From Russia with Love (James Bond) [Blu-ray]

The second Bond movie is possibly the best true spy story of the series. There is a little bit of mystery, a lot of double dealing and spy-counter spy plotting, and enough action to satisfy even modern day action junkies.

However, the action doesn't get as out of hand and absurd as in more recent films.

Connery was fully into the role even in the first installment, Dr. No, and by this movie he moves and acts like a spy ... even more so than in some of his later ventures into the role where Bond movies were already becoming somewhat of a parody of themselves.

Purists may have to get over how far (and how quickly) the Bond franchise moved away from the template of this foreboding, deliberate spy adventure that has always ranked as one of the very best films in the series. "From Russia With Love" was probably always going to be an anomaly: more realistic than "Dr. No", though just as creepy; as intense as "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" though not as tragic, the film exercises a deliberateness and severity that make it splendidly enjoyable in a different sense than most other Bond films are. It's delicious viewing, but not exactly "fun" in the way, say, "You Only Live Twice" or even "For Your Eyes Only" might be. It was always going to be easier to spin another version of "Goldfinger" than it would be to mint "From Russia With Love", and so the 3rd film became the model.

Like the "Godfather" films, this is a movie where you have that disturbing sense, no matter how many times you watch it, that anybody could die at any moment. The Istanbul locations exude menace, creeping into the very pores of the celluloid. By the time we're aboard the Orient Express, we're immersed in the most frightful and tingling 3rd act in the series. Never has a Bond film played things more "straight", nor has Bond ever got caught more closely in a mousetrap than he does here.

The heavies in this film are uniformly splendid (including Blofeld's Cat). Part of the film's mystique surely rests upon the highly ruminative dialogue bestowed upon them: Blofeld's contemplations upon his "brave but on the whole stupid" Siamese fighting fish; Kronsteen's wry intellectual hubris; Col. Kleb's workplace harassment-- and then of course Red Grant's Garboesque silence, broken by his unsettlingly all-too-easy banter.

But poor Daniela Bianchi's (and voiceover artist Barbara Jefford's)Tatiana may be the film's most unheralded treasure. Romantic, sweet and girlish, she is played and preyed upon by SPECTRE to perform dirty deeds for patriotism. Which, poor girl, she does, and convincingly. So much so that Bond doesn't know what to do with her and, indeed, he resorts to some ungentlemanly manuevers to get the truth. We feel how tenderness surprises and overtakes her the longer she stays in Bond's company, and we feel how excruciatingly her fantasy life bursts when Kleb returns on the scene in Venice, reminding her of her almost-forgotten "duty." So much so that, for all we can tell, until the last moment when she fires she may not have known what she would end up doing. Even at the end, as Bond tosses the "incriminating footage" (oh, but hardly by the standards of the present age!) into the canal, we feel, as the series has never bothered to underline since, how short may be Tatiana's time on the arm of her dream man. But such time as they share onscreen is among the most genuinely erotic, tense, and affecting companionship we've seen in a Bond picture. Minus the great Diana Rigg's Tracy ("On Her Majesty's Secret Service" always commands special privileges) Tatiana may be the most luminous and satisfying of all Bond's onscreen companions.

Connery, of course, is at his best here. A masterful thriller, ceaselessly sexy, suspenseful, and exciting.

This is my favorite Bond film and even though I've purchased it in all formats over the years this is without a doubt the best visual version I've ever seen...it is sharper than the movie theatre version I saw in 1964...yeah, I'm an old guy...I also purchased Dr. No, Goldfinger, and Thunderball and I have to say that all four are so sharper and clear they make your eyes bleed...very good re-mastering job...I'm not really going to review the movie, however if you're new to Bond or have lived in a bucket all your life, this is the truest Bond movie made to the tone of the books...if you have been sucked into HiDef and you want to see the old Bond movies looking better than the movie theatre get these discs...they are worth the money...

The movie speaks for itself. It's the second Bond film and it is still too early in the series to become contrived and yet, can be quite brutal for it's time. Hansome production and top of the line acting all around. All this and the first showing of our beloved "Q".
As far as the Blu goes- this is one great looking picture. The images are sharp and the sound (once mono) is boosted to surround. What's not to enjoy?

From Russia with Love, the second Bond film, is a favorite, second only to Goldfinger in my view, if only because it has absolutely no outrageous gimmickry, though I may be biased to Goldfinger because I spent many of my youthful days, on both sides of the filming at the Fontainebleau Hotel's pool and beach, thus the movie reflects those happy days, when getting on a plane was as easy as firing a Walther PPK. Painting girls wasn't that easy. From Russia has good villains though, which is very important and often not properly cast, as in Connery's space movie, Outland, where the lack of a good villain sort of ruined the flick. From Russia also has a gypsy cat fight and perhaps the best fight to the death in cinema. The Lowry Digital Imaging restoration and upgrade to Blu-ray shows off Bond's impeccably tailored suits nicely, and the Dolby 5.1 transformation from the original mono track is also very well done. Worth the upgrade cost, the re-watching is definitely enhanced.