I Watch Films: Dr No

 

Dr No

Strangways, British Intelligence chief in Jamaica is killed*. James Bond, 007, is located in a high stakes casino and is ordered to investigate this and take over his cases – the most urgent being the toppling of American rockets in Cape Canaveral with high powered radio beams. He goes straight to Jamaica, only pausing to have sex with a woman from the casino who has inexplicably broken into his flat to play golf while wearing one of Bond’s shirts.

Arriving a car comes to pick him up; checking by phone government house hasn’t sent one. He gets in anyway, captures the driver, who kills himself with a cigarette. Bond, perplexed by this, continues with his investigation.

This is the first James Bond film, and they haven’t quite figured out what they’re doing with it. Bond is by turns reckless, arrogant, cunning and callous. He shoots a man with an empty gun. He treats Quarrell, his navigator, with contempt, thinking the stories of the dragon superstition, yet accepts his intuitive sailing. He’s at his best when facing his opponent, the mysterious Dr No, with the actors deciding to dig in on the scene. Yet in the end the two of them have little to say to each other; Dr No attempts to recruit him before deciding not to bother as he’s just a stupid policeman. Meanwhile Dr No has no real response to Bond’s taunts, effectively conceding that he may be a superior criminal, but that's just another criminal.

The film spends a lot more time with Bond, Quarrell and Honey Rider wandering through the swamps, jungles and beaches of Crab Key than I remembered, perhaps because they add little to plot, character, mood or anything else.

Watch This: Competent 60s spy thriller that went on to spawn everything
Don’t Watch This: Man goes to Jamaica, causes a nuclear meltdown
And Previously: Thoughts from an earlier viewing

* It’s perhaps worth noting that this film was released in 1962, 2 months after Jamaica became independent; inevitably with the lag between production and release it’s set while still a Crown Colony. When Dr No accuses James Bond of being “just a stupid policeman,” he’s correct, Bond is quite literally policing for the government.