Dr. No (1961)

Miss Taro: What should I say to an invitation from a strange gentleman?
James Bond: You should say yes.
Miss Taro: [shaking her head] I should say maybe.

This was night 1 of what will likely be 25.

I'd never seen Dr. No before and I gotta say it is rather strange and off-putting. There are things that I enjoyed, things I found bizarre and things I would call simply wrong.

So here's what I liked.

1. Technical elements
1. The music is spot on 
2. I loved the foley elements. The cars sounded like old cars. The punches, scratch and stepping on concrete sounds were excellent
3. As this is the first, I want to give my hats off to director Terrence Young for being bold enough to jump into a 60 mod infusion during the opening credits. 
2. Range of shot selection
1. Much of modern cinema is for my tastes too close to the actors or too far or often times flying or spinning or trying to make the audience lose their sense of balance. Shot in a more theatrical 180 degree rule, mid-range shots allowed for a lot more body expression from actors as well as made the change to close up or wide shot stand out more. 
3. Space
1. Dr. No is set in Jamaica. They made good use of the vistas and roads of Jamaica. 
2. With camera further away, James Bond had a lot more cinematic space to run around in. 
4. Locations/sets
1. The beaches, jungle, and Jamaica were lovely
2. The indoor sets are over the top 1960s and Dr. No's lair is a masterpiece of modern design/camp. 
5. Color
1. I love older movies for their color.  They're just so vivid. Dr. No is colorful almost dreamlike movie. The oceans are blue, the grasses are green, the dresses and suits alive with color. 
6. World building
1. As this is the first James Bond, it has no lore to throw back to. You can tell. James has to put a hair on his closet as security, switch vodkas in case of poison, and eat because he doesn't know when he will next. 
7. The terror stuff
1. The "dragon" looks like the deathmobile from Animal House and I loved it. 
2. Given the general mid-range shot selection the tarantula attack and its close ups stood out as pretty scary. 

Here's what I found bizarre.

1. Dr. No
1. What a strange strange villain. He has no technical expertise. No emotion. No reason that I could understand behind his villainy, but he does have mech-hands that can crush so.....
2. The plot
1. It was not clear to me at any point what was the connection between the radioactive things and the missile launch in the US.  How did all that work? Why were they trying to mess it up? What was the goal of the enemy? It also made no sense how James blew up the station? Flip a lever and the alarms for chaos sound?  Oh, and I had forgotten that Spectre was in all this from the beginning. 
3. The level of sophistication of the audience
1. There are so many hole that I had to overlook in Dr. No: Logic jumps. Time jumps. Distance jumps. None of it made sense. But when I think back to those alive in 1961, my guess is that it didn't have to.  The movie was about the experience, not the consistency of the story. Also, perhaps one simply needed less concrete writing to achieve success in 1961? Make something radioactive today and we all say...whoa! and then move on to the why? and how? and is that radiation dangerous?  but in 1961, make something radioactive and suddenly the rock is poison capable of anything full of doom, fear, and panic. 
4. The sound/accents
1. This may have been a factor of my set up, but as loud as I made it, I couldn't quite hear all the words of their British, Jamacian, or American accents clearly.  It's like they wanted to record it all a little garbled. 

Here's what I found to be simply wrong.

1. Whitecasting
1. The only medium speaking role for a woman in the film is supposed to be asian (Miss Taro). The actress cast to play her is european british (Zena Marshall). I know because there are other asian women in subservient roles in Dr. No that this casting decision is a reflection of cultural/social biases. 
2. Sexism
1. The appearance of Ursula Andress as Honey Rider achieves its goal. She is an object for James Bond. This is a long standing problem in storytelling and most particularly in James Bond, but it continues to be wrong. James also manages to have flings with 3 other women within the movie, all of which are predicated on sexism. Oh and the woman who is murdered in scene 1, I don't think she gets a name -simply called secretary and a comment that she was very attractive. She was played by Dolores Keator. 
3. Old boyisms
1. James is only comfortable drinking, smoking, and gaming in a club kinda way.  At the beginning of the film he is in a club gambling. In Jamaica he spends his time at the club drinking and gambling. And MI6 is really just a club that he works for. He's not really one for getting out of his comfort zone. 
4. Racist-tropes
1. I think that in 1961 James Bond having an African/Jamaican sidekick (Quarrel) with lines, a backstory, and a personality was progress. But, it didn't help that he went to a tropical island with James Bond and Honey Rider after complaining about how he knew that Crab Key gave him a bad feeling wearing a red shirt. RIP Quarrel, you fought that flame-throwing dragon car/tank bravely. 

On a scale of no handed villain with no emotions to a multi-handed villain with all the emotions, I give Dr. No 2.6 out of 5 stars.