For His Eyes Only: Ursula Andress and Sean Connery on the set of Dr. No Photo: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis
King Crabs lay dead and dying around Ursula Andress. Crustaceans the size of hubcaps were used to terrorize her, threatening to tear her skin to shreds and eat her alive.
Instead, they arrived on the Dr. No set packed in ice and partially frozen. Now most of them did not move. Some were neatly decomposing. Editor Peter R. Hunt watched in despair as Andress tried to look terrified by dozens of dying crabs. “It was a disaster,” he said later.
No one was concerned about the welfare of the crabs. When filming began in early 1962, Ian Fleming had been trying for a decade to get his spy on screen, but as the October 5 release date approached, there was little in the first James Bond film to suggest it would be much better than Andress's crustacean attackers. /p>
Attempts to sell Bond to filmmakers have come and gone. Even American television was cool to the idea of a British spy. When the live-action adaptation of Casino Royale appeared on CBS in May 1954 — following American James «Jimmy» Bond — it misfired.
Another attempt by Fleming resulted in a 28-page draft of the series entitled «James». Gunn is a CBS secret agent in 1958. Again, nothing happened, but Fleming honed in on what he wanted his spy to do on screen.
“I believe there should be no monocles, mustaches, bowler hats, bobbies or other Lime gimmicks,” Fleming wrote to CBS television chief Hubbell Robinson. “There should be no blatant English slang, a minimum of public school connections and accents, and minor characters should generally speak with a Scottish or Irish accent.”
Finally, after John F. Kennedy chose From Russia with Love as one of his films in 1961 of his 10 favorite works, Albert «Cubby» Broccoli partnered with Canadian producer Harry Saltzman to obtain the rights to Fleming's works.
They wanted to start with Thunderball, about the criminal group SPECTER, who stole two nuclear bombs and demanded ransom from the West, but the rights were challenged in a legal dispute. So they turned to the story that Fleming had begun crafting for the American television series Jamaica Commander before turning it into the Bond novel Dr. No.
Screenwriters Wolf Mankowitz and Richard Maibaum collaborated on the first script and decided that a new villain was needed: Doctor No, in their opinion, was too similar to Fu Manchu. Instead, they added a new villain named Buckfield. In Broccoli's memories, Dr. No was now Buckfield's pet monkey. The script was rejected.
Now they needed a Bond, and Broccoli knew the man for the job: Cary Grant. The two men were close — Grant was Broccoli's best man — but at 57, Grant felt he was too old to do only one film.
James Mason, Patrick McGoohan, Richard Johnson, Richard Todd and David Niven were reviewed and rejected. Broccoli thought about Roger Moore, but he was «too young and perhaps too handsome.»
To speed up the process, in early 1961, Daily Express showbiz editor Patricia Lewis created a competition to find James Bond. was evaluated by a commission that included Saltzman, Broccoli and Fleming. Professional model Peter Anthony was a Londoner and regular of Man About Town magazine, which described the proto-Bond lifestyle: cars, suits, delicious food and drink.
The image from the spy shoot caught the attention of producers and he was announced as the winner in September 1961, beating out other finalists including two salesmen from Warrington and Bolton and an aerial cableway engineer from Essex. Broccoli noted his «Greg Peck quality that's immediately apparent.» Unfortunately, the quality that Anthony possessed was not Peck's acting skill.
The producers returned only to the name Sean Connery. When he met with the producers, Connery appeared unkempt and disinterested and threw his whole body around to demonstrate a certain masculinity. After he left, Broccoli and Saltzman watched him walk to the car. “He moved,” Broccoli recalled, “like a wildcat.”
Connery’s rudeness made an impression. “Frankly, all British actors lacked the degree of masculinity that Bond required,” Broccoli wrote in his autobiography. «I was convinced he was the closest thing Fleming had to a superhero.»
United Artists was not impressed by Connery, but Broccoli persisted. To test it out, he and his wife Dana took up residence in the theater at Samuel Goldwyn Studios. Broccoli watched his wife's reaction to the only piece of Connery footage they had: Walt Disney's nasty Irish fantasy Darby O'Gill and the Little People. Dana immediately realized that he was right.
Broccoli followed up with another hunch: that his and Saltzman's sixth director choice, Terence Young, would be a good fit for Bond. To show him how to be an English gentleman, Young took Connery under his wing. His influence on who Bond became was enormous.
Solid photography: Terence Young, Ursula Andress, Sean Connery on filming the set of Dr. No. Credits: Danjaq/Eon/Ua/Kobal/Shutterstock
“He was excited about the latest shirts and blazers and was very elegant himself—whether he had money or not—and in all the clubs and the like,” Connery told Variety in 2002. “And he also knew he looked good. — the correct cut of suits and all that, which, I must say, did not particularly interest me. But he gave me a rack of clothes and, as they say, he was able to make me look convincingly dangerous during the game.»
Filming began in Jamaica, where a reporter from the Daily Gleaner dropped by to watch the process. “If the first day's shooting was any indication of the quality of the finished product, Dr. No promises to be a sloppy and rather regrettable picture,” snorted the reporter.
Screenwriter Joanna Harwood and thriller writer Berkeley Mather finalized the second draft Maibaum's script, but the reporter was unimpressed: «What I've heard about that dialogue is terrible.»
When production returned to the UK, things were no less difficult. «To be honest, it was a disaster because we had so little money,» production designer Ken Adam told the Guardian in 2005.
Doctor. Noh's lair required an aquarium filled with sharks. “We decided to use a rear projection screen and shoot some fish footage,” recalls Adam. The budget limited their options. “The only footage they could buy was goldfish-sized fish, so we had to scale it up and put a stop to Bond talking about zooming in.”
The style and panache that Broccoli insisted Young could bring to Dr. No was also present in the scene featuring Bond himself playing baccarat at the Les Ambassadeurs club. However, like much of the rest of the filming, it turned out to be awkward.
Eunice Gayson, who played Sylvia Trench, remembers this day is so stressful. She'd already had to change into a red dress—a size 20, reduced to about a size eight and held together with clothespins—and now Connery was struggling.
“I knew Sean for many years. and I’ve never seen him as nervous as he was that day because of all the delays,” Gayson said. «He had to say, 'Bond, James Bond,' but he came up with other options, like 'Sean Bond,' 'James Connery.'» Young told Gayson to go get Connery a drink and calm him down. The director took inspiration from William Dieterle's 1939 film Juarez, in which Mexican revolutionary Benito Juarez was introduced by shooting him in the back until he turned around to introduce himself.
At first Bond's hands casually turned over the cards, then Young moved away. his left shoulder. The hands pulled a cigarette out of the silver cigarette case and stopped. Gayson gave Connery his line again. “Bond,” Connery said, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips. «James Bond».
“It was so wonderful,” Gayson recalled. “The day started from there – he was so relaxed.” Some were less enthusiastic. After seeing the first footage, Mankowitz left his name out of the credits because, he said, «I don't want my name on a piece of crap.» But elements of Bond iconography began to coalesce. Monty Norman was a singer and songwriter who wrote hits for Cliff Richard and Tommy Steele, and was commissioned to write the Bond theme song.
Sean Connery and Zena Marshall at the premiere of Dr. No, October 1962. Photo: Mirrorpix
He reviewed the score he composed for the unreleased musical version of A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul. The meandering four-note melody for one song called Bad Sign, Good Sign seemed to fit, although its original lyrics did not: «I was born with this unfortunate sneeze, and to make matters worse, I came into the world the wrong way.» . » John Barry took Norman's theme and turned it into something tight and moving.
It premiered at the London Pavilion in Leicester Square on October 5, 1962. America did not immediately faint en masse. Time magazine called Bond «a big, hairy marshmallow» who «almost always manages to seem a little goofy.»
But gradually the wave of adulation reached both the coast and beyond. Worldwide it cost about $60 million, today it's somewhere around $540 million. Although Connery was tired of Bond, he knew why it worked. «They were exciting and funny, with good stories, beautiful girls and intriguing locations,» he said in 2002. “And they didn’t take anything for granted.”
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