Movie Review: 'From Russia With Love'

From Russia With Love (1963)

Written by: Johanna Harwood (adapter), Richard Maibum, Berkely Mather (uncredited)

Based on: From Russia With Love, by Ian Fleming

Directed by: Terence Young

Starring: Sean Connery, Pedro Armendariz, Daniela Bianchi, Robert Shaw, Lotte Lenya, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, Vladek Sheybal

Tatiana: [Bond first meets Tatiana, who has crawled naked into his hotel bed] You look surprised. I thought you were expecting me.

James Bond: So, you're Tatiana Romanova.

Tatiana: My friends call me Tania.

James Bond: Mine call me James Bond.

SPECTREs tender trap: Daniela Bianchi in a publicity still for From Russia With Love.

With the phenomenal success of 1962's Dr. No - a film that earned $59 million over a production budget of $1.1 million - producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli were approached by United Artists, the U.S.-based film production and distribution company which had helped EON Productions' first James Bond movie become a worldwide hit. UA's executives were thrilled with Dr. No's critical and commercial success, and the studio wanted another Bond film with Sean Connery as the suave-but-deadly British Secret Service agent with a "license to kill."

Saltzman and Broccoli, whose shared interest in Ian Fleming's most famous literary creation resulted in a partnership that would last till 1975 and several more Bond movies, quickly agreed, especially when UA doubled the budget and asked EON to make a bigger, bolder adventure for MI6 Agent 007.

Remembering that President John F. Kennedy had helped popularize Fleming's novels in the U.S. when he included 1957's From Russia With Love among his top 10 favorite books in a Life magazine interview, Broccoli and Saltzman chose that novel for their next Bond film.

The producers gave the job of adapting Fleming's Cold War espionage book to Johanna Harwood, co-writer (along with Berkely Mather and Richard Maibum), of Dr. No. Harwood's first draft stuck closely to Fleming's original work, but she was not pleased when Saltzman and Broccoli asked Maibum and Mather to revise it. This led to some heated disputes - mostly on Maibum's part - on how much Harwood actually wrote, but her writing credit remains.

"Bond...James Bond"

Blofeld: Siamese fighting fish, fascinating creatures. Brave but on the whole stupid. Yes, they're stupid. Except for the occasional one such as we have here who lets the other two fight. While he waits. Waits until the survivor is so exhausted that he cannot defend himself, and then like SPECTRE... he strikes!

Rosa Klebb: I find the parallel... amusing.


Blofeld: Our organization did not arrange for you to come over from the Russians just for amusement, Number 3.

Directed by the skilled Terence Young, who helmed Dr. No and had worked with Broccoli on the World War II paratrooper adventure film The Red Beret, From Russia With Love is one of the more traditional "espionage" stories in the 24-film (soon to be joined by Bond 25) series. In this mission, Bond (Connery) willingly steps into a trap set by SPECTRE in order to steal a Soviet coding machine (called Lektor) and help a beautiful Russian consulate clerk, Tatiana Romanova (Bianchi) defect to the West.

This maskirova is a setup devised by SPECTRE's Number 3, aka Czechoslovakia's chess grandmaster Kronsteen (Vladek Shaybal). Conceived as a means to eliminate Bond once and for all, Kronsteen's plan is SPECTRE's retribution for Dr. No's death and the destruction of its missile-toppling facility in Jamaica. Using what he knows about Bond - especially his penchant for bedding beautiful women - Kronsteen believes he has come up with the perfect plan and the perfect agents to implement it: Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya) and Donald "Red" Grant (Robert Shaw).

Rosa Klebb in her Soviet intelligence uniform has a face only her mother could love. © 1963 EON Productions/United Artists

Donald "Red" Grant: Farewell and adieu to you, Bond...James Bond. © 1963 EON Productions/United Artists

At first, the beautiful Tatiana is a willing participant in "Colonel" Klebb's operation; she has no idea that Klebb is no longer a member of Soviet counterintelligence - per the film, her defection three months prior to the film's start has been kept a secret even from the Politburo - but one of SPECTRE's top-level operatives. She believes that her mission is vital for the security of the State, so she's willing to use her looks and charms to seduce Bond and convince the MI6 agent that she's defecting.

It's a trap...but Bond (and most guys) would have a tough time resisting this bait. © 1963 EON Productions/United Artists

Eventually, as From Russia To Love progresses and we follow Bond, Tatiana, and the SPECTRE baddies, her feelings toward the "English spy" begin to mellow.

Bond, of course, is not without his allies. He's assisted by the ever-loyal Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell), his MI6 boss, M (Bernard Lee), and Quartermaster Branch officer Major Boothroyd, aka Q (Desmond Llewelyn), who provide instructions, make travel arrangements, and place Ali Kerim Bey (Pedro Armendariz), Chief of MI6 Station T, at his disposal.

Though this is one of the few Bond pictures with a more-or-less "traditional" spy movie storyline, it also has many of the gadgets and stylistic flourishes that audiences have come to associate from this franchise.

It's the first film of the series to feature:

• A pre-main titles sequence
• The main title sequence with scantily-clad women
•  A film score composed by the late John Barry
• An original song written exclusively for the main titles
• A James Bond Will Return/Be Back tag in the end credits

From Russia With Love was the first Bond film to be set and partially filmed in a country outside the British Commonwealth; although most of its interior sets (including that of the Orient Express railway car) were shot in what is now called the Albert R. Broccoli Sound Stage at Pinewood Studios. Many other scenes that are set in Turkey were also shot closer to home, but they are cleverly edited to make it look as though Commander Bond is not in the UK at all but in the former Ottoman Empire itself.

(Ironically, From Russia With Love was the last film President Kennedy watched at the White House; it had premiered in London a month earlier, and United Artists sent a print of the movie to the Executive Mansion for an exclusive viewing before his fateful trip to Texas in November 1963.)

If you have not seen From Russia With Love yet, I'm not going to spoil it for you by divulging any more of its plot. Suffice it to say that Sean Connery and Daniela Bianchi work well together and make the screen sizzle with sexual chemistry (even though, as in all James Bond movies, including the current ones with Daniel Craig as 007, the Bond Girl is never shown totally nude), and that the action scenes still thrill and chill viewers even though From Russia With Love is over 50 years old now. 

My Take

I was only an infant when From Russia With Love was in wide release in the United States (April 1964). I eventually saw it when ABC broadcast the movie on television in the early 1970s, but it was edited for content and to allow for commercials. It wasn't until I bought 2016's The James Bond Collection, a 24-disc Blu-ray set at a greatly reduced price from Amazon, that I got to see From Russia With Love on a decently-sized HDTV set and in its original and uncut theatrical version.

Like all artworks, From Russia With Love is a product of the times in which it was created. It's fair to say that the filmmakers' depiction of James Bond, Tatiana Romanov, and even Bond's semi-regular lover Sylvia Trench (Eunice Gayson, reprising her role as the original Bond Girl from Dr. No) reflect the prevailing attitudes of the early 1960s and not, say, the #metoo ones of the late 2010s.  Thus I'm not going to wag my finger at Terence Young, Albert Broccoli, Johanna Harwood, Richard Maibum, or Sean Connery to chastise them for being so "politically incorrect" and depicting 007 as a sexist and philandering symbol of machismo. It was the Swingin' Sixties, after all, and most guys longed to be like James Bond, while many women wanted to be the one who changed him from being a "ladykiller" to being a one-woman man. 

In other words, as with all the other of the Saltzman-Broccoli Bonds, audiences who thrilled (and still love) From Russia With Love knew that Ian Fleming's most famous character was a fantasy, albeit one rooted in Fleming's World War II service as a Royal Navy intelligence officer with some experience in unconventional warfare and espionage.

Everything about From Russia With Love is near pitch-perfect. Director Young shows a deft hand at creating exciting and believable action set-pieces. He also does a great job with the cast, which in addition to Connery and Bianchi, includes Pedro Armendariz, the great Mexican actor who plays Turkish spymaster Kerim Bey. Armendariz turns in a memorable and enjoyable performance, which unfortunately was his last before he died of a self-inflicted gunshot in a Los Angeles hospital. 

During the filming of From Russia With Love, Armendariz was in great pain from neck cancer; it had spread to other parts of the body and the actor (who had an American mother and had attended college in the U.S.) found it difficult to stand upright for long periods of time. As a result, Young changed the schedule and filmed most of Armendariz's scenes first so the actor could go to L/A. and be hospitalized. (Pickups were later shot with a double when Armendariz left England.) The entire crew was saddened when they learned Armendariz, despondent over the news that his cancer was terminal, somehow smuggled a pistol into his hospital room and shot himself on June 18, 1963, four months before the film's London premiere. 

Not only did director Terence Young (with help from editor Peter Hunt) get a great performance from Armedariz, but they managed to create the illusion that Kerim Bey was a healthy and vibrant Turkish bon vivant/secret agent in the same league as the movie's protagonist. 

And yes, I think Daniela Bianchi is gorgeous.  © 1963 EON Productions/United Artists

From Russia With Love is, bar none, my favorite James Bond movie. It has Sixties Cool all over, exotic locations, a great cast, a smooth John Barry score, Matt Monro's rendition of the title song, and tells an exciting, suspenseful story.

What more can one ask of a James Bond movie?