Dr. No (1962): The First James Bond Movie

The setup of the 1962 film, directed by Terence Young, begins in Jamaica, where the British intelligence station chief John Strangways and his secretary are killed. They had been helping the Americans look into radio jamming that is disrupting rocket launches from Cape Canaveral, so the murders land as more than a local crime.

In London, M sends agent James Bond to Jamaica to find out what happened. Once there, Bond teams up with the CIA agent Felix Leiter and a local boatman named Quarrel, and he starts following leads that point to a reclusive scientist.

The film runs 110 minutes, and the complete story, including how it ends, sits in the next section, which is flagged for spoilers. If you want the place of this film in the series before you press play, our James Bond movies in order guide shows where it starts.

The full plot follows Bond from a murder inquiry in Jamaica to the destruction of a villain's island base. After Strangways and his secretary are murdered, M sends James Bond to investigate. Bond meets Felix Leiter of the CIA and the local fisherman Quarrel, who becomes his ally.

Bond's inquiries lead him to Professor Dent, a geologist working for the mysterious Dr. No, and he ends up killing Dent. He also has the double agent Miss Taro arrested. Bond and Quarrel then travel to Crab Key, the island where the scientist is based, and meet Honey Ryder, a shell diver. A flame throwing vehicle kills Quarrel, and Bond and Honey are captured.

The villain, a SPECTRE member with prosthetic metal hands, tries to persuade Bond to join him. Bond refuses and is held prisoner. He escapes and sabotages the base's nuclear reactor while a rocket launch is being disrupted. The doctor dies in the reactor pool. Bond rescues Honey, and the two flee the island by boat, where Felix Leiter finds them and picks them up.

In four stages, Bond investigates the murders in Jamaica, follows the trail through Dent and Miss Taro, reaches Crab Key and is captured, and then escapes to wreck the base from the inside.

The film had its UK premiere on October 5, 1962 at the London Pavilion in London, and its US release is reported as May 8, 1963. The UK premiere date is confirmed, while the UK release (October 7, 1962), the US release (May 8, 1963) and the Australian release (May 6, 1963) are all reported dates.

It is the first of the 25 official EON films in the series; Casino Royale (1967) and Never Say Never Again are the two unofficial, non EON films.

At the box office, the film earned about $16.1 million in the US and Canada and about $43.5 million internationally, for $59.6 million worldwide on a budget of $1 million. The next entry in release order is From Russia with Love.

In the ending, Bond overloads the reactor at the villain's base, the doctor falls into the reactor pool and dies, and Bond and Honey Ryder escape by boat and are picked up by Felix Leiter.

Here is how I read it. The finale is a chain of mechanical steps rather than a single burst of action: Bond breaks out of captivity, reaches the reactor, pushes it past its limit while a rocket launch is being disrupted, and then gets Honey to the water. In my opinion, that sequence shows why the film works, because each step causes the next and the set Ken Adam built at Pinewood gives the sabotage something physical to damage. The $100,000 that the UK arm of United Artists added for the base explosion was spent on the payoff to that chain.

The ending also answers what the doctor was after. The jamming that disrupts Cape Canaveral launches leads straight to his island, and Bond ends it by destroying the base itself. Compare the opening: the murders of Strangways and his secretary in Jamaica look local, and the last scenes show they were the first move in an American-facing scheme.

The villain is described as a SPECTRE member, and I see his death as the end of one man's scheme rather than a closed chapter for the organization he belonged to. The film itself points that way: SPECTRE is still out there, and Bond will keep working against such threats. If you want to see how the series carried that thread forward, the second film in release order, From Russia with Love, is the natural next watch.

The film was shot in Jamaica and at Pinewood Studios in England, with principal photography beginning in Jamaica on January 16, 1962 and wrapping on March 30, 1962, after 58 days.

The Jamaican locations were:

• Kingston, including the Palisadoes airport and strip.
• Oracabessa and Ocho Rios, where the Reynolds bauxite pier was used for the exterior of the villain's lair.
• Port Royal.

The studio work took place at Pinewood, where Ken Adam's sets for the base and the Secret Service headquarters were built. The island setting of Crab Key is therefore assembled from Jamaican exteriors and English interiors.

Notable production trivia includes Ursula Andress's dubbed voice, a reshot tarantula scene, and the choice of this story over Thunderball as the first Bond film.

• Ursula Andress's speaking voice was dubbed by Nikki van der Zyl and her singing voice by Diana Coupland, both uncredited.
• The tarantula scene was reshot with stuntman Bob Simmons after the first attempt failed.
• Maurice Binder created the gun barrel sequence and the title design.
• The producers chose this story as the first Bond film over Thunderball because of a legal dispute over Thunderball's rights.
• United Artists provided about $1 million, and its UK arm added $100,000 for the base explosion at the climax.

You can find the film the producers passed over on its own page at Thunderball.