From Russia with Love is
the second James Bond film made by Eon Productions and the second to
star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Released in
1963, the film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman,
and directed by Terence Young. It is based on the 1957 novel of the
same name by Ian Fleming.
In
the film, SPECTRE's expert planner Kronsteen devises a plot to steal
a Lektor cryptographic device from the Soviets and sell it back to
them while exacting revenge on Bond for killing their agent Dr. No;
ex-SMERSH operative Rosa Klebb is in charge of the mission. She
recruits Donald "Red" Grant as an assassin and Tatiana
Romanova, a cipher clerk at the Soviet consulate in Istanbul, as the
unwitting bait. Bond travels to Turkey and meets with Ali Kerim Bey,
the MI6 officer in Turkey. Between them, they obtain the Lektor, and
the three attempt to escape with the device on the Orient Express
followed by Grant.
Following the success of
Dr. No, United Artists approved a sequel, doubling the budget
available for the producers. In addition to filming on location in
Turkey, the action scenes were shot both in Scotland and Pinewood
Studios, Buckinghamshire. Production ran over budget and schedule,
and had to rush to finish by its scheduled October 1963 release date.
From Russia with Love was a critical and commercial success, taking
over $78 million in worldwide box office receipts, more than its
predecessor Dr. No.
Following the financial
success of Dr. No, United Artists greenlit a second James Bond film.
The studio doubled the budget offered to Eon Productions with $2
million, and also approved a bonus for Sean Connery, who would
receive $100,000 along with his $54,000 salary. As President John F.
Kennedy had named Fleming's novel From Russia with Love among his ten
favourite books of all time in Life magazine, producers Broccoli and
Saltzman chose this as the follow-up to Bond's cinematic debut in Dr.
No. From Russia with Love was the last film President Kennedy saw at
the White House on November 20th 1963 before going to Dallas. Most of
the crew from the first film returned, with major exceptions being
production designer Ken Adam, who went to work on Dr. Strangelove and
was replaced by Dr. No's art director Syd Cain, title designer
Maurice Binder was replaced by Robert Brownjohn and stunt coordinator
Bob Simmons was unavailable and was replaced by Peter Perkins though
Simmons performed stunts in the film. John Barry replaced Monty
Norman as composer of the soundtrack.
The film introduced several
conventions which would become essential elements of the series: a
pre-title sequence, the Blofeld character (referred in the film only
as "Number 1"), a secret-weapon gadget for Bond, a
helicopter sequence, a postscript action scene after the main climax,
a theme song with lyrics, and the line "James Bond will
return/be back" in the credits.
Ian Fleming's novel was a
Cold War thriller; however, the producers named the crime syndicate
SPECTRE instead of the Soviet undercover agency SMERSH so as to avoid
controversial political overtones. The SPECTRE training grounds were
inspired by the film Spartacus. The original screenwriter was Len
Deighton, but he was replaced because of a lack of progress. Thus two
of Dr. No's writers, Johanna Harwood and Richard Maibaum, were
returned for the second film in the series. Harwood stated in an
interview in Cinema Retro that her screenplay for From Russia with
Love had followed Fleming's novel closely but left the series due to
what she called Terence Young's constant rewriting of her screenplay
with ideas that were not in the original Fleming work. Maibaum kept
on making rewrites as filming progressed. Red Grant was added to the
Istanbul scenes just prior to the film crew's trip to Turkey, a
change that brought more focus to the SPECTRE plot, as Grant started
saving Bond's life there (a late change during shooting involved
Grant killing the bespectacled spy at Hagia Sophia instead of Bond,
who ends up just finding the man dead). For the last quarter of the
movie, Maibaum added two chase scenes, with a helicopter and
speed-boats, and changed the location of Bond and Klebb's battle from
Paris to Venice.
Untitled
Although uncredited, the
actor who played Number 1 was Anthony Dawson, who had played
Professor Dent in the previous Bond film, Dr. No. In the end credits,
Blofeld is credited with a question mark. Blofeld's voice was
provided by Viennese actor Eric Pohlmann. Peter Burton was
unavailable to return as Major Boothroyd, so Desmond Llewelyn, who
was a fan of the Bond comic strip published in the Daily Express,
accepted the part. However, screen credit for Llewelyn was omitted at
the opening of the film and is reserved for the exit credits, where
he is credited simply as 'Boothroyd'. Llewelyn's character is not
referred to by this name in dialogue, but M does introduce him as
being from Q Branch. Llewelyn remained as the character, better known
as Q, in all but two of the series' films until his death in 1999.
Many
actresses were considered for the role of Tatiana, including Sylva
Koscina, Virna Lisi, Annette Vadim, and Tania Mallet. 1960 Miss
Universe runner-up Daniela Bianchi (right) was ultimately cast,
supposedly Sean Connery's choice. Bianchi started taking English
classes for the role, but the producers ultimately chose to dub her
voice over. The scene in which Bond finds Tatiana in his hotel bed
was used for Daniela Bianchi's screen test, with Dawson standing in,
this time, as Bond. The scene later became the traditional screen
test scene for prospective James Bond actors and Bond Girls.
Katina Paxinou was
considered for the role of Rosa Klebb, but was unavailable. Terence
Young cast Lotte Lenya after hearing one of her musical recordings.
Young wanted Kronsteen's portrayer to be "an actor with a
remarkable face", so the minor character would be well
remembered by audiences. This led to the casting of Vladek Sheybal,
who Young also considered convincing as an intellectual. Several
women were tested for the roles of Vida and Zora, the two fighting
gypsy girls, and after Aliza Gur and Martine Beswick were cast, they
spent six weeks practising their fight choreography with stunt work
arranger Peter Perkins.
Pedro
Armendáriz (pictured left with Connery) was recommended to
Young by director John Ford to play Kerim Bey. After experiencing
increasing discomfort on location in Istanbul, Armendáriz was
diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Filming in Istanbul was terminated,
the production moved to Britain, and Armendáriz's scenes were
brought forward so that he could complete his scenes without delay.
Though visibly in pain, he continued working as long as possible.
When he could no longer work, he returned home, and took his own
life. Remaining shots after Armendáriz left London had a stunt
double and Terence Young himself as stand-ins.
Joe Robinson was a strong
contender for the role of Red Grant but it was given to Robert Shaw
(pictured below). Shaw built himself up for the role and wore lifts
to give him height. Shaw (August 9th 1927 to August 28th 1978) was an
English actor and novelist. With his menacing mutter and intimidating
demeanor, he was often cast as villains. He is not only best
remembered for his performance in From Russia with Love (1963) but in
A Man for All Seasons (1966 - for which he was nominated for a Golden
Globe and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), The Sting
(1973), the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), Black
Sunday (1977), Force 10 from Navarone (1978), The Deep (1977) and
Jaws (1975), in which he played the shark hunter Quint.
Most
of the film was set in Istanbul, Turkey. Locations included the
Basilica Cistern, Hagia Sophia, and the Sirkeci Station which also
was used for the Belgrade and Zagreb railway stations. The MI6 office
in London, SPECTRE Island, the Venice hotel and the interior scenes
of the Orient Express were filmed at Pinewood Studios with some
footage of the train. In the film, the train journey was set in
Eastern Europe. The journey and the truck ride were shot in Argyll,
Scotland and Switzerland. The end scenes for the film were shot in
Venice. However, to qualify for the British film funding of the time,
at least 70% of the film had to have been filmed in Great Britain or
the Commonwealth. The gypsy camp was also to be filmed in an actual
camp in Topkapi, but was actually shot in a replica of it in
Pinewood. The scene with rats (after the theft of the Lektor) was
shot in Spain, as Britain did not allow filming with wild rats, and
filming white rats painted in cocoa did not work. Principal
photography began on 1 April 1963, and wrapped on 23 August.
Director Terence Young's
eye for realism was evident throughout production. For the opening
chess match, Kronsteen wins the game with a re-enactment of Boris
Spassky's victory over David Bronstein in 1960. Production Designer
Syd Cain built up the "chess pawn" motif in his $150,000
set for the brief sequence. A noteworthy gadget featured was the
attaché case issued by Q-Branch. It had a tear gas bomb that
detonated if it was improperly opened, a folding AR-7 sniper rifle
with twenty rounds of ammunition, a throwing knife, and 50 gold
sovereigns. A boxer at Cambridge, Young choreographed the fight
between Grant and Bond along with stunt co-ordinator Peter Perkins.
The scene took three weeks to film and was violent enough to worry
some on the production. Yet Robert Shaw and Connery did most of the
stunts themselves.
After
the unexpected loss of actor Pedro Armendáriz, production on
the film proceeded, experiencing complications from rewriting by
Richard Maibaum during filming. Editor Peter Hunt set about editing
the film while key elements were still to be filmed, helping to
restructure the opening scenes. Hunt and Young conceived of moving
the training exercise on a Bond double to preface the main title, a
signature feature that has been an enduring hallmark of every Bond
film since. The briefing with Blofeld was rewritten, and back
projection was used to re-film Lotte Lenya's (left) lines.
Behind schedule and
over-budget, the production crew struggled to complete production in
time for the already-announced premiere date that October. On July
6th 1963, while scouting locations in Argyll, Scotland for that day's
filming of the climactic boat chase, Terence Young's helicopter
crashed into the water with Art Director Michael White and a
cameraman aboard. The craft sank into 40–50 feet (12–15 m)
of water, but all escaped with minor injuries. Despite the calamity,
Young was behind the camera for the full day's work. A few days
later, Bianchi's driver fell asleep during the commute to a 6 am
shoot and crashed the car; the actress' face was bruised, and
Bianchi's scenes had to be delayed two weeks while these facial
contusions healed.
The
helicopter and boat chase scenes were not in the original novel, but
were added to create an action climax. The former was inspired by
Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and the latter by a previous Young/Broccoli/Maibaum
collaboration, The Red Beret. These two scenes would initially be
shot in Istanbul, but were moved to Scotland; the speed-boats could
not run fast enough due to the many waves in the sea, and a rented
boat filled with cameras ended up sinking in the Bosphorus. A
helicopter was also hard to obtain, the special effects crew were
nearly arrested trying to get one at a local air base. The helicopter
chase was filmed with a radio controlled miniature helicopter. The
sounds of the boat chase were replaced in post-production since the
boats were not loud enough, and the explosion, shot in Pinewood, got
out of control, burning Walter Gotell's eyelids, and seriously
injuring three stuntmen.
Photographer David Hurn was
commissioned by the producers of the James Bond films to shoot a
series of stills with Sean Connery and the actresses of the film.
When the theatrical property Walther PPK pistol did not arrive, Hurn
volunteered the use of his own Walther LP-53 air pistol. Though the
photographs of the "James Bond is Back" posters of the US
release airbrushed out the long barrel of the pistol, film poster
artist Renato Fratini used the long-barrelled pistol for his drawings
of Connery on the British posters. For the opening credits, Maurice
Binder had disagreements with the producers and did not want to
return. Designer Robert Brownjohn stepped into his place, and
projected the credits on female dancers, inspired by constructivist
artist László Moholy-Nagy projecting light onto clouds
in the 1920s. Brownjohn's work started the tradition of scantily clad
women on the Bond's title sequences.
From
Russia with Love is the first Bond film in the series with John
Barry as the primary soundtrack composer. The theme song was composed
by Lionel Bart of Oliver! fame and sung by Matt Monro, although the
title credit music is a lively instrumental version of the tune
beginning with Barry's brief James Bond is Back then segueing into
Monty Norman's "James Bond Theme". Monro's vocal version is
later played during the film (as source music on a radio) and
properly over the film's end titles. Barry travelled with the crew to
Turkey to try getting influences of the local music, but ended up
using almost nothing, just local instruments such as finger cymbals
to give an exotic feeling, since he thought the Turkish music had a
comedic tone that did not fit in the "dramatic feeling" of
the James Bond movies.
In this film, Barry
introduced the percussive theme "007" action music that
came to be considered the 'secondary James Bond Theme'. He composed
it to have a lighter, enthusiastic and more adventurous theme, in
order to relax the audiences. The arrangement appears twice on the
soundtrack album; the second version, entitled "007 Takes the
Lektor", is the one used during the gunfight at the gypsy camp
and also during Bond's theft of the Lektor decoding machine. The
completed film features a holdover from the Monty Norman-supervised
Dr. No music; the post-rocket-launch music from Dr. No is played in
From Russia with Love during the helicopter and speed-boat attacks.
From Russia with Love
premiered on October 10th 1963 at the Odeon Leicester Square in
London. The following year, it was released in 16 countries
worldwide, with the United States premiere on April 8th 1964, at New
York's Astor Theatre. Upon its first release, From Russia with Love
doubled Dr. No's gross by earning $12.5 million at the worldwide box
office and was the most popular movie at the British box office in 1963.
AV
CLUB FEATURETTE DEPARTMENT
Untitled
Sean Connery returns as
James Bond in this thrill-a-minute adventure featuring remarkable
villains, beautiful women and exotic locales! This time, Bond squares
off against the evil SPECTRE organization in a race to seize a Soviet
decoding machine, thrusting him into a thrilling boat chase, a brutal
helicopter attack and a deadly brawl aboard the Orient Express. Add
From Russia With Love to your DVD collection.
The film's cinematographer
Ted Moore won the BAFTA award and the British Society of
Cinematographers award for Best Cinematography. At the 1965 Laurel
Awards, Lotte Lenya stood third for Best Female Supporting
Performance, and the film secured second place in the Action-Drama
category. The film was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for
Best Original Song for "From Russia with Love".
Reviews in the day included
Richard Roud, writing in The Guardian (comparing the film to its
predecessor, Dr. No) "(From Russia with Love) didn't seem quite
so lively, quite so fresh, or quite so rhythmically fast-moving."
"The film is highly immoral in every imaginable way; it is
neither uplifting, instructive nor life-enhancing. Neither is it
great film-making. But it sure is fun." Bosley Crowther of The
New York Times said: "Don't miss it! This is to say, don't miss
it if you can still get the least bit of fun out of lurid adventure
fiction and pseudo-realistic fantasy. For this mad melodramatization
of a desperate adventure of Bond with sinister characters in Istanbul
and on the Orient Express is fictional exaggeration on a grand scale
and in a dashing style, thoroughly illogical and improbable, but with
tongue blithely wedged in cheek."
Many reflective reviews
today place From Russia as one of the best Bond film of all time. In
his 1986 book, Danny Peary described From Russia with Love as,
"an excellent, surprisingly tough and gritty James Bond
film" which is "refreshingly free of the gimmickry that
would characterise the later Bond films." Film critic James
Berardinelli cited this as his favourite Bond film, writing "Only
From Russia with Love avoids slipping into the comic book realm of
Goldfinger and its successors while giving us a sampling of the
familiar Bond formula (action, gadgets, women, cars, etc.). From
Russia with Love is effectively paced and plotted, features a gallery
of detestable rogues (including the ultimate Bond villain, Blofeld),
and offers countless thrills ". In June 2001, Neil Smith of BBC
Films called it, "a film that only gets better with age".
Sean Connery, Michael G.
Wilson, Barbara Broccoli, Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig also
consider this their favourite Bond film. Albert Broccoli listed it
with Goldfinger and The Spy Who Loved Me as one of his top three
favourites, explaining that he felt "it was with this film that
the Bond style and formula were perfected".
In
2005, the From Russia with Love video game was developed by
Electronic Arts and released in November 2005. It follows the
storyline of the book and film, albeit adding in new scenes, making
it more action-oriented. One of the most significant changes to the
story is the replacement of the organisation SPECTRE to OCTOPUS
because the name SPECTRE constituted a long-running legal dispute
over the film rights to Thunderball between United Artists/MGM and
the late writer Kevin McClory. Most of the cast from the film
returned in likeness. Connery not only allowed his 1960s likeness as
Bond to be used, but the actor, in his 70s, also recorded the
character's dialogue, marking a return to the role 22 years after he
last played Bond in Never Say Never Again. Featuring a third-person
multiplayer deathmatch mode, the game depicts several elements of
later Bond films such as the Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger (1964)
and the rocketbelt from Thunderball (1965). The game was penned by
Bruce Feirstein who previously worked on the film scripts for
GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, and the 2004
video game, Everything or Nothing.
AV
CLUB SLIDESHOW DEPARTMENT
My Neat Stuff Slideshow - Jssor Slider, Slideshow with Javascript Source Code
Many
actresses were considered for the role of Tatiana, including Sylva
Koscina, Virna Lisi, Annette Vadim, and Tania Mallet. 1960 Miss
Universe runner-up Daniela Bianchi (right) was ultimately cast,
supposedly Sean Connery's choice. Bianchi started taking English
classes for the role, but the producers ultimately chose to dub her
voice over. The scene in which Bond finds Tatiana in his hotel bed
was used for Daniela Bianchi's screen test, with Dawson standing in,
this time, as Bond. The scene later became the traditional screen
test scene for prospective James Bond actors and Bond Girls.
Pedro
Armendáriz (pictured left with Connery) was recommended to
Young by director John Ford to play Kerim Bey. After experiencing
increasing discomfort on location in Istanbul, Armendáriz was
diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Filming in Istanbul was terminated,
the production moved to Britain, and Armendáriz's scenes were
brought forward so that he could complete his scenes without delay.
Though visibly in pain, he continued working as long as possible.
When he could no longer work, he returned home, and took his own
life. Remaining shots after Armendáriz left London had a stunt
double and Terence Young himself as stand-ins.
Most
of the film was set in Istanbul, Turkey. Locations included the
Basilica Cistern, Hagia Sophia, and the Sirkeci Station which also
was used for the Belgrade and Zagreb railway stations. The MI6 office
in London, SPECTRE Island, the Venice hotel and the interior scenes
of the Orient Express were filmed at Pinewood Studios with some
footage of the train. In the film, the train journey was set in
Eastern Europe. The journey and the truck ride were shot in Argyll,
Scotland and Switzerland. The end scenes for the film were shot in
Venice. However, to qualify for the British film funding of the time,
at least 70% of the film had to have been filmed in Great Britain or
the Commonwealth. The gypsy camp was also to be filmed in an actual
camp in Topkapi, but was actually shot in a replica of it in
Pinewood. The scene with rats (after the theft of the Lektor) was
shot in Spain, as Britain did not allow filming with wild rats, and
filming white rats painted in cocoa did not work. Principal
photography began on 1 April 1963, and wrapped on 23 August.
After
the unexpected loss of actor Pedro Armendáriz, production on
the film proceeded, experiencing complications from rewriting by
Richard Maibaum during filming. Editor Peter Hunt set about editing
the film while key elements were still to be filmed, helping to
restructure the opening scenes. Hunt and Young conceived of moving
the training exercise on a Bond double to preface the main title, a
signature feature that has been an enduring hallmark of every Bond
film since. The briefing with Blofeld was rewritten, and back
projection was used to re-film Lotte Lenya's (left) lines.
The
helicopter and boat chase scenes were not in the original novel, but
were added to create an action climax. The former was inspired by
Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and the latter by a previous Young/Broccoli/Maibaum
collaboration, The Red Beret. These two scenes would initially be
shot in Istanbul, but were moved to Scotland; the speed-boats could
not run fast enough due to the many waves in the sea, and a rented
boat filled with cameras ended up sinking in the Bosphorus. A
helicopter was also hard to obtain, the special effects crew were
nearly arrested trying to get one at a local air base. The helicopter
chase was filmed with a radio controlled miniature helicopter. The
sounds of the boat chase were replaced in post-production since the
boats were not loud enough, and the explosion, shot in Pinewood, got
out of control, burning Walter Gotell's eyelids, and seriously
injuring three stuntmen.
adventure
fiction and pseudo-realistic fantasy. For this mad melodramatization
of a desperate adventure of Bond with sinister characters in Istanbul
and on the Orient Express is fictional exaggeration on a grand scale
and in a dashing style, thoroughly illogical and improbable, but with
tongue blithely wedged in cheek."
In
2005, the From Russia with Love video game was developed by
Electronic Arts and released in November 2005. It follows the
storyline of the book and film, albeit adding in new scenes, making
it more action-oriented. One of the most significant changes to the
story is the replacement of the organisation SPECTRE to OCTOPUS
because the name SPECTRE constituted a long-running legal dispute
over the film rights to Thunderball between United Artists/MGM and
the late writer Kevin McClory. Most of the cast from the film
returned in likeness. Connery not only allowed his 1960s likeness as
Bond to be used, but the actor, in his 70s, also recorded the
character's dialogue, marking a return to the role 22 years after he
last played Bond in Never Say Never Again. Featuring a third-person
multiplayer deathmatch mode, the game depicts several elements of
later Bond films such as the Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger (1964)
and the rocketbelt from Thunderball (1965). The game was penned by
Bruce Feirstein who previously worked on the film scripts for
GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, and the 2004
video game, Everything or Nothing.
