From Russia With Love [DVD] [1963]: Amazon.co.uk: Sean Connery, Robert Shaw, Lotte Lenya, Daniela Bianchi, Pedro Armendáriz, Bernard Lee, Eunice Gayson, Walter Gotell, Francis De Wolff, George Pastell, Nadja Regin, Lois Maxwell, Ted Moore, Terence Young, Albert R. Broccoli, Harry Saltzman, Stanley Sopel, Ian Fleming, Johanna Harwood, Richard Maibaum: DVD

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Amazon.co.uk Review

Directed with consummate skill by Terence Young, the second James Bond spy thriller is considered by many fans to be the best of them all. Certainly Sean Connery was never better as the dashing Agent 007, whose latest mission takes him to Istanbul to retrieve a top-secret Russian decoding machine. His efforts are thwarted when he gets romantically distracted by a sexy Russian double agent (Daniela Bianchi), and is tracked by a lovely assassin (Lotte Lenya) with switchblade shoes, and by a crazed killer (Robert Shaw), who clashes with Bond during the film's dazzling climax aboard the Orient Express. From Russia with Love is classic James Bond, before the gadgets, pyrotechnics and Roger Moore steered the movies away from the more realistic tone of the books by Ian Fleming. --Jeff Shannon

Amazon.co.uk Review

Directed with consummate skill by Terence Young, From Russia With Love, the second James Bond spy thriller, is considered by many fans to be the best of them all. Certainly Sean Connery was never better as the dashing Agent 007, whose mission takes him to Istanbul to retrieve a top-secret Russian decoding machine. His efforts are thwarted when he gets romantically distracted by a sexy Russian double agent (Daniela Bianchi), and is tracked by an assassin (Lotte Lenya) with switchblade shoes, and by a crazed killer (Robert Shaw), who clashes with Bond during the film's dazzling climax aboard the Orient Express. From Russia with Love is classic James Bond, before the gadgets, pyrotechnics and Roger Moore steered the movies away from the more realistic tone of the books by Ian Fleming. --Jeff Shannon

On the DVD: The "making of" documentary details the many problems that beset this production: actor Pedro Armendariz (Kerim Bey) was diagnosed with terminal cancer halfway through shooting so all his scenes had to be done before he became too ill to work (he died shortly afterwards); a helicopter carrying the director and designer crashed into a lake, but despite being narrowly rescued from drowning Young was shooting half an hour later; and Italian actress-model Daniela Bianchi's car crashed en route to location. Key scenes had to be reshot after the production had wrapped, and because of script problems and rewrites, much of the film's structure was assembled in the editing room. The audio commentary is another montage of interviews from cast and crew that is alternately absorbing and irritating (exhaustive biogs of every player too often run over key scenes that would have benefited from analysis). An appreciation of flamboyant co-producer Harry Saltzman, trailers and stills complete the package. --Mark Walker

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4.5 out of 5 stars (23 customer reviews)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A near-masterpiece from the Golden Age of Bond films . . ., 21 Nov 2002

By	S Payne - See all my reviews

From Russia With Love remains one of the greatest of all Bond movies, in my view eclipsed only by Goldfinger. We are only second in what would prove to be an enduring series (recently added to by the twentieth and latest offering, Die Another Day) so the movie remains relatively true to Ian Fleming's original vision. Fleming died suddenly in 1964, the year after FRWL, and thereafter the film Bond diverged more and more widely from the quite brilliant novels, but here we have a comparatively faithful rendition of the book. You don't have to be a Bond purist to be one of the millions who regard Sean Connery, with his brooding undercurrent of genuine strength and menace not to say brutality, as the definitive Bond, and the late lamented Robert Shaw (here muscle-bound and peroxide blond of hair) makes a splendidly evil villain in the shape of Donovan 'Red' Grant (marvellously malevolent but still toned-down from the homicidal Northern Irish psychopath depicted in the book). As other reviewers have observed, the luscious Daniela Bianchi was surely one of the sexiest in a long line of Bond girls, so, in short, magnificent characters brilliantly played all round in magnificent sets, Istanbul in particular. Add on a tuneful title song from the velvet-voiced Matt Monro and the greatest fight sequence ever filmed (Connery and Shaw hurl themselves at each other on the train with jaw-droppingly realistic savagery) and you have Bond (almost---see above) at his very best. Buy film in format of your choice: watch: repeat regularly.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The classic., 7 Jun 2004

By	Mr. A. P. Venables "andi02" - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

Justly remembered as the classic of the Connery era, this one has the balance spot on. Sharp humour is expertly mixed with a tangible air of menace. The characters are brilliantly drawn and the plot remains one of the most sophisticated of any adventure.

Everything here works the acting, the music, the story, the action and in my view better than the comic book excess of Goldfinger. This is the most convincing of the Bond adventures and one of the most old fashioned.

Though no evil hideout explodes at the end this remains one of the most enjoyable Bond's of all.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Restoration underway for fall 2006 release of James Bond classic, 2 Feb 2006

By	Darren Harrison "DVD collector and reviewer" (Washington D.C.) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

A favorite of many Bond fans and filmmakers alike is this second entry into the EON Bond film canon (a separate production company had produced Fleming's CASINO ROYALE for American television CBS in the 1950s). Alongside 1969s ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE as one of the more faithful movie adaptations of the Fleming book this movie is disliked by some for its slower pace and less fantastical plot and adored by others for precisely the same reasons.
I suppose it all depends on what you are looking for in a Bond movie. For it was not until the next entry in the series in 1964s GOLDFINGER that the movies budgets ballooned and took on the more recognizable Bond-movie shape of fantastic world domination plots, cartoonish action and over-the-top villains. Here, we have a more quiet down-to-earth plot involving extortion and revenge, but its carefully woven plot makes the movie just as thrilling and the action just as compelling.
There are some deviations from the plot of the Fleming novel, but nothing that detracts too seriously from what is the most important element here - the story and characterization. For example in the book Flemings villains was the real-life Soviet agency SMERSH, which is changed to the fictional private organization SPECTRE (which Fleming created along with Kevin McClory for a failed movie script after he had written the novel on which this movie is based.) No doubt the filmmakers decided to change the villain for political reasons as well as to develop the recurring villain mentioned in passing in the first of the EON movies (1962s DR. NO).
The plot concerns SPECTRE's attempts to use British intelligence to steal a valuable Soviet decoder, blackmail British intelligence and murder British agent James Bond in revenge for the loss of their agent Dr. No.
In order to pull off this audacious scheme, SPECTRE's Col. Rosa Klebb (brilliantly played by Lotte Lenya) enlists the aid of Russian clerk Tatiana Romanova who believes that she is working for the KGB. Romanova is chosen for her beauty as a lure for James Bond and the Lektor decoder as a lure for 007 and British intelligence. Indeed the ploy works to perfection as we witness later the disinterest of 007 change to amiable interest after being shown a picture of Romanova.
Following the traditional gunbarrel sequence we are given our first true precredits sequence. In the first movie the gunbarrel went straight into the credits sequence, but here we are treated to a mini-adventure in what would become a standard trademark for the series. James Bond is on the hunt, or is he the hunted? Stalking around a garden in the middle of the night when all of a sudden Bond is set upon by a giant man (played to perfection by the always excellent Robert Shaw.) Who then pulls a wire from his watch and garrotes the British agent. The sequence serves as a foreshadowing of a scene towards the end of the movie and is also the first instance in which the audience is tricked into believing that 007 has been killed. In the future 007 movies 1967s YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and the rogue movie 1983s NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN this ploy would also be used. Sure enough following the death of "James Bond" the lights go up revealing a big estate house (actually a house on the backlot of Pinewood Studios) and it is revealed as a SPECTRE training session with a man posing as 007.
Shaw is excellent as Red Grant. Even today over 40 years later he regularly tops the list among Bond fans as a favorite villain. He plays the role with understated deliberate menace and the fight scene on the orient express (which is usually cut down for television) is brutal and frenetic. Similar scenes of fighting on a train have been repeated in later Bond movies but none have quite matched this one.
Other elements that would become a series trademark also make their first appearances in this picture. We have the introduction of a real bona fide gadget and the first screen appearance of the actor who would become famous for introducing James Bond to all manner of incredible gizmos while in real-life being the most un-mechanically minded of people - the late Desmond Llewelyn.
Here Bond is equipped with a briefcase with such hidden qualities as a knife that protrudes out of the side, coinage for bribing enemy agents and a innocent looking bottle of talc that is actually tear gas for disabling prying eyes who open the case the wrong way. Of course all of these help save 007 later on in the movie (strange how he always seems to have just what he needs for any eventuality).
Overall then we have a taut, well-crafted James Bond movie with standout performances from all the principal actors. Of par5ticular note is the Mexican actor Pedro Armend�riz who plays the Turkish British agent Kerim Bey. There seems to be a genuine friendship between Bond and this amiable rogue, a chemistry similar to that between Bond and Columbo in the 1981 movie FOR YOUR EYES ONLY.
With a travelogue feel that was a feature of the early movies, this was after all before the holiday shows and Discovery Channel documentaries on different areas of the world. And some compelling action (though on a smaller scale than later scenes the fight between Bond and Klebb with the latter wielding a poisoned tipped shoe is white knuckle stuff). This is a movie that should be on everyone's must-see list.
In addition to a commentary spliced together from interviews with many of those behind the camera (Director Terence Young for example had passed away in the early 1990s), there is also a great documentary on producer Harry Saltzman, featuring on-camera interviews with his children colleagues and friends. The late Saltzman had been one of the original duo (with Cubby Broccoli) who brought the British spy to the screen but had to sever his relationship with the series in the 1970s after falling into financial trouble. The documentary paints Saltzman as a loving father and doting husband who feel afoul of the business world, it's a touching portrait and a great tribute.
There is also a making off documentary with some archival and new interviews with the production team.
People should note that Lowry Digital is performing a restoration of this movie for a planned special edition reissue later this year so if video and audio are of primary importance then you may want to wait on picking this up.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars THE SECOND BOND ADVENTURE
MASTER PLAN: steal the Russians' decoding machine and blame Bond for the whole mess. Due to editor Hunt's innovations, we end up with the first pre-credits teaser here, a dark... Read more

Published on 28 Mar 2007 by stuart

5.0 out of 5 stars "She's had her kicks"
Col. Klebb (Lotte Lenya) Tells Tatiana Romanov that the KGB wants her to defect and take the LEKTOR (a typewriter sized cipher device with her). Read more

Published on 4 Mar 2006 by bernie

5.0 out of 5 stars The perfect James Bond film?
From the cat and mouse chase opening, to the infamous gypsy girl fight to the tense and ultimately brutal train journey, From Russia With Love is arguably the consummate James... Read more

Published on 6 Dec 2005 by Mr. Jd Ware

5.0 out of 5 stars Shes had her kicks
As if you have not heard it a million times this is the definitive 007 movie. When some one mentions 007 this is the one that come in mind. Read more

Published on 21 Nov 2004 by bernie

3.0 out of 5 stars Good but slightly disappointing.
This film is a classic and with a good plot and good actors it COULD have been one of the best Bonds ever. Read more

Published on 24 Jan 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars From EoN with Love!
After the huge success of Dr. No, the Bond producers just had to make another film. That film came in the shape of From Russia With Love, and what a film it is! Read more

Published on 10 Sep 2003 by fish_at_home

4.0 out of 5 stars Continues the high standards set by Dr No
THE FILM - From Russia With Love is very much along the same lines as Dr No stylistically. This should surprise no-one, as it has many of the same key personnel. Read more

Published on 14 Nov 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars The Very Best of Bond
Out of all the Bond films made since Dr No in 1962, this remains my own personal favourite. It epitomises all that was good about the 1960s. Read more

Published on 16 Aug 2002 by E. A. Redfearn

5.0 out of 5 stars My favourite Bond of all time
I love this movie, it is Bond at his best, not all gadgets and gimmicks but brilliant. Connery of course was excellent. Read more

Published on 5 Nov 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Thriller
Another classic Connery Bond and probably the closest to Fleming (apart from OHMSS). Again, icons of modern cinema include the first John Barry score (the 007 theme is wonderful... Read more

Published on 18 Sep 2001 by chrisyellowsub@aol.com

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From Russia With Love [DVD] [1963]

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