Vintage

From Russia with Love is the second Bond film and it stars Sean Connery once again as the indestructible super spy James Bond.  This film is a fairly solid and serious effort in the corpus of the James Bond film series. It surely will not disappoint fans of the genre.  

All of the traditional motifs are present such as exotic locales as the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey and the traditional staple of stunning women.

Some notable villains in From Russia With Love include Rosa Klebb, Morzeny, Red Grant and the chess player Kronsteen.  Bond has fights with helicopters and speedboats and memorably blasts a copter out of the sky with a flare gun. 

Bond has his gadgets too, such as a brief case that has spews tear gas, contains a folding sniper rifle, a throwing knife, and other weapons — all of which would be equally useful in today's business world.

In the film, James Bond is sent to assist in the defection of Corporal Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi) in Turkey. 

However, the sinister organization SPECTRE, headed by Ernst Stavro Blofeld (before the character was lampooned in the Austin Powers' comedies), plans to avenge the killing of Dr. No (see our review for Dr. No.) by rubbing out Bond.

To kill Bond, they plan to manipulate the naive Romanova to lure in James Bond with her beauty.  Give SPECTRE credit: we all know that beauty is Bond's Kryptonite.  Nonetheless, we are certain James Bond will have something to say about all of this.  Before he bags the villain he will surely bag Tatiana.  Inevitably, she will turn her over to his way in the end (not to mention: turn her end over to his way).

This film is one of the Bond films that fall more on the side of realism, despite characters like Blofeld and the brief case that can give it back to most brutal of Samsonite monkeys. Sean Connery turns in a solid performance in this episode of the super spy.  This Bond film gets a 00-King.  

Matthew J. De Reno is a writer living in Pittsburgh