Dr. No

John Strangways and his secretary are gunned down by a trio of assassins known as "The Three Blind Mice". They ransack his apartment, rooting through his files until they locate the one marked "Dr. No", and take off with it. Strangways was killed just before one of his regular radio contacts with MI6. With the blood of the deceased still drying on the carpet, MI6 dispatches James Bond to Jamaica to investigate.

Upon arriving in Jamaica, Bond learns Strangways was working in conjunction with Felix Leiter, another field agent. Leiter, an American CIA operative, is looking for the source of a high-powered radio jammer, which is strong enough to override the control on NASA's launch operations, not to mention interfere with missile guidance controls. Bond, with the assistance of a local fisherman named Quarrel, determines the most likely location of the jamming equipment is a small, privately-owned nearby island called Crab Key. A number of disappearances are associated with the island, along with rumors of a dragon, which are enough to keep the superstitious locals at bay but pique Leiter and Bond's curiosity. Bond infiltrates the island after surviving several assassination attempts (including one via venomous tarantula, which is one of the film's most iconic scenes) and discovers Crab Key is owned by the enigmatic Dr. No.

The bad doctor formerly worked for a Chinese crime syndicate, but stole ten million dollars worth of precious metals (the 1962 equivalent of $86 million in 2020), joined with the terrorist organization SPECTRE, and now works as one of their worldwide network of operators. Dr. No's goal is to use his radio jammer to interfere with the Project Mercury launch at Cape Canaveral, destabilizing the rocket and hopefully escalating tensions between the US and Russia. Naturally he sees the value of someone with Bond's skill set and tempts Bond to abandon his MI6 affiliations. But James is no traitor to the crown, so all he has to do is escape from his cell and bring No's criminal empire to an explosive ending.

Everybody remembers Bond differently.

Unsurprising, since he's been played by more than half a dozen different men over the years (and that's discounting the travesty that is the original Casino Royale), so chances are your first Bond experience is different from mine. I know that, over the years, I've seen most, if not all, of the pre-Brosnan, "classic" era films, but I honestly couldn't tell you which was the first because, in my brain, they all sort of run together. That's what happens when you catch snippets of them over the years, on television or rented from the local video store, watched haphazardly with a cluster of friends. It would not be a stretch, however, to say the first one I ever saw in the theater was Tomorrow Never Dies.

Of course, just as everyone remembers Bond differently, everyone also has their own opinion on who made for the best casting choice for the character. If you're my mom, then the answer is "Sean Connery", because she's old enough to have seen Dr. No when it premiered in the cinemas of the day and has been crushing on him ever since. If you're my wife, then the answer is "Pierce Brosnan", because similar reasons. If you're @modernzorker though (you aren't, but bear with me here), the answer is...unclear.

Roger Moore is the first actor I associate with the character, so one of his films was probably my introduction to the franchise, but I honestly don't think I'm well-informed enough to make a definitive say in the matter. However, being in possession of a LaserDisc player and seventeen Bond movies, I realized I was in a great position to start my research. Naturally there's no better place to begin than the beginning, and thus the Criterion edition of Dr. No was spun.

I enjoyed the hell out of Dr. No. And I don't just mean the movie by itself, but I mean the experience of watching it as well. Made on a budget of only $1 million, it's absolutely incredible how well much of the movie holds up today. The sets, while grand, don't hold a candle to the insane designs we'd see in future installments, and the special effects aren't blow-your-socks-off the way they will be in future years, but in a pre-Industrial Light and Magic world, it exudes a confident swagger that dares you to try to keep up.

The 'disc presentation is awesome as well. I've seen Dr. No before, but every version I've watched has been of the "cleaned up, digitally remastered, remove-all-the-flaws" variety. There's nothing wrong with that, but there's something extra special about seeing the defects of 60's-era film that preserves the charm, and this Criterion edition of the movie retains a beautiful picture while keeping true to the theatrical experience. The cigarette burns marking reel changes are there. The little flaws in the print, the things which so clearly identify it as a movie we're watching instead of a reality we're inhabiting, somehow make it feel more real, not less. The original mono audio track is there in all its basic glory: no enhancements, no upgrades, no shaking or stirring, it just is.

There are jumpy camera cuts, magnified stock footage of goldfish, obvious rear projection work, and a million other little brush strokes revealing the production's flaws. But holy cow, are there a million other little bits that all fit together beautifully to tell this crazy story.

Most importantly, we get a Bond who is exceptional, but not perfect. Not indestructible. The tarantula attack leaves him flustered, shaken to his core, hair flying in disarray, as he savagely attacks the creature with his shoe and each strike is punctuated by the soundtrack. In his first fight, he comes away with rumpled clothes and bloody knuckles. Connery is Bond, to the very core, whether he's listening to Dr. No explain his nefarious plan over dinner, calmly interrogating a would-be assassin once he's got the drop on them, or raising his arms in surrender after watching a friend barbecued by a flame-throwing tank. Some people just have charisma -- Connery in 1962 ran up a deficit that every other dude in the world is still struggling to pay off more than half a century later. He's a chameleon, fully adaptable to the situation: suave, uninhibited, restrained, stone-cold, or all of the above as the job warrants.

What stands out more to me than Connery, though, is Joseph Wiseman's portrayal of the film's namesake. Wiseman is tasked with playing an enigmatic character: an ultra-intelligent yet emotionally-stunted man of German/Chinese descent, born to parents who wanted nothing to do with him. Wiseman's Dr. Julius No is a man who has suffered great misfortune, including the loss of his hands due to exposure to high levels of radiation. To facilitate his work, his hands have been replaced with crude bionic implants which give him considerable grip strength but almost no manual dexterity. After stealing a fortune from one of the Chinese Tongs who employed him, No approached first the US government, and then later the Soviets, with offers to work with them on their nuclear programs. Like his biological parents, both of his would-be adoptive countries laughed him off, and so he's made it his mission in life to bring them both to their knees by turning the Cold War hot. And yet, despite his emotionless delivery and the villainy he is poised to perpetrate by unleashing World War III, Dr. No still elicits a measure of sympathy thanks to Wiseman's portrayal of him as a man who takes nothing personally, who casually deflects Bond's attempts to rile him up, and who still offers him a place with SPECTRE despite being openly mocked by Bond only a few minutes earlier. Connery makes Bond larger than life, but Wiseman stands every bit his equal in the sinister mastermind department.

I couldn't tell you the last time I had so much fun just watching a movie. Dr. No is such a roller coaster ride of set pieces and stunts I couldn't help but fall in love. I freely admit, it's very much cinema made with a male gaze of wish fulfillment that, if made today, would reek of testosterone poisoning. But damn it, I still enjoyed watching it and I'm not going to deny that.

Dr. No had an enormous cultural impact as well. It set off the massive obsession with espionage across film, television, and literature. Ursula Andress, as the first "Bond Girl", did more to push sales of two-piece swimsuits than any advertising executive or campaign. Shows like The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Saint, and Mission Impossible all owe a debt of gratitude to Bond. The "Men's Adventure" genre, which spent a solid twenty-plus years as a mainstay fixture of bookstores thanks to series like The Executioner, has Ian Fleming to thank for paving the way. Heck, without Dr. No and its follow-ups, an abundance of parodies and homages (everything from Our Man Flynt and Johnny English to Inspector Gadget and Get Smart!, not to mention the obvious Austin Powers trilogy) wouldn't exist.

I'm not going to rate this one. I know, I know, a review should come with a rating, but just this once, it feels somehow inappropriate. Dr. No is a cultural touchstone, a classic of cinema, and it is both for all the right reasons. It isn't perfect, but I cannot hold that against any movie which made me so giddy with enjoyment. It deserves better than being reduced to just a number, and earns its Criterion collection status with every frame.