“Red wine with fish. Now that should’ve told me something.”
The second Bond film, From Russia with Love (1963), builds on the first. In the first, Dr. No, British secret agent James Bond foils the plans for world domination of a secret organization called SPECTRE. Well, SPECTRE is back to take over the world, this time by stoking Cold War tensions and seeking a little revenge along the way.
The plan is to trap the Brits into stealing an important decoding device from the Soviets. Their plan involves the humiliation and death of James Bond as revenge for killing SPECTRE’s Dr. No. Deceiving Bond is dependent on a phony double-agent who thinks she is serving mother Russia. She doesn’t know about SPECTRE and, of course, she didn’t know she would fall in love with Bond. Shocker.
It’s a trap and M and Bond know it’s a trap. But Bond still goes as the decoder is a prized reward. They underappreciate the revenge angle.
Q, played by Desmond Llewelyn, joins the franchise. He wasn’t in the first one and so neither were any cool gadgets. In this film, Bond gets a cool spy gadget, but it’s just a briefcase. Q wouldn’t like that “just a briefcase” line, and it does have cool features, but compared with future films, the briefcase is almost ordinary.
We see more of SPECTRE in this film. We are kind of introduced to the leader, Number 1, for now. We don’t see his face. He has a cat on his lap and all we see is the cat being gently petted by this madman as he dictates orders to his subordinates. The cartoon Inspector Gadget later parodies this well.
The opening is an action scene. It looks like Bond is killed, but it’s a training exercise to demonstrate the skills of the SPECTRE’s newest assassin, played by Robert Shaw.
From there the opening credits run with intense visuals and hard music, but no song from a big-name singer. Bond’s leading lady, played by Daniela Bianchi, is mildly named Tatiana Romanova, a John Smith version of a Russian name. An old lady is the leader of SPECTRE’s operation, an odd choice for a Bond film.
There is some globetrotting in this one. Unlike the first film, this one takes the audience around the world. London, Venice, Istanbul, Belgrade, and Zagreb are on the itinerary.
Shaw makes the classic bad guy error of telling Bond too much at the end.
There is an interesting credit line. Ernest Blofeld, who in the film is referred to as Number 1 and not by that listed name in the credits, was played by “?” That’s how it’s listed, as a question mark.
The classic bond formula begins to take shape in this film. The gold standard comes next. Bond returns in Goldfinger and gains worldwide acclaim.