Dr. No (1962)

Dr. No was the first James Bond film, and that is what I liked most about it. Bond had been a successful book series, but it was not yet a proven quantity in film, though even then the odds looked promising. So this movie wasn't given the tremendous budget that would become standard for later outings, and many of the conventions that would come to define the franchise were still being formed. For example this is not a gadgetie film, there is no Q, or at least no character referred to by that name. There are Bond girls yes, three of them in fact, but Bond himself is not perfect, he even falls for a fairly obvious drugged beverage, which I liked because it made him seem more human and fallible then he typically does. Also later Bond films had this propensity to globe trot for no real reason beyond increasing the number of exotic locals in the picture, in this movie the case that Bond is sent to investigate is in Jamaica, so he goes to Jamaica, London to Jamaica, no where else, just Jamaica, that's it, kind of retroactively refreshing. Sean Connery is of course definitive in the role, and I look forward to see him reprise it many times as I attempt to make it through the theatrical Bond movies over the course of 2017. ****