Bond @50 Rate and Review From Russia With Love

[Rob McCow]

James Bond is informed by M that a beautiful Soviet agent has fallen in love with him and wishes to defect. She promises to steal a valued decoding machine called the Lektor which MI6 desperately wants. Bond is warned the scenario may be a trap, and indeed it is. Unbeknown to the “defector”, Tatiana Romanova, the Soviets and British are being used as pawns in an inspired scheme masterminded by SPECTRE. The plan is for Bond and Tatiana to steal the Lektor then be executed by assassin Red Grant. SPECTRE will then recover the machine and sell it back to the Soviets, embarrassing MI6 in the process and murdering Bond in revenge for his killing of Dr No.

Released: October 10, 1963

Bond Girls: Daniela Bianchi as Tatiana Romanova and Eunice Gayson as Sylvia Trench.

James Bond is BACK! Only a year later. More of the iconic ideas that would keep the series going for many decades are introduced here, including Blofeld the telepathic cat. Could Sean Connery's second outing as Bond possibly be as good as his first?

Read more at James Bond Wiki: http://www.jamesbondwiki.com/page/From+Russia+with+Love
And The Vervoid: http://www.thevervoid.com/media/bond_02.htm

[MacNimon]

One of the all-time classics. A much more substantial and stylish film, with some excellent casting and performances. Barry's score was much better than Norman's previous one. This is one of my favourites, and will always come near the top of any 007 list for me. However, it still doesn't feel quite like the other Bond films stylistically, it's not quite the finished product in that respect...it still feels more like a standalone 1960s spy thriller (not that that's a bad thing in its own right) rather than part of an ongoing series.

A great film, all the same.

[Rob McCow]

I've never got on that well with From Russia With Love, to be honest. It's always seemed a little flat to me. Perhaps it's because the humour and warmth of the later films is subdued, or perhaps it's because the Bond cliches haven't been properly established yet. Still, in some ways it seems more of a serious piece of cinematography than some of the later efforts.

[SiHart]

It's very good, if a little serious at times, which can be unsettling if you come to it after watching all the others. But I rather like that- it's got a certain somethign that i like and is perhaps the only film of the series that shows just what it is about James Bond as spy that gets him all these missions- he actually does some spying in this one!

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Absolutely love this film and there's a lot to love - some real superb actors in the mix.

Most of all I have to mention Pedro Armendáriz who played Kerim Bey, who suffered from cancer during the filming, and committed suicide soon after (he was in the final stages) ...



The superb Robert Shaw, James Bond's opposite number,



Lotte Lenya as the female spy lead



And Walter Gotell who was brought back in later films as General Gogol

[Jeff]

A contender for my favorite Bond film of all time. To me, this one is probably the closest that we come to seeing Ian Fleming's literary version of Bond on the screen.