Dr. No (1962) · Bond Atlas

Plot

In Kingston, British station chief John Strangways is shot dead by three killers posing as blind beggars; his secretary vanishes with every file. In London, M pulls James Bond away from the chemin-de-fer table at Le Cercle, swaps his Beretta for a Walther PPK and sends him to Jamaica. Strangways had been checking whether Cape Canaveral's rocket launches were being jammed from the island.

Bond is photographed on landing and met by a bogus chauffeur who prefers cyanide to talking. He crosses paths with fisherman Quarrel, already working the case with CIA man Felix Leiter, and with Strangways' rock samples from the islet of Crab Key: they are radioactive. Geologist Professor Dent, who had claimed otherwise, is working for the mysterious Dr. No. Bond barely survives a tarantula in his bed and a hearse on the mountain road, then lures Dent into a trap at Miss Taro's bungalow and shoots him.

By night Bond and Quarrel cross to Crab Key. On the beach he meets shell diver Honey Ryder; soon a fire-breathing 'dragon', a disguised tracked vehicle, drives the three into the swamp and kills Quarrel. Bond and Honey are taken into Dr. No's underground complex. Over dinner the metal-handed scientist reveals that, for SPECTRE, he intends to topple the next American launch. Bond breaks out of his cell, overloads the reactor and leaves Dr. No to sink into the boiling coolant. He and Honey escape by boat until Leiter has them taken in tow.

Facts

James Bond: Sean Connery
Director: Terence Young
Screenplay: Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood and Berkely Mather
Producers: Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli
Music: Monty Norman
Title song: „James Bond Theme“John Barry & His Orchestra
Based on: Ian Fleming: „Dr. No“1958
Running time: 110 minutes
Budget: $1.1 millionabout £392,000, figure per Wikipedia (en)
Box office: $60 millionworldwide, initial release plus 1965 reissue (Wikipedia en); Box Office Mojo lists only $16.1m for North America
Release: UK: 5 October 1962US: 8 May 1963Germany: 25 January 1963

Travel route and filming locations

Gold numbers trace Bond's journey through the story, light markers show the real filming locations. Each layer can be hidden separately.

Bond's route · 11 stops

Total distance (great-circle)≈ 7,653 km

At the chemin-de-fer table Bond introduces himself to Sylvia Trench with 'Bond, James Bond' and is summoned to M.
London, Le Cercle (Les Ambassadeurs) → London, MI6 headquarters · ≈ 2 km
M lays out the Strangways case and Boothroyd replaces Bond's Beretta with the Walther PPK.
London, MI6 headquarters → Kingston, Palisadoes Airport · ≈ 7,541 km
Bond is secretly photographed on arrival; a bogus chauffeur picks him up and swallows cyanide after their fight.
Kingston, Palisadoes Airport → Kingston, Government House · ≈ 10 km
From colonial secretary Pleydell-Smith Bond learns about Strangways' rock samples and the island of Crab Key.
Kingston, Government House → Kingston, Queen's Club and Strangways' bungalow · ≈ 2 km
Bond questions Strangways' bridge partners, including Professor Dent, and finds a photo of the fisherman Quarrel at his house.
Kingston, Queen's Club and Strangways' bungalow → Kingston Harbour, Puss Feller's bar · ≈ 9 km
Bond follows Quarrel to the waterfront bar and meets CIA agent Felix Leiter; the three join forces.
Kingston Harbour, Puss Feller's bar → Kingston, Bond's hotel · ≈ 10 km
Bond booby-traps his room, is invited over by Miss Taro and survives a tarantula in his bed that night.
Kingston, Bond's hotel → Blue Mountains, Miss Taro's bungalow · ≈ 10 km
Fictional spot in the hills above Kingston: the pursuing hearse crashes on the mountain road, Bond has Miss Taro arrested and shoots Professor Dent.
Blue Mountains, Miss Taro's bungalow → Crab Key, beach · ≈ 60 km
Fictional island, filmed at Laughing Waters beach near Ocho Rios: Bond meets Honey Ryder and the trio flee the guards into the swamp, where the 'dragon' kills Quarrel.
Crab Key, beach → Crab Key, Dr. No's complex · ≈ 4 km
Fictional base, exteriors shot at the bauxite pier in Ocho Rios: dinner with Dr. No, escape through the ventilation shaft, overloading the reactor.
Crab Key, Dr. No's complex → At sea off Crab Key · ≈ 6 km
Fictional position: Bond and Honey escape in a motorboat until they run out of fuel and Leiter has them towed.

Filming locations · 14

doubles for Crab Key, Kingston and London
All interiors: Le Cercle, M's office, Bond's hotel room with the tarantula, Miss Taro's and Strangways' bungalows, Dr. No's complex with reactor hall and ventilation shaft
Model and setting for the Le Cercle casino where Bond is first seen; the interior was recreated by Ken Adam at Pinewood
doubles for MI6 headquarters (United Kingdom)
Exterior of the office block that serves as MI6 headquarters (Universal Exports)
Bond's arrival in Jamaica, the secret photographer and the bogus chauffeur
Opening sequence: the 'three blind mice' walk through downtown to Strangways' club
doubles for Queen's Club, Kingston (Jamaica)
The Queen's Club where Strangways is murdered after bridge and where Bond later questions his partners
doubles for Government House, Kingston (Jamaica)
The Governor's residence stands in for Government House, where Bond meets Pleydell-Smith
doubles for Kingston Harbour (Jamaica)
Puss Feller's waterfront bar, Quarrel's boat and the night-time departure for Crab Key
doubles for Blue Mountains near Kingston (Jamaica)
Exteriors of Miss Taro's bungalow, outside which Bond lies in wait for Professor Dent
doubles for Crab Key (Jamaica)
The Crab Key beach: Honey Ryder rises singing from the sea, Bond and Quarrel hide from the patrol boat
doubles for Crab Key (Jamaica)
Bond, Honey and Quarrel wash themselves in the waterfall after escaping the dragon
doubles for Crab Key (Jamaica)
Bond, Honey and Quarrel hide underwater in the river breathing through reeds to evade the search party
doubles for Crab Key (Jamaica)
The swamp where the 'dragon' kills Quarrel and captures Bond and Honey
doubles for Crab Key, Dr. No's complex (Jamaica)
Exterior of Dr. No's complex with conveyor and loading gear, arrival of the prisoners

Characters and cast

Bond

James BondSean ConneryGerman voice: Klaus Kindler

Bond girls

Villains

Dr. Julius NoJoseph Wiseman

Henchmen

Allies

MI6

Others

Vehicles & Gadgets

Vehicles

Sunbeam Alpine Series II (1962) – Bond's light-blue hire car, the first Bond car of the seriesPhoto: Vauxford · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Sunbeam Alpine Series II
Car1961
Light-blue hire car in which Bond escapes the hearse on the mountain road – the first Bond car of the series
Bond hires the Alpine in Kingston and drives it up to Miss Taro's bungalow in the Blue Mountains; on the mountain road he shakes off the hearse of the 'Three Blind Mice' by driving under the raised arm of an excavator – stunt driver Bob Simmons took the gap at about 45 mph, and the tall hearse behind him plunges into the ravine. The Lake Blue car registered Z 8301 was no studio vehicle but belonged to a Jamaican resident, Jennifer Jackson, who was paid ten pounds a day for its use; it was reportedly the only suitable sports car to be found on the island. A borrowed Sunbeam thus became the first car Bond drives on screen. The Series II of 1960 had an engine enlarged to 1.6 litres and revised rear suspension compared with the first Alpine.
Driven by
James Bond
Specs
1.6 L inline-four (1,592 cc), 80 bhp, 99 mph
Sources: Bond Lifestyle: Sunbeam Alpine Series II · Wikipedia (en): Sunbeam Alpine · IMCDb: 1961 Sunbeam Alpine Series II
1939 LaSalle Series 50 sedan – the production model on whose chassis the 'Three Blind Mice' hearse was builtPhoto: Sicnag · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
LaSalle Series 50 Leichenwagen (Miller)
Car1939
The black hearse driven by the 'three blind mice', which plunges into a ravine during the chase
The three killers disguised as blind beggars travel in the black hearse: in the opening they use it to carry off Strangways' body, and later they chase Bond's Sunbeam up the mountain road in it until the tall body cannot pass under the excavator arm and the car tumbles down the hillside and burns out. IMCDb identifies the vehicle as a 1939 LaSalle Series 50 with a funeral body by Miller, a so-called combination coach that undertakers used as both hearse and ambulance. LaSalle was Cadillac's cheaper companion make; the 1939 model received the 5.3-litre V8 of the Cadillac Series 60 and a strikingly narrow radiator grille. General Motors discontinued the make in the summer of 1940.
Driven by
'The Three Blind Mice'
Specs
5.3 L (322 cu in) Cadillac V8, 125 hp
Sources: IMCDb: 1939 LaSalle Funeral Coach Miller Combination [Series 50] · Wikipedia (de): LaSalle (Automarke) · Wikipedia (en): LaSalle (automobile)
1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Convertible – a production example of the car in which the bogus chauffeur Mr Jones collects Bond at the airportPhoto: Sicnag · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Chevrolet Bel Air Convertible
Car1957
Car of the bogus chauffeur Mr Jones who picks Bond up at the airport
At Kingston airport a supposed Government House chauffeur is waiting for Bond with the pale Bel Air convertible. Bond lets himself be driven until he exposes the ruse, forces Mr Jones onto a dirt track and questions him; when the man kills himself with a cyanide cigarette, Bond takes the wheel and delivers car and corpse to the door of Government House. IMCDb identifies the car as a 1957-model Bel Air Convertible (body code 2434), with its tail fins and chrome nose the archetypal American cruiser of those years – an obvious choice in Jamaica, where the production hired whatever was available locally.
Driven by
'Mr Jones', then Bond
Specs
3.9 L straight-six or 4.6 L (283 cu in) V8, up to 283 hp with fuel injection
Sources: IMCDb: 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air [2434] · Wikipedia (en): Chevrolet Bel Air · Wikipedia (en): List of James Bond vehicles
Recreation of the Crab Key dragon tank, built for a Bond event in 2010 – not an original propPhoto: Dave McLear from Roxburgh, Scotland · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Dr. No „Drache“ (Sumpffahrzeug)
Other
Tracked swamp vehicle with a flamethrower, disguised as a fire-breathing dragon guarding Crab Key
The 'dragon' keeps fishermen and the curious away from Crab Key: a tracked vehicle with headlamp eyes and painted teeth whose flamethrower kills Quarrel in the swamp and drives Bond and Honey into captivity. Art director Syd Cain, who looked after the Jamaican location shoot, designed the machine; according to the production, the crew had first gone to Florida to look at marsh buggies. In Fleming's novel the dragon is a marsh buggy in dragon disguise, in which Bond and Honey even flee the island at the end – the film replaced that with an escape by boat. The vehicle itself does not survive; replicas have been built for Bond events.
Driven by
Dr. No's guards
Sources: Wikipedia (en): Dr. No (film) · Wikipedia (en): List of James Bond vehicles · IMDb: Dr. No (1962) – Trivia · Wikipedia (en): Syd Cain
Dr. No Motorboot der Wachmannschaft
Boat
The getaway boat: Bond throws the crew overboard and escapes the explosion with Honey; when the fuel runs out, Leiter takes them in tow
After overloading the reactor and sending Dr. No into the cooling pool, Bond frees Honey and commandeers one of the guards' motorboats at the jetty: he throws the two men into the water, pushes one of them back in, and races off with Honey seconds before the base explodes. Out at sea the petrol runs out; Felix Leiter finds the pair adrift, throws them a tow line from a naval launch – and Bond casts it off again for the closing kiss. The type and maker of the open motorboat are not documented in the sources consulted.
Driven by
Dr. No's guards, then Bond
Sources: Wikipedia (en): Dr. No (film) · Wikipedia (de): James Bond – 007 jagt Dr. No

Gadgets

Walther PPK in 7.65 mm – the pistol Boothroyd hands Bond in 'Dr. No' in place of the BerettaPhoto: Askild Antonsen · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Walther PPK
M and armourer Boothroyd take away Bond's Beretta and hand him the pistol that will stay with him for the rest of the series – '7.65 millimetre, with a delivery like a brick through a plate-glass window'. The scene follows the novel, in which Fleming acted on the advice of firearms expert Geoffrey Boothroyd; on screen Connery actually carried a slightly larger Walther PP.
Sources: Bond Lifestyle: Walther PPK · Wikipedia (en): Walther PP · Wikipedia (de): James Bond – 007 jagt Dr. No
Victoreen CD V-700, a 1950s–60s civil-defence Geiger counter – a period instrument like the one Bond uses to test the Crab Key samplesPhoto: Roger469 · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Geiger counter
A detector flown in from London that Bond uses to test the radioactive rock samples from Crab Key and, later, Honey's boat.
Sources: Wikipedia (en): Dr. No (film) · Wikipedia (en): CD V-700

Production and trivia

Shooting ran from 16 January to 30 March 1962, 58 days in total. The Jamaican shoot wrapped on 21 February because the weather turned, after which production moved to Pinewood Studios.
The budget was around $1.1 million (about £392,000); the film went on to gross roughly $59.5 million worldwide. The producers put in a further £6,000 of their own money for the sets.
Six candidates were screen-tested for Bond; the winner, 28-year-old model Peter Anthony, proved unable to handle the part. The 31-year-old Sean Connery won the producers over with his swagger, and Terence Young then schooled him in suits, manners and cool.
Production designer Ken Adam had just £14,500 for all the sets. M's office got cardboard paintings and a plastic-covered door, and Professor Dent's grille-lit interrogation room cost a mere £745.
Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington seen in Dr. No's lair really had been stolen from the National Gallery in 1961. Ken Adam painted the copy over a weekend from a slide – and that copy was later stolen too.
The tarantula scene was first shot with a pane of glass between Connery and the spider. Young was unhappy, so stuntman Bob Simmons let the animal walk over him unprotected – by his own account the most frightening stunt of his career.
Maurice Binder shot the gun-barrel sequence through a pinhole camera inside the barrel of a .38 pistol; the Bond seen there is Bob Simmons, not Connery. The entire title sequence cost £2,000.
The James Bond Theme was written by Monty Norman and arranged by John Barry, who is credited only as orchestra leader. The two disputed authorship for decades; in 2001 a London court confirmed Norman as the composer. The single reached number 13 in the UK charts.
Ursula Andress' entrance in a white bikini is one of the most famous moments in film history; the bikini sold at auction for $61,500 in 2001. Because of her heavy accent her dialogue was dubbed by Nikki van der Zyl, with Diana Coupland singing.
Editor Peter Hunt relied on quick cuts, slightly sped-up action and exaggerated sound effects – partly, by his own admission, to paper over weaknesses in the script. His style has shaped the series ever since.
Bond's cold-blooded shooting of the defenceless Professor Dent went too far for the British censors: the scene was trimmed so the film could get an 'A' certificate.
In the car chase Connery himself drove the Sunbeam Alpine under the crane with only inches to spare. Dr. No's giant aquarium, meanwhile, is magnified stock footage of goldfish; the line of dialogue about the magnification was added to explain it.
Early reviews were divided: Time called Bond a 'blithering bounder', the Vatican warned of a dangerous mix of violence and sex, and the Kremlin saw Bond as the embodiment of capitalist evil. In 1999 the BFI ranked the film 41st among the best British films.
Ursula Andress won the 1964 Golden Globe for most promising newcomer. Sean Connery and the film itself were nominated for Laurel Awards.
The film opened in Germany on 25 January 1963 as 'James Bond – 007 jagt Dr. No', rated 16. The dubbing was done by Ultra-Film in Berlin; Connery was voiced by Klaus Kindler, with Gert Günther Hoffmann taking over from the second film.