From Russia with Love (1963)

 Film Trailer for From Russia with Love

“From Russia with Love” (1963) is the James Bond film that has definitely risen in my own personal favorites list over the last ten years. I didn’t respond to it as much when I was a youth (I really didn’t start watching the Connery Bond films until I was a teenager during Turner Broadcasting marathons in the 90s) as I do from my 20s until now. And I continue to appreciate it. I think it really kicks things off, too, in a clever way. Supposedly, we see 007 moving through the grounds of some big estate, seemingly to avoid or confront someone. That someone is a very intimidating and statuesque Robert Shaw in blond (he looks like the kind of perfect super soldier Hitler could only dream of), very stealthily avoiding this 007 (I like the nuance for which Connery makes him different from “the real thing”), who seems quite nervous, unsure, and unaware of where his adversary is located. Later revealed is the series regular, Walter Gotell (far more significant a Russian higher-up, General Gogol, particularly during the Moore Bond era), a trainee of SPECTRE agents. Shaw’s formidable Don “Red” Grant to me is one of the very best ever produced in the early era of Bond, especially in the Connery era. He just dominates the screen, and I think he gives off this aura of quiet menace, where he doesn’t have to say anything and you still know he isn’t to be fucked with. Bond later learns that! Using a wire garrote linked to a watch, Shaw ices the guy wearing a James Bond “mask”, but the real agent won’t be so easy to choke out. And cue the psychedelic opening credits with jiggling women bathed in colors and James Bond imagery.

The SPECTRE plot is to pit Russia and British forces against each other while they wait until one is “dead” and the other “exhausted” so their terrorist organization can strike and “win”…an analogy Blofeld expresses to Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya) through the use of goldfish. Through the seemingly “foolproof” plans of Chessmaster, Kronsteen (Vladek Sheybal), a SPECTRE agent renowned for his legendary chess moves and strategy, Russian agent defector, is to carry out the plot through the dangling carrot of a Lektor Decoder (it would be a big deal for the British government to procure such a device to understand Russian intelligence “language”). Rosa is a creepy lesbian who recruits a Russian State loyalist, Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi) to seduce 007 and gain his trust. Kronsteen offers Bond as a prize within this plot, knowing that the murder of Dr. No left SPECTRE wounded and enraged for revenge. Obviously, SPECTRE sees itself as its own “country” or superpower, recruiting agents from all over the globe, so Rosa’s loyalty to them left Russia needing to keep her defection secret (which kind of surprises me, because you’d think her betrayal would be important to share just for cases as this Kronsteen gambit), so Tatiana just believes this is an assignment for her country. The scene where Tatiana is “recruited”, Rosa is very “hands on”, always caressing and moving her hand across the knee or shoulders, with her yearning desire quite evident as Tatiana is obviously creeped out and repulsed.

While this film is mostly located at Istanbul, Turkey, as Bond has an ally in the delightful Pedro Armendáriz as Ali Kerim Bey (an agent presented as wealthy seller of “rugs” and started out in the circus using the strength of his mouth as a skill to wow), being watched by the Bulgarians (spying for the Russians), neither side realizes that Grant is also assigned to see that the SPECTRE operation (to get the Lektor and kill Bond) goes successfully. One Russian agent killed by Grant, their response in the assassination attempt (through a grizzled hitman named Krilencu (Fred Haggerty) of Bey (who happened to be busy with a lusty lover, begging him to come to her bed for a bit of hanky-panky!) with a bomb meant to kill him at his desk, Bey allowing Bond to see his underground canals (built as a reservoir many years prior) where a periscope was “fitted” to spy on the Russian consulate, and a secret mission underway through the use of Tatiana’s help to secure the Lektor at the consulate. All the while, you have Rosa and Grant recording Bond and Tatiana having sex their first night together in order to set up a lover’s quarrel, murder-suicide!

The film isn’t just about Istanbul and how Bond and Bey work their way through Turkey in order to get the Lektor secured and moved to London as Grant and SPECTRE (not to mention the Bulgarians in association with Russia) offer interference. The second chapter of the film moves onto a train that needs to get to a checkpoint as Bey is eventually (sadly) murdered by Grant (eventually posing as one of his agents in order to get close to Bond), while Bond must inevitably avoid certain death by using his chicanery involving this “gadget suitcase” through the lure of gold sovereigns. The fight between Bond and Grant is physical and tightly confined to a train car, with the garrote and disguised blade hidden in the suitcase (and the fight is engaged by an explosive powder that goes off if the latches aren’t pressed a certain way) nifty weapons within the claustrophobic room. Even Klebb (of course) gets to try and kill Bond, almost certainly advantageous through her guise of a maid at a Vienna resort, but by the end Tatania is in love with 007. There is even a poisoned blade hidden in a shoe that is used to kill Kronsteen for his failure of a plan to snatch the Lektor and kill Bond with Klebb (who believes she is the one Blofeld will kill) and later almost gets 007. Not to be lean in its action, there is a helicopter chase of Bond (who secures a flower truck from an enemy agent, meant as transport for Grant, with Tatiana in the bed with the flowers), who finds a convenient rock formation to hide, as grenades from SPECTRE agents are dropped to kill him, and a boat chase where SPECTRE agents fire machine guns and missiles his boat’s direction (with Bond using the gasoline filled canisters onboard as weapons to stop them). Plenty of action and enough spy intrigue to keep us going. This is actually shorter in running time than many other Bond films, too. You even have a clever sniper sequence where Bey, using Bond’s shoulder at leverage, shoots through the movie poster of a Bob Hope vehicle through the mouth of actress Anita Ekberg to kill Krelincu! There is introduced as “SPECTRE Island” where assassins/agents are trained, Eunice Grayson was a brief “girlfriend” to Bond (always frustrated when he’s away), and there are instances where Bond has to have “help” (like when Tatiana betrays Klebb in the suite at the Vienna resort, or when Grant kills a Bulgarian henchmen about to stab him in the back with a sword). So Bond stares down guns a few times, seemingly dead to rites. Fun movie, with Eastern Europe getting the Bond film rub this go-around. 4.5/5

*sadly, Pedro Armendáriz was (if you believe it) a casualty of “The Conqueror” (the John Wayne film located where certain radioactivity was present), dying of cancer while acting in this film.

This is my second favorite Connery Bond after the next film in the series, "Goldfinger".