In preparation for November’s “Skyfall”, I’ll be counting down all the Bond movies from my least favorite to favorite. Twenty-two movies in all, so let’s get going! Note: Spoilers for countdown movie ahead!

Number on Countdown: 18

Title: From Russia With Love

Year: 1963

Synopsis:

We begin this time with a stiff-faced Bond maneuvering around a dark garden, gun held out. A moment later, Bond is strangled by a man dressed all in black. Just as Bond breathes his last, massive flood lights come on, revealing a large house full of people. Some Russian guy comes forward to the man in black, a tall, buff blond guy, and gives him his time. He then reaches down and removes the mask of 007’s face from some unknown guy with a mustache.

Later, Kronsteen, member (and “Number 3”) of the villainous organization SPECTRE, plans to steal a Lektor decoder machine from the Russians. In order to exact his plan, he’ll have to use a female from the Russian cryptography section in Istanbul and someone from the British Secret Service, both of whom will have no idea they’re actually helping SPECTRE. Rosa Klebb, this old mean lady (who used to work for Russia’s SMERSH but has defected to SPECTRE and is their “Number 5”), has a perfect girl for the job. While the cat-petting boss, “Number 1”, doubts Britain’s folly of cooperating in the plan, Kronsteen explains the British have wanted a Lektor machine for years, and will undoubtedly send James Bond, the bastard who killed SPECTRE agent, Dr. No.

For the mission, Rosa Klebb visits the big house with the garden and recruits the tall blond guy, whose name is Ronald Grant, and who is a psycho, straight-up-killuh. Rosa punches him right in the gut with brass knuckles and he doesn’t even flinch. Perfect man for the job. Later, she meets her Russian girl, Tatiana Romanova, tells her of her mission, and hands her a picture of a man. Her mission, for now at least, is to do everything the man wants. If she refuses, she will be shot!

Bond is making out with some lady on a river bank when he is contacted by Moneypenny to come into work. The girl he’s with smothers him while on the phone, but he swats her away. Bond comes to the office after having some “lunch” and learns from M that some Russian file clerk has fallen in love with him, for she has his picture from a file. Apparently the girl will turn over the Lektor and defect, but only if she can deliver the machine to Bond personally, who will then take her back to England. Bond and M know it’s a trap, but they wanna get that darn Lektor, so Bond is booked on the 8:30 flight to Instanbul. He then receives a “nasty little Christmas present” of an attache case from Q.

In Istanbul, Bond meets Ali Kerim Bay, head of T station in Turkey. They chat and have a drink. A little later, Kerim’s about to get in on with his lady when half of the room explodes. Bond arrives a little later and is like “wtf?” Kerim explains that he cannot understand why the Russians would break the truce of not bombing shit after so long. Bond and Kerim do some investigating at Kerim’s underground periscope, which is right under the Russian consulate. They spy on the room, and after seeing some baddies, including the nasty Krilencu, Bond catches a glimpse of Ms. Romanova. Later, Bond and Kerim go to some gypsy place, which falls under attack by Krilencu’s men. Kerim is wounded, and Bond almost killed, but he is saved by a hiding Red Grant. Krilencu’s men retreat, and later, Bond gets to have fun with some ladies. (Yay!)

The next night, Kerim and Bond, with the help of Kerim’s sons, kill Krelencu with a sniper rifle. Afterwards, Bond returns to his hotel to find Tatiana Romanova crawling into his bed. After some innuendo-laced dialogue, they speak of the Lektor. Then they do it. Little does Bond know, however, he is being filmed through a two-way mirror by some SPECTRE goons. The next day, Tatiana goes to meet Bond at the Hagia Sofia Mosque with a floor plan of the Russian consulate, where the Lektor is rumored to be. She drops it off, only for some sketchy guy to pick it up. This man is killed by some mysterious person who then leaves. Bond retrieves the map and takes it to Kerim.

With the help of a diversion, Bond breaks into the Russian consulate, leaving with Tatiana and the Lektor decoder. They meet up with Kerim, and in a mad dash, make it to the Orient Express. A Russian security dude gets on board to chase after them. Red Grant, unbeknownst to all, is on the train. A bit later, Kerim notices the Russian security guy creepin’ around, but keeps him busy by pointing a gun at him until its time to get off the train. When it’s time to leave, however, a train employee notifies Bond that Kerim and the Russian dude killed each other.

Bond comes back to his and Tatiana’s room, a little miffed, and demands information. He knows she’s doing it under orders, but she won’t tell him a thing except that she loves him. Bond is like “bleh” and at some stop, tells one of Kerim’s sons that his father is dead. Bond instructs Kerim’s son to call M and send for someone to meet him, which later is Red Grant evilly posing as a Mr. Nash.

Bond, a far too trusty Bond, let’s Captain Nash into his suite. Bond is suspicious, and checks Nash’s shit when he and Tatiana go to the restaurant car. Bond joins them for dinner, and notices Nash slipping something into her drink. Back at the suite, Tatiana is set to rest and Bond starts askin’ preguntas. After a little scuffling around, Bond finds out Grant is not Nash. This is when he finds out Grant works for SPECTRE, and the SPECTRE was pulling Russian and British strings to get the Lektor. Now that SPECTRE has the Lektor, Grant can kill Bond and the girl. Additionally, Grant decides to place a video of Tatiana and Bond doing it (from earlier) and a fake letter from her that would make it all look like a murder-suicide. Have Bond get the Lektor, then kill him and the girl. Pretty genius, SPECTRE, pretty genius. Bond, however, tricks Red Grant into opening up his case, which explodes tear gas in his face. After a little row, Bond chokes Red Grant with his own garotte wire.

Bond and the extremely-rufied Tatiana get off the train and get away. They are soon attacked by a helicopter that throws grenades and shoots at them. Bond ultimately escapes, and two escape again after they are pursued in a tense powerboat chase.

Meanwhile, the evil “Number 1” kills Kronsteen for his plan not working. He then gives the job to Rosa Klebb, who wastes no time, posing as a maid at the hotel where James and Tatiana are staying. Rosa reveals herself by pulling a gun on Bond, but Tatiana stops her from shooting her man. With no gun, Rosa tries to kill Bond with a poison shoe-spike, but Tatiana shoots her dead. Later, Bond and Tatiana take a gondola ride and cuddle. Bond throws the film of Tatiana and him into the river.

Things I like:

First off, Tatiana Romanova is a great Bond girl. In addition to be absolutely stunning, her love for 007, and his rebounding dialogue, makes their dialogue quite amusing throughout the entire picture. All she wanted to do was work for mother Russia. Poor girl got wrapped up in a SPECTRE plot, got threatened, suffering a drugging, and got shot at. Daniela Bianchi’s performance is excellent, and you believe that Tatiana is really just an average, patriotic girl who’s been caught up in all this, and it’s nice to see her get what she wants in the end.

Another thing to love about this movie is Desmond Llewelyn’s first appearance as Q/Major Boothroyd. In Dr. No, he was played by some other bloke, but after Llewellyn was Q, he stuck around to play the classic role in seventeen Bond movies before his tragic death in 1999. It’s fun seeing him give Bond the first real Q Branch gadget as well, the crazy tricked-out attache case. Here’s the scene if you’re interested!:

Things I didn’t like:

From Russia With Love, when not scoring the highest on a Bond movie countdown, will most often score second place. It will most likely always be in the top five, and after that, on rare occasions, somewhere between slots six and ten. So why the hell, on this list, does From Russia With Love sit so far from the front at number 18? Well, if you’ll let me explain…

Even the first time I watched it, all those years ago, I couldn’t help but think that From Russia With Love was a little, well, boring. Call me what you want in the comments, or to my face, but hey, to each their own, and the story of Bond tracking down some decoding machine just was never that interesting to me. Not to mention the pacing can be slow at times.

So, SPECTRE wanted to get a Lektor machine from the Russians, fine, but why did their plot have to be so ridiculously complicated? Tatiana even told Bond that she worked with the Lektor every day at the Russian consulate, so why didn’t Rosa Klebb (who Tatiana thought was on her side), just tell Tatiana she needed the Lektor for some official business or something? Why would you need to involve the British at all?

And why is the full James Bond theme song playing when he is just walking around a room? He might be checking the room for bugs, but is this really something that warrants the full orchestra? I’m not saying John Barry was wrong (because he is the Bond-music god), but I always found this perplexing.

And I know I’m being nitpicky here, but how did SPECTRE get a mask of Bond’s face? How do they know what Bond looks like? And if so, would that really make Red Grant better at killing Bond? I understand the filmmakers wanting to surprise the audience with Bond getting killed, but . . .it just doesn’t make sense to me. Oh well.

The Song:

For the second Bond picture, the Bond producers chose Matt Monro to sing the title song. For whatever reason, they used an instrumental version for the opening credits (which is pasted above). Monro’s version is featured twice in the film, once in the diegesis, playing on the radio, and then at the end of the film, bringing us into the end credits. It’s a nice, romantic, slow song. The “Bond song” style, with the horns and strings and punch, wouldn’t be classified until the next movie and its classic theme, Goldfinger.

Here, someone puts Monro’s version over the opening credits. Looks pretty good to me!

Favorite Scene:

There are some cool scenes in From Russia With Love, but my favorite would have to be when Bond is interrogating Tatiana about the Lektor during a boat ride. Bond tells her to talk into a camera, which is actually like a phone (the first cameraphone?), so that M can listen to the conversation back in London. Bond asks her questions about the Lektor, but she keeps deviating into how much she wants him. He comically shrugs off her advances to tries to keep her on topic. When she asks “Oh, James…James…will you make love to me all the time in England?”, he promptly says “Day and night. Go on about the mechanism.” Love it.

Favorite Line:

Kerem Bay, at one point, tells Bond that he is in his debt, to which Bond replies “How can a friend be in debt?” True dat, James.

Extra Tidbit:

The scene in which Red Grant kills the masked “James Bond” from the beginning of the movie was supposed to appear a lot later in the film. Editor Peter Hunt thought it’d be better to have it appear first thing in the movie, even before the opening credits, thus creating the infamous pre-credits scene, which has been the format for every single Bond movie since. Good call, Peter!

Find out which movie comes next in the countdown by clicking here!