#95 From Russia with Love

From Russia with Love (1963)

Dir: Terence Young

The second film in the James Bond franchise.

This outing sees Bond (Sean Connery) knowingly enter into a SPECTRE trap, as it’s said that British intelligence will see it as a challenge, baited by the lovely Russian Tatiana Romanova.

I grew up in the 90’s, and have somehow never seen all the original Bond films properly. Before this I had seen ‘Dr No’ and everything from Pierce Brosnan onwards, with a particular liking for ‘Casino Royale’ and ‘Skyfall’.

That being said, I have seen hundreds of clips nad references to almost all the Bond features, and so have a working knowledge and overview of them through the little pieces i had gleaned. All those clips however were to show humorous, or exciting moments in the franchise, and really they weren’t taken from this film particularly. I found this a little more ‘Quantum of Solace’ rather than ‘Skyfall’. The jeopardy is strangely undercut, both with a faux killing of Bond before the opening credits, and then this complicit going along with an obvious trap. Plus, the reason given for sending British intelligence’s best and most foremost agent into peril, is not the end of the world, but rather a decrypting typewriter!

Sorry, I may come to see things differently when I have seen a few more, and if so I’ll remedy my views in subsequent postings on the other films, but as things are right now, I found this a bit weak. As my scriptwriting lecturer used to bellow frequently, you need to “RAISE THE STAKES”.