James Bond 007: Dr. No - Dir. Terence Lawrence

James Bond 007: Dr. NO – Dir. Terence Young

The Beginning of a Film Dynasty

By Jay Maronde

                Where to begin when reviewing the longest running film series ever? Well, the first movie, obviously! The whole 007 movie franchise all began way backin 1962 with Dr. NO. Now, it’s very much worth noting that, James Bond, 007 was around for some time before the first movie. Much like Twilight or The Hunger Games, “James Bond” was already an extremely successful series of novels, and the rumors are true, Dr. NO was NOT the first novel (Casino Royale, which we will review in due time gets that honor). Dr. NO was however the first film produced in the series, which of course has had incredible success with the 23^rd installment due this autumn (Skyfall), and even though numerous directors have had their way with the world’s most famous secret agent, some things have always remained the same.

                Maybe it’s just that I’m a child of the internet generation, maybe it’s because I just get all hot and bothered about cool gizmos, but one of the first differences that I noticed between this, the “original” Bond, and all the Modern Bonds is the distinct lack of technology. When I speak of technology I of course mean Bond’s technology, not Hollywood’s. Of course when one enjoys a movie from 1962 you had better not expect too much CGI, as computers, let alone computer graphics were still a far flung theory proposed by some guy named Turing. I personally enjoy the old timey effects! It’s far better to watch a real station wagon actually explode while plunging off a cliff (even if it’s obvious from the way the film was cut that it was an empty car) than watch what is essentially some sweet—andgranted—very  realistic computer animations. Call me a classicist, I don’t care. What I’m really trying to get at is Bond’s lack of technology: the customary Q branch consultation includes nothing more than (the somewhat important) introduction of James Bond’s classic[j1]  Whalther PPK. When he sends for more equipment he receives a Geiger counter, a big ole boxy government lab model; not a slick Q branch model with super-secret extra features built in. Bond (played exquisitely and dashingly by a young (but not as young as I had imagined) Sean Connery) still makes it work, when he needs to know if someone is messing with his briefcase, he’s got pencil dust on the latches to check for finger prints, and who could forget the now classic “wet hair across the door jamb?” Even I knew about that one as a kid, I didn’t even know back then that I was through some shocking pop culture translation I was emulating the great man, but I knew how to tell if my Moms had been in my closet. Bond doesn’t have a poisoning reversal kit anywhere so every time he returns to his room he just cracks a fresh bottle of vodka. The lack of all these gizmos, actually serve to advance the film more, because the viewer gets the gist that Bond is just so nice he simply doesn’t need anything other than his wits.

                Speaking of Vodka, one thing that this movie, in particular, basically invented, and has remained in almost every James Bond Film since is Product Placement. It’s not incredibly obvious like in the later movies where the world’s greatest spy uses the world’s worst cell phone because its manufactured by the same company that owns the studio producing the film; but every time Bond picks up a bottle of vodka it’s always Smirnoff and the label is always facing the camera so it can be easily read. Also, if you note, most of the cars in the entire movie are all Chevrolets. The Bond Franchise essentially invented product placement, and Bond has been enjoying the gifts of America’s corporations ever since.

One of the most notable things that has always remained the same within the world of Bond, from Bond’s first scene at the Ambassadors Club in London, up to and including the new movie (I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m quite sure) is the women. It has been said that every “Bond Girl” since  has wished she could have had as amazing an entrance as the Swedish beauty, Ursula Andress. As “Honey Rider” swims out of the Jamaican ocean with her knife and bikini, movie history is made.  So much history that, in fact Halle Berry’s entrance twenty movies later in Die Another Day was intentionally filmed as an homage to the original. (Supposedly some of the scenes from the Bo Derek (who happens to actually be Andress’ step daughter in real life) movie ‘10’ were also a homage) What most people don’t know is that Andress was extremely new to America and her English was broken and accented. In response the producers dubbed every single one of her lines.  And more remarkably (for those in search of the ultimate Jeopardy clue), she was the only Bond Girl to ever appear onscreen inside Bond’s home.

Now, while Honey Rider may have been the most famous girl in the movie, she was certainly not the only swell looking lady to grace the silver screen next to Bond. In fact, in the first scene with Bond at the aforementioned Ambassadors Club we meet the epic Sylvia Trench (played exquisitely by Eunice Gayson) and she sets our hero up for one of his most famous lines ever when she first introduces herself as “Trrench, Sylvia Trench,” leading our hero to drop his now famous “Bond, James Bond.” 

Considering all that has taken place in the years since its first release, Dr. NO  is clearly an inimitable classic of American cinema. Sean Connery began a dynasty that actors still fight to get a chance to be a part of, and Terence Young adapted a popular novel series in a way that modern novelist heirs could only dream about.

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 [j1]You are classic.

The Bond Project

For some reason I cannot realign this first paragraph and I am too lazy to figure it out, and also too lazy to send this review back to Jay with my edits built in, to publish which ones he approves.  I have primarily corrected typos and one or two stylistic choices in favor of proper grammar--but I do not think Jay will find this disconcerting.  He writes the way he talks, and I try to do the same thing, and if you can't appreciate that, then you might as well give up on Flying Houses.  I love writing the way I talk.  It's like a continual process of discovery is happening before your eyes, and there's no feeling that everything has been so intricately refined and calculated to speak "the truth."  I say the truth is in the present.

Jay Maronde and I have been friends since August of 2001.  I met him at the same time as another friend, with a friend I made on the second or third day, neither of which I still talk to--and not by my choice.  We simply drifted apart and I miss them.  But Jay and I stuck.  

The night we met, he asked if we could be drinking buddies and I said yes (we were 18).  We would sneak into a package store and I would trust him to buy the whiskey because he looked older than me.  But eventually we wouldn't have much trouble finding places to sell us some kind of alcohol in Greenwich Village, and we found ourselves going to Smalls Jazz Club, sitting in the back by the bar on the floor, drinking from a bottle of 99 Bananas, staying until 5 AM and watching the sun rise over the skyline of the World Trade Center, as a hundred bikers crossed our path, and we waved.

Later on, I became Editor of the Film Section of Washington Square News (formerly, Culture Shock) and asked Jay to be my co-editor.  We had gone to screenings and written reviews during our freshman year, and we loved the feeling of importance we got from it.  I remember forcing him to go to see L.I.E. with me (and the other two friends that formed our Fab Four) on September 10, and I remember noting in my first ever review, praising the film, that Jay had called it, "The worst fucking movie I have ever seen."  And I remember spending the second half of the next day with him, and drinking in his dorm room.

In the first meeting I held as Editor, I introduced Jay as my co-editor and put my feet up on the table to a dozen or so dazed onlookers and said, "I don't consider myself very professional, but this is the way we are going to do things."   I remember him liking that moment very much.

Recently, he called me (we have only seen each other twice in 2012--but that is much more often than in 2011, or 2010, or 2009, or 2008, or 2007---but 2007 is another story...) and proposed that he write reviews of all 23 James Bond films in anticipation of the newest one--Skyfall.

I told him I was always looking for writers at Flying Houses, looking to expand my operation to Huffington Post-type levels and get bought by AOL Time Warner for millions of dollars, and thought the project was a fantastic idea.  Flying Houses only has a few film reviews (The Brave One, The Dark Knight, The Girlfriend Experience, Antichrist, The Visitor, Le Scaphandre et le Pappilon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar..., and perhaps a few more) but I have never viewed it as purely a book review blog--though they do comprise the majority of the posts.  I have viewed it as a blog to review books, movies, music, live experiences (The Pitchfork Festival and Ray Bradbury, for example), my Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress Columns, short stories, and whatever else anybody would like to write.  

So, without further ado, I present to you, the first in a series of 23, The Bond Project.

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress: Censorship, Paranoia, Etc.

For some reason I doubt that this will be published in BLS Advocate.  It is my 8th weekly column and it is, by far, the most personal, the most controversial, and the angriest column I have written yet.  People don't like angry people.  But I want to remind you: anger is a gift.

Over the past few weeks, while trying to get my new organization, Monthly Expense Project, recognized by the SBA, and while trying to advertise for my Open Mic event, I have been exposed to the bureaucracy of the student body – not the administration—and it has certainly given rise to a cause of action for negligent infliction of emotional distress.  (It is important here to note that I take no issue with the SBA in regards to MEP, as they were actually quite supportive of my proposal).

                I posted an ad on the window of the student lounge on the first floor, and the student lounge in the library 1M floor.  Both were up on Friday morning (and had been up for two days), and down Saturday morning.  I asked the guard what happened and he said probably a dean complained and asked a maintenance worker to take it down.  I’d like to investigate this because I actually think a student did it.

                I am going to avoid the argument that my constitutional rights as an American have been violated by the removal of this ad because I don’t have enough space in this column for that.  But someone, a friend of mine, stated that we “signed something away” when we signed up to go to school here, and one of these freedoms was the ability to post an advertisement on glass.  This was a two-sided ad, which is to be sure, a rarity in the advertising world.  How do we reward creativity?  We ban it. 

                I understand the prudential arguments – that other members of the co-sponsoring clubs did not want to be seen to be associated with someone so unstable and crazy as to post an ad with hundreds of words of text, and several “controversial” statements about religion, sexuality, and whatever other b-s arguments they came up with to restrict my speech.  Never mind that the co-chair of this special sequence of events read the ad and saw no problem with it.  Even after revising and putting up a huge disclaimer, they felt this was even more offensive in a way.  I can’t win.

                BLS does state, at https://blsconnect.brooklaw.edu/student_life/studentorgs/resourcesforstudentorganizationleaders/Documents/Events%20advertising%20pdf.pdf, a policy on advertising on bulletin boards: students may utilize bulletin boards if the flyer complies with all requirements.  My flyer complied with all requirements – except I noted my address at gmail, not brooklaw.  What a mistake.  Nobody mentioned the *beverages* line in it, which was arguably the most “illegal” thing about it.  Moreover, I was told, we cannot advertise on glass.  While this provision mentioned bulletin boards specifically, we can get into a kind of statutory construction argument here – does the omission of glass in the policy statement imply that it is allowed, or not?  In this case, not, so long as it advances your argument.

                 I know the ABA is coming to visit soon, and believe me, if those ads were taken down the day before this visit, I would understand and not complain.  But we have about 12 days until the event, and it is necessary to get as much interest as possible.

                Even so, I do not believe that advertising on glass is something that an ABA representative would see and consider it so offensive that it would negatively criticize BLS – it would show that students have an interest in making their voices heard – which is something that law school implicitly encourages.  We have a class on the First Amendment, and we consider what is protected speech and what is not.  I have not taken First Amendment Con Law, but let me try to make an educated guess, and you can comment and tell me if I’m wrong about it:

                I think the question to consider is this: does the school’s interest in restricting my speech outweigh my interest in making that speech?  In the case of an ABA visit, perhaps, but even that is a speculative assertion.  The ABA might, perhaps, care more about post-graduation employment data, or the cut-backs on summer public service grant funding, or whether BLS intends to keep their incoming classes smaller, like the current 1L class. 

                I think I’d lose this case because my opportunities to advertise elsewhere are ample.  Regardless, I can’t help but feel that this underscores the hypocrisy of the institution – not BLS itself, but the institution of law school.  It is not the time and place to take the administration to task – that will be next week – but schools that want to encourage free and open debate should not remove posters without any notice to the student responsible.  It’s possible that the students I had these “free and open debates” with removed them, and I’d like to know if the administration had any problem with them.  In general, while I am unhappy about losing 45% of my funding for this year, and $2,000 for funding next summer, the administration has not seriously “screwed me” on anything (negligent misrepresentation aside, for now), and in general, has never aimed to hinder my interest in free speech.  It has always been students.  Until the truth about the removal of this ad comes out, the burden is on the defendants to rebut my presumption.  

                Christopher J. Knorps is a 2L at Brooklyn Law School.  He enjoys studying bankruptcy law.  He does not enjoy getting into fights.  Please e-mail him at Christopher.knorps@brooklaw.edu or jack.knorps@gmail.com (if you prefer the chat thing) for any comments, criticisms, or interest in performing at the Vagina Monologues/Open Mic event on April 5, 2012, from 7:00 – 10:00 PM at Geraldo’s.