{"id":5652,"date":"2025-08-01T03:06:37","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T07:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=5652"},"modified":"2026-01-02T15:40:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T20:40:02","slug":"from-russia-with-love-1963","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=5652","title":{"rendered":"From Russia with Love-1963"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Russia with Love-1963<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director Terence Young<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring Sean Connery, Daniela Bianchi<\/strong><\/p>\n

Top 250 Films #76<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #615<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed February 5, 2017<\/p>\n

Grade: A<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

This is evident in the film’s exquisite cinematography and look, with chase and battle scenes galore.<\/p>\n

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).<\/p>\n

Still, she is not in my top Bond girls of all time.<\/p>\n

Terence Young returned to direct the film with successful results.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The villains in From Russia with Love are outstanding and a major draw to the film.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I admire this level of diversity in early Bond films\u2014it was 1963, which was extremely rare.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Mere novices in this film, it is fun to see their scenes- especially lovelorn Moneypenny.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2014they make a gorgeous couple\u2014his dark looks and her statuesque blonde figure look great, but I found the pairing just decent rather than spectacular.<\/p>\n

The action sequences, especially the Orient Express scenes, are a spectacle, and the many location shots in and around Istanbul are ravishing.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading From Russia with Love-1963<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7990,116,151,5464,1387,5462,1394,26,1389,5461,9004,5463,694,1388,7530,7464],"tags":[7991,117,152,5468,1391,5466,1395,138,1393,5465,9005,5467,695,1392,7533,7460],"class_list":["post-5652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-76-favorite-film","category-1963-films","category-actionfilms","category-anthony-dawson","category-bernard-lee","category-daniela-bianchi","category-desmond-llewelyn","category-bondfilms","category-lois-maxwell","category-lotte-lenya","category-pedro-armendariz","category-robert-shaw","category-sean-connery","category-terence-young","category-top-100-films","category-top-250-films","tag-76-favorite-film","tag-1963-movie-reviews","tag-action-films","tag-anthony-dawson","tag-bernard-lee","tag-daniela-bianchi","tag-desmond-llewelyn","tag-james-bond-films","tag-lois-maxwell","tag-lotte-lenya","tag-pedro-armendariz","tag-robert-shaw","tag-sean-connery","tag-terence-young","tag-top-100-films","tag-top-250-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5652"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22399,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5652\/revisions\/22399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}