James Bond Review #2: From Russia With Love

Beta Boy | November 18, 2008 | 0 Comments

From Russia With Love

From Russia With Love continues Sean Connery’s fame as arguably the best James bond of the series. It is also one of Connery’s favorite bond films, one which introduces secret agent gadgets with Desmond Llewelyn as the “Q” we all know and love. We also see the well known numbering system of villains, a bald villain with a cat, and a bond girl with a non-sexual name. Make no mistake, these things make for an excellent bond movie.

Plot:

In a mansion garden late at night, James Bond is alternately stalking and being stalked by a blond assassin. Bond is captured and strangled violently to death by the man named Red Grant, using razor wire hidden in a watch. Suddenly, huge floodlights switch on and the dead person turns out to be a man wearing Bond’s disguise. This completes SPECTRE’s training exercise.

Kronsteen, a chess grandmaster, and SPECTRE’s expert planner, has devised a plot to steal a LEKTOR coding device from the Russians and sell it back to them, and also punish MI6(the British Secret Service) for killing their agent Dr. No. Rosa Klebb, a Russian double-agent for SPECTRE and probably lesbian, is put in charge of the mission by the megalomaniac Blofeld. She has already chosen a female pawn: Tatania Romanova, a cypher clerk at the Soviet consulate in Istanbul. Klebb departs to SPECTRE Island, the organization’s secret training base, and approves Red Grant as an assassin.

In London, Bond has bedded down, for the second movie, Sylvia Trench, until he is called Tatiana Romanova away on agent business. M tells Bond that Romanova has contacted their operatives in Turkey, offering to defect with a LEKTOR, which MI6 and the CIA have been after for years. She has said that she will only defect to Bond. bond is suited up with a briefcase, containing hidden ammunition, throwing knives, a sniper rife with infra-red scope, fifty gold sovereigns, and tear gas to booby trap the suitcase. This would begin the gadgetry that becomes a staple for 007 movies.

Bond flies to Istanbul to meet station head Ali Kerim Bey. He is followed from the airport by an unkempt man in glasses, and by Red Grant.

The next day, after Kerim Bey’s office is bombed, Bond and Kerim Bey spy on the Soviet consulate using a periscope from an underground tunnel beneath the consulate. Seeing rival agent Krilencu, Kerim Bey takes Bond to a rural settlement, where Kerim Bey plans to lie low while deciding how to deal with Krilencu. However the camp is attacked by Krilencu’s men. Grant, lurking nearby, shoots a man who is about to kill Bond. Although he is wounded in the attack, Kerim Bey kills Krilencu the next night with Bond’s sniper rifle. When Bond returns to his hotel suite, he finds Romanova in bed waiting for him. Bond and Romanova make love, unaware that they are being filmed by Grant and Klebb.

The next day, Romanova heads off for a pre-arranged rendezvous. Bond follows her and stalks the bespectacled man who had followed him at the airport. But unknown to Bond, the man is killed by Grant. When Bond finds the body, he also finds the floor plans for the Soviet consulate that Tatiana was smuggling out for him. Kerim Bey and Bond set up a plan to steal the LEKTOR and smuggle it back to Britain. On the appointed day, Bond enters the consulate lobby. Kerim Bey then sets off an explosion under the building, releasing tear gas. In the resulting chaos, Bond finds Romanova and escapes with the LEKTOR on the Orient Express. Kerim Bey and a Soviet security officer named Benz, who recognises Romanova, also board the train, but Grant stealthily kills both of them, making it seem as if they killed each other.

The train crosses southern-central Europe to Belgrade. There Bond arranges for agent Nash from “Station ‘Y’” to meet him at Zagreb. Grant intercepts and kills Nash, boards the train, and meets Bond as Nash. He drugs Romanova at dinner with a knock-out pill in her wine, then overcomes Bond. Grant taunts him, boasting SPECTRE has been pitting the Soviets and the British against each other. He also claims that Romanova thinks that “she’s working for mother Russia” when she is really working for SPECTRE. Bond offers to buy his last cigarette for 50 gold sovereigns, luring Grant to open his briefcase, which releases tear gas. In the ensuing struggle, Bond stabs Grant with the throwing knife hidden in the briefcase, and then strangles Bad-Ass Bond Fight Grant with his own razor wire. At dawn, Bond and Romanova leave the train, hijack Grant’s getaway truck, destroy an enemy helicopter by sniping the pilot who drops a live grenade, and drive to a dock, eventually boarding a powerboat.

Blofeld is very unhappy, and summons Kronsteen and Klebb. He reminds them that SPECTRE does not tolerate failure; they blame each other. Blofeld calls in Grant’s trainer Morenzy to carry out the punishment for failure, so he kills Kronsteen with a poisoned spike in the toe of his shoe. Blofeld tells a shaken and perspiring Klebb that she has another chance – but must not fail again.

Klebb sends Morzeny after Bond with a squadron of SPECTRE’s boats. When stray bullets puncture several barrels of fuel stored on his boat, Bond throws them overboard. Pretending to surrender, he fires a flare into the fuel, engulfing all the enemy boats in flames.

Bond and Romanova reach Venice and check into a hotel. Rosa Klebb, disguised as a maid, attempts to steal the Lektor. In the climax, Klebb gets the drop on Bond, and holds him at gunpoint but the gun is knocked away by Romanova. Klebb releases her poisoned toe-spike, but Bond narrowly dodges her kicks and pins her to the wall with a dining chair. Romanova grabs the gun and shoots Klebb. Riding in a boat, Bond throws the illicit film of him and Romanova into the canal, and they sail away.

Randomly Awesome 007 Moments:

1) Bond flips hat onto hat-rack at HQ. Sure, it’s simple, but I like recurring themes.

2) Moneypenny flirtations. They always comes up with great lines that I’d like to use on women myself.

3) Bond watches a good old-fashioned cat-fight at the gypsy camp, and must choose which woman is worthy of marriage to the chief’s son.

4) Ass smacks. Always good for a secret agent to show his stuff.

5) Bond blows up a helicopter!

Randomly Horrible 007 Moments:

1) None. Really, I found nothing to complain about. Except maybe that Romanova doesn’t have a sex name. Not that it’s not sexy, just no bite.

Randomly Awesome Quotes:

1) Tatiana: ”The mechanism is… Oh James, James… Will you make love to me all the time in England?”

James Bond: “Day and night. Go on about the mechanism.”

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