Heavy Bondage: From Russia With Love

We tend to get the movie heroes we deserve, and I suppose nowadays that means James Bond.
- Thomas Wiseman, in the Sunday Express (October 1963)

From Russia With Love
Film: 1963
Book: 1957 (5th in chronology)

Irreverent Synopsis: The masterminds at SPECTRE decide they will humiliate British intelligence, and especially Bond, by offering them a cipher machine and a beautiful girl (a little something for everyone), then killing Bond and the girl, and keeping the cipher machine for themselves. It might have worked except that not even British intelligence is that stupid, and besides, the girl knows a good opportunity to defect when she sees one ....

Major Observations: For a Bond plot that seems like it should be quintessential, involving appropriately espionagey things like double agents and cipher machines, this one's surprisingly hollow. Which isn't to say it's a bad film; I'm rather partial to it.

"The game with the Russians is played a little differently here." »

The problem is, I'm partial to it mostly because of its supporting performances: not just the usual regulars, but also Vladek Sheybal as mastermind Kronsteen, Robert Shaw - yes, that Robert Shaw - as uberthug Grant, Lotte Lenya as the odious Klebb, Daniela Bianchi as Tatiana (who certainly walks the innocent-vs-sexpot line much more deftly than Honey Ryder), and especially Pedro Armendariz as Kerim Bey, the man who keeps the film moving in fine style. Bey's death in the film is the only one which really affects me, even after many viewings, and knowing that Armendariz himself died during the filming (he killed himself rather than face the last stages of terminal cancer) only makes it more poignant.

Bond's role throughout is almost entirely reactive, letting events carry him without his affecting them much, until nearly the end. In fact Kerim Bey's death is the signal for the movie to change gears, and for me the final portion, where Bond has to stir himself and mop up, is the least interesting (although the fight with Grant on the train is brilliant; so brilliant, in fact, that it was dusted off later and reused. See The Spy Who Loved Me). Others consider this way past time for Bond to get off his ass. The book Kiss Kiss Bang Bang describes the train sequence as the point where Bond "transforms effortlessly into The Most Dangerous Man in the World." To each their own.

Since Bond is merely a passenger through most of the film, he doesn't actually need to show much Blunt Instrument (although he is perfectly happy to help kill off Krilencu on Bey's say-so, and he doesn't mind causing a little chaos in the Russian Embassy either). Again, not until the train ride does the brutality come out, and by then it's called for.

Not much Gentleman Spy either, although he keeps up with Kerim Bey's style pretty well, knowing how to take his coffee and all that. His handling of Tatiana is more delicate than we expect; he knows he has to walk a fine line or she'll bolt, and he does it properly. When she falls for him, her conversion is entirely believable - a rare thing in a Bond film.

Daniela Bianchi, a (dubbed) Italian beauty contestant playing a Russian civil servant chosen largely for her appearance, has the advantage of playing a character who is written to be prettier than expected, naive, and rather out of her depth. She does it well enough to pull off a rather tricky bedroom scene with Bond without provoking snickers.

« "I suppose it would depend ... upon the man."

This is another one relatively low on women; if you want more, you'll have to content yourself with a lovely moment involving one of Kerim Bey's wives, or with watching Lotte Lenya chew scenery. (And if you think the implied lesbianism is over-the-top, bear in mind that it is made far more explicit in the book.)

As for villainy, here we get our first sighting - well, non-sighting - of Blofeld. Unfortunately. (Blofeld is not in the book - see below.) Fortunately, since he is only heard, and only in one scene, the field is free for the everyday villains, and very good villains they are. Grant and Klebb in particular are simply nasty work all round.

The biggest surprise about the book is that nearly the first third is devoted to the Russians setting up the plot. Bond appears fairly late in the game. Other than that, the major change is that in the film it is secret organization SPECTRE who form the scheme. In the book, it is SMERSH. This is not a minor distinction, since SPECTRE is a wholly fictitious (and international) star-chamber agency, headed by Blofeld, and SMERSH was a branch of Russian intelligence based loosely on real-world operations, with no Blofeld. Lip service is paid, in the film, to SMERSH (there's a line about Klebb coming over to SPECTRE from them). More on this at Thunderball.

At this point in the book universe, Bond has crossed swords with SMERSH once already (in Casino Royale) and it's clear from comments in the first third that they are aware of his intervening activities in Jamaica (Live and Let Die), England (Moonraker), and the US (Diamonds Are Forever), proving that they are no slouches. Tiffany Case from Diamonds Are Forever has apparently been Bond's lover for several of the intervening months, but has recently moved out to wed an American serviceman. At the end of the novel, Klebb gets Bond with her poison-spike shoe, and he passes out, leaving the reader uncertain as to his fate.

Minor Observations: On the "fringe regulars" watch, Monica van der Syl, who dubs the hotel receptionist, also dubbed Ursula Andress in Dr. No and would later dub Claudine Auger as Domino in Thunderball. There's a reason so many early Bond women sound similar .... Her website claims that she also dubbed Shirley Eaton in Goldfinger, Kissy (Mie Hama) in You Only Live Twice, Eunice Gayson in this film, and "all female voices except Moneypenny and a Chinese girl" in Dr. No. Since Eunice Gayson sounds distinctive in both films where she appears, and there is a very different story involving Kissy (see that page), I would take these claims with a grain of salt. However, this is not meant to make light of van der Syl's considerable contributions to the oeuvre ....

Also, Walter Gotell, who later played General Gogol so lovably in several of the movies, turns up as the gent who runs the training camp where Klebb acquires Grant. And Martine Beswick, who plays one of the two catfighting gypsies, would later turn up in Thunderball as Bond's doomed assistant (and is reportedly one of the dancing silhouettes in the credits of Dr. No).

They were going to ask Peter Bernard to be the Armourer again, but he was unavailable. Desmond Llewellyn came in, and thus we were ensured of at least one good scene in almost every Bond film for the next thirty-six years.

The gypsy fight which got the usual suspects up in arms this time around is straight Fleming. In fact, Fleming's description is worse; it describes the fight in what one of my books calls "loving detail."

Director Terence Young felt that Bianchi's legs were not good enough, apparently; he reportedly trimmed a number of sequences because he felt her walk was ungainly, and when we see Tatiana's legs during the periscope sequence ("Things are shaping up nicely"), it is not Bianchi but a substitute.

There's a cut line where Grant taunts Bond about the film taken of him and Tatiana making love in the hotel: "What a performance!" Bond's line later about the film was kept in ("He was right, you know") even though it now makes less sense.

The official credit for Blofeld, in the end titles and in the film PR materials, was a question mark. Eric Pohlmann did the voice, and Anthony Dawson (Professor Dent from Dr. No) supplied what little we see of the body.

Leonid Brezhnev reportedly secured a print of the film from the British Embassy - and watched it three times.

Next page: Goldfinger