Matthew: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Intermillennium Media Project podcast, the IMMP. My name is Matthew Porter. 

Ian: And I'm Ian Porter. 

Matthew: I'm his dad, he's my son, and it's movie time once again. 

Ian: It's movie time! 

Matthew: And this is a franchise that we have dealt with before.

But I don't know that it's an actor we've dealt with before. So let's take a look at it. Here we go. I don't know if it is. 

Ian: Have we seen? Yeah. 

Yes we have. Oh, we have. Yes, we have because we got to see this man act with his Scottish accent as an Egyptian who trained a Scotsman to use a sword.

Matthew: That's right. The Egyptian Scottish Spaniard sword fighter. How could I forget? We did talk about Highlander. 

Ian: Yes. But it's , always interesting to see the many roles of Sean Connery once again. 

Matthew: And what we're doing today is returning to one of his what, according to some, is his most iconic role.

And this is a role that he originated for a franchise that has now been, been led by a number of different actors. But we're going back to the very first James Bond movie. Doctor No. 

Ian: Dr. No from 62. Yeah. Yep. That says something. This is based on the novel. It was only four years old at the time.

Yes, dr. No was not the first James Bond novel, but one of the more recent when this was made and, and James Bond was like the current, the latest cool thing. Back in the early 60s and then the books got a big boost from the fact that President Kennedy mentioned them as a favorite read of his. 

Matthew: It's kind of weird though to me that the, the first James Bond movie is based off of the sixth book. 

The sixth. I didn't realize it was that late in the series. 

Ian: That's like turning around and saying, Oh yeah, we're adapting Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn starting with the Bands of Mourning, book six of the series.

It's like, why? How? Huh? There's no establishment. 

Matthew: And that tells you something about the The structure of the James Bond books as a series and sometime we might actually need to go dive into the books 

Ian: we might I've heard odd things about the books differing from the Movies in question 

Matthew: and as with many things the movies diverge more and more as the series goes on but these early movies, they held fairly close to, the books, right down to recreating key scenes.

But there's not a lot of continuity, book to book, there's some, and you can see some progression in James Bond, and some progression in the world that he inhabits. But it's not like there's a lot of continuity story to story, where what happens in one story has a huge impact on the setup for the next story.

There's some where it's more close than others. But it's not that hard to get around that and make the movies in whatever order you want. Back when they were trying to adapt the books into movies and not just take titles and the character. 

Ian: That makes sense. And it kind of also makes sense If any franchise gets a chance to say of course this is different than the text document you read, you're seeing a completely different interpretation because all of it's classified.

No one actually can know the actual thing that happened. This is all up for interpretation. You've got an in world reason why none of this is accurate. 

Matthew: That's an interesting idea. This is the semi declassified Chronicles. 

Ian: Oh, yeah. 

Matthew: Oh, cool. I think one of the main reasons we see so much change over time though is, is that the world and the technology just changed so quickly.

Ian: Oh, absolutely. 

Matthew: And in some ways Doctor No is one of the ones where both because of when it was made so early and so close to when the books were written, but also the kind of technology that it uses. Things hadn't changed that much. By the time they're making things like Moonraker, which we discussed briefly when we talked about The Spy Who Loved Me things had changed so much you couldn't just adapt the original.

It would be silly. 

Ian: There's always that difficulty with sci fi? Yeah. Thriller? Both of them in this sense. Where you have to be locked to the advancement of humanity, 

Matthew: And as I mentioned, we have talked about one James Bond movie before, but it wasn't a Sean Connery James Bond movie.

It was The Spy Who Loved Me, which had been the first one I saw in a theater, but it was not it wasn't even the first Roger Moore James Bond movie.

Ian: I will say for being the first film of the James Bond series, it does an excellent job acting as though James Bond is established. Yes. It doesn't go through the work of establishing James Bond, it is just telling you about one of his missions.

Right. And it has callbacks, I almost want to call it, to events that we never have seen. That helps it have this grander placement overall. 

Matthew: I do like that. The fact that we're just getting this little slice of a long and weird career. 

Ian: It does start out like a lot of the James Bond films do though. Not with James Bond.

Oh, of course. That's right. That's right. In a way that is almost reminiscent to me of Columbo, where it's like, okay, here's a completely different setup of where things will be happening, and a dead guy, in short order. 

Matthew: And that's kind of important, and in some ways it's, there's something charming about it, because this sets up James Bond as somebody who has a job, and his job is to investigate things and run counterintelligence and the like.

And. This starts not with James Bond in the middle of an adventure. This starts with the thing James Bond is going to have to investigate. It's like, Law and Order, it starts with the fact that a crime has been committed, and then you bring in the police. This starts with some international incident affecting British intelligence, and then you, that's why you bring in James Bond to go investigate.

And he is an investigator in this movie, more so than he is in some of them. 

Ian: Very much. 


The entire setup, we watch this agent, getting killed by a group of hitmen. We see then, him missing his radio contact, and we see that information that he's missed his deadline.

Ripple all the way until it gets to M, who brings in James Bond. 

Matthew: And that's something else. You talked about the fact that this kind of establishes James Bond as a character. It establishes the, an organization in which he operates as an almost mundane thing where he is one operational part of this vast British intelligence apparatus.

And it's the fact that You see this gigantic room of radio operators receiving regular calls from people all over the world by shortwave. And it's the fact that one guy in Jamaica missed his daily check in call. Is what sets this all apart, you know, I've got a form that is, I'm supposed to check off to say that this guy checked in on the radio and he didn't, so I have to send it to my supervisor, and he has to send it up the chain, and eventually it gets to M.

Ian: Yeah, it's extremely, I want to call it extremely bureaucratic, but I'm not meaning that in a negative way, I'm meaning that in a structural way, yeah. 

Matthew: Yeah, in terms of crime fiction this would, at least the first half of this would very much be a procedural story. It's, you know, what happens when you've got something has gone wrong or there's been a crime and the person whose job it is to investigate and follow the steps and follow the evidence where it leads does so.

And that's, that would, that would probably really, really bore people who want a modern James Bond movie. What, did they go back to Doctor No? 

Ian: It is such a different styling and this James Bond is a little bit more a guy doing a job in that sense. And that, that is both for his benefit and for his detriment, maybe?

Because we see just in that initial thing where, the message never came. So We watch it go all the way up to M. M calls Bond in, says, Hey, I'm going to send you on a mission in three hours. Also. You're being put on a plane in three hours. That is a, that is something about this job. Yeah,

Matthew: he's got a go kit.

Ian: Yeah, he's got a go kit. But the, the almost performance review discussion of the turn in your Beretta, you need to use the Walther PPK that we're giving everybody. 

Matthew: And that's fascinating, because that is a scene right from the books. And we have James Bond using a Beretta, and then he's kind of called out on it, it's not really the official weapon, it doesn't have enough stopping power, you're supposed to be carrying a Walther like everybody else.

Ian: And the ar It jammed on you last mission. 

Matthew: Yeah, right, right. And the, the Armorer, who, they didn't have Q yet, but the Armorer comes in to essentially collect his Beretta and give him the Walther he's supposed to be using. 

Ian: The best example, though, of this version of James Bond's personality, though, is him trying to play a little fast and loose and leave with the Beretta.

Matthew: Right. 

Ian: That right there is such a wonderful setup of personality. We get him playing cards and being the dapper spy in the first moment we see him, but we actually get his personality, I feel. . When he's dealing with his boss. Yes. 

Matthew: And it sets up an interesting contrast and conflict, too, because on the one hand, we've got the dapper playboy who is flirting with his opponent over the card table at the casino.

And then he's called in to talk to his boss and he's in trouble with the equipment he's using and, you know, it's, you're supposed to put in the client code when you use the copier, gosh darn it. You're supposed to use the Walther, not the Beretta. 

Ian: Oh, absolutely. 

Matthew: And by the way, you're on a plane in three hours, so go get dressed.

Ian: And, you know, he's having little playful chats with Miss Moneypenny there at the front desk. It's very much his job, in that sense. 

Matthew: Right. I mean, it's a job where he does things you couldn't get away with today, like all the flirting with Miss Moneypenny. Although, they make it clear that she is inviting this and on it.

It's still, you know, nobody would accept it in the workplace these days, but it's not, it's not one sided with her as a target. And again, that's sort of the Hollywood fantasy of it is, well, yeah, women like to be flirted with in the workplace. Well, maybe not. 

Ian: Later, James Bond makes it a lot more aggressive and a lot more uncomfortable.

Mm hmm. This one has an air of. Two co workers with an off color sense of humor who maybe shouldn't make these jokes But are both making them at each other as friends. Yeah, and That that being a problem is there but it definitely seems like a problem Both of them are doing right and it's odd just it's odd to defend this because of the problems nowadays that there are We're pointing out right but of all of the moments in any film James Bond films included.

This is the least odd and icky of that version because it has this, you know, best buddies teasing each other air. 

Matthew: Yeah, this fantasy version of it is being shown as so mutual. Yes. In this version it would be more that H. R. coming and telling both of them, hey, cool it. 

Ian: You're making everyone else feel awkward.

Matthew: Right. Before we get too far away from it, though. We do get at the very, very beginning of this first movie, the iconic James Bond opening shot, essentially the title shot, looking down the barrel of a pistol pointed at James Bond. And he's, the weird, the thing that always throws me when I go back to this is James Bond is wearing a hat.

Yes! This was back when men who were cool wore this kind of a snap brim hat. It's almost a trilby. It's not really a wide brim hat. 

Ian: It's very odd. Bond with hat. 

Matthew: In America by this time, hats were kind of on the way out. Partly because JFK never wore one. But, I guess that took a while in England.

So, he could still wear a hat and be cool. Which wouldn't be the case for decades after. 


But that shot down the barrel and pointing at James Bond, but James Bond, I guess, draws quicker than this guy could shoot, and we get the blood on the screen. It's, it's, it's so tacky and and kitschy. And yet it's, it lets you, okay, it's a James Bond movie time.

Let's shift my brain into that mode. 

Ian: It's tacky and kitschy, but it's also Iconic and it the first thing we get is a depiction of James Bond being a man in danger and yet faster and more skilled enough to deal with the threat before it deals with him. It establishes that power dynamic of the lone man with skill versus the looming danger.

That is so key to spy thrillers in general, but that is key to spy thrillers in part because of James Bond's presence in the zeitgeist, making that a, a key feature. 

Matthew: And they established what it means for him to be a double agent in kind of an offhand comment during that scene that we talked about with M, where he's getting his his new firearm.

That, you know, you've, you've, having a double, having a double O rating means you have a license to kill in service. It doesn't mean that you have a license to be killed. You're too valuable.

Ian: There's so much of that set up. I mean, the first things we see is him winning hands at Baccarat. Right. Being this smooth dapper man, he immediately gets his drink. , okay, this is a side tangent, something I found funny, is I've read enough stuff now of people complaining that the shaken, not stirred, and everything else martini is an awful drink, but excellent for a spy.

Because it is a more watered down and longer sipping drink, so it's something he could order at a party and continue to have without getting intoxicated as fast as the other people. 

Matthew: That is a good point. Maybe that's the whole point of it.

Ian: I think it is. 

Matthew: There are some mentions In the books about him having acquired a taste for vodka when he was stationed in, or in covert operations over in the eastern block.

But the idea that, yeah, shaken martini, shaken over ice, that's gonna be more watered down, that's gonna be weaker. 

Ian: It's also extremely clear. So anything added to your drink is visible.

Honestly, I heard it described, it's, it's a good spy, it's a bad martini. I'm like, okay. Interesting. 

Matthew: Interesting. And in the books there, I, I shouldn't keep comparing the books, he jumps from drink to drink occasionally, and he's this, and he's drinking bourbon in this, this book, and he goes back to martinis in another one.

But I like the idea that it's, it's, this is his drink all the time, and these are specific operational reasons why. 

That's good. 

Ian: I will say, I love the fact that we get that initial bit with him playing cards and, and being suave. Because most of this film, James Bond, Will look a whole lot more like Magnum P. I. 

Matthew: Yes, because he has to go to Jamaica to find out what happened to this contact who has not radioed in. 

Ian: He's there to check on a British contact in Jamaica who is there helping the CIA, possibly because something has been interfering with launches of the project. Mercury Rockets. 

Matthew: Yeah. So this is very much cutting edge technology stuff, very much interfering with the Space Age. 

Ian: Yeah. It does say that the say something that the first mission that James Bond does on film is going to go help the Americans , which is simultaneously like the Americans are doing Interesting stuff.

And someone needs to clean up whatever is getting in the way of it. 

Matthew: Yeah, they need a little help once in a while, but that's cool. 

Ian: Yeah, which is, which is weirdly positive for both. It's like Britain, we get to be the ones who deal with the stuff. America, we're doing the only interesting stuff that bad guys are bothering to get in the way of.

Matthew: And this British contact, I gather that he worked For British intelligence, and he had some cover job at Government House, and he had this little group of bridge players that he would, would spend the evenings with, but always had to cut out to check in, make his radio call at the same time.

I gather that he had been there for a long time, and something interesting had happened that he'd been working on now, and helping this, helping the CIA, who were also there to investigate. But of course, it's, it's Jamaica in the early 60s, it is British jurisdiction. 

Ian: Yeah. So. 

It does still fit.

But, it's intriguing that the first thing we get is some things getting in the way of these missile launches. It's not very clear why. Yeah. Ever. 

Matthew: The missile launches have gone, oh, they're 

Ian: not missiles, they're just rockets. Yeah, 

Matthew: these are rockets, these rocket launches. And I gather these are unmanned tests that they're doing?

Because they didn't mention losing astronauts. Yeah, I take it this 

Ian: was like, test rockets to prepare for the full Project Mercury human spaceflight. Right. 

Matthew: And, they have been going off course, and I, somehow they tracked some of what , might have been causing this to Jamaica, most of the movie happens in and around Jamaica. Yes. And that may be why they chose this as the first movie to make. It's an exotic, tropical location. Looks great on camera. He's not sitting indoors in a casino all the time. Like in the book, Casino Royale. 

Ian: That does help. And we 

continue to see Bond be clever and interesting in terms of his spycraft on a very down to earth level. This is not the gadget Bond of future movies. This is less the quippy Bond of later movies. 

Matthew: Yes. He has a bit of a gallows sense of humor, but he's not, you know, throwing out puns and jokes every minute.

Ian: Yeah, but this is the guy who will say, who will arrive, immediately be told, Oh, here's your car. Oh, one moment. Calls the head office. Did you send a car? No, you requested not. Thought so. Walks back over. Okay, take me where I'm going. 

Matthew: What better way to gather information than to find out who's trying to kidnap or kill me.

Ian: Exactly. That right there, though, is it's this very, like, competent. And willing to just go for it. Right. Energy. And that's, you get the feeling that that's how Bond has gotten through so many missions for so long. 

Matthew: He has a job to do, and if doing that job means he has to be the bait, he's got the guts and the the interest to do so.


Ian: The car ride, of course, leads to a car chase, although it's a very muted car chase compared to some.

This is not quite the fast and the furious, it's more the speedy and the sharp turns. 

Matthew: And it's an interesting car chase in that the car that James Bond is in is being driven by one of the bad guys. 

Ian: So they're chasing their selves in order to throw him off, thinking that he's not going to notice. 

Matthew: But clearly their goal was to get rid of Bond.

Yes. Eventually of course Bond is armed, and he takes control, and he is trying to question the driver, but the driver uses a suicide capsule. Yeah. And he cannot get any information from him. Although. Whoever this guy is working for is intimidating enough that this guy committed suicide rather than answer my questions.

That gives him some information, right there. 

Ian: But he, he now has a dead guy and a car, so he drives where he needs to go. The quippiest line in the entire movie happens here, where he tells the front desk to to make sure he doesn't go anywhere. And gestures to the dead guy in the back of the car.

But that, that gives him information to start and we watch him very much be an investigator. Watch for who's watching him because he knows they're on the lookout. They've sent people after him already and they killed his predecessor in the area. Find out what the previous man was doing.

Check in with the home office. He goes through all the steps and he's very, very, effective at this. But it's not. overly complex, and it's very, very methodical. He is, he is going through the process very carefully. This is a precision task. 

Matthew: He talks with the head guy at government house there in Jamaica finds out more about the guy who has gone missing who reported to the guy at government house, finds out about the other guys in their bridge group, arranges to meet them socially.

All both not wanting this to be a heavy handed government investigation, but clearly taking the steps. Who do I need to question? What do I need to look at? Let's check out this guy's apartment check out where the radio is and so on.

Ian: He's properly. suspicious of everything. It's like he notices, you know, there's stuff here about stone samples.

Who's this guy in the photo? He is going through all of the previous agent's life with an eye for how did this man get killed? Where did he make his mistake? 

Matthew: And, and who is behind it? Because that may be something 

bigger we need to address.

Ian: So he works his way through, he meets the members of the Bridge Club, he meets the the geologist who he was working with. And this is also where we start to get the fact that the camera is not married to Bond. Which is lovely. 

Matthew: We get a few of these different things, , the geologist From whom are missing guy was getting some, some samples tested is was part of their bridge group.

So he's able to find him and see, you know, what are the connections here, but we also have bond making connections with other people on the island, including. Is this when he meets Felix Leiter or was it only after he meets the geologist? 

Ian: Well it's around the same time he first meets Quarrel. The boatman, who doesn't want to take Bond on as a client. He won't, he won't take him where he wants to go. 

Matthew: Oh, that's right, because he saw a picture of the guy with with Quarrel, and learned that he was, Quarrel's the best fishing boat captain in the area, and this guy used him a lot, but didn't seem to actually catch much by way of fish, so what was, he needs to find out more from Quarrel.

Ian: Yeah, what was he doing then? So, goes there, I think he then learns about the samples. It's somewhere in here. Yeah. But during that he goes back to Quarrel now that he's got a place to go. 

Matthew: Right. And Quarrel at first does not trust him. And lures him into a back room and Quarrel and one of his buddies from the restaurant where they're kind of using it as their home base.

There's a fight with, with Bond, and that's when he meets Leiter, when Leiter comes in to break that up, and when Leiter vouches for Bond, then Quarrel is fine with him, and, you know, no hard feelings, it's, I couldn't trust you, I didn't know who you were, you're coming around asking questions about a guy who told me that everything he was doing was hush hush.

Ian: Oh, yeah. It's very excellent, because we've already seen Bond in a fight with a man trying to kill him, and we saw how Bond is able to To defeat him one on one in combat, we know his skill, so when Bond honestly gets caught unawares, possibly, but is, is honestly attacked here, and Felix Leiter steps in and vouches.

After pulling information to prove out of Bond's pocket. There's this aspect of, you know, oh, you're very good at this. I respect you. Yeah, you know, there's this element immediately of, you know, we fought, we tested each other's metal, and we both now like what we see in the other person. That's a wonderful setup.

There's no ill will and animosity. That's another element where it's a job. Mm 

hmm. 

And that, you know, respective and co worker kind of element comes through. 

Matthew: We've got other people in the same business, and right now we're not competitors. Let's work together on this. And they have this, the little strategy meeting at the restaurant later that night.

With tLeiterter and quarrel, and the restaurant owner there stops in, and that's when they Notice somebody who keeps taking pictures, somebody who appears to be like there for the society page and that's her cover story. She's taking pictures of people at this party. Yet she's always making sure to get a picture of Bond and the people he's with.

And she was at the airport as well. And another example of how Bond was aware of what's going on when he sees somebody taking a picture with him squarely in frame as he's leaving the airport, he held up his hat so he couldn't be seen. he gets quarreled to go and and grab her and bring her back.

And, what not, not without reason, the James Bond books and some of the, especially the earlier movies, get a Oh, this is the 

Ian: earliest movie. This 

Matthew: is the earliest movie. Get criticized for aspects of misogyny. The way women are treated and the way women are regarded and this is sometimes brought up as an example of that, but I'm not quite sure I see it because it seems to me that they treat her the way they would treat any agent regardless of gender or any other characteristics in terms, in this scene at the very least.

Mm 

Ian: hmm. I, I think I see what you're saying there. This is very much, yo no, you're taking photos. Stop that. You say that you're a freelancer who works with the local paper. We don't have any way to prove that's not true, but we've told you off when we threatened you back, so, right.

Matthew: And she 

Ian: get out, get outta here. I ripped up your film. 

Matthew: Yeah. And he has quarrel Go and grab her so they could question her. And she, he. She brings, drags her back to the table, keeps a firm grip on her so she can't run away. But I think that's how they would have treated any agent who was obviously there trying to get information about them.

Ian: Yeah, I think that this film has problems with stuff later, but this one definitely is. This one, this is not that moment. 

Matthew: Yeah, exactly right, yeah. Of all the moments in this film, this seems to be one of the ones where, you know, they're all doing a job, including her. 

Yeah

I think that what we do wind up getting 

Ian: here is three other elements of Bond. Which is the fact that in all of his discussion, he's getting more and more information saying that there's stuff going on at Crab Key. And everyone else is like, oh yeah, it's, it's owned by some foreign interest who's got a bauxite mine there.

There's not much going on there. And there's an element of James Bond being like, there are people trying to kill me. And there's a dead man already from my agency. Why does everybody keep on hearing, oh yeah, that bauxite mine and ignoring it? There's this slight bit of everyone here needs to be better at their job frustration.

Matthew: These two dots are not that hard to connect. Why am I the first one to connect them? I guess that's why they pay me. 

Ian: That's why they pay me. I do love seeing James Bond go into his hotel room. Yeah. Because the little things and the little cuts and everything else of him going over to check that the thread he put on the closet doors is still there.

To check the lock on his suitcase. To go and pour himself a drink and then after pouring himself a drink, or going to pour himself a drink, Rethinking it and grabbing the hidden other bottle. And pouring from that bottle instead. Is, there's a level of like, The, the paranoia and the rituals that have kept this man alive.

Matthew: Yes, and they're such crude techniques. He's not setting up micro laser intrusion detection things like he would in a 70s or 80s James Bond movie. Yeah, he's putting a piece of hair over the closet. He's putting talcum powder on the locks of his briefcase. It's all very simple. Tradecraft. It's not super high tech gadgets that look cool on film.

Ian: And it's so effective. But the fact that you get a man who does all that, and then slumps in the chair once he knows that the space is clear, and drinks his drink with this very, very tired and very, very haunted look. Mm hmm. In, in a scene with no

We hear more of James Bond not being okay. And that's part of where this is a man with a job comes through in Dr. No. This is not the, the sleek superhero James Bond we get later. This is, I have seen things, I have done things, and this is a job I'm good at, but it's not a job that's easy. Man, 

Matthew: right? Yeah, this is a job that has taken a 

toll.

Ian: Mm hmm and 

The next scene we get because we've after he'd gone to talk with the geologist we get to follow the geologist Going to crab key. Yes, and and being given orders via Spooky speakerphone in a locked room as he's then given a tarantula To go kill Bond with. 

Matthew: Right, he tried to kill Bond with with assassins who, I think the same assassins we saw at the beginning.

And it was just like happenstance that happened to save James Bond in that shot. Yeah! A car happened to go by at the wrong moment. It wasn't that he was super alert and he was able to have a fight and defeat the assassins. Dumb luck saved this from being a very short movie in which the bad guy wins.

And, and yet, you know, who, whatever, this, this spooky voice that the geologist is working for is very disappointed and provides a A remarkably less reliable method of assassination to now kill James Bond. We couldn't shoot him, so we're going to use the much more reliable method of putting a tarantula in his hotel room.

I 

Ian: kind of hope that this, this is one of the, this is the start of the overly elaborate ways to kill a man that happens in James Bond. There's a tiny bit of me that hopes it was a, Ah, we failed to shoot him. Wait a minute, didn't we shoot the last guy? Well, yeah. That's why they sent him. So if we shoot him, they're gonna send another him.

Oh, yeah. Bullets lead to more agents and more bullets. We gotta make this look like an accident. There's a tiny element where I hope that's what happened in the background, but we never get that. We just get the pen is mightier than the sword, the tarantula is mightier than the gun, I guess.

What's going on here?


Matthew: Also, as part of that scene where he gets the tarantula, another James Bond trope comes up in this first movie. And that is the, the weirdly empty, spooky space in which , the bad guy operates or confronts somebody like James Bond or confronts his disappointing lackeys. Because there's like nothing in this weird concrete room lit from small overhead windows and things.

Except like a little, a little raised area and a chair and a table with a cage with a tarantula. And that's it. He's got this space set aside for special meetings. 

Ian: I like to think of this as HGTV. Hideout and Grandeur Television. Ha ha ha ha! I mean You could absolutely this the James Bond series is just a sequence of like the the HGTV dream lair every single year Over and over it's it's so wild.

There is so much decor and design spent on making this Making evil look like luxury and luxury look like evil there Instead of getting the job done 

Matthew: And a big chunk of the middle of this movie is the, the bad guys attempting and failing to kill James Bond. Yes. Because, of course, the tarantula doesn't work.

Ian: Although, the tarantula doesn't work because James Bond He hits it multiple times with a shoe, and he hits it multiple times with a shoe, not in a gotta make sure that I didn't get killed this time, but in a spider. Why spider? No, of all the things. Why is it a spider? Because we watch him, like, get really scared, wait till he has an opportunity, throw it across the room, hit it once, Then hit it like five more times with a break in the middle of the catch his breath 

Matthew: With with really dramatic Music stings during that but yeah, that's a full on adrenaline freakout, which we don't see much of James Bond 

Ian: Yeah People pull guns on James Bond multiple times in this James Bond is in wildly dangerous scenarios and is chill But he freaks out at a spider.

I think it's legitimately afraid of spiders Could be More than And that's an element I don't think any other of the James Bond films ever put in. But I kind of love the idea that James Bond is just got arachnophobia as a personality trait. That could work. 

Matthew: It could. That's his why did it have to be snakes kind of moment.

Exactly.

So the tarantula 

didn't work as a way to kill Bond. So Bond winds up flirting with the secretary of the boss at Government House that he's been coordinating all this with. 

Ian: Huh. 

Matthew: And makes a date to meet with her. And it seems to me that it's because Bond suspected her and knew there was somebody on the inside working for for the bad guys.

But yeah, her invitation to come up into the mountains and meet her at her house is just a way to lure him onto lonely roads where he can be attacked. And that's where we do get another one of the James Bond, the guy has just been killed quips kind of things. Because the people are pursuing him in a hearse, I guess because it was supposed to be unobtrusive.

A hearse parked along the side of the road or something? And when Bond evades them and they come across a construction site and the hearse winds up, going over the side of the mountain he, he talks to the construction guy saying, what happened? He's like, something about, they were late for a funeral 

something about the fact that, yeah, the guys in the hearse are now dead. I forget the exact line, but it was another one of these, Oh yeah, that's right. It's a James Bond movie. He has to quip when somebody dies. 

Ian: Mm hmm. Otherwise they might come back. 

Matthew: Is that it? It's a magic spell. 

Ian: I don't know because I'm actually thinking of it.

Other James Bond movies, like he, he defeats someone and he doesn't quip that guy might show up, I'm thinking Jaws in later films. I think that might work. 

Matthew: It's, it's official MI6 protection against necromancers. 

Ian: I love that. Oh, yeah. Very cool. 

Matthew: So that doesn't work, so she's shocked when Bond shows up alive at her house.

And arrests her. Yes, well, and she makes, she makes plans to keep him there for a while. With somebody on the phone. But yeah, he arrests her and puts her in a a car to be taken back to Government House and 

Ian: This is also where he kills the geologist who was coming over to kill him. 

Matthew: And another example of how the kind of work James Bond is doing when it was real procedural investigative work.

So much of it is just patience. 

Ian: Yeah. 

Matthew: He knew that she had arranged to have somebody come and finish the job of killing him. So he made it look as if there was somebody in the bed sits back , where he'd be behind the door when somebody comes in, and has a drink and plays solitaire for however many hours it takes for the geologist to show up.

Ian: There's a whole lot of, I've just got to sit here and wait for them to walk in. Yeah. 

Matthew: He's, he's a man of action in response when it's necessary, but he's also just a man of, of curiosity and investigation and an observation is such a big part of what he's doing, such an interesting take on that kind of a character.

And yeah, it does lead to a confrontation in which essentially you get a version of the bad guy monologue of you don't know what you're messing with. And you're not really a threat to us, you'll be taken care of. But The geologist does eventually try to shoot Bond, and Bond shoots first.

Ian: Mm hmm. 

But, but all of this is just doubled down on the, Yeah, it's Crab Key. Everybody here is involved with Crab Key. Everyone thinks the bauxite mine is nothing. It's obviously something. Get me to Crab Key.

And so Quarrel and Bond head out to the island, sneak their way over. 

Matthew: And not before Bond ha He gets a gadget. He does? He has a big package wrapped in brown paper shipped to him from London. And it's a Geiger counter. 

Ian: A geiger counter? 

Matthew: Because What they have identified is the fact that these samples that the missing guy took back from Crab Key, were were radioactive.

But this is the fact that he needs to find this out. He can't just go buy a Geiger counter somewhere. He doesn't have a Geiger counter built into his cufflinks like he would in a later movie. No, he has to send word to London and have something shipped over in the diplomatic pouch the next day. And it's this big, boxy, bulky Geiger counter.

I like that. 

Ian: It's really fun. I, I, I also will say though, it says so much that the Geiger counter is treated with such grand respect in this movie. I feel like if you were to hand James Bond something that big and bulky in a later movie, he'd hit someone with it. Right. 

Matthew: I love the fact that he tests the Geiger counter on the luminous dial of his wristwatch.

That's good old 60s technology. 

Ian: Yeah, it's like, yep, that works. Oh, that's really radioactive. 

Matthew: And all of this fits in so well with one of the details I like about the James Bond books and early movies is that the cover for his branch of British intelligence in, in London is a universal exports.

The cover story is that it's this import export company. But that is used to explain the weird array of antennae on the roof, so they can contact all their different offices and ships around the world. And that explains why they're often receiving and sending weird packages all the time. They're an import export company, of course.

Course they're dealing with stuff all, all over the world. 

Ian: I do also love that he checks quarrels boat to finds the radioactive remnants and we get to see quarrel in the background go, Ugh, . Like realize like, oh, my boat has been radioactive for how long now? 

Matthew: Yeah. Oh, just checking the spots where the samples had been and Oh, okay.

Ian: Like, 

oh 

dang it 

Matthew: and talking about quarrel once again. That's something else that needs to be acknowledged about this movie is that it has such. Early 60s British sensibilities in terms of race and class. And the movies do get better over time, but there is definitely, I would say, a lot of, of built in racism in the way characters are portrayed.

Good guys or bad guys. And also that definite classism, which is connected with that. Yeah. The way that Bond orders people around, including Quarrel, and you It's this interesting thing you see where they, the quarrel is acknowledged at being very, very good at the thing he does, which is captaining a fishing boat, but they also have to portray him as somebody who is superstitious and somebody who drinks too much and all these other things that were, well, the, this kind of establishes his class and that's bound up with his race.

And that's sort of the, the way this is all depicted. And he's dealing with Bond, and Bond is definitely ordering him around like a servant, the way he isn't with a lot of the other characters. 

Ian: That is definitely a problem, and that needs to be acknowledged. I think Quarrel is, they show him as a good character who could, who needed to be given a better depiction and shot overall.

Yeah. The way he's talked about by Felix Leiter, the way he's described anytime he's not on screen, is so different than how he is depicted on screen, and that's a problem. 

Matthew: Yeah, that's a great point. It's almost as if they acknowledge more respect for him when he's not in earshot. Yeah. And that's backward, that's weird, I don't get that.

I mean, I wouldn't say backward, you should have respect for him regardless of whether he's 

there, but you know what I mean. Exactly.

But they do arrange with, 

with Quarrel and with Leiter to go to 

to crab key to check it out. 

Ian: And arriving on Crab Key, there's three things very quickly added to our narrative and established. One of them is that definitely Crab Key is the right place. There's armed guards everywhere. And so, anybody who is questioning Bond. No longer is questioning Bond about where this is happening, 

Matthew: right?

And one of the things that has kept people away from Crab Key is the dragon. 

Ian: That's the second 

thing 

The dragon Everyone's being superstitious. What's this and James Bond was like the what now? No, there is no dragon. Whatever it is. I can shoot it What is it? What are you dealing with?

And a lot of that discussion happens with our next character, Honey Rider. 

Matthew: Right, because Leiter doesn't go get on to Crab Key with them, although he takes part of the journey with them. But Bond and Quarrel land on Crab Key. Right. And, and yeah, they meet Honey Rider, played by Ursula Andress. 

Ian: Who has been coming to it's a crab key.

It's one of the only people willing to, because she collects the shells off of the shore and sells them. 

Matthew: And, and Honey Rider is often referenced as like the first Bond girl. I think you could make an argument that that's actually the secretary from Government House. I think so, yeah. But, but that shot of Honey Rider emerging from the surf with the diving knife and the white bikini.

White bikini, which is just, it is incredibly modest by current 21st century movie standards. But it was such a big deal in 1962, that outfit, and especially that particular shot. 

It's kind of fun 

to think back on. 

Ian: And so that kind of makes this little trio, as Honey Rider, who knows the island better, because she's been coming here frequently, is roped in with Quarrel and Bond.

As they try to infiltrate. I will say, this is where I was It was very funny to me, design wise, and then made it extra funny when I thought about color wise, that we wind up there with Honey Rider in this white bikini, James Bond in a bright blue shirt, and Quarrel in a bright red shirt. And it's like, we've got our characters literally wearing red, white, and blue.

This is a British and U. S. joint operation, and everyone is color coded.

Very amusing to me, but it's, it's like the least sneaky outfits you could imagine. Yeah, what do we wear? 

Matthew: Tropical rainforest, how do we not blend in? 

Ian: Exactly. Very main character, but not very, not very stealthy. But they need to get their way into , the complex on the island. 

Matthew: And I feel so bad for Ryder, because they really messed up her deal by showing up, didn't they?

She's been able to come and go as she, as she pleased. They didn't really bother her because she could carefully come and go at night. She was collecting seashells that she could sell for big bucks in Miami to collectors. And making her living this way. And they show up and suddenly she's one of three people who's being threatened by gunboats that are coming around to warn them.

And tell them to, to surrender. 

Ian: Absolutely. If you're looking at like a tabletop game. Whoever it was who was playing Felix Leiter's character decided they didn't want that character sheet and changed before the next session. I'm tough to roll up the character of Honey Ryder for the next bit of the campaign.

Matthew: I guess so, he just couldn't, it's not that he just couldn't make the session, he changed characters because they lose one and gain the other immediately. 

Ian: Exactly, immediately.

But, they 

hide out. Behind some ridges to evade gunfire, which does also destroy Honey's boat. Very much like, she's just dragged into this the entire time. I feel sorry for her. And they like, hide out there till morning?

Matthew: Well, they're hiding until nightfall, so they can try to get, move around the island more under cover of darkness.

Ian: Mm hmm. 

Matthew: But at nightfall is when they meet the dragon.

It's weird how discord does not pick up your laughter as voice.

Ian: I don't know what to do about that. Leave that in. The dragon is so ridiculous. The dragon is a Humvee with an armored front shell and a minigun turret and a flamethrower stuck on the front and a very Very Monster Truck Rally paint job. 

Matthew: Very, it's very, a crude, you know, nine year old's picture of, I'm gonna turn my truck into a dragon.

Here's how it will loook! 

Ian: Oh yeah. 

The dragon from Doctor No, at the scale showed in the movie, is cheesy. If you were to somehow make that exact same vehicle, 50 percent of the size, it would be a very, very good BattleBot. 

Matthew: Yes, you're right. It's got guns, it's got a flamethrower. It's, yeah.

And and this is where the screenwriters decided, you know, we don't need Quarrel anymore. Yeah, so, yeah, he succumbs to the flamethrower, not completely on screen, this is still early 60s and not a horror movie, so we don't actually see him, but we hear his screams as two bushes away as they're trying to hide, he gets toasted, which is a sad end for a character who deserved better treatment overall.

Ian: Yeah, James kind of pulls Honey in so she doesn't have to watch it, and in doing so also pulls the camera to not watch it. Right. But Bond does successfully, like, shoot out the lights, and partially disables it, but the two drivers, climb out in full isolation suits.

Matthew: Right, full radiation gear,

Ian: and handcuff Bond and take both Bond and Honey. On the dragon back into the base. 

Matthew: So, they succeeded in getting in. 

Ian: Infiltration successful! 

Matthew: And that's a recurring theme, especially in early James Bond stories. The best way to get into the bad guy's lair? Oh, get caught.

Because then you can talk to the bad guy. And have an adventure inside. 

Ian: Because the bad guy wants to talk. 

Matthew: Of course. 

Ian: Cut to when they get in. They're sent through decontamination because they're highly radioactive. Yes. They've been, they've been hiding in the pools outside, they've been washing in the stream, and everything is irradiated on this island.

Matthew: Yes. And and yeah, you know, it's funny, as they were moving, before they got caught, as they were moving through the jungle, They do have to evade troops at points and we do see know, James Bond killing somebody. One of the troops who doubles back and finds them. And that, there's such a big deal made of that.

He wrestles with this guy and eventually overpowers him and kills him and Honey is, Is shocked and, and horrified why, and Bond is saying, well, it was him or me, you know, this is the only way for us to survive. The fact that he, it makes that kind of license to kill mean something more, when it's still something he has to decide about, it's still something he has to justify.

Ian: It's still something that the people around him are horrified by. It, it throws into relief what a weird and horrible job he has, when you see other people react to it in that way. 

It's very, very telling because so many other goons and, grunt men for the bad guys get eliminated in other James Bond films.

Ian: And this first one that gets defeated like that is given such somber note. It colors the rest of those later on. 

Matthew: And there are so many later movies in which Bond is just spraying bullets all over the place. And there's so many on screen deaths of faceless or nameless bad guys.

And it, it just doesn't mean anything and it gets boring. I think that the, the the Pierce Brosnan movies may be the worst for this, but they still focused on these details and these moments in this early movie. It's interesting. 

But yeah, they're, they're sent through this full decontamination array. Which has another one of those little camera tricks like you were talking about with why we don't see Quarrel's death on screen Because they have to remove all of their clothes So they start doing so and Bond like has to go over to somebody else to get the handcuffs Taken off so that he can take off his shirt and it's while he's doing that the camera follows him over to the guy with the keys and After we've seen Honey Rider start to get undressed and then next thing you see, she's behind a wall being conveyor belted through the shower.

So there are a lot of these, oh, are they going to show this? Oh, no, they're not. 

Ian: And there's also something very funny to me about the fact that their showers are not like stall showers. It's this conveyor belt car wash of people. It's like Put him in. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da. It's like he's just like rolling.

They're just like rolling along. They're getting a countdown as to how irradiated they are bit by bit. You know, getting the number lower. 

Matthew: I wanted narration by the How It's Made guy. Yes! The irradiated counterintelligence officer is then put on this conveyor belt through several stages of decontamination showers.

Ian: A high pressure foam is sprayed to make sure that all contaminants are washed away cleanly. 

Matthew: And they were, they're checking them at each stage, you know, what is their radiation level until they get get to the end. So it's, it's a well run organization. They have their detailed criteria. 

Ian: And immediately another camera trick is the fact that a full unfolded towel is handed to them each as they are coming out of it.

And so they're given like a towel and a bathrobe which covers them up as they do. And then they're sent through a giant vault door into a med spa? 

Matthew: They've got this luxury suite with room service and a plush seating area and, and bedchamber and, they're being treated reasonably well as captives.

Ian: Honestly though, you tell me there's a med spot out there that starts out with a fake decontamination process like that and it would work. 

Matthew: It would. 

You change the name from decontamination to detox and you'd have tons of customers. 

Ian: Absolutely. It's absolutely there. But this is another instance of that, like, wild amounts of design and aesthetic.

Matthew: And it's run by a guy named Dr. No, so, hey he's a doctor, he must know what he's doing. He's a doctor, yeah. He'll help my health. 

Ian: He'll help my health. I, I love that kind of styling where even James Bond is a little, at this point, confused. We've been describing that this is a job. This feels like James Bond doing his job and being shoved into a James Bond story for the first time.

Because on that end, he's, he's been doing all this actual spycraft the entire time. And there's a little bit of Huh? On his face, when the other side of being put through decontamination, which was honestly so respectful the entire time. 

Matthew: Yeah, it's like James Bond has to catch up with James Bond movies.

Ian: Exactly! 

Matthew: This would not have been out of place in The Spy Who Loved Me, but in Doctor No, it's, Bond is, what is going on here? 

Ian: Like, I almost get the feeling that when he did that, like, are you going to do something about these showing the handcuffs? He expected to start needing to fight somebody, he expected for someone to say like, oh no, it's like, and instead they walked over with keys and unlocked the cuffs, and so he's like, oh, okay, this is serious enough, I'm actually in danger from the radiation, and he starts taking off the shirt and such, but I could have seen a James Bond used to dealing with An aggressor thinking, okay, how do I, how do I fight people when my hands are tied together?

What do I do? And, and that difference in response. Shifted his reaction. He doesn't seem to have a response to walking into a reception office with two people greeting him and saying his room's ready after what he just went through. 

Matthew: Right, it's all these smiling nurses attending to their every need and pointing out the nice brunch spread that's there for them.

Ian: And the best part is That's what gets him. 

Matthew: Yes, his guard is down because he's confused. 

Ian: Because he's confused, which is why we watch him taken into the room. He's trying to do his observation, he's trying to be aware of everything. But he's so off his game, he pours himself a cup of coffee, pours Honey a cup of coffee, and they sit down and drink it.

And all of that protection, all of that, we've watched him be smart about his drink in his own hotel room. We've watched him be careful with what he ordered at places. We've watched all of that precision goes away and he gets drugged with sleeping potion, or sleeping pills. 

Matthew: Yep. 

Ian: Out of the coffee. Right there.

And there's this moment as he and Honey, going through all of this, figuring out what's happening. As he sees the coffees drugged, there's this Damn it, Bond! I forgot to do my job as he then falls over from the drugs and that frustration with himself is completely tied into the fact that he is just as bewildered as all of the audience and I love that fact.

The first James Bond film is the first James Bond film even to James Bond.

Matthew: Yeah, you get the impression this is much weirder than anything he's dealt with before. He's used to having to go into Soviet controlled countries and Extract contacts and things like that, but dealing with supervillains with dragon trucks and hidden med spas where they're drugging you with, with tainted coffee, not within his experience.

Ian: Not his usual thing, 

but he wakes up and they're given fresh clothes and taken to go meet Dr. Julius No. And 

Matthew: I don't, what was the reason for the, for drugging them as opposed to just having them wait? I never quite figured that out. 

Ian: I get the feeling that it's a, I don't know, sleep captive isn't attempting escape.

Matthew: I guess so. You know, they hadn't really gotten any sleep previously, so let's A, have them rested before we interrogate them, and B, they're not going to try to escape. 

Yeah. I 

guess that's 

as simple as that. That could be it.

Ian: But yeah, here's where we get 

Dr. Julius No, and some of my larger questions pop up. Yeah. So, yeah, Dr. Julius No is a Chinese German scientist with metallic hands. 

Matthew: Yes. They never exactly explain why he doesn't have, why he has lost his hands, but it has something to do with the fact that he has done all this work with radiation.

Ian: Mm hmm. And that kind of explains why he might be very, very careful about how irradiated the people coming to meet him are. Things like that. He's very, very protective of it. 

Matthew: And you mentioned his heritage, he also represents something that is unfortunate, but clear in a lot of Ian Fleming's books and some of these early movies, and that is anybody who is not clearly and purely, to use that word advisedly, of one particular ethnic or racial extraction, for lack of a better term, transcription Anybody who's any kind of a mix is suspect and likely evil.

Ian: That is a major problem. 

Matthew: It is. It's an issue with the, in Fleming, it's an issue with British attitudes especially at the time, American attitudes too. So it's very clear why he is not just a communist Chinese bad guy, why he's not just like an ex Nazi, he's gotta be this, he doesn't fit into any world and therefore he is suspect.

Ian: And it, it, it does make sense when you get into, like, the setup of what he's got here, but it doesn't completely. Part of the reason I pointed out is because he's got a lot of this German engineering and technology funded by the money he stole from Chinese organized crime groups. So, the, Noe's backgrounds is an explanation for why he has.

The grandly lavish med spa inside his, his stuff and everything else because it's where he got his, his equipment and his money from before he started this endeavor. And that's at least got a background there, but absolutely the innate, he's evil because of this is really disgusting and really bothersome, right?

Matthew: But we, we do get this first Example of this James Bond trope, which is the weirdly opulent living quarters of the bad guy Within a strange militarized underground base And that's fascinating. It's it's the it's that the bad guys are the only people in the world who are more refined than James Bond Which is why they can and the fact that he's close is why they can open up to him and regard him as something of an equal sum At last, I get to talk to somebody who can understand the majesty of what I am doing.

Before I kill them, but at least I can talk to them first. 

Ian: Because now, Dr. No works for Spectre. Yes. The Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion. That's a very eclectic group. Yeah! Someone really wanted our name to spell out Spectre. Yes, right.

Matthew: I have a question though. 

Ian: Why are they doing this radio jamming for the Project Mercury? Why? Because? 

Matthew: Because? Yeah, I, I am not really sure about that. I wonder if it's mainly a it's a technology demonstration. We just want to demonstrate our power so that the world will take us seriously and we can then start making demands because they didn't seem to have any demands around, you know, pay us a zillion dollars or, and, or, and if you pay us a zillion dollars, we'll stop crashing your space capsules in Brazil or wherever they were ending up.

Ian: It's 

Matthew: not really clear. 

Ian: It's not really clear. There's something very much like, Ah, yes, I have this giant base where I'm using my nuclear technology to poke the United States like another, like a child in the backseat of the car annoying their sibling. It's, it's, it's extremely expensive on both ends, and it doesn't achieve anything.

It's, I don't know why. 

Matthew: At least later on, when somebody's interfering with space shots, it's because they're trying to claim space for themselves and seize the use of the launch vehicles that that the Americans had. 

Ian: Yeah. But no, this is just like, hi, we can annoy the Americans. You want to join us, Mr.

Bond? 

Matthew: Yeah, he does get a job offer. 

Ian: He gets a job offer! 

Bond doesn't want the job.

Bond says, no, I'm gainfully employed. 

Matthew: Yeah, how do you think the benefits compare at Spectre versus British Intelligence? 

Ian: I mean, well, Dr. No does have, you know, highly advanced prostheses. For his, for his own injuries on the job from before.

So medical might be okay. Job security, they do keep sending agents to defeat us. Not the best. But, yeah, 

Matthew: we saw what the performance reviews are like when the the geologist had to go to , crab key for a dressing down. 

Ian: Yeah. 

Matthew: An interesting workplace culture. 

Ian: Interesting workplace culture.

The I mean, this included spa though. 

Matthew: Yeah, the nurses seemed really happy. Yeah. They seemed to enjoy their work. They were helpful later on When everything goes to heck and Bond goes back up to try to rescue Honey. 

Ian: I do worry though that between the octopus imagery , for Spectre that shows up in later films, and the attempted assassination with using a tarantula, there's a bit of an eight theming going on throughout this company that might not be the most efficient.

Maybe. Maybe. But yeah, bond says no thank you on the offer. And it was either take the offer or go get beaten up by some of the Specter agents. 

Matthew: So 

so he gets beaten up by Specter agents. 

Ian: He gets beaten up by Specter agents, and the camera just walks away with Dr. No, which I really like 

Matthew: not before.

Honey is also taken away by guards. Yeah, they fit in and with with a casual suggestion of sexual assault by the guards later on Yeah, this is where we get into the horrible misogyny of James Bond stories early on. 

Ian: Yeah, this is this is really not yeah that

Matthew: But but then Bond wakes up in a cell yeah, a Remarkably easy to escape from cell. Yes And if I'm not mistaken, I've read these books decades ago, this is sort of a weird abbreviated reference to a long, complicated section of the book, which was more of a, an Aperture Science kind of test of a great physical specimen's ability to deal with horrible conditions and, and difficult challenges.

Something a hobby of Dr. No's. But instead he just has to go through a vent that is both, it's some places it's hot, other places there's water threatening to sweep him away. 

Ian: That kind of implies that he does a lot of work with radiation, but his doctorate's in psychology. 

Matthew: Maybe, which is why he made some mistakes with the radiation part.

Ian: Possibly, yeah, it's like, okay. 

But yeah, he just kind of kicks his way through the vents. 

Matthew: Yeah. And the vents lead back to the decontamination area where they first came in. Where he's able to ambush one of the guys, somebody who's in the head to toe radiation suit and take the suit.

And infiltrate the control center where Dr. No and his team are about to disrupt the next Mercury launch. And all of it is powered by a nuclear reactor , which is why there's so much radiation involved. Not a very well shielded nuclear reactor, apparently, because it's like in a pool in the middle of the control center where everybody's working.

That's 

Ian: the reactor. Yeah, 

I want to step back for a second, though. Bond gets through those vents, and it is not easy. There's like Extremely high temperatures. 

Yes. 

And everything else. This is very much a John McLean diehard kind of vent crawl. Yes. To make a call back to one of our recent episodes, this is not a pleasant vent to go through.

Matthew: No, no, no, no. And it is a, it's a weird multipurpose event too, between the, the air and the heat and the water. It does everything. 

Ian: It's a, yeah. This is the omni vent. But we wind up seeing Bond is much more beaten up by the vent almost than he is by the goon. 

Matthew: You're right. Yeah, that's gotta be one of the most physically traumatic challenges that he has.

Ian: Absolutely. But yeah, he gets in and disguises himself in one of these large, opaque radiation suits. And they've got, yeah, a pool reactor. I did some googling about that. Those are not good for power generation.

Those are used as like neutron beam generators, things like that. 

Matthew: Right. They are And I don't think they're like using that kind of thing to disrupt the Mercury launches. They're not like beaming neutron rays from Crab Key to Cape Canaveral or something, are they? I doubt it. Yeah. I don't know what it once again, like you said, his doctorate is not in physics.

He had to make some assumptions here. Go to the library, look a few things up. He might not have gotten it exactly right, but it's working so far. The hand's not withstanding. 

Ian: Yeah, Dr. No, you're not really doing a great job here. You've got a bunch of people with, I, I will say their labeler game is on point.

Oh, yes. Every single department has a little hanging sign over it with exactly what it does. It's very much, you know, you know, nuclear reactor laboratory by way of the Container 

Store. 

Matthew: Yeah, it is very much a budget version of a flight control center or something. Where you've got, the reactor team, you've got the transmission team, you've got the, computer control team, and they've all gotta give it a go sign before they, they go ahead with their mission.

And the, the, the big analog dial above the the reactor controls, safe level, danger level, and this giant, this giant valve type mechanism below it, whose only function seems to be, let's move this into the danger level, shall we? Yes! Maybe not have that control or put it somewhere else. 

Ian: Yeah? And you've got the video team checking that they succeeded in what they are doing, with four different news broadcasts about the most recent launch, all playing, with only one of them playing audio it seems like.

In a wonderful mistake of how you set this up though, the video team is To the corner? So every other department has to turn and look away from the reactor to see what the results are of what they're working on. Which gives Bond an excellent an opportunity to go spin the wheel up into the danger level. 

Matthew: And the fact that Bond is wandering around there and they're getting the checks from each department and they don't get a response and they turn around and Bond is apparently wearing the suit.

Of the guy they didn't get the answer from. It's like, what are you doing here? Get over there where you're supposed to be. Oh, okay. Bond waters over there and that gets him closer to the reactor. 

Ian: And he does a great job of like, oh, I'm in an office setting. Okay. Walk over to the nearest table. Pick up the Nearest folder , and start looking through pages as I walk just so that I don't seem suspicious.

Matthew: Yep. Something never change. 

Ian: Some things never change. It works. It works so well that the bad guy looks him dead in the eyes and tells him to get to his spot

But the moment that he overrides and overloads the reactor. Everybody immediately panics and runs away. It says so much that the Everything is going wrong and the loyalty dies there, very accurately. 

Matthew: And there is a sign that lights up. What did it say exactly? It didn't just say something like evacuation or danger, it was something like abandoned area or something like that.

Ian: Yes! Abandoned 

area. All, all you enter here. 

Matthew: Yeah, it was, it was just, it wasn't exactly, but it was close to just being a sign that says, time to panic. 

Yes! 

And that's what they get. 

But, 

Ian: Bond is on this catwalk over the reactor so Dr. No, who is the most mad about this, runs up and tries to start a fistfight over the reactor, which is just, like, that means you're gonna fall into the reactor.

Matthew: Yes, and it's on the elevation mechanism that brings the control rods up and down, so eventually, Dr. No winds up like drowning in the reactor pool. That's like doubly bad for you. 

Ian: Yeah, he drowns in the reactor pool because while Bond is able to grip and shimmy back up the scaffolding to get to safety No's mechanical hands fail him after being exposed to the radioactive water and he slides into the water from there.

Matthew: But fortunately, Bond remains a good half inch above the reactor pool, so he's fine. No problem there. No long term effects. 

Ian: No long term effects. He's gonna be 

a okay. 

Matthew: Well, that's a really, really good radiation suit he's wearing, I guess. 

Ian: How many of the more ridiculous things of the later movies are just Bond? Hallucinating from radiation sickness and never going on any other mission. He had one really weird job mission and everything else has been craziness from there.

Or 

Matthew: maybe the James Bond movies are more superhero movies than we realized. In that Bond, after this, he has literal superpowers because he was irradiated. Ooh. Oh my goodness. On this tropical 

Ian: island. He was almost bitten by a spider in this film. Almost. 

And it was, 

Matthew: and it's a spider from Crab Key, so it must have been a radioactive spider.

Ian: It must have been. 

Matthew: We also got Spider bond. 

Ian: Spider Bond! Spider Bond!

Yep, one of the sliding doors of Hollywood history. Absolutely, I love it. Oh, goodness.

But, In a very James Bond setup He runs through Finds where they have chained honey to a slanted slab of concrete in a room slowly filling with water. 

Matthew: Yeah, it's another one of those references to the "WHY?" Kind of death traps. Yeah. 

Ian: This, this, this feels like it has many extra steps. 

Matthew: And he finds her with the help of, well, not entirely willing help, because she wanted to get out of there, but the help of one of the smiling nurses from the, the spa.

And, so apparently, maybe this was a, some kind of a therapy, according to the nurse? Yeah? Spa treatment? It's not like the nurse is going to say, Oh, she's over here in one of our torture chambers. I don't know. 

Ian: Yeah. You mean, you mean the slow aquatic infusion? Yeah, we've got that right over here.

Matthew: Okay. Maybe the water really had those tiny fish that exfoliate your toes in some spots or something. 

Ian: Oh, that could be. Come to the Brutalist Meth Spa. The Brutalist is like, you know, concrete architecture, chain manacles, clean skin. It's like, that's what we do here. Yep. You know, mild radiation.

We can help with anything. 

Matthew: But he does rescue her, and they they do manage to get out. They fight their way out, but they manage to take over a boat. 

Ian: Yeah, there's a lot, there's just a whole lot of like, people running, people jumping into the water with very good diving form. 

Matthew: Yeah, this, they, they hadn't, they had clearly not had evacuation drills on Crab Key.

Something that that future Bond villains could learn from but don't. 

Ian: Yeah the team over at Lobster Lock is going to be much better prepared than this one. They, they, they, they knock two guys out, steal their boat, and make their way away from the island as the entire facility explodes.

Matthew: But they do manage to get away, far enough away 

apparently. 

And it didn't seem like an atomic explosion though, did it? No, that seemed very conventional. I think everything sort of collapsed in on the reactor maybe. 

Ian: Yeah, which might be good, 

Matthew: I guess, if you don't want to irradiate the rest of Jamaica and the surrounding area of the Caribbean.

Ian: Yeah.

Matthew: And they drift for a while when their fuel runs out. 

Ian: It's almost like the boat wasn't ready for this. It's almost like nobody was ready for this. But they they pass the time in the boat until Felix comes up with a Royal and helps tow them to safety. Yes.

I do love the fact that, you know, Felix sets this whole thing up to tow them away, and then Bond lets go of the tow 

rope. 

Matthew: Yeah, he's rather distracted by Honey Rider there on the boat. 

Ian: Rather distracted there. And that's the end of the film. 

Yep. It's quintessentially so much of what we know as the James Bond film is already set up, has this, all these little bits are here.

Already in the first one 

Matthew: and it's almost all in the second half of the first one. Yeah, it's like the first half It's oh, this is a procedural investigation story and then he gets to the island. It's oh, wait a minute. This is a James Bond movie Now I get it. 

Ian: We literally get to see James Bond step through the looking glass into James Bond films.

Through this movie, and it's fascinating to see. 

Matthew: You can imagine him there in the boat thinking, Why aren't all my missions like this? And then they turn out to be. 

Ian: Yeah.

Weird, extravagant bad guys. Job offers to turn evil. And, grand explosions to end every single thing. 

That's what he gets later. 

Yeah, 

Matthew: and the latest beautiful woman who is obviously just forgotten before the next adventure. 

Ian: Yeah., it's so odd that it's a James Bond film where James Bond is not ready for a James Bond film.

Matthew: And one thing I didn't really talk about was how I came to this movie.

Oh yes. Which is, I, I saw most of this movie on TV, and I thought it was pretty cool. I'd heard about this James Bond character and he's fighting a truck with flamethrowers and all this. This is really cool. And then, I saw more of the later James Bond movies, and I came back to this one again, it was on TV, and I thought, well, this is kind of boring, he's just kind of wandering around talking to people on an island, and then he goes to an island and there's a, yeah, a truck with a flamethrower, and then I read the books, and then came back to the movie and thought, oh, this is an interesting take on what they were doing in the book, and so I had so many different reactions to this movie over time based upon the context that I had for watching it, and as I got older, of course. And we may revisit James Bond at some point in the future. I kind of like taking each one of these, well not just reviewing the series, we're taking each movie. Mm hmm. Because they can be so different over the years.


Ian: I've watched a full retrospective of all the James Bond films in order. Oh yeah? Oh yes. It's excellent. It's a very fascinating thing when you get the whole story as a group. But. It's not the same as going over one at a time, so. 

Matthew: Well, I think this might be leading us towards our, our final questions then. 

Ian: I think so. 

Matthew: So please stay tuned for those final questions and answers about what we think of this movie and what happens later. But, in the meantime If you are enjoying the Intermillennium Media Project podcast, I urge you to go to immproject dot com. Because if you want more of the IMMP, you'll find all of our back episodes there, as well as some bonuses. If you would like to contact us, you'll find a contact page there where you can reach us by email, or you can send actual physical artifacts to us at our post office box, and you can also contact us on our Discord.

And we're also IMMproject on BlueSky and on mastodon. social. We'd love to hear from you in any of those ways. What's your favorite James Bond movie? What do you think of the earlier ones, like Doctor No? And if you want to support the IMMP, you will find links on immproject. com to our Patreon, where starting at three dollars a month, you can get bonus audio content.

And also know that you're supporting the podcast and helping me. Subject Ian to all manner of movies and television and music from the 20th century. And also, if you want to buy t shirts, coffee mugs, notebooks, all kinds of other fun things from the IMMP, you will find those at our shop that is also linked from immproject.

com. And Ian, where can people find you? 

Ian: I can be found at itemcrafting. com or as ItemCraftingLive on Twitch. Come join every Thursday for video games and, coming soon, crafting streams. 

Matthew: Very cool. 

And you can find me most places as ByMatthewPorter, so, you can go to ByMatthewPorter.

com, you'll find me as ByMatthew Porter on Mastodon and Blue Sky, and you will also find me as ByMatthew Porter on YouTube, where I do things like review movies, review movie theaters, and review strange travel events. So, 

Doctor No, final questions. 

Ian: Screen or no screen? 

Hmm.

I'm, 

this is a hard one because as a, a spy in an action film, it's fun. As a James Bond film, it's not what I expect all the time. It's kind of the wrong film in that sense. And I don't know what to say. I kind of, there's better James Bond films, but this is a fascinating movie. So I'm really split. 

Matthew: It's a tough call, isn't it?

Ian: Yeah, what are you thinking? 

Matthew: I say screen. I certainly say, if you're going to watch any James Bond movie at all, include this one, because it's worth seeing how and where this began. And, and also, it is such an interesting snapshot. We've talked about the fact that it's an interesting snapshot of some of the worst things about society and the particular societies that it's, it's portraying in the early 60s.

But it's also fascinating snapshots of other things, all the little logistical details and the. The, the mannerisms and the, what's it's like checking into a hotel in Jamaica in 1962? It's just a fascinating look at a world that doesn't exist anymore. So, and, and it's also, like I say, if you're going to watch any James Bond movies, it's, it's kind of interesting, even if you are going to watch the, the Fast and Furious series, and it's weird how often we bring this up in the podcast as an example of a movie series, but if you're going to watch the Fast and the Furious movie series, even if The ones that start at six and seven and eight and later on.

Even if those are your favorites, you still want to see where it began. So you should still watch the first couple of them. I think it's the same thing in James Bond movies. Even if you're a big fan of the Roger Moore or Timothy Dalton, who I think is terrific. And, or Pierce Brosnan, which I think are the worst of them.

Even if you're a fan of those later James Bond movies. Go ahead, go back and see where it started, because there's something interesting about that. 

Ian: You know what? I think that's reasonable, yeah. It's a screen. It's a screen from me too for those reasons. This is such a, such a unique origin point. I mean, other films from that time, this was, this was establishing stuff that's going to then become the referenced backbone for so many other characters.

Even outside of James Bond's canon, there are elements of how this depicts spy films that show up in Marvel movies, in other, every other interpretation. This changed how that was approached in popular culture. And so, it's very, very worth it. 

Matthew: And it influenced cinema in general so much, like you're saying.

Not just the James Bond movies. You can go, as you were just saying, the Marvel movies. And specifically in the 70s, as the James Bond movies continued and got weirder, you also had kind of a reaction to that with some of the very gritty spy and counterintelligence sort of movies that we saw. With that 70s realism and some of that I think really was a response to James Bond and saying no Let's let's back up a little bit and make this look grittier.

So you can't avoid that influence 

Either 

today or any time from the 

60s through today.

Ian: I Mean, 

I'm looking at you know other crime films from the same year other action films from the same year and it's such a different, different style that we're seeing. This feels like the beginning of an era overall. So it's worth it to see for that. It's not, it's not what people want to want when they say they're looking to see a James Bond film, but they wouldn't have those James Bond films on a deeper level if it wasn't for Dr.

No. 

Matthew: And you've got investigative stories in pop culture, going back to Edgar Allan Poe and Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. And you always had travelogues and stories that are set in exotic locations and then movies set in exotic locations. This brings those together in a way that I don't know had really been done before.

That exoticism of the locations and the globe spanning. It was the jet age was really getting started then in the early 60s and this idea of a character who could move around the world that way. And you combine that with an almost procedural investigation. It's such a fascinating combination. So so it sounds like it's a screen from both of us. Yes. But the next question, you think they should make a sequel to Doctor No? 

Revive, 

reboot, or rest in 

peace? 

Ian: Yeah, I mean, I mean, it's adapted from a book, and it is the first of 25 films. My goodness. Yeah. And the funny thing is, that's 25 films in a specific canon.

Yes. It's like, there are other James Bond films that were made, but not by Eon Production. 

Matthew: Right, you're thinking Never Say Never Again, one of those. 

Ian: Yeah, there's, this is, so there's more than twenty five. Cause there's Never Say Never Again and there's the 67 Comedy Casino Royale. Yes. Which are both James Bond films, but they're not part of the James Bond canon.

Matthew: And before Doctor No, there was, I think it might have been a television adaptation in America. Where he became Jimmy Bond, the debonair secret agent. Because I think Fleming started writing these with the idea that, Let's make this a franchise movie character, not Let's, let's Get, go where the real money is, By establishing a character we can then keep going forever.

But he kind of planned that early on.

But because of, because of that, The, the rights were sold in weird ways, And the rights to Thunderball. Were sold separately from the overall rights that became the Eon Productions Cubby Broccoli series of movies. And that's why they could do things later, like make a new adaptation of Thunderball called Never Say Never Again, bringing back Sean Connery.

And yet, being careful not to reference anything that only came from one of the other movies. 

Ian: Exactly. And At this point, there's so many other stories and so many of the James Bond films are inspired by, but not actually connected to, the books. They're not a one to one adaptation. So I'm looking at and just going with Dr.

No, and I'm gonna say I would love a new Dr. No, because we are in an interesting time right now, we are between Bonds. 

Matthew: Oh, so you're saying a reboot, a remake of Dr. No? 

Ian: Yeah. Ah. Right now, we are in between. We have ended the Daniel Craig era of portraying James Bond. He's the most recent one at the time of recording.

And that means we've got an opportunity for them to do another James Bond film again, with a new Bond, and start over. Each of, each of the Bonds has a individual kind of sequence of stories. They're all part of the, the James Bond canon in that sense. Most Bond films don't reference any Bond outside themselves as the James Bond.

And it's really tempting to go back to the first book if you're going to start over again with a new Bond. But I kind of like the idea of, no. Start with a new Dr. No. Huh. Give us that story of, going to the tropical island and dealing with something happening that got one of your other agents killed and led you down this path.

But there's a lot of difference from the book. The book doesn't have any radiation stuff going on. It's much more, the joke aside, psychology and natural resources based. It's more environmental in that, in that nature. There's a lot you could do with that and I could see a new adaptation putting a modern spin on Dr.

No, setting it now, doing something with that as a very interesting option. 

Matthew: Are you suggesting that in the 2020s, a story in which the antagonist is an insanely wealthy, somewhat unhinged individual with destructive ideas about technology and environment and interference with geopolitics? I'm thinking that that would be the right kind of movie for right now.

I suppose you could kind of tie that into the present day 

Ian: scenario. Wow. Yeah, you could do something with that, but I'm saying I would like a reboot on our normal scale because James Bond is perpetually being rebooted and we've got a great opportunity, but rebooting Dr. No of all of the stories right now would work.

They've gotten through 25. They're going to start on the 26th, and they do so by going back to the first one they adapted. I think that works. 

Matthew: I like that. I'm sold. I wasn't sure how to approach this. I figured we're gonna keep getting revivals, and the Daniel Craig's going which went back to Casino Royale, the first book, and adapted it fairly well, was in some ways a reboot.

In many in many ways a reboot, not just a revival. But the idea of a, a reboot, a remake of Dr. No specifically, I like that. There's a lot you can do with that. 

Ian: I'm going to also point out something else that we watched as, the Sean Connery era was a Bond who's not used to going into it, winding up in a James Bond film as we now know them.

Yes. And then being more accustomed to that as it goes. Roger Moore's James Bond gives us a, a man who's more ready for this kind of wild and is suave, making his way through that. Pierce Brosnan is that kind of weird, turning it up to 11 at the end of the 90s as we enter a new, a new century and it has this, this almost over exaggerated take.

And then Daniel Craig's was a let's bring it back down and make it gritty and, and into it kind of aspect. You want to go back to Dr. No? Show me the guy good at procedurals who's thrown into this and instead of acclimating is frustrated that it's getting in the way of his job. 

Yes. 

I want to see a Bond who's sent into the med spa and it's just like, this is not what I'm supposed to be doing.

And I will fight someone to get out of here. Give me, if you're going to go back with that, you could have that little bit more Deja Bond. 

Matthew: Yes, I've got things to do. I can't be chatting with the bad guy here. I gotta get stuff 

Ian: done. Exactly. I would like that. I'd like the, the get it done Bond is a type we haven't quite yet seen.

Daniel Craig had a bit of that. Yeah, but he was a lot more the haunted Bond. Yeah. I want to see the practical Bond. I want to see the Bond who's like, Yeah, I could be given a laser to cut through the door, or I could kick it on the hinge side and leave. Give me that guy and him in this environment of all of them, I think would be a great way to establish a new one.

Matthew: I like that idea. That sounds good. Well, this has been a fun conversation. 

Ian: This has been excellent. 

Matthew: It was really interesting going back to the beginning of something that's gone on for so long. Oh yeah, 

Ian: and it was fun to see Sean Connery not having to do as weird a role as he did in, oh my goodness.

He's one of those actors who shows up in things unexpectedly sometimes.

Matthew: And this was he's shown up in so many weird things, this was kind of his breakout, but he made an effort after the James Bond stuff to really, you know, Do things that were different and not just be, oh, he was the James Bond guy. Makes sense. 

Ian: Definitely a typecasting kind of role. 

Matthew: And speaking specifically of Doctor No, I don't want us to close before I mention for listeners a book that I read recently that is, is well worth reading if you're interested in this kind of thing.

It's Love and Let Die. Ooh! It's by John Higgs, one of my favorite, like, non fiction writers and essayists. And it's about the, it's about British culture and two specific things. The first Beatles album and Dr. No, which were released at the same time. And it's sort of an alternating biography of the Beatles, the band, and James Bond, the character and the cultural phenomenon.

And how this changed world culture and specifically British culture and perception of British culture. These two things happening at the same time and then being at odds with one another. In tone in some ways. It's a fascinating book. So if you're interested in, in this kind of cultural exploration and specifically about the James Bond movies, it's it's worth reading.

Ian: Okay. 

That sounds excellent.

Matthew: But thank you very much for listening to us. Hope you enjoyed this episode and we also hope that you will join us in two more weeks for more tales of media from the 20th century.

Ian: In the meantime, go find something new to watch.