Reviewing Bond: From Russia with Love

Back with another review, picked second on the Bond wheel of fortune is an absolute classic, From Russia with Love (1963). Now this is where the review series turns controversial because I am prepared to say that this is perhaps one of the most overrated films of the franchise. It is, down to its helicopter scene, a straight ripoff of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, a fact producer Albert R. Broccoli even admits in later interviews.

As with the previous review of You Only Live Twice, this film will be rated against the following criteria:

Story & settings

Action sequences

Gadgets and vehicles

Villains and Bond girls

And a wildcard for each!

Story and Setting

Set between Venice and Istanbul, with the Balkans in between, the film spends most of its runtime in one place: Istanbul. A fun fact, the tower in the Bosphorus makes several appearances throughout the franchise, notably appearing as a central location in The World is not Enough (next up for review!). As with many of the earlier films in the franchise, the exotic globe trotting and unique architectural displays of the later films is not exactly on display here. Although the tunnels beneath the embassy was a neat touch, showing us the ancient canals below a city thousands of years old. Apart from that, the setting is mostly confined in close quarters and doesn’t exactly strike me as memorable because it doesn’t have any villain lair (unless you include SPECTRE’s training island). 5/10.

The story is based on Fleming’s most popular novel of the Bond series. SPECTRE is up to no good again, pitting the West against the Soviets. Blofeld has created a honey trap with the help of double agent, Colonel Klebb (Lotte Lenya) to allow 007 to obtain a cutting edge cryptography machine, the Lecter. Throughout the first half of the film we follow Bond through this tightening trap he finds himself in, with his lovable ally Kerim Bey never far from his side. Meanwhile, SPECTRE super-agent Red Grant follows their every move, sabotaging them and setting up more blame games between the West and the Soviets. The story is a slow burner and conventional spy thriller that feels more like a 70s paranoia film than a big Bond action flick. Despite being a slow, if not fairly low stakes mission (retrieve the McGuffin), the character development and homages to Hitchcock are what gives this film its high ranking in the series. Every supporting character is absolutely an all-timer. But it’s not enough to save what is otherwise a bit of a bore.

The story seems to really struggle with pacing, following the novel too closely, something that doesn’t often translate cinematically as some things have to be left on the cutting room floor for the film to really flow. A professor of mine in college once said, “never forget that it’s called a moving picture, it’s supposed to move!” Well this film struggles with moving anywhere in a way that keeps me interested. After an assassination attempt, Kerim Bey hides out with Bond as his guest in a gypsy camp. The film spends way too much time here on something which apart from the gun fight at its conclusion offers no narrative relevance or engaging segue. It is surplus to requirements and visually unsatisfying. Who cares about which gypsy woman will duke it out and kill the other for supremacy and the affections of some man we haven’t even met? All this happens before we get a single action set-piece. This sequence is the perfect way to sum up my boredom when watching this film.

Another major problem with this film is its Bond girl. Only the second to ever occupy this role, I am never really convinced by Daniella Bianchi’s Tatiana Romanova. She’s sort of one-note, just playing it up to Bond. While that is her role: lure Bond in to SMERSH, every scene she is in just drags. Her dialog just begins to feel repetitive. Imagine instead we got someone with the acting chops of Diana Rigg to play Romanova, we would have had so much more to work with and the compelling backstory of Romanova would have found its way from page to screen. Romanova is another reason this film is rather dry and boring.

This setting and story really comes down to taste. I feel that if I wanted to watch a slow-burn Hitchcock film, I would have chosen that instead. As an espionage story, it’s terrific, but as a Bond story, it’s fairly straightforward and middle of the pack because the stakes just aren’t high enough to hold my interest. While it attemps to pay homage to North by Northwest it pales in comparison to that film and its much more engaging action and spy-plot. 6/10 for serious pacing issues and a low stakes story.

Action Sequences

We don’t even get our first bit of real action until the gun fight at the gypsy camp 45 minutes into the film’s runtime. The action rarely picks up from there despite some memorable fights. It is without a doubt the film’s weakest point. For what is supposed to be a big budget spectacle, it falls flat on that front. Even the boat chase at the end feels over before it ever really gets started, with SPECTRE’s henchman making the asinine decision to stop their boats in pursuit of Bond in the middle of his jettisoned oil barrels. No offense but they deserved to get lit up with a contrived mistake like that!

The other major action set-piece is a direct, nearly frame for frame ripoff of the plane sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959). Just like that Hitchcock film does most things better than this outing, it especially does its version of the set-piece better too. The plane diving Cary Grant is so iconic that if you are going to go there and emulate it only four years later (if ever!) you better bring something good to add to it. This film, directed by series mainstay Terrance Young, feels a poor imitation by comparison. I don’t think Terrance Young is a very good action director, and that is born out by all of his Bond outings being light on action and feeling a bit slow. He has a sort of workman quality to his directorial efforts, a studio man and not a singular vision (like Hitchcock). So if you’re going to come for the best, you better come well prepared and From Russia with Love barely holds a candle to North by Northwest.

The only stand-out piece of action to speak of in this film is the very physical and engaging fight between Bond and Red Grant on the train. While the train sequence itself feels a direct rip off of Murder on the Orient Express it does at least give us the most compelling action of the film’s runtime and a fight so iconic that later series installments would pay homage to it (Bond vs. Mr. Hinx in SPECTRE). The entire showdown with Bond and Grant leading up to the fight is a standout in an otherwise dull affair.

A disappointing 4/10 on the action front, this is no Hitchcock film however much it tries to be!

Gadgets and Vehicles

It’s fairly standard espionage equipment here with the good old fashioned well-equipped briefcase courtesy of Q. While it allows Bond to naturally escape a fairly hairy encounter with Blofeld baddie Grant, it’s not exactly inventive stuff as we would come to see in later installments. Since there are no real vehicle sequences to highlight, unless you wish to count the flower truck fleeing the helicopter, the brief boat scene or the train, which I don’t, there can be no rating assigned.

With no memorable vehicles and the inventiveness a bit underwhelming as this is the first time we ever see Llwellyn’s Q, this category scores a disappointing 4/10.

Villains and Bond Girls

The highlight of the film is without question the villains. Blofeld is behind the scenes again, electing to send Colonel Klebb in to the field to recruit Red Grant to steal the secret Soviet decoder. In order to secure the device, they must honey trap Bond with the stunning Tatiana Romanova (Daniella Bianchi), a Soviet secretary and former ballet prodigy before Grant can swoop in.

While he may be no Jaws or Oddjob, Grant is very imposing as the primary henchman in this film and his showdown with Bond on the train is the highlight of this outing. Yet he is supposed to be a psychopath from East Germany, where did this posh London accent come from when he is in disguise? Is he borrowing Blofeld’s voice disguise machine from Diamonds Are Forever? Nonetheless, Grant is the blonde-baddie henchman that would come to define the role for villains to come. While he may not have any personally defining attributes, he establishes the formula for series muscle. 8/10 for series iconography

Barely showing up to even justify his character is Russian chess master, Kronsteen. Why does this villain even need to exist? The whole chess scene at the beginning of the film where he is called in to Blofeld to receive his mission alongside Klebb feels as much wasted runtime as the gypsy fight. We could have just had Klebb and kept this movie moving. Of course who then gets the blame for failure, and killed off? Did we need that scene? It’s just more needless exposition and an opportunity to show Blofeld. 2/10 for being surplus to requirements.

Despite a lack of screen-time, Klebb is still one of the most stand-out villains of the franchise with her poisonous shoe dagger. Instead of working alongside Kronsteen, I would have rather her have been the primary operative here. She is set up as a hard-ass and creep, and in the novel she is a lesbian (somewhat implied here in the film in her interactions with Romanova). Every scene she is given, she displays incredible presence. None of her screentime ever feels wasted or boring, which is why it’s a shame we get so little of it. 8/10 for being memorable but underutilized.

Despite a slow burner of a story, each villain character feels supremely well developed. 8/10.

Unfortunately the Bond girl here is not that memorable on screen. In the novel, we get a decent bit of backstory and compelling amount of agency (beyond collecting sea shells along the sea shore).Tatiana Romanova feels sort of vapid as portrayed by Daniella Bianchi, and not especially convincing as an imbedded secret agent. Her character is naive and somewhat childish, and therefore at times even annoying. 5/10 for making every scene she is in drag on a bit too long despite her chemistry with our star.

Overall this category gets a 8/10, mainly due to the ensemble of villains.

Wildcard!

This film is a fan-favorite and critical darling because of its imitation of Hitchcock and trying to present itself as a serious spy movie. Put aside all the pomp and circumstance around it, please tell me if you really enjoyed watching it and why. What about this film is so entertaining, because I am not seeing it? This is a film where it feels a sort of hive-mind of opinion has formed around it, with many too afraid to criticize it for seeming out of lock step with the group dynamic. However, I am creating a subjective list and not an objective one, so others opinions do not concern me. As much as I wish I could love this film, I simply don’t. Not only do I not like it, I find watching it is actually a chore. This is not a criticism of people who enjoyed this film, not all tastes are alike and that’s why I love reading and listening to other’s lists. This one is unlikely to even make my top half and I make no apologies for that. No wild card rating here, just a bit of a rant.

Conclusion

This film almost always gets ranked in the top five films of the series. As an espionage film, it’s decent. As a Bond film? It’s quite average as I prefer my Bond to be more action packed and bombastic and this is the opposite of that. To each their own I suppose. It is light on action, and many of the more enduring qualities of Bond. We don’t even get a John Barry score to accompany the action because there is so little of it, and when we do get the needle drops it feels like it accompanies very low stakes events, like tipping a hotel staff member. As noted in my wildcard, this film feels elevated to iconic and untouchable status. It’s untouchable in a way for me too, as in this Blu-Ray very rarely gets retouched because I do not enjoy this film. It’s not a bad film, or even a bad Bond film. But on my subjective ranking, it earns a shocking 6/10 overall.