From Russisa with Love

With this second Bond film, the genre has really found its way. I like Dr. No a lot, but From Russia With Love is actually much better. Sean Connery has found his character completely and acts out total confidence.

The "Cold-War-West-vs.-East" storyline is also very classic to Bond and Ian Fleming, even though SPECTRE - which was first introduced in Dr. No - does its best to complicate matters. In this movie SPECTRE makes an interesting third part in the equation, Bond thinks he's fighting Russia, when he is in fact being set up by Blofeldt and his lot!

From Russia With Love is also the movie where ultimate bad-guy Ernst Stavro Blofeldt is introducted, as head of SPECTRE, even though we never see his face. Blofeldt later turns out to be quite an enemy to Bond, showing up in several movies. The fact that we don't see his face (we will, in fact, get to see him in You Only Live Twice) adds a nice creepiness to the characters. The other villains - Rosa Klebb and Red Grant - are also very good. It's a nice touch that it isn't Bond who actually kills Klebb at the end!

I'm not very impressed with Tatiana Romanova! I cannot understand how she could ever get a trusted government job, she seems like a naive, hysterical and easily-led woman, and nothing else! A character I do like a lot is Kerim Bey, he's really really wonderful and easy to love!! It was very sad to see he didn't last throughout the movie, he would have been great as a recurring character in later Bond films!

This page is part of a frameset! If you can't see it, click here to go to the main page!