The Lists of Love

From Russia With Love (1963), Directed by Terence Young

By Fearless Young Orphan

For my friend Max, who convinced me to give it a try.

The adventures of continue.

As we have previously discussed, SPECTRE is an organization of assholes who like to cause trouble. In From Russia With Love, they have goals, which are as follows:

1. In Istanbul, steal an encryption machine from the Russians. She of the famously sharp footwear, Rosa Klebb, is a Russian turncoat who now works for SPECTRE, but the Russians don’t know that. She’ll orchestrate the thievery through the Russian outposts in Turkey. 2. Make it look like the British stole the encryption machine, escalating tension between the British and the Russians in the Cold War. Klebb will arrange this by ordering loyal Russian secretary Tatiana to steal an encryption machine and make contact with the British, pretending that Tatiana wishes to defect, and that the British will take her provided she brings the encryption machine along. Sneaky!

3. Arrange things so James Bond will be the one who is in Turkey, escorting Tatiana and her encryption machine. Tatiana will contact Bond directly, asking him to come fetch her and help her defect because, ladies, if you’re going to defect, do it with James Bond. He comes with benefits, if ya know what I mean.

4. Kill James Bond! SPECTRE hates that guy! He ruined Dr. No’s Bed and Breakfast and Missile Toppling Facility, and all the SPECTRE bigwigs had rooms booked there through the following Christmas! And you can just forget about rebooking on SPECTRE Island, too, because that place is reserved through 1970 and it’s a tourist trap anyway.

5. Sell the encryption machine back to the Russians. This doesn’t make much sense. Don’t you figure that might alert the Russians that the British weren’t behind it all, if SPECTRE is the one selling the machine? Don’t you suppose it would be more disruptive to keep the machine and decrypt all the Russian messages they can lay their hands on? And yet, you must admit, selling it back to the Russians is the bigger “Asshole” thing to do. And we know that SPECTRE is just the biggest bunch of assholes ever, so perhaps this is the point.

If I were the head of SPECTRE, I’d accomplish my mission of assholery like this:

1. Have Klebb tell Tatiana to bring the stolen encryption machine straightaway to Klebb herself.

2. When James Bond gets to Istanbul, tell him he’s been had, and kill him. Then kill Tatiana.

“Shh, quiet James . . . I think we may be on film.”

3. Sell the encryption machine back to the Russians. Go “Bwahaahahahah,” while petting my white kittycat.

Now, the only thing I can figure that is stopping SPECTRE from doing this the easy way is that they want to film a porn movie starring James Bond and Tatiana, which they do. And lucky for us, since SPECTRE wants to deal in porn, we get to watch James Bond have a great time for two hours, doing James Bond stuff.

James Bond Stuff:

1. Look cool!

2. Sneak around!

3. Fight!

4. Effortlessly seduce loyal Russian secretaries to completely change their ideologies!

5. Say cool things!

6. Referee cat fights at the best dinner theater ever! 7. Use the gadgety briefcase gives him in a clever, logical way.

Sean Connery is very, very good at this. I remain impressed. He is the reason why a viewer can take all this seriously enough to accept the movie’s enormously shaky premise as perfectly reasonable. I have heard his version of Bond described in many ways, but for me, he nails the part because his Bond believes he is doing serious espionage and he is glad to do it, for the sake of country and manly adventure, with a personal magnetism that convinces the rest of us. It’s about that simple.

And this is not some girl-crush thing talking either; Connery is not my type and I’ speaking without the bias of any strong physical attraction. He’s provides a vital, solid center. He must do so, because look at what we’re dealt:

1. The cat-stroking, faceless supervillain.

2. Rosa Klebb, a case study of the scariest dominatrix ever.

3. Some chess-playing jerk called Kronsteen, who masterminds ridiculously overcomplicated schemes and passes the buck on blame, when, not surprisingly, all these teeny details don’t work out.

4. SPECTRE Island, where a young blond Quint from (I didn’t recognize him at first!) trains to kill guys who are wearing these really convincing James Bond masks, like that’s even necessary while practicing your garrote.

5. Belly-dancers interrupt the credits.

6. Planes, trains, boats and automobiles drag/chase Bond along a route that is absolutely pointless, considering SPECTRE has had half a dozen good opportunities to kill him along the way rather than putting all hopes on Quint to get the job done in a tiny train car at the eleventh hour.

That’s a lot to deal with. I dealt with it just fine. Here’s why:

1. Connery made me. He holds the film together and makes it convincing. 2. She may be kind of a dishrag, but I liked Tatiana. I thought she generated a great deal of sympathy. She and Bond had pretty damned good chemistry.

3. When not dealing with SPECTRE itself, there is some realistic espionage happening in Istanbul, bolstered by a great character in Kerim Bey, Bond’s Turkish contact. I really liked this guy and his relationship with Bond.

4. The movie is gorgeous.

5. In a tiny train car at the eleventh hour, the fight between Quint and James Bond is one of the best, tensest, tightest movie fights I’ve seen.

6. There are no tarantulas.

7. Belly-dancers interrupt the credits.

8. Director Terence Young kept everything moving along at an exciting pace, rarely giving us time for head-scratching.

9. Rosa Klebb. She’s a scream. A little old dominatrix trying to take out two grown people with a pointy shoe? That’s priceless.

From Russia With Love was great fun and is a classic of its genre. This awesome film did not deserve to be lumped in with my dismissive attitude and I admit my mistake. I’m sorry I’ve missed it for so long because I realized that this is the spy movie that every other spy movie (and spy movie spoof) has been copying since 1963.