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FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE 50 YRS YOUNG

OHMSS69OHMSS69
edited November 2013 in Bond Movies Posts: 2,341
We did a post on the 30 year for OP now lets pay tribute as FRWL, the second film in the series reaches the half century mark.

I saw this one on a double bill with TB in 1968 and was impressed with it. It was a good old Cold War Thriller (the first and probably the last time Bond actually appears in a real "spy thriller".
The plot by introducing SPECTRE seems overly complicated but it manages to capture much of the spirit of the novel where the Soviets were the real bad guys. Filmed on a low budget it shows how much good could be done on the smaller budgets. Despite the megatons spent on the Brosnan films, this little 1963 thriller trumps them all.
The gallery of rogues are unique and one of the few times when the films does not rely on one central villain but a group of underlings who are just a frightening.
65-year old Lotte Lenya, who had graced the German theater in the 1920's and American theater for many years plays the lesbian evil rosa Klebb. Robert Shaw as the blond (the first one seen in a Bond film) and silent assassin, Donovan Grant. Seeing him years later as Quint in Jaws just shook me. (Goes to show what a life of alcohol will do to one's looks)

Connery has once said this was his favorite film and his performance is purely professional and this is probably the last time he turned in a highly professional performance. His acting contains vigor that is absent from his later films (especially YOLT and DAF).

Here's to a little talked about and fan favorite of the series. Goldfinger would receive all the love and is the one that launched Bondmania in the sixties but face it, FRWL has aged much more gracefully than the film that followed it.

Heres to FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, you never looked sweeter.

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