because the producers saw his performance as a child molester in the German film Es geschah am hellichten Tag. Fröbe, who spoke little English, said his lines phonetically, but was too slow. In order to dub him, he had to double the speed of his performance to get the right tempo. The only time his real voice is heard is during his meeting with members of the Mafia at Auric Stud. Bond is hidden below the model of Fort Knox whilst Fröbe's natural voice can be heard above. However, he was dubbed over for the rest of the film by Michael Collins.
- Shirley Eaton as Jill Masterson: Bond Girl and Goldfinger's aide-de-camp, whom Bond catches helping the villain cheat at a game of cards. He seduces her, but for her betrayal, she is completely painted in gold paint and dies from 'skin suffocation' (a fictional condition Ian Fleming created for the novel. The skin does not actually "breathe"). Eaton was sent by her agent to meet Harry Saltzman and agreed to take the part if the nudity was done tastefully. It took an hour-and-a-half to apply the paint to her body. Although only a small part in the film, the image of her painted gold was renowned and Eaton graced the cover of Life magazine of 6 November 1964.
- Harold Sakata as Oddjob: Goldfinger's lethal Korean manservant. Director Guy Hamilton cast Sakata, an Olympic silver medallist weightlifter, as Oddjob after seeing him on a wrestling programme. Hamilton called Sakata an "absolutely charming man", and found that "he had a very unique way of moving, [so] in creating Oddjob I used all of Harold's own characteristics". Sakata was badly burned when filming his death scene, in which Oddjob was electrocuted by Bond. Sakata, however, determinedly kept holding onto the hat despite his pain until the director said "Cut!" Oddjob has been described as "a wordless role, but one of cinema's great villains."
- Tania Mallet as Tilly Masterson: The sister of Jill Masterson, she is on a vendetta to avenge her sister, but is killed by Oddjob.
- Bernard Lee as M: 007's boss and head of the British Secret Service. This was the third of eleven Eon-produced Bond films in which Lee played the role of Admiral Sir Miles Messervy.
- Cec Linder as Felix Leiter: Bond's CIA liaison in the United States. Linder was the only actor actually on location in Miami. Linder's interpretation of Leiter was that of a somewhat older man than the way the character was played by Jack Lord in Dr. No; in reality, Linder was a year younger than Lord. According to screenwriter Richard Maibaum, Lord demanded co-star billing, a bigger role and more money to reprise the Felix Leiter role in Goldfinger that led the producers to recast the role. At the last minute, Cec Linder switched roles with Austin Willis who played cards with Goldfinger.
- Martin Benson as Mr. Solo: The lone gangster who refuses to take part in Operation Grand Slam and is later killed by Oddjob and crushed in the car which he is riding in.
- Desmond Llewelyn as Q: The head of Q-Branch, he supplies 007 with a modified Aston Martin DB5. Hamilton told Llewelyn to inject humour into the character, thus beginning the friendly antagonism between Q and Bond that became a hallmark of the series.
- Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny: M's secretary. Maxwell played Moneypenny in 14 Eon-produced Bond films from Dr. No in 1962 to A View to a Kill in 1985.
- Austin Willis as Mr. Simmons: Goldfinger's gullible gin rummy opponent in Miami.
Michael Mellinger as Kisch: Goldfinger's secondary and quiet henchman and loyal lieutenant who leads his boss's false Army convoy to Fort Knox.
- Burt Kwouk as Mr. Ling: A Communist Chinese nuclear fission specialist who provides Auric Goldfinger with the dirty bomb to irradiate the gold inside Fort Knox.
- Richard Vernon as Colonel Smithers, the Bank of England official.
- Margaret Nolan as Dink, Bond's masseuse from the Miami hotel sequence. Nolan also appeared as the gold-covered body in advertisements for the film and in the opening title sequence as the dancing golden silhouette, described as "Gorgeous, iconic, seminal."

- Production:
With the court case between Kevin McClory and Fleming surrounding Thunderball still in the High Courts, producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman turned to Goldfinger as the third Bond film. Goldfinger had what was then considered a large budget of $3 million (US$22,480,687 in 2012 dollars), the equivalent of the budgets of Dr. No and From Russia with Love combined, and was the first James Bond film classified as a box-office blockbuster. Goldfinger was chosen with the American cinema market in mind, as the previous films had concentrated on the Caribbean and Europe.
Terence Young, who directed the previous two films, chose to film The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders instead, after a pay dispute that saw him denied a percentage of the film's profits. Broccoli and Saltzman turned instead to Guy Hamilton to direct; Hamilton, who had turned down directing Dr. No, felt that he needed to make Bond less of a "superman" by making the villains seem more powerful. Hamilton knew Fleming, as both were involved during intelligence matters in the Royal Navy during World War II. Goldfinger saw the return of two crew members who were not involved with From Russia With Love: stunt coordinator Bob Simmons and production designer Ken Adam. Both played crucial roles in the development of Goldfinger, with Simmons choreographing the fight sequence between Bond and Oddjob in the vault of Fort Knox, which was not just seen as one of the best Bond fights, but also "must stand as one of the great cinematic combats" whilst Adam's efforts on Goldfinger were "luxuriantly baroque" and have resulted in the film being called "one of his finest pieces of work."

- Writing:
Richard Maibaum, who wrote the previous films, returned to adapt the seventh James Bond novel. Maibaum fixed the novel's heavily criticized plot hole, where Goldfinger actually attempts to empty Fort Knox. In the film, Bond notes it would take twelve days for Goldfinger to steal the gold, before the villain reveals he actually intends to irradiate it with the then topical concept of a Red Chinese atomic bomb. However, Harry Saltzman disliked the first draft, and brought in Paul Dehn to revise it. Hamilton said Dehn "brought out the British side of things". Connery disliked his draft, so Maibaum returned. Dehn also suggested the pre-credit sequence to be an action scene with no relevance to the actual plot. Wolf Mankowitz, an un-credited screenwriter on Dr. No, suggested the scene where Oddjob puts his car into a car crusher to dispose of a dead body. Because of the quality of work of Maibaum and Dehn, the script and outline for Goldfinger became the blueprint for future Bond films.

- Filming:
Principal photography on Goldfinger commenced on 20 January 1964 in Miami, Florida, at the Fontainebleau Hotel; the crew was small, consisting only of Hamilton, Broccoli, Adam, and cinematographer Ted Moore. Sean Connery never travelled to Florida to film Goldfinger because he was filming Marnie elsewhere in the US. Miami also served as location to the scenes involving Felix's pursuit of Oddjob. After five days in Florida, production moved to England. The primary location was Pinewood Studios, home to among other sets, a recreation of the Fontainebleau, the South American city of the pre-title sequence, and both Goldfinger's estate and factory. Three places near the studio were used, Black Park for the car chase involving Bond's Aston Martin and Goldfinger's henchmen inside the factory complex, RAF Northolt for the American airports, and Stoke Park Club for the golf club scene. London Southend Airport was used for the scene where Goldfinger flies to Switzerland. Ian Fleming visited the set of Goldfinger inApril 1964; he died a few months later in August 1964, shortly before the film's release. The second unit filmed in Kentucky, and these shots were edited into scenes filmed at Pinewood. Principal photography then moved to Switzerland, with the car chase being filmed at the small curves roads near Realp, the exterior of the Pilatus Aircraft factory in Stans serving as Goldfinger's factory, and Tilly Masterson's attempt to snipe Goldfinger being shot in the Furka pass. Filming wrapped on 11 July at Andermatt, after nineteen weeks of shooting. Just three weeks prior to the film's release, Hamilton and a small team, which included Broccoli's stepson and future producer Michael G. Wilson as assistant director, went for last minute shoots in Kentucky. Extra people were hired for post-production issues such as dubbing so the film could be finished in time.
Broccoli earned permission to film in the Fort Knox area with the help of his friend, Lt. Colonel Charles Russhon. To shoot Pussy Galore's Flying Circus gassing the soldiers, the pilots were only allowed to fly above 3000 feet. Hamilton recalled this was "hopeless", and they flew at about 500 feet, "and the military went absolutely ape". The scenes of people fainting involved the same set of soldiers moving to different locations. For security reasons, the filmmakers were not allowed to film inside the United States Bullion Depository, although exterior photography was permitted. All sets for the interiors of the building were designed and built from scratch at Pinewood Studios. The filmmakers had no clue as to what the interior of the depository looked like, so Ken Adam's imagination provided the idea of gold stacked upon gold behind iron bars. Saltzman disliked the design's resemblance to a prison, but Hamilton liked it enough that it was built. The comptroller of Fort Knox later sent a letter to Adam and the production team, complimenting them on their imaginative depiction of the vault. United Artists even had irate letters from people wondering "how could a British film unit be allowed inside Fort Knox?" Adam recalled, "In the end I was pleased that I wasn't allowed into Fort Knox, because it allowed me to do whatever I wanted." Another element which was original was the atomic device, to which Hamilton requested the special effects crew to get inventive instead of realistic. Technician Bert Luxford described the end result as looking like an "engineering work", with a spinning engine, a chronometer and other decorative pieces.

- Effects:

    Two Aston Martin DB5s were built for production, one of which had no gadgets.
Hamilton remarked, "Before [Goldfinger], gadgets were not really a part of Bond's world."Production designer Ken Adam chose the DB5 because it was the latest version of the Aston Martin (in the novel Bond drove an DB Mk.III), which he considered England's most sophisticated car. The company was initially reluctant, but were finally convinced to a product placement deal. In the script, the car was only armed with smoke screen, but every crew member began suggesting gadgets to install in it: Hamilton conceived the revolving license plate because he had been getting lots of parking tickets, while his stepson suggested the ejector seat (which he saw on television). A gadget near the lights that would drop sharp nails was replaced with an oil dispenser because the producers thought the original could be easily copied by viewers. Adam and engineer John Stears overhauled the prototype of the Aston Martin DB5 coupe, installing these and other features into a car over six weeks. The scene where the DB5 crashes was filmed twice, with the second take being used in the film. The first take, in which the car drives through the fake wall, can be seen in the trailer. Two of the gadgets were not installed in the car: the wheel-destroying spikes, inspired by Ben-Hur's scythed chariots, were entirely made on studio; and the ejector seat used a seat thrown by compressed air, with a dummy sat atop it. Another car without the gadgets was created, which was eventually furnished for publicity purposes. It was reused for Thunderball.
Lasers did not exist in 1959 when the book was written, nor did high-power industrial lasers at the time the film was made, making them a novelty. In the novel, Goldfinger uses a circular saw to try to kill Bond, but the filmmakers changed it to a laser to make the film feel more fresh. Hamilton immediately thought of giving the laser a place in the film's story as Goldfinger's weapon of choice. Ken Adam was advised on the laser's design by two Harvard scientists who helped design the water reactor in Dr No. The laser beam itself was an optical effect added in post-production. For close-ups where the flame cuts through metal, technician Bert Luxford heated the metal with a blowtorch from underneath the table Bond was strapped to.
The opening credit sequence was designed by graphic artist Robert Brownjohn, featuring clips of all James Bond films thus far projected on Margaret Nolan's body. Its design was inspired by seeing light projecting on people's bodies as they got up and left a cinema.

Shirley Eaton as the murdered Jill Masterson—"one of the most enduring images in cinematic history."

Visually, the film uses many golden motifs to parallel the gold's symbolic treatment in the novel. All of Goldfinger's female hench women in the film except his private jet's co-pilot (black hair) and stewardess (who is Korean) are red-blonde, or blonde, including Pussy Galore and her Flying Circus crew (both the characters Tilly Masterson and Pussy specifically have black hair in the novel). Goldfinger has a yellow-painted Rolls-Royce, and also sports yellow or golden items or clothing in every film scene, including a golden pistol, when disguised as a colonel. Bond is bound to a solid gold table (as Goldfinger points out to him) before nearly being lasered. Goldfinger's factory henchmen in the film wear yellow sashes, Pussy Galore at one point wears a metallic gold vest, and Pussy's pilots all wear yellow sunburst insignia on their uniforms. The concept of the recurring gold theme running through the film was a design aspect conceived and executed by Ken Adam and Art Director Peter Murton.
The model jet used for wide shots of Goldfinger's Lockheed JetStar was refurbished to be used as the presidential plane that crashes at the film's end. Several cars were provided by The Ford Motor Company including a Mustang that Tilly Masterson drives, a Ford Country Squire station wagon used to transport Bond from the airport to the stud ranch, a Ford Thunderbird driven by Felix Leiter, and a Lincoln Continental in which Oddjob kills Solo. The Continental had its engine removed before being placed in a car crusher, and the destroyed car had to be partially cut so the Ford Falcon Ranchero pick-up truck on which it is deposited could support the weight.

- Music:
Since the release date for the film had been pre-determined and filming had finished close to that date, John Barry received some edits directly from the cutting room floor, rather than as a finished edit, and scored some sequences from the rough, initial prints. Barry described his work in Goldfinger as a favorite of his, saying it was "the first time I had complete control, writing the score and the song". The musical tracks, in keeping with the film's theme of gold and metal, make heavy use of brass, and also metallic chimes. The film's score is described as "brassy and raunchy" with "a sassy sexiness to it".
Goldfinger is said to have started the tradition of Bond theme songs being from the pop genre or using popular artists, although this had already been done with Matt Monro singing the title song of From Russia with Love. Shirley Bassey sang the theme song "Goldfinger", and she would go on to sing the theme songs for two other Bond films, Diamonds are Forever and Moonraker. The song was composed by John Barry, with lyrics by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse that were described in one contemporary newspaper as "puerile". Newley himself recorded the early versions, which were even considered for inclusion in the film. The soundtrack album topped the Billboard 200 chart, and reached the 14th place in the UK Albums Chart. The single for "Goldfinger" was also successful, going 8th at the Billboard Hot 100, and 21st in the UK charts.

- Release and reception:
Goldfinger was premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on 17 September 1964, with general release in the United Kingdom the following day. Leicester Square was packed with sightseers and fans and police were unable to control the crowd due to the number of people. A set of glass doors to the cinema was accidentally broken and the premiere was shown ten minutes late because of the confusion. The United States premiere occurred on 21 December 1964, at the DeMille Theater in New York City. The film opened in64 cinemas across 41 cities, and eventually raised to a peak 485 screens. Goldfinger was temporarily banned in Israel because of Gert Fröbe's connections with the Nazi Party. The ban, however, was lifted many years later when a Jewish family publicly thanked Fröbe for protecting them from persecution during World War II.

- Promotion:
The film's marketing campaign begun as soon as filming started in Florida, with Eon allowing photographers to enter the set to take pictures of Shirley Eaton painted in gold. Robert Brownjohn, who designed the opening credits, was responsible for the posters for the advertising campaign, which also used actress Margaret Nolan. To promote the film, the two Aston Martin DB5s were showcased at the 1964 New York World's Fair, and it was dubbed "the most famous car in the world", and subsequently sales of the car rose. Corgi Toys began its decades-long relationship with the Bond franchise, producing a toy of the car, which became the biggest selling toy of 1964. The film's success also led to licensed tie-in clothing, dress shoes, action figures, board games, jigsaw puzzles, lunch boxes, toys, record albums, trading cards and slot cars.

- Critical response:
Goldfinger was generally a critical success. Derek Prouse of The Sunday Times said of Goldfinger that is was "superbly engineered. It is fast, it is most entertainingly preposterous and it is exciting". The reviewer from The Times said "All the devices are infinitely sophisticated, and so is the film: the tradition of self-mockery continues, though at times it over-reaches itself", also saying that "It is the mixture as before, only more so: it is superb hokum." In terms of the acting, whilst Connery's efforts were overlooked by the reviewer, they did say that: "There is some excellent bit-part playing by Mr. Bernard Lee and Mr. Harold Sakata: Mr. Gert Fröbe is astonishingly well cast in the difficult part of Goldfinger." Donald Zec, writing for the Daily Mirror said of the film that "Ken Adam's set designs are brilliant; the direction of Guy Hamilton tautly exciting; Connery is better than ever, and the titles superimposed on the gleaming body of the girl in gold are inspired."
Penelope Gilliatt, writing in The Observer said that the film had "a spoofing callousness" and that it was "absurd, funny and vile." The Guardian said that Goldfinger was "two hours of unmissable fantasy", also saying that the film was "the most exciting, the most extravagant of the Bond films: garbage from the gods", also adding that Connery was "better than ever as Bond." Writing in The Illustrated London News, Alan Dent thought Goldfinger "...even tenser, louder, wittier, more ingenious and more impossible than 'From Russia with Love'... [a] brilliant farrago", adding that Connery "is ineffable".
Philip Oakes of The Sunday Telegraph said that the film as "dazzling in its technical ingenuity", whilst Time said that "this picture is a thriller exuberantly travestied." Bosley Crowther, writing in The New York Times was less enthusiastic for the film, saying that it was "tediously apparent" the Bond was becoming increasingly reliant on gadgets with less emphasis on "the lush temptations of voluptuous females", although he did admit that "Connery plays the hero with an insultingly cool, commanding air." He saved his praises for other actors in the film, saying that "Gert Fröbe is aptly fat and feral as the villainous financier, and Honor Blackman is forbiddingly frigid and flashy as the latter's aeronautical accomplice."
In Guide for the Film Fanatic, Danny Peary wrote that Goldfinger is "the best of the James Bond films starring Sean Connery...There's lots of humor, gimmicks, excitement, an amusing yet tense golf contest between Bond and Goldfinger, thrilling fights to the death between Bond and Oddjob and Bond and Goldfinger, and a fascinating central crime... Most enjoyable, but too bad Eaton's part isn't longer and that Fröbe's Goldfinger, a heavy but nimble intellectual in the Sydney Greenstreet tradition, never appeared in another Bond film."
Based on 47 reviews which were mostly published after the film's release on Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of critics gave the film positive reviews, being the third highest score for a James Bond film, behind From Russia with Love (also 96%) and Dr. No (98%).

- Box office: 
Goldfinger's $3 million budget was recouped in two weeks, and it broke box office records in multiple countries around the world. TheGuinness Book of World Records went on to list Goldfinger as the fastest grossing film of all time. Demands for the film were so high that the DeMille cinema in New York City had to stay open twenty-four hours a day. The film closed its original box office run having grossed $23 million in the United States and $46 million worldwide. After reissues, the first being as a double feature with Dr. Noin 1966, Goldfinger grossed a total of $51,081,062 in the United States and $73,800,000 elsewhere, for a total worldwide gross of $124,900,000.
The film distributor Park Circus re-released Goldfinger in the UK on 27 July 2007 at 150 multiplex cinemas, on digital prints. The re-release put the film twelfth at the weekly box office.

- Awards and nominations:
At the 1965 Academy Awards, Norman Wanstall won the Academy Award for Best Sound Effects Editing for his work, making Goldfinger the first Bond film to receive an Academy Award. John Barry was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Score for a Motion Picture, and Ken Adam was nominated for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) for Best British Art Direction (Color), where he also won the award for Best British Art Direction (Black and White) for Dr. Strangelove. The American Film Institute has honored the film four times: ranking it No. 90 for best movie quote ("A martini. Shaken, not stirred"), No. 53 for best song ("Goldfinger"),  No. 49 for best villain (Auric Goldfinger), and No. 71 for most thrilling film. In 2006, Entertainment Weekly and IGN both named Goldfinger as the best Bond film, while MSN named it as the second best, behind its predecessor. IGN and EW also named Pussy Galore as the second best Bond girl. In 2008, Total Film named Goldfinger as the best film in the series. The Times placed Goldfinger and Oddjob second and third on their list of the best Bond villains in 2008. They also named the Aston Martin DB5 as the best car in the films.

- Impact and legacy:
Goldfinger had a large impact on the rest of the Bond series as its script came to be seen as a template for all other Bond films to follow. It was the first of the series showing Bond relying heavily on technology, as well as the first to show a pre-credits sequence with only a tangential link to the main story — in this case allowing Bond to get to Miami after a mission. Also introduced for the first of many appearances is the briefing in Q-branch, allowing the viewer to see the gadgets in development. The subsequent films in the Bond series follow most of Goldfinger's basic structure, featuring a henchman with a particular characteristic, a Bond girl that gets killed by the villain, big emphasis on the gadgets and a more tongue-in-cheek approach, though trying to balance action and comedy.

“ Goldfinger represents the peak of the series. It is the most perfectly realised of all the films with hardly a wrong step made throughout its length. It moves at a fast and furious pace, but the plot holds together logically enough (more logically than the book) and is a perfect blend of the real and the fantastic. ”
— John Brosnan in James Bond in the Cinema, cited  
Goldfinger has been described as perhaps "the most highly and consistently praised Bond picture of them all" and after Goldfinger, Bond "became a true phenomenon." The success of the film led to the emergence of many other works in the espionage genre and parodies of James Bond, such as The Beatles film Help! in 1965 and a spoof of Ian Fleming's first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1967. Indeed it has been said that Goldfinger was the cause of the boom in espionage films in the 1960s, so much so that in "1966, moviegoers were offered no less than 22 examples of secret agent entertainment, including several blatant attempts to begin competing series, with James Coburn starring as Derek Flint in the film Our Man Flint and Dean Martin miscast as Matt Helm".
Even within the Bond canon, Goldfinger is acknowledged; the 22nd Bond film, Quantum of Solace, includes an homage to the gold body paint death scene by having a female character dead on a bed nude, covered in crude oil. Outside the Bond films, elements of Goldfinger, such as Oddjob and his use of his hat as a weapon, Bond removing his drysuit to reveal a tuxedo underneath and the laser scene have been homage or spoofed in works such as True Lies, The Simpsons, and the Austin Powers series. The US television program Myth Busters explored many scenarios seen in the film, such as the explosive depressurization in a plane at high altitudes, the death by full body painting, an ejector seat in a car and using a tuxedo under a drysuit.
The success of the film led to Ian Fleming's Bond novels receiving an increase of popularity and nearly 6 million books were sold in the United Kingdom in 1964, with 964,000 copies for Goldfinger alone. Between the years 1962 to 1967 a total of 22,792,000 Bond novels were sold.

From Russia With Love ( 1963 )

By Wikipedia
From Russia with Love is the second spy film in the James Bond series, and the second to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Released in 1963, the film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, and directed by Terence Young. It is based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. In the film, James Bond is sent to assist in the defection of Soviet consulate clerk Tatiana Romanova in Turkey, where SPECTRE plans to avenge Bond's killing of Dr. No.
Following the success of Dr. No, United Artists approved a sequel, doubling the budget available for the producers. In addition to filming on location in Turkey, the action scenes were shot both in Scotland and Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire. Production ran over budget and schedule, and had to rush to finish by its scheduled October 1963 release date. From Russia with Love was a critical and commercial success, out-grossing its predecessor Dr. No with over $78 million in worldwide box office returns. It is considered by many as the best film in the James Bond series.

Plot:

SPECTRE's expert planner Kronsteen devises a plot to steal a Lektor cryptographic device from the Soviets and sell it back to them while exacting revenge on Bond for killing their agent Dr. No.  The  Spectre  Number 1 puts ex-SMERSH operative and Number 3 Rosa Klebb in charge of the mission. Klebb recruits Grant as an assassin, and Tatiana Romanova, a cipher clerk at the Soviet consulate in Istanbul, as an unwitting pawn, as Romanova thinks Klebb is still working for SMERSH.
In London, M tells Bond – agent 007 and sometimes simply '007' – that Romanova has contacted their "Station 'T'" in Turkey, offering to defect with a Lektor, which MI6 and the CIA have been after for years – but Romanova said she will only defect to Bond, whose photo she has allegedly found in a Soviet intelligence file. Bond then flies to Istanbul, where he meets station head Ali Kerim Bey. 007 is followed from the airport by an unkempt man in glasses and by Red Grant. The next day, after Kerim Bey's office is bombed, Bond and Kerim Bey spy on the Soviet consulate, where Kerim Bey sees rival agent Krilencu. At night, Kerim Bey and Bond go to a rural gypsy settlement, which suffers an attack by Krilencu's men, who wound Kerim Bey and nearly kill Bond, who is saved by a hidden Red Grant. On the following night, Kerim Bey kills Krilencu with Bond's sniper rifle. When Bond returns to his hotel suite, he finds Romanova in bed waiting for him, unaware that they are being filmed by SPECTRE.
The next day, Romanova heads off for a pre-arranged rendezvous at Hagia Sophia. The bespectacled man who followed Bond to the airport tries to intercept Romanova's floor plan of the Soviet consulate, but is killed by Grant. Upon finding the body, Bond takes the floor plan, and brings it to Kerim Bey to devise their invasion. After stealing the Lektor, Bond, Romanova, and Kerim Bey escape with the device on the Orient Express. On the train, Kerim Bey and a Soviet security officer named Benz are killed by Grant, who makes it appear as if they killed each other. At Zagreb, Grant boards the train and meets Bond pretending to be agent Nash from "Station 'Y'". He drugs Romanova at dinner, then overcomes Bond. Grant taunts him, boasting SPECTRE has been pitting the Soviets and the British against each other, and claims that Romanova thinks that "she's doing it all for mother Russia" when she is really working for SPECTRE. Grant also mentions the film of Bond and Romanova at the hotel suite, saying that after both are killed, Grant will plant it in her handbag along with a forged blackmail letter so it looks like it was a murder-suicide. Bond tricks Grant into opening Bond's attaché case in the manner that detonates its tear gas booby trap in his face, allowing Bond to attack him. In the ensuing struggle, Bond eventually manages to stab Grant with the knife hidden in the attaché case, and strangles Grant to death with his own garrotte. At dawn, Bond and Romanova leave the train, hijack Grant's getaway truck, destroy an enemy helicopter, and drive to a dock, eventually boarding a powerboat.
Number 1 is very unhappy, and summons Kronsteen and Klebb. He reminds them that SPECTRE does not tolerate failure, and brings in agent Morzeny to then execute Kronsteen with a poisoned spike in the toe of his shoe. Number 1 tells a frightened Klebb that she now has total control of the mission and has one last chance. Klebb sends Morzeny after Bond with a squadron of SPECTRE's boats. Morzeny nearly catches Bond, but the agent sets his pursuers' boats on fire with a signal flare. Bond and Romanova reach Venice and check into a hotel. Rosa Klebb, disguised as a maid, attempts to steal the Lektor. She gets the drop on Bond, and attempts to kill Bond with both a gun and her poisoned toe-spike, but ends up being shot by Romanova. Riding in a gondola, Bond throws the film of him and Romanova into the water as they are rowed away.

Cast:
- Sean Connery as James Bond: Secret Intelligence Service Agent 007.
- Daniela Bianchi as Tatiana Romanova (voiced by Barbara Jefford): Soviet Embassy clerk and Bond's love interest. Fleming based Romanova on Christine Granville.
- Pedro Armendáriz as Ali Kerim Bey: British Intelligence Station Chief in Istanbul.
- Lotte Lenya as Rosa Klebb: Main villain and ex-SMERSH Colonel, now Chief Operations Officer for SPECTRE.
- Robert Shaw as Red Grant: Cunning SPECTRE assassin and one of the principal Bond enemies.
- Bernard Lee as M: Chief of British Intelligence.
- Walter Gotell as Morzeny: SPECTRE thug who trains personnel on SPECTRE Island.
- Vladek Sheybal as Kronsteen: Chess grandmaster, and Chief Planning Officer for SPECTRE.
- "?" (anonymous credit for Anthony Dawson (body) and Eric Pohlmann (voice)) as "Number 1" (Ernst Stavro Blofeld): Chief of SPECTRE and Bond's nemesis.
- Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny: M's secretary.
- Desmond Llewelyn as Major Boothroyd: Head of 'Q' Section (British Intelligence gadgetry department).
- Eunice Gayson as Sylvia Trench: Bond's semi-regular girlfriend.
- Francis de Wolff as Vavra: Chief of a Gypsy tribe used for dirty work by Kerim Bey
- George Pastell as the Orient Express train conductor.
- Fred Haggerty as Krilencu: A Bulgarian assassin who works as a killer for the Soviets in The Balkans.
- Aliza Gur and Martine Beswick as Vida and Zora, respectively: Two jealous Gypsy girls who are disputing the same man.
- Nadja Regin as Kerim Bey's lonely girlfriend.

Production:
Following the financial success of Dr. No, United Artists greenlighted a second James Bond film. The studio doubled the budget offered to Eon Productions with $2 million, and also approved a bonus for Sean Connery, who would receive $100,000 along with his $54,000 salary. As President John F. Kennedy had named Fleming's novel From Russia with Love among his ten favorite books of all time in Life magazine, producers Broccoli and Saltzman chose this as the follow-up to Bond's cinematic debut in Dr. No. From Russia with Love was the last film President Kennedy saw at the White House on 20 November 1963 before going to Dallas. Most of the crew from the first film returned, with major exceptions being production designer Ken Adam – who went to work on Dr. Strangelove and was replaced by Dr. No's art director Syd Cain, title designer Maurice Binder was replaced by Robert Brownjohn and stunt coordinator Bob Simmons was unavailable and was replaced by Peter Perkins though Simmons performed stunts in the film. John Barry replaced Monty Norman as composer of the soundtrack.
The film introduced several conventions which would become essential elements of the franchise: a pre-title sequence, the Blofeld character (referred in the film only as "Number 1"), a secret weapon gadget for Bond, a helicopter sequence (repeated in every subsequent Bond film except The Man with the Golden Gun), a postscript action scene after the main climax, a theme song with lyrics, and the line "James Bond will return/be back" in the credits.

Writing:
Ian Fleming's novel was a Cold War thriller, however the producers named the crime syndicate SPECTRE instead of the Soviet undercover agency SMERSH so as to avoid controversial political overtones. The SPECTRE training grounds were inspired by the film Spartacus. The original screenwriter was Len Deighton, but he was ejected for lack of progress. Thus two of Dr. No's writers, Johanna Harwood and Richard Maibaum, were brought in, with the former being credited for "adaptation" mostly for her suggestions, which were carried over into Maibaum's script. Maibaum kept on making rewrites as filming progressed. Red Grant was added to the Istanbul scenes just prior to the film crew's trip to Turkey – a change that brought more focus to the SPECTRE plot, as Grant started saving Bond's life there (a late change during shooting involved Grant killing the bespectacled spy at Hagia Sophia instead of Bond, who ends up just finding the man dead). For the last quarter of the movie, Maibaum added two chase scenes, with a helicopter and speedboats, and changed the location of Bond and Klebb's battle from Paris to Venice.

Casting:
Although un-credited, the actor who played Ernst Stavro Blofeld was Anthony Dawson, who had played Professor Dent in the previous Bond film, Dr. No. In the end credits, Blofeld is credited with a question mark. Blofeld's voice was provided by Viennese actor Eric Pohlmann. It is rumoured that author and James Bond creator Ian Fleming has a cameo appearance, in a location train scene, standing outside the train in grey trousers and a white sweater. Fleming reportedly visited the train set, and publicity stills exist of him alongside the Orient Express.
Peter Burton was unavailable to return as Major Boothroyd, so Desmond Llewelyn, who was a fan of the Bond comic strip published in the Daily Express, accepted the part. However, screen credit for Llewelyn was omitted at the opening of the film and is reserved for the exit credits, where he is credited simply as 'Boothroyd'. Llewelyn's character is not referred to by this name in dialogue, but M does introduce him as being from Q Branch. Llewelyn remained as the character, better known as Q, in all but two of the series' films until his death in 1999.
Many actresses were considered for the role of Tatiana, including Sylva Koscina, Virna Lisi, Annette Vadim, and Tania Mallet. 1960 Miss Universe runner-up Daniela Bianchi was ultimately cast, supposedly Sean Connery's choice. Bianchi started taking English classes for the role, but the producers ultimately chose to dub her voice over. The scene in which Bond finds Tatiana in his hotel bed was used for Daniela Bianchi's screen test, with Dawson standing in, this time, as Bond. The scene later became the traditional screen test scene for prospective James Bond actors and Bond Girls.
Katina Paxinou was originally considered for the role of Rosa Klebb, but was unavailable. Terence Young cast Lotte Lenya after hearing one of her musical recordings. Young wanted Kronsteen's portrayed to be "an actor with a remarkable face", so the minor character would be well remembered by audiences. This led to the casting of Vladek Sheybal, who Young also considered convincing as an intellectual. Several women were tested for the roles of Vida and Zora, and after Aliza Gur and Martine Beswick were cast, they spent six weeks practising their fight choreography with stunt work arranger Peter Perkins.
Pedro Armendáriz was recommended to Young by director John Ford to play Kerim Bey. After experiencing increasing discomfort on location in Istanbul, Armendáriz was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Filming in Istanbul was terminated, the production moved to Britain, and Armendáriz's scenes were brought forward so that he could complete his scenes without delay. Though visibly in pain, he continued working as long as possible. When he could no longer work, he returned home, and took his own life. Remaining shots after Armendáriz left London had a stunt double and Terence Young himself as stand-ins.
Joe Robinson was a strong contender for the role of Red Grant but it was given to Robert Shaw. Shaw built himself up for the role and wore lifts to give him height.

Filming:
Most of the film was set in Istanbul, Turkey. Locations included the Basilica Cistern, Hagia Sophia, and the Sirkeci Station which also was used for the Belgrade and Zagreb railway stations. The MI6 office in London, SPECTRE Island, the Venice hotel and the interior scenes of the Orient Express were filmed at Pinewood Studios with some footage of the train. In the film, the train journey was set in Eastern Europe. The journey and the truck ride were shot in Argyll, Scotland and Switzerland. The end scenes for the film were shot in Venice. However, to qualify for the British film funding of the time, at least 70% of the film had to have been filmed in Great Britain or the Commonwealth. The gypsy camp was also to be filmed in an actual camp in Topkapi, but was actually shot in a replica of it in Pinewood. The scene with rats (after the theft of the Lektor) was shot in Spain, as Britain did not allow filming with wild rats, and filming white rats painted in cocoa didn't work. Principal photography began on 1 April 1963, and wrapped in 23 August.
Director Terence Young's eye for realism was evident throughout production. For the opening chess match, Kronsteen wins the game with a re-enactment of Boris Spassky's victory over David Bronstein in 1960. Production Designer Syd Cain built up the "chess pawn" motif in his $150,000 set for the brief sequence. A noteworthy gadget featured was the attaché case issued by the Q-Branch. It had a tear gas bomb that detonated if it was improperly opened, a folding AR-7 sniper rifle with twenty rounds of ammunition, a throwing knife, and 50 gold sovereigns. A boxer at Cambridge, Young choreographed the fight between Grant and Bond along with stunt co-ordinator Peter Perkins. The scene took three weeks to film and was violent enough to worry some on the production. Yet Robert Shaw and Connery did most of the stunts themselves.
After the unexpected loss of Armendáriz, production proceeded, experiencing complications from rewriting by Richard Maibaum during filming. Editor Peter Hunt set about editing the film while key elements were still to be filmed, helping to restructure the opening scenes. Hunt and Young conceived of moving the training exercise on a Bond double to preface the main title, a signature feature that has been an enduring hallmark of every Bond film since. The briefing with Blofeld was rewritten, and back projection was used to re-film Lotte Lenya's lines.
Behind schedule and over budget, the production crew struggled to complete production in time for the already-announced premiere date that October. On 6 July 1963, while scouting locations in Argyll, Scotland for that day's filming of the climactic boat chase, Terence Young's helicopter crashed into the water with Art Director Michael White and a cameraman aboard. The craft sank into 40–50 feet (12–15 m) of water, but all escaped with minor injuries. Despite the calamity, Young was behind the camera for the full day's work. A few days later, Bianchi's driver fell asleep during the commute to a 6 am shoot and crashed the car; the actress' face was bruised, and Bianchi's scenes had to be delayed two weeks while these facial contusions healed.
The helicopter and boat chase scenes were not in the original novel, but were added to create an action climax. The former was inspired by Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and the latter by a previous Young/Broccoli/Maibaum collaboration, The Red Beret. These two scenes would be shot in Istanbul, but were moved to Scotland; the speed boats could not run fast enough due to the many waves in the sea, and a rented boat filled with cameras ended up sinking in the Bosphorus. A helicopter was also hard to get—the special effects crew nearly got arrested trying to get one at a local air base. The helicopter chase was filmed with a radio controlled miniature helicopter. The sounds of the boat chase were replaced in post-production since the boats were not loud enough, and the explosion, shot in Pinewood, got out of control, burning Walter Gotell's eyelids, and seriously injuring three stuntmen.
Photographer David Hurn was commissioned by the producers of the James Bond films to shoot a series of stills with Sean Connery and the actresses of the film. When the theatrical property Walther PPK pistol didn't arrive, Hurn volunteered the use of his own Walther LP-53 air pistol. Though the photographs of the "James Bond is Back" posters of the US release airbrushed out the long barrel of the pistol, film poster artist Renato Fratini used the long barrelled pistol for his drawings of Connery on the British posters.
For the opening credits, Maurice Binder had disagreements with the producers and did not want to return. Designer Robert Brownjohn stepped into his place, and projected the credits on female dancers, inspired by constructivist artist László Moholy-Nagy projecting light on to clouds in the 1920s. Brownjohn's work started the tradition of scantily clad women on the Bond's title sequences.

Music:
From Russia with Love is the first Bond film in the series with John Barry as the primary soundtrack composer. The theme song was composed by Lionel Bart of Oliver! fame and sung by Matt Monro, although the title credit music is a lively instrumental version of the tune beginning with Barry's brief James Bond is Back then segueing into Monty Norman's "James Bond Theme"). Monro's vocal version is later played during the film (as source music on a radio) and properly over the film's end titles. Barry travelled with the crew to Turkey to try getting influences of the local music, but ended up using almost nothing, just local instruments such as finger cymbals to give an exotic feeling, since he thought the Turkish music had a comedic tone that did not fit in the "dramatic feeling" of the James Bond movies.
In this film, Barry introduced the percussive theme "007"—action music that came to be considered the 'secondary James Bond Theme'. He composed it to have a lighter, enthusiastic and more adventurous theme, in order to relax the audiences. The arrangement appears twice on the soundtrack album; the second version, entitled "007 Takes the Lektor", is the one used during the gunfight at the gypsy camp and also during Bond's theft of the Lektor decoding machine. The completed film features a holdover from the Monty Norman-supervised Dr. No music; the post-rocket-launch music from Dr. No is played in From Russia with Love during the helicopter and speedboat attacks.

Release and reception:
From Russia with Love premiered on 10 October 1963 at the Odeon Leicester Square in London. The following year, it was released in 16 countries worldwide, with the United States premiere on 8 April 1964, at New York's Astor Theatre. Upon its first release, From Russia with Love doubled Dr. No's gross by earning $12.5 million ($94 million in 2012 dollars) at the worldwide box office. After reissue it grossed $78 million, of which $24 million was from North America. It was the most popular movie at the British box office in 1963. The film's cinematographer Ted Moore won the BAFTA award and the British Society of Cinematographers award for Best Cinematography. At the 1965 Laurel Awards, Lotte Lenya stood third for Best Female Supporting Performance, and the film secured second place in the Action-Drama category. The film was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for "From Russia with Love"

Contemporary reviews:
In comparing the film to its predecessor, Dr. No, Richard Roud, writing in The Guardian, said that From Russia with Love "didn't seem quite so lively, quite so fresh, or quite so rhythmically fast-moving." He went on to say that "...the film is highly immoral in every imaginable way; it is neither uplifting, instructive nor life-enhancing. Neither is it great film-making. But it sure is fun." Writing in The Observer, Penelope Gilliatt noted that "The way the credits are done has the same self-mocking flamboyance as everything else in the picture." Gilliatt went on to say that the film manages "to keep up its own cracking pace, nearly all the way. The set-pieces are a stunning box of tricks". The critic for The Times wrote of Bond that he is "the secret ideal of the congenital square, conventional in every particular...except in morality, where he has the courage—and the physical equipment—to do without thinking what most of us feel we might be doing..." The critic thought that overall, "the nonsense is all very amiable and tongue-in-cheek and will no doubt make a fortune for its devisers".
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times said: "Don't miss it! This is to say, don't miss it if you can still get the least bit of fun out of lurid adventure fiction and pseudo-realistic fantasy. For this mad melodramatization of a desperate adventure of Bond with sinister characters in Istanbul and on the Orient Express is fictional exaggeration on a grand scale and in a dashing style, thoroughly illogical and improbable, but with tongue blithely wedged in cheek."
Time magazine called the film "fast, smart, shrewdly directed and capably performed" and commented extensively on the film's humour, saying "Director Young is a master of the form he ridicules, and in almost every episode he hands the audience shocks as well as yocks. But the yocks are more memorable. They result from slight but sly infractions of the thriller formula. A Russian agent, for instance, does not simply escape through a window; no, he escapes through a window in a brick wall painted with a colossal poster portrait of Anita Ekberg, and as he crawls out of the window, he seems to be crawling out of Anita's mouth. Or again, Bond does not simply train a telescope on the Russian consulate and hope he can read somebody's lips; no, he makes his way laboriously into a gallery beneath the joint, runs a submarine periscope up through the walls, and there, at close range, inspects two important Soviet secrets: the heroine's legs."

Reflective reviews:

Rotten Tomatoes rates From Russia with Love at a 96%, and is the second highest rated Bond film on the website, surpassed only by Dr. No which received a 98% score. Many online sites also commonly state From Russia with Love as the best Bond film of all time.
In his 1986 book, Danny Peary described From Russia with Love as "an excellent, surprisingly tough and gritty James Bond film" which is "refreshingly free of the gimmickry that would characterise the later Bond films, and Connery and Bianchi play real people. We worry about them and hope their relationship will work out...Shaw and Lotte Lenya are splendid villains. Both have exciting, well-choreographed fights with Connery. Actors play it straight, with excellent results."
Film critic James Berardinelli cited this as his favorite Bond film, writing "Only From Russia with Love avoids slipping into the comic book realm of Goldfinger and its successors while giving us a sampling of the familiar Bond formula (action, gadgets, women, cars, etc.). From Russia with Love is effectively paced and plotted, features a gallery of detestable rogues ( including the ultimate Bond villain, Blofeld), and offers countless thrills) ".
In June 2001, Neil Smith of BBC Films called it "a film that only gets better with age". In 2004, Total Film magazine named it the ninth-greatest British film of all time, making it the only James Bond film to appear on the list. In 2006, Jay Antani of Filmcritic praised the film's "impressive staging of action scenes", while IGN listed it as second-best Bond film ever, behind only Goldfinger. That same year, Entertainment Weekly put the film at ninth among Bond films, criticizing the slow pace. When the "James Bond Ultimate Collector’s Set" was released in November 2007 by MGM, Norman Wilner of MSN chose From Russia with Love as the best Bond film. Conversely, in his book about the Bond phenomenon, The Man With the Golden Touch, British author Sinclair McKay states "I know it is heresy to say so, and that some enthusiasts regard From Russia With Love as the Holy Grail of Bond, but let's be searingly honest- some of it is crashingly dull."
The British Film Institute's screenonline guide called the film "one of the series' high points" and said it "had advantages not enjoyed by many later Bond films, notably an intelligent script that retained the substance of Ian Fleming's novel while toning down the overt Cold War politics (the Cuban Missile Crisis had only occurred the previous year)." In 2008, Michael G. Wilson, the current co-producer of the series, stated "We always start out trying to make another From Russia with Love and end up with another Thunderball." Sean Connery, Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli, Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig also consider this their favourite Bond film. Albert Broccoli listed it with Goldfinger and The Spy Who Loved Me as one of his top three favourites, explaining that he felt "it was with this film that the Bond style and formula were perfected".

Video game adaptation:

007 - From Russia with Love (video game):

In 2005, the From Russia with Love video game was developed by Electronic Arts and released on 1 November 2005 in North America. It follows the storyline of the book and film, albeit adding in new scenes, making it more action-oriented. One of the most significant changes to the story is the replacement of the organisation SPECTRE to OCTOPUS because the name SPECTRE constituted a long-running legal dispute over the film rights to Thunderball between United Artists/MGM and the late writer Kevin McClory. Most of the cast from the film returned in likeness. Connery not only allowed his 1960s likeness as Bond to be used, but the actor, in his 70s, also recorded the character's dialogue, marking a return to the role 22 years after he last played Bond in Never Say Never Again. Featuring a third-person, multiplayer, deathmatch mode, the game depicts several elements of later Bond films such as the Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger (1964) and the rocketbelt from Thunderball (1965).
The game was penned by Bruce Feirstein who previously worked on the film scripts for GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, and the 2004 video game, Everything or Nothing. Its soundtrack was composed by Christopher Lennertz and Vic Flick.

Dr. No ( 1962 )

By Wikipedia
Dr. No is a 1962 British spy film, starring Sean Connery; it is the first James Bond film. Based on the 1958 Ian Fleming novel of the same name, it was adapted by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, and Berkely Mather and was directed by Terence Young. The film was produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, a partnership that would continue until 1975.
In the film, James Bond is sent to Jamaica to investigate the death of a fellow British agent. The trail leads him to the underground base of Dr. Julius No, who is plotting to disrupt an early American manned space launch with a radio beam weapon. Although the first of the Bond books to be made into a film, Dr. No was not the first of Fleming's novels,Casino Royale being the debut for the character; however, the film makes a few references to threads from earlier books.
Dr. No was produced with a low budget, and was a financial success. While critical reaction at release was mixed, over time the film received a reputation as one of the franchise's best installments  The film was the first of a successful series of 23 Bond films.Dr. No also launched a genre of "secret agent" films that flourished in the 1960s. The film also spawned a spin-off comic book and soundtrack album as part of its promotion and marketing.
Many of the iconic aspects of a typical James Bond film were established in Dr. No: the film begins with an introduction to the character through the view of a gun barrel and a highly stylized main title sequence, both created by Maurice Binder. Production designer Ken Adam established an elaborate visual style that is one of the hallmarks of the Bond film series.

Plot:
John Strangways, the British Intelligence (SIS) Station Chief in Jamaica, is ambushed and killed, and his body taken by a trio of assassins known as the "Three Blind Mice". In response, British agent James Bond—also known as 007—is summoned to the office of his superior, M. Bond is briefed to investigate Strangways' disappearance and to determine whether it is related to his cooperation with the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on a case involving the disruption of Cape Canaveral rocket launches by radio jamming.
Upon his arrival at Kingston Airport, a female photographer tries to take Bond's picture and he is shadowed from the airport by two men. He is picked up by a chauffeur, whom Bond determines to be an enemy agent. Bond instructs him to leave the main road and, after a brief fight, Bond starts to interrogate the driver, who then kills himself with a cyanide-embedded cigarette.
During his investigation in Strangways' house Bond sees a photograph of a boatman with Strangways. Bond locates the boatman, named Quarrel, but finds him to be un-cooperative. Bond also recognizes Quarrel to have been the driver of the car that followed him from the airport. Bond follows Quarrel and is about to be beaten by him and a friend when the fight is interrupted by the second man who followed Bond from the airport: he reveals himself to be CIA agent Felix Leiter and explains that not only are the two agents on the same mission but also that Quarrel is helping Leiter. The CIA has traced the mysterious radio jamming of American rockets to the vicinity of Jamaica, but aerial photography cannot determine the exact location of its origin. Quarrel reveals that he has been guiding Strangways around the nearby islands to collect mineral samples. He also talks about the reclusive Dr. No, who owns the island of Crab Key, on which there is a bauxite mine: the island and mine are rigorously protected against trespassers by an armed security force and radar.
During a search of Strangways' house, Bond found a receipt, signed by Professor R. J. Dent, concerning rock samples. Bond meets with Dent who says he assayed the samples for Strangways and determined them to be ordinary rocks. This visit makes Dent wary and he takes a boat to Crab Key where Dr. No expresses displeasure at Dent's failure to kill Bond and orders him to try again, this time with a tarantula. Bond survives and after a final attempt on his life, sets a trap for Dent, whom he captures, interrogates and then kills.
Having detected radioactive traces in Quarrel's boat, where Strangways' mineral samples had been, Bond convinces a reluctant Quarrel to take him to Crab Key. There Bond meets the beautiful Honey Ryder, dressed only in a white bikini, who is collecting shells. At first she is suspicious of Bond but soon decides to help him, leading them all inland to an open swamp. After nightfall they are attacked by the legendary "dragon" of Crab Key which turns out to be a flame-throwing armored tractor. In the resulting gun battle, Quarrel is incinerated by the flame-thrower whilst Bond and Ryder are taken prisoner. Bond and Ryder are decontaminated and taken to quarters before being drugged.
Upon waking they are escorted to dine with Dr. No. He reveals that he is a member of SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion) and plans to disrupt the Project Mercury space launch from Cape Canaveral with his atomic-powered radio beam. After dinner Ryder is taken away and Bond is beaten by the guards.
Bond is imprisoned in a holding cell but manages to escape through a vent. Disguised as a worker, Bond finds his way to the control centre, a multi-level room full of high-tech instrumentation with an atomic reactor set into the floor, overseen by Dr. No from a command console. Bond overloads the nuclear reactor just as the American rocket is about to take off. Hand-to-hand combat ensues between Bond and Dr. No; the scientist is pushed into the reactor's cooling vat, in which he boils to death. Bond finds Ryder and the two escape in a boat just as the entire lair explodes.

Cast:
- Sean Connery as James Bond: A British MI6 agent, codename 007.
- Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder (spoken voice by Nikki van der Zyl and singing voice by Diana Coupland): A native Jamaican shell diver, making a living by selling Jamaican seashells to dealers in Miami.
- Joseph Wiseman as Dr. Julius No: Main antagonist and a reclusive member of SPECTRE.
- Jack Lord as Felix Leiter: A CIA operative sent to liaise with James Bond while he is in Kingston.
- Bernard Lee as M: The head of the British Secret Service.
- Anthony Dawson as Professor Dent: A geologist with a practice in Kingston, who also secretly works for Doctor No.
- John Kitzmiller as Quarrel: A Cayman Islander who was employed by John Strangways to secretly go to Crab Key to collect rock samples; he also worked with Felix Leiter before Bond's arrival.
- Zena Marshall as Miss Taro: The secretary to Mr. Pleydell-Smith at Government House in Kingston.
- Eunice Gayson as Sylvia Trench (spoken voice by Nikki van der Zyl): Trench first meets Bond from across a Chemin de Fer table at the London club Le Cercle.
- Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny: The secretary to M.
- Peter Burton as Major Boothroyd: The head of Q-Branch, Boothroyd is brought in by M to replace Bond's Beretta M 1934 with a Walther PPK. This was Burton's only appearance as Q. Desmond Llewelyn would take over the role in the next film and continue to do so until 1999's The World Is Not Enough.
- Timothy Moxon as John Strangways (voiced by Robert Rietty): Strangways is the head of the Kingston station for the British Secret Service, murdered by Dr. No's henchmen, the 'Three Blind Mice'.
- Reggie Carter as Mr. Jones: A henchman of Dr. No that was sent to pick up 007 at the Palisadoes Airport.
- Marguerite LeWars as Dr. No's photographer "Freelance": One of Dr. No's operatives who trails Bond.

Production:
When Harry Saltzman gained the rights for the James Bond book, he initially did not go through with the project. Instead, Albert R. 'Cubby' Broccoli wanted the rights to the Bond books and attempted to buy them from Saltzman. Saltzman did not want to sell the rights to Broccoli and instead they formed a partnership to make the James Bond films. A number of Hollywood film studios did not want to fund the films, finding them "too British" or "too blatantly sexual". Eventually the two received authorization from United Artists to produce Dr. No, to be released in 1962. Saltzman and Broccoli created two companies: Danjaq, which was to hold the rights to the films, and Eon Productions, which was to produce them. The partnership between Broccoli and Saltzman lasted until 1975, when tensions during the filming of The Man with the Golden Gun led to an acrimonious split and Saltzman sold his shares of Danjaq to United Artists.
Initially Broccoli and Saltzman had wanted to produce Thunderball as the first film, but there was an ongoing legal dispute between the screenplay's co-author, Kevin McClory and Ian Fleming. As a result Broccoli and Saltzman chose Dr. No: the timing was apposite, with claims that American rocket testing at Cape Canaveral had problems with rockets going astray.
The producers offered Dr. No to Guy Green, Guy Hamilton, Val Guest and Ken Hughes to direct, but all of them turned it down. They finally signed Terence Young who had a long background with Broccoli's Warwick Films as the director. Broccoli and Saltzman felt that Young would be able make a real impression of James Bond and transfer the essence of the character from book to film. Young imposed many stylistic choices for the character which continued throughout the film series. Young also decided to inject much humour, as he considered that "a lot of things in this film, the sex and violence and so on, if played straight, a) would be objectionable, and b) we're never gonna go past along the censors; but the moment you take the mickey out, put the tongue out in the cheek, it seems to disarm."
The producers asked United Artists for financing, but the studio would only put up $1 million. Later, the UK arm of United Artists provided an extra $100,000 to create the climax where Dr. No's base explodes. As a result of the low budget, only one sound editor was hired (normally there are two, for sound effects and dialogue), and many pieces of scenery were made in cheaper ways, with M's office featuring cardboard paintings and a door covered in a leather-like plastic, the room where Dent meets Dr. No costing only £745 to build, and the aquarium in Dr. No's base being magnified stock footage of goldfish. Furthermore, when art director Syd Cain found out his name was not in the credits, Broccoli gave him a golden pen to compensate, saying that he did not want to spend money making the credits again.

Writing:
Broccoli had originally hired Richard Maibaum and his friend Wolf Mankowitz to write Dr. No's screenplay, partly because of Mankowitz’s help in brokering the deal between Broccoli and Saltzman. An initial draft of the screenplay was rejected because the scriptwriters had made the villain, Dr. No, a monkey. Mankowitz left the movie, and Maibaum then undertook a second version, more closely in line with the novel. Johanna Harwood and Berkely Mather then worked on Maibaum's script, with Harwood in particular being described as a script doctor who helped put elements more in tune with a British character. Mankowitz eventually had his name removed from the credits after viewing early rushes, as he feared it would be a disaster.
During the series' forty-year history only a few of the films have remained substantially true to their source material; Dr. No has many similarities to the novel and follows its basic plot, but there are a few notable omissions. Major elements from the novel that are missing from the film include Bond's fight with a giant squid, and the escape from Dr. No's complex using the dragon-disguised swamp buggy. Elements of the novel that were significantly changed for the film include the use of a (non-poisonous) tarantula spider instead of acentipede; Dr. No's secret complex being disguised as a bauxite mine instead of a guano quarry; Dr. No's plot to disrupt NASA space launches from Cape Canaveral using a radio beam instead of disrupting US missile testing on Turk's Island; the method of Dr. No's death by drowning in reactor coolant rather than a burial under a chute of guano, and the introduction of SPECTRE, an organisation absent from the book. Components absent from the novel but added to the film include the introduction of the Bond character in a gambling casino, the introduction of Bond's semi-regular girlfriend Sylvia Trench, a fight scene with an enemy chauffeur, a fight scene to introduce Quarrel, the seduction of Miss Taro, Bond's recurring CIA ally Felix Leiter, Dr. No's partner in crime Professor Dent and Bond's controversial cold-blooded killing of this character.
Sometimes episodes in the novel retained in the film's altered narrative introduce elements of absurdity into the plot. Bond's "escape" from his cell via the air shaft, for instance, originally conceived as a ruse of Dr. No's to test Bond's skill and endurance, becomes an authentic break-out in the film. Features carried over from the novel's obstacle course, however, such as the torrent of water and scalding surface, have no logical justification in the script. Such incongruities would recur in subsequent Bond films.

Casting:
- James Bond
While producers Broccoli and Saltzman originally sought Cary Grant for the role, they discarded the idea as Grant would be committed to only one feature film, and the producers decided to go after someone who could be part of a franchise. Richard Johnson has claimed to have been the first choice of the director, but he turned it down because he already had a contract with MGM and was intending to leave. Another actor purported to have been considered for the role was Patrick McGoohan on the strength of his portrayal of spy John Drake in the television series Danger Man: McGoohan turned down the role. Another potential Bond included David Niven, who would later play the character in the 1967 satire Casino Royale.
There are several apocryphal stories as to whom Ian Fleming personally wanted. Reportedly, Fleming favoured actor Richard Todd. In his autobiography When the Snow Melts, Cubby Broccoli said Roger Moore had been considered, but had been thought "...too young, perhaps a shade too pretty." In his autobiography, My Word Is My Bond, Moore says he was never approached to play the role of Bond until 1973, for Live and Let Die. Moore appeared as Simon Templar on the television series The Saint, airing in the United Kingdom for the first time on 4 October 1962, only one day before the premiere of Dr. No.
Ultimately, the producers turned to 30-year-old Sean Connery for five films. It is often reported that Connery won the role through a contest set up to "find James Bond". While this is untrue, the contest itself did exist, and six finalists were chosen and screen tested by Broccoli, Saltzman, and Fleming. The winner of the contest was a 28 year-old model named Peter Anthony, who, according to Broccoli, had a Gregory Peck quality, but proved unable to cope with the role. When Connery was invited to meet Broccoli and Saltzman he appeared scruffy and in unpressed clothes, but Connery "put on an act and it paid off" as he acted in the meeting with a macho, devil-may-care attitude. When he left both Saltzman and Broccoli watched him through the window as he went to his car, both agreeing that he was the right man for Bond. After Connery was chosen, Terence Young took the actor to his tailor and hairdresser, and introduced him to the high life, restaurants, casinos and women of London. In the words of Bond writer Raymond Benson, Young educated the actor "in the ways of being dapper, witty, and above all, cool".

- Secondary cast
For the first Bond girl Honey Ryder, Julie Christie was considered, but discarded as the producers felt she was not voluptuous enough. Just two weeks before filming began, Ursula Andress was chosen to play Honey after the producers saw a picture of her taken by Andress' then-husband John Derek. To appear more convincing as a Jamaican, Andress had a tan painted on her and ultimately had her voice dubbed over due to her heavy Swiss German accent. For Bond's antagonist Dr. Julius No, Ian Fleming wanted his friend Noël Coward, and he answered the invitation with "No! No! No!" Harry Saltzman picked Joseph Wiseman because of his performance in the 1951 film Detective Story, and the actor had special make-up applied to evoke No's Chinese heritage.
The role as the first Felix Leiter was given to Jack Lord. This is Bond and Leiter's first time meeting each other on film and Leiter does not appear in the novel. Leiter returns for many of Bond's future adventures and in the 2006 reboot of the film series, Casino Royale, Leiter and Bond are seen meeting one another again for the first time. This was Lord's only appearance as Leiter, as he asked for more money and a better billing to return as Leiter in Goldfinger and was subsequently replaced.
The cast also included a number of actors who were to become stalwarts of the future films, including Bernard Lee, who played Bond's superior M for another ten films, and Lois Maxwell, who played M's secretary Moneypenny in fourteen installments of the series. Lee was chosen because of being a "prototypical father figure", and Maxwell after Fleming thought she was the perfect fit for his description of the character. Maxwell was initially offered a choice between the roles of Moneypenny or Sylvia Trench and opted for Moneypenny as she thought the Trench role, which included appearing in immodest dress, was too sexual. Eunice Gayson was cast as Sylvia Trench and it was planned that she would be a recurring girlfriend for Bond throughout six films, although she only appeared in Dr. No and From Russia with Love. She had been given the part by director Terence Young, who had worked with her in Zarak and invited Gayson saying "You always bring me luck in my films", although she was also cast due to her voluptuous figure. One role which was not given to a future regular was that of Major Boothroyd, the head of Q-Branch, which was given to Peter Burton. Burton was unavailable for the subsequent film, From Russia with Love, and the role was taken by Desmond Llewelyn.
Anthony Dawson, who played Professor Dent, met director Terence Young when he was working as a stage actor in London, but by the time of the film's shooting Dawson was working as a pilot and crop duster in Jamaica. Dawson also portrayed Ernst Stavro Blofeld, head of SPECTRE, in From Russia with Love and Thunderball, although his face was never seen and his voice was dubbed by Eric Pohlmann. Zena Marshall, who played Miss Taro, was mostly attracted by the humorous elements of the script, and described her role as "this attractive little siren, and at the same time I was the spy, a bad woman", who Young asked to play "not as Chinese, but a Mid-Atlantic woman who men dream about but is not real". The role of Taro was previously rejected by Marguerite LeWars, the Miss Jamaica 1961 who worked at the Kingston airport, as it required being "wrapped in a towel, lying in a bed, kissing a strange man". LeWars appeared as a photographer hired by Dr. No instead.

Filming:
Dr. No is set in London, England, Kingston, Jamaica and Crab Key, a fictional island off Jamaica. Filming began on location in Jamaica on 16 January 1962. The primary scenes there were the exterior shots of Crab Key and Kingston, where an un-credited Syd Cain acted as art director and also designed the Dragon Tank. They shot a few yards from Fleming's Goldeneye estate, and the author would regularly visit the filming with friends. Location filming was largely in Oracabessa, with additional scenes on the Palisadoes strip and Port Royal in St Andrew. On 21 February, production left Jamaica with footage still unfilmed due to a change of weather. Five days later, filming began at Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire, England with sets designed by Ken Adam, which included Dr. No's base, the ventilation duct and the interior of the British Secret Service headquarters. The studio would later be used on the majority of later Bond films. Adam's initial budget for the entire film was just £14,500 (£230,647 in 2012 ), but the producers were convinced to give him an extra £6,000 out of their own finances. After 58 days of filming, principal photography wrapped on 30 March 1962.
The scene where a tarantula walks over Bond was initially shot by pinning a bed to the wall and placing Sean Connery over it, with a protective glass between him and the spider. Director Young did not like the final results, so the scenes were interlaced with new footage featuring the tarantula over stuntman Bob Simmons. Simmons, who was uncredited for the film, described the scene as the most frightening stunt he had ever performed. The book features a scene where Honey is tortured by being tied to the ground along with crabs, but since the crabs were sent frozen from the Caribbean, they did not move much during filming, so the scene was altered to have Honey slowly drowning. Simmons also served as the film's fight choreographer, employing a rough fighting style. The noted violence of Dr. No, which also included Bond shooting Dent in cold blood, caused producers to make adaptations in order to get an "A" rating – allowing minors to enter accompanied by an adult – from the British Board of Film Classification.
When he is about to have dinner with Dr. No, Bond is amazed to see Goya's Portrait of the Duke of Wellington. The painting had been stolen from the National Gallery by a 60 year-old amateur thief in London just before filming began. Ken Adam had contacted the National Gallery in London to obtain a slide of the picture, painting the copy over the course of the weekend, prior to filming commencing on the Monday.
Editor Peter R. Hunt used an innovative editing technique, with extensive use of quick cuts, and employing fast motion and exaggerated sound effects on the action scenes. Hunt said his intention was to "move fast and push it along the whole time, while giving it a certain style", and added that the fast pacing would help audiences not notice any writing problems. As title artist Maurice Binder was creating the credits, he had an idea for the introduction that would appear in all subsequent Bond films, the James Bond gun barrel sequence. It was filmed in sepia by putting a pinhole camera inside an actual .38 caliber gun barrel, with Bob Simmons playing Bond. Binder also designed a highly stylized main title sequence, a theme that has been repeated in the subsequent Eon-produced Bond films. Binder's budget for the title sequence was £2,000 (£31,813 in 2012).

The introduction of James Bond:
A seminal moment in cinema. Sean Connery introduces James Bond to the film world with his trademark statement, "Bond, James Bond."

The character James Bond was introduced towards, but not at, the beginning of the film in a "now-famous nightclub sequence featuring Sylvia Trench", to whom he makes his "immortal introduction". The introduction to the character in Le Cercle at Les Ambassadeurs, an upmarket gambling club, is derived from Bond's introduction in the first novel, Casino Royale which Fleming had used because "skill at gambling and knowledge of how to behave in a casino were seen...as attributes of a gentleman". After losing a hand of Chemin de Fer to Bond, Trench asks his name. There is the "most important gesture [in]...the way he lights his cigarette before giving her the satisfaction of an answer. 'Bond, James Bond'." Once Connery says his line, Monty Norman's Bond theme plays "and creates an indelible link between music and character." In the short scene introducing Bond, there are portrayed "qualities of strength, action, reaction, violence – and this elegant, slightly brutal gambler with the quizzical sneer we see before us who answers a woman when he's good and ready." Raymond Benson, author of the continuation Bond novels, has stated that as the music fades up on the scene, "we have ourselves a piece of classic cinema".
Following the release of Dr. No, the quote "Bond ... James Bond," became a catch phrase that entered the lexicon of Western popular culture: writers Cork and Scivally said of the introduction in Dr. No that the "signature introduction would become the most famous and loved film line ever". In 2001 it was voted as the "best-loved one-liner in cinema" by British cinema goers. In 2005, it was honoured as the 22nd greatest quotation in cinema history by the American Film Institute as part of their 100 Years Series.

Soundtrack:
- Main article: Dr. No (soundtrack)
Monty Norman was invited to write the soundtrack because Broccoli liked his work on the 1961 theatre production Belle, a musical about murderer Hawley Harvey Crippen. Norman was busy with musicals, and only accepted to do the music for Dr. No after Saltzman allowed him to travel along with the crew to Jamaica. The most famous composition in the soundtrack is the "James Bond Theme", which is heard in the gunbarrel sequence and in a calypso medley over the title credits, and was written by Norman based on a previous composition of his. John Barry, who would later go on to compose the music for eleven Bond films, arranged the Bond theme, but was uncredited—except for the credit of his orchestra playing the final piece. It has occasionally been suggested that Barry, not Norman, composed the "James Bond Theme". This argument has been the subject of two court cases, the most recent in 2001, which found in favor of Norman. The theme, as written by Norman and arranged by Barry, was described by another Bond film composer, David Arnold, as "bebop-swing vibe coupled with that vicious, dark, distorted electric guitar, definitely an instrument of rock 'n' roll...it represented everything about the character you would want: It was cocky, swaggering, confident, dark, dangerous, suggestive, sexy, unstoppable. And he did it in two minutes."
The music for the opening scene is a calypso version of the nursery rhyme "Three Blind Mice", with new lyrics to reflect the intentions of the three assassins hired by Dr. No. Other notable songs in the film are the song "Jump Up", played in the background, and the traditional Jamaican calypso "Under the Mango Tree", famously sung by Diana Coupland (then Norman's wife), the singing voice of Honey Ryder, as she walked out of the ocean on Crab Key. Byron Lee & the Dragonaires appeared in the film and performed some of the music on the later soundtrack album. Lee and other Jamaican musicians who appear in soundtrack, including Ernest Ranglin and Carlos Malcolm, were introduced to Norman by Chris Blackwell, the owner of then-small label Island Records who worked in the film as a location scout. The original soundtrack album was released by United Artists Records in 1963 as well as several cover versions of "The James Bond Theme" on Columbia Records. A single of the "James Bond Theme" entered the UK Singles Chart in 1962, reaching a peak position of number thirteen during an eleven week spell in the charts. Ranglin, who had acted as arranger on several tracks, and Malcolm sued Eon for unpaid fees, both settling out of court; Malcolm and his band performed a year later at the film's premiere in Kingston.

Themes:
Dr. No introduced the many recurring themes and features associated with the suave and sophisticated secret agent: the distinctive "James Bond Theme", the gun barrel sequence, his initial mission briefing with M, "Bond girls", the criminal organisation SPECTRE, narrow escapes, Bond's luck and skill, his signature Walther PPK and the licence to kill, over-ambitious villains, henchmen and allies. Many characteristics of the following Bond films were introduced in Dr. No, ranging from Bond's introduction as "Bond, James Bond" (although he seems to be mimicking Sylvia Trench who introduces herself first as "Trench. Sylvia Trench"), to his taste for vodka martinis "shaken, not stirred", love interests, and weaponry.
Dr. No also establishes the oft-repeated association (in this case, Project Mercury) between the Bond series and the US manned space programme—which would be repeated with Project Gemini in You Only Live Twice, Project Apollo in Diamonds Are Forever, and the space shuttle in Moonraker (not to mention several outer space sequences involving fictional satellite programmes in GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and Die Another Day).  

Release and reception:
- Promotion
As soon as late 1961, United Artists started a marketing campaign to make James Bond a well-known name in North America. Newspapers received a box set of Bond's books, as well as a booklet detailing the Bond character and a picture of Ursula Andress. Eon and United Artists made licensing deals revolving around the character's tastes, having merchandising tie-ins with drink, tobacco, men's clothing and car companies. The campaign also focused on Ian Fleming's name due to the minor success of the books. After Dr. No had a successful run in Europe, Sean Connery and Terence Young did a cross-country tour in March 1963, which featured screening previews for the film and press conferences. It culminated in a well-publicized premiere in Kingston, where most of the film is set. Some of the campaign emphasized the sex appeal of the film, with the poster artwork, by Mitchell Hooks, depicting Sean Connery and four scantily clad women. The campaign also included the 007 logo designed by Joseph Caroff with a pistol as part of the seven.
Dr. No had its worldwide premiere at the London Pavilion, on 5 October 1962, expanding to the rest of the United Kingdom three days later. The North American premiere on 8 May 1963 was more low-profile, with 450 cinemas in Midwest and Southwest regions. On 29 May it opened in both Los Angeles and New York City – in the former as a double-bill with The Young and the Brave and the latter in United Artists' "Premiere Showcase" treatment, screening in 84 screens across the city to avoid the costly Broadway cinemas.

Critical response:
Upon release, Dr. No received a mixed critical reception. Time called Bond a "blithering bounder" and "a great big hairy marshmallow" who "almost always manages to seem slightly silly". Stanley Kauffmann in The New Republic said that he felt the film "never decides whether it is suspense or suspense-spoof." He also did not like Connery, or the Fleming novels. The Vatican condemned Dr. No because of Bond’s cruelty and the sexual content, whilst the Kremlin said that Bond was the personification of capitalist evil – both controversies helped increase public awareness of the film and greater cinema attendance. However Leonard Mosely in The Daily Express said that "Dr No is fun all the way, and even the sex is harmless", whilst Penelope Gilliatt in The Observer said it was "full of submerged self-parody". The Guardian’s critic called Dr. No "crisp and well-tailored" and "a neat and gripping thriller."
In the years that followed its release it became more popular. Writing in 1986, Danny Peary described Dr. No as a “cleverly conceived adaption of Ian Fleming’s enjoyable spy thriller... Picture has sex, violence, wit, terrific action sequences, and colorful atmosphere... Connery, Andress and Wiseman all give memorable performances. There’s a slow stretch in the middle and Dr. No could use a decent henchman, but otherwise the film works marvelously." Describing Dr. No as "a different type of film", Peary notes that "Looking back, one can understand why it caused so much excitement."
The 2005 American Film Institute's '100 Years' series also recognised the character of James Bond himself in the film as the third greatest film hero. He was also placed at number eleven on a similar list by Empire. Premiere also listed Bond as the fifth greatest movie character of all time.

Popular reaction: 
In the United Kingdom, playing in 168 cinemas, Dr. No grossed $840,000 in just two weeks and wound up being the fifth most popular movie of the year there. The box office results in mainland Europe were also positive. The film ended up grossing $6 million, making it a financial success compared to its $1 million budget. The original North American gross rental was $2 million, increasing to $6 million after its first reissue in 1965, as a double feature with From Russia with Love. The following reissue was in 1966 paired with Goldfinger, to compensate the fact that the next Bond movie would only come out in the following year. The total gross of Dr. No ended up being $59.6 million worldwide, IGN listed it as sixth-best Bond film ever, Entertainment Weekly put it at seventh among Bond films, and Norman Wilner of MSN as twelfth best. All the rankings considered the film modest, but effective, with Connery's charisma overcoming flaws of the plot and the low budget. Dr. No currently has a 98% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. President John F. Kennedy was a fan of Ian Fleming's novels and requested a private showing of Dr. No in the White House.
In 2003, the scene of Andress emerging from the water in a bikini topped Channel 4's list of one hundred sexiest scenes of film history. The bikini was sold in 2001 at an auction for $61,500. Entertainment Weekly and IGN ranked her first in a top ten "Bond babes" list.

Comic book adaptation:
- Main article: Dr. No (comics)
Around the time of Dr. No's release in October 1962, a comic book adaptation of the screenplay, written by Norman J. Nodel, was published in the United Kingdom as part of the Classics Illustrated anthology series. It was later reprinted in the United States by DC Comics as part of its Showcase anthology series, in January 1963. This was the first American comic book appearance of James Bond and is noteworthy for being a relatively rare example of a British comic being reprinted in a fairly high-profile American comic. It was also one of the earliest comics to be censored on racial grounds (some skin tones and dialogue were changed for the American market).

Legacy:
“ It is because of (Ken Adam) that people believe criminal masterminds operate from the insides of dormant volcanoes and travel between their sumptuously decorated lairs on chrome-plated monorails. It's his fault that we think gold bars are stacked in vast cathedral-tall warehouses and that secret agents escape capture by using jetpacks or ejector seats. ”
— Johnny Dee, writing in The Guardian (2005).
Dr. No was the first of 23 James Bond films produced by Eon, which have grossed just over $5 billion in box office returns alone, making the series one of the highest-grossing ever. It is estimated that since Dr. No, a quarter of the world's population have seen at least one Bond film. Dr. No also launched a successful genre of "secret agent" films that flourished in the 1960s. The UK Film Distributors' Association have stated that the importance of Dr. No to the British film industry cannot be overstated, as it, and the subsequent Bond series of films, "form the backbone of the industry".
Dr. No – and the Bond films in general – also inspired television output, with the NBC series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which was described as the "first network television imitation" of Bond. The style of the Bond films, largely derived from production designer Ken Adam, is one of the hallmarks of the Bond film series, and the effect of his work on Dr. No’s lair can be seen in another film he worked on, Dr. Strangelove.
As the first film in the Bond series, a number of the elements of Dr. No were contributors to subsequent films, including Monty Norman’s Bond theme and Maurice Binder’s gun barrel sequence, variants of which all appeared in subsequent Bond films. These conventions were also lampooned in spoof films, such as the Austin Powers series. The first spoof films happened relatively soon after Dr. No, with the 1964 film Carry on Spying showing the villain Dr. Crow being overcome by agents who included James Bind (Charles Hawtry) and Daphne Honeybutt (Barbara Windsor).
A further legacy saw the sales of Fleming’s books rise sharply after the release of Dr. No and the subsequent Bond films. In the seven months after Dr. No was released, 1.5 million copies of the novel were sold. Worldwide sales of all the Bond books rose throughout the sixties as Dr. No and the subsequent films – From Russia with Love and Goldfinger – were released: in 1961 500,000 books had been sold, which rose to six million in 1964 and seven million in 1965. Between the years 1962 to 1967, a total of nearly 22.8 million Bond novels were sold.
The film had an impact on ladies' fashion, with the bikini worn by Ursula Andress proving to be a huge hit: "not only sent sales of two-piece swimwear skyrocketing, it also made Andress an international celebrity". Andress herself acknowledged that the "bikini made me into a success. As a result of starring in Dr No as the first Bond girl I was given the freedom to take my pick of future roles and to become financially independent". It has been claimed that the use of the swimwear in Dr. No led to "the biggest impact on the history of the bikini".