Pedro Armendáriz | Scott's Film Reviews-1,534 Reviews posted!!! RECENTLY LAUNCHED-MY TOP 250 FAVORITE FILMS AND TOP 40 HORROR FILMS!!!

From Russia with Love-1963

Director Terence Young

Starring Sean Connery, Daniela Bianchi

Top 250 Films #76

Scott’s Review #615

Reviewed February 5, 2017

Grade: A

From Russia with Love (1963) is only the second film in the storied James Bond franchise. It is a sequel to the debut installment, Dr. No, and received twice the budget.

This is evident in the film’s exquisite cinematography and look, with chase and battle scenes galore.

The film is lavish and grand, and what a Bond film ought to be, featuring adventures across countries, gorgeous location sequences, and a lovely romance between Bond (Sean Connery) and Bond girl Tatiana (Daniela Bianchi).

Still, she is not in my top Bond girls of all time.

Terence Young returned to direct the film with successful results.

Vowing revenge on James Bond for killing villainous Dr. No, SPECTRE’s Number 1 (seen only speaking and holding a cat) recruits evil Number 3, Rosa Klebb, a Russian director and defector, and Kronsteen, SPECTRE’s expert planner, to devise a plot to steal a Lektor cryptographic device from the Soviets and kill Bond in the process.

Klebb recruits expert killer Donald “Red” Grant and manipulates Tatiana into assisting. The story takes Bond mainly through Istanbul, Turkey, into a gypsy camp and via the Orient Express through Yugoslavia to the ultimate climax.

The villains in From Russia with Love are outstanding and a major draw to the film.

Klebb (Lotte Lenya) and Grant (Robert Shaw) are perfectly cast. Klebb, militant and severe with her short-cropped red hair, has a penchant for deadly footwear (she has a spike that shoots out from her boot containing venom that kills in seconds) and casually flaunts her lesbianism in front of Tatiana.

I admire this level of diversity in early Bond films—it was 1963, which was extremely rare.

Grant, on the other hand, is handsome and charismatic, with a chest of steel. With his good looks and bleached blonde hair, he is a perfect opponent for Bond, as the final battle between him and Bond aboard the Orient Express is a spectacular fight scene and a satisfactory conclusion to the film.

The action sequences are aplenty and compelling, especially the Orient Express train sequence finale, which is grand. As Bond and Tatiana, along with their ally Ali Kerim Bey, a British Intelligence chief from Istanbul, embark on a journey, they are stalked by Grant, who waits for an opportunity to pounce on his foes.

This sequence is the best part of the film for me- Grant, posing as a sophisticated British agent, has a cat-and-mouse conversation with Bond and Tatiana over a delicious dinner of Sole.

Grant drugs Tatiana by placing capsules in her white wine- the fact that he orders Chianti with Sole, a culinary faux pas, gives him away.

Other notable aspects of From Russia with Love are the soon-to-be familiar cohorts of Bond, who will be featured in Bond films for years to come: M, Q, and Miss Moneypenny become treasured supporting characters that audiences know and love.

Mere novices in this film, it is fun to see their scenes- especially lovelorn Moneypenny.

An odd scene of sparring female gypsies is both erotic and comical as the two women wrestle and fight over a gypsy chief, only to forget their rivalry and both bed Bond, falling madly in love with him as the two women suddenly become the best of friends.

The chemistry between Connery and Bianchi is good but nothing spectacular, and it is not the real highlight of this Bond entry. Don’t get me wrong—they make a gorgeous couple—his dark looks and her statuesque blonde figure look great, but I found the pairing just decent rather than spectacular.

The action sequences, especially the Orient Express scenes, are a spectacle, and the many location shots in and around Istanbul are ravishing.

From Russia with Love (1963) is a top entry in the Bond series and a film that got the ball rolling with fantastic Bond features- it is an expensively produced film, and this shows.

Licence to Kill-1989

Director John Glen

Starring Timothy Dalton, Carey Lowell

Scott’s Review #1,196

Reviewed November 14, 2021

Grade: B

Of the two turns 007 that Timothy Dalton gave us, Licence to Kill (1989) ranks as the weakest, with The Living Daylights (1987) being superior. But that doesn’t mean the film has no good qualities.

It’s an okay film, and director John Glen, now returning for his fifth James Bond film, seems a little out of gas. Many of the stunts and sequences are very familiar territory, and the dialogue is far from crackling or exciting.

The James Bond film franchise would go on a six-year hiatus after Licence to Kill, returning refreshed in 1995. Perhaps it needed to.

Dalton does his best, but his heart doesn’t quite seem in it, and the serious tone of the film gets even darker than The Living Daylights.

I don’t think this is a bad thing, and I love how the franchise regular, Felix Leiter (David Hedison), gets more of a storyline. But the wit and charm are lacking.

Events begin in sunny Key West at the impending nuptials of former CIA agent and Bond friend, Leiter. Pursuing one of the international drug cartel’s most brutal and powerful leaders, Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi), events quickly escalate.

After a double-cross, poor Felix is fed to the sharks. While he survives the attack, his wife is murdered. Bond goes rogue and seeks personal vengeance.

What separates Licence to Kill from other Bond entries is the limited locales. Though exquisite, they occur only in North America. The Florida Keys, the Bahamas, and Mexico are used in fine form, especially the latter.

The gorgeous coastline feels European, and I surmised that it was shot and set in Spain when, in fact, it was Mexico.

Also enjoyable is the Latin flair, with lots of cultural influences throughout. Davi is as powerful and dangerous as the Latin drug lord, and he exudes violence and treachery. He is gleeful when a nemesis falls victim to his pet shark and loses a limb or two before succumbing to death.

A great kill is when dastardly Milton Krest (Anthony Zerbe) topples into a giant microwave oven and explodes into bloody bits. His death is deserved and satisfying.

To build on this, the inevitable death of Sanchez himself is a crowd-cheering moment. Before he explodes into a giant ball of flames, Bond is certain to let the villain know that his death is courtesy of Leiter.

This is an exciting and fulfilling moment.

The Bond girls are not at their finest in Licence to Kill. Carey Lowell plays Pam Bouvier, an ex-Army pilot and DEA informant. While sometimes portrayed as a tough-minded and brazen female character, she is also written as simpering and pining over Bond.

She can also be silly and foolhardy, like when she carelessly plays with dangerous gadgets that Q creates. I would expect greater intelligence and wherewithal given her credentials.

Secondary Bond girl Lupe Lamora (Talisa Soto), Sanchez’s girlfriend, lacks depth. Beautiful, she is quite wooden in the acting department and suddenly falls in love with Bond, insisting on her powerful feelings for the man she barely knows.

It’s a bit far-fetched even for Bond standards, but she is nice to look at.

So there’s that.

Licence to Kill (1989) is usually either lost in the shuffle or derided outright, and that is unfair. It’s not one of the greats, but it’s not garbage either.

It feels a bit tired of its time. Truth be told, it’s grown on me since I first saw it, and even the title song performed by Gladys Knight has enamored me over the years.