Dr. No (Repackaged) (1963)

Premiere
"...[I]t gave the world a new kind of hero: impossibly suave, impossibly competent, always a winner, and perfectly embodied in hirsute Sean Connery." 12/01/2003 p.10

ReelViews 8 of 10
Barring a television adaptation of Casino Royale in the 1950s (not to be confused with the 1967 movie of the same name), 1962's Dr. No was the first opportunity fans of Ian Fleming's James Bond had to watch the intrepid superspy in action. However, producers Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli wanted their movie to appeal to a wider audience than just Fleming's readers. To that end, they altered the 007 of the novels to better fit the screen. Bond became more suave and witty, and less cold- blooded. Nevertheless, the hero of Dr. No is still grittier than he would become by Goldfinger (released only two years later), and bears little resemblance to the version of Bond essayed by Roger Moore beginning in 1973...The "James Bond theme", co-created by Monty Norman and John Barry (although exactly who is responsible for the bulk of the piece remains a topic of contention to this day), peppers an otherwise unmemorable score. M and Moneypenny make their screen debuts (Q first appeared in the next film, From Russia with Love), and the first -- and perhaps best-remembered -- Bond girl, Ursula Andress, sets a standard that hasn't wavered in more than thirty years. All-in-all, Dr. No is a successful, if not superlative, motion picture. While it may appear tame by the standards of the later productions, it's an entertaining look back in movie history at a project that developed into a worldwide phenomenon. - James Berardinelli
 
The Movie Hamlet 9 of 10
All the familiar faces are introduced here--M, Bond's long-suffering boss, Miss Moneypenny, M's secretary who dreams of an adventure with the wily gentleman spy, Q (who is actually played by someone else than Desmond Llewelyn, and never referred to as "Q") and Felix Leiter, the CIA agent who was to be played by many different actors over the years. It was really rather odd that Sean Connery was chosen to play the suave, very English 007. He was not a very well known actor in those days, had a somewhat rough, blue-collar image and was not even English but a proud Scot. But a strange thing happened when he donned a tuxedo; his persona gave the character some depth...A few of the set pieces are quite inventive, especially a sequence where a man who's visiting Dr. No is shown into a room containing nothing but a chair, a cage with a spider and in the roof above the chair a hole covered by iron bars. As rays of sunshine hit the chair and the person sitting in it the impression is that of a man caught in a spider web. There's some smart thinking here; the series may have been lacking in creativity as it progressed, but Dr. No, the beginning of an era, certainly was not. - Stefan Hedmark
 
Classic Movie Guide 7 of 10
In 1962, three of the most immortal words in film history were uttered onscreen for the first time: "Bond. James Bond." Dr. No was the first look that audiences got at Bond in action (if one puts aside the American TV version of Casino Royale), and while it hasn't aged well since it was first released, it's still a diverting action picture that first established what would soon come to pass as franchise traditions...By now, the character of superspy 007 needs no introduction, having become ingrained into cultural lexicons all across the globe thanks to his massively popular adventures. But what some movie fans might forget is that after 40-plus years of seeing Bond do what he does best, his first time at bat was a fairly modest little venture, especially in comparison to some of the more grandiose and gleefully far-fetched entries the series would turn out...Dr. No finds itself in the awkward position of being lauded for kicking off one of the most enduring cinematic franchises and doing first what has since being commonplace and even taken for granted in the series. As a movie on its own terms, however, Dr. No is more than a little underwhelming, though it contains a fair amount of thrills all its own and works at least quite a bit of the time as a good example of pure, escapist entertainment. - A.J. Hakari