Dr No, or, just how racist are these movies

Film: Dr. No
Release date: 5 October 1962
Bond: Sean Connery
Director: Terence Young
M: Bernard Lee
Moneypenney: Lois Maxwell
Q: NA (see below)
Bond girls: Sylvia Trench, Miss Taro, Honey Ryder

---

Ah, Dr No. The alpha. The first Bond film. The iconic credit image with Bond through the gun barrel. The theme song with the twangy guitar (in 1962!) Ursula Andress in that bikini...

This is kinda weird, especially for those of us who are familiar with the books, which I'll get to in a bit. The first thing that struck me was, since this is the first Bond film and the tropes of the series weren't established yet, how much this reminded me of a not-very-big-budget Hitchcock ripoff. Particularly, if I was to name a couple of examples, To Catch a Thief and North By Northwest. That also leads us to imagining Cary Grant as James Bond, which is just kind of mind-blowing...

Despite that, much of what would become codified throughout the series is introduced here, particularly Bond's relationship with M (who treats him like a miscreant child, and not without reason) and with Moneypenny (with whom, during their flirtations Connery shows himself to have excellent comedic talents.) We also learn Bond is an expert gambler (at chemin de fer, something that is sadly lost in the Craig Casino Royale.)

One thing to keep in mind if you aren't familiar with the novels is that, while the first Bond film, Dr. No was not one of the earliest of Fleming's novels. Because of that fact, parts of the plot which are faithful to the novel make things a bit disorienting, specifically the scene in which Bond is told he has to give up his beloved Beretta ("a ladies gun") for the now well-known Walther PPK. But here's the thing that's weird about this scene. M makes reference to an incident in which Bond is nearly killed because of an issue with his Beretta that occurred in the previous novel, From Russia With Love. Readers of the books will understand why M brings in Major Boothroyd (based on an actual, real-life small arms expert who contacted Fleming to criticise Bond's choice in firearms) to replace the Beretta with the Walther. For the viewer that context doesn't exist, making the scene a bit confusing. In addition, after this film the "Major Boothroyd" character becomes the character Q (for quartermaster) and is played by the much beloved Desmond Llewelyn for the next three-and-a-half decades.

Okay, to the racism.

Ian Fleming was, to put it mildly, not a politically correct man in any way. He was politically very conservative, and seemingly held deeply racist and sexist views (which are reflected in the novels and to some degree, at least for awhile, in the films.) Fleming, once he had obtained success via his writing, lived primarily on his estate in Jamaica, and that is where Dr. No is primarily set. This means that many of the minor characters are black. And, boy oh boy, are they treated like shit. They are all of course, in one way or the other, servants of the white, British colonial masters living on the island. One black character owns a restaurant/bar, and he is shown to be untrustworthy; the only black character who is developed in any way is "Quarrel", who owns the boat that Bond hires to get to Dr. No's lair. Quarrel invariable refers to every white (male) character in the film as "Captain", indicating his self-enforced subservience to white people.

Bond Girls, and the sexism issue.

Okay, let's get it out of the way now - the Bond novels and films are all horribly sexist. With the exception of Moneypenny (and I suppose M when played by Judi Dench) Bond treated women like objects, sometimes literally, when he would use them as human shields. Despite the rampant sexism I will make no apologies for my love of the books and the movies; I will freely admit the sexism makes me uncomfortable, particularly as I probably reveled in it as a thirteen-year-old devouring the novels, one a night, for that magical fortnight when I learned - or thought I learned - how a gentleman was to behave.

To be clear, the objectiveness of women in the Bond movies is certainly a feature, not a bug. If it's something that bothers you, you simply can't get past it and enjoy the escapism that is the defining characteristic of the films.

In Dr. No there are three "Bond Girls": Sylvia Trench, whom we meet at the beginning, when Bond flirts with her over the chemin de fer table, Miss Taro, who is a double agent and one of Dr. No's henchmen, and Honey Ryder, possibly, after Goldfinger's Pussy Galore, the most famous of all the Bond girls. I mean...


At any rate, Ryder is basically a plot device and eye candy, and that's pretty much it. Her backstory gives us a bit more info on Dr. No, and through her we get greater insight into Bond's chivalry, such as it is (and it's pretty fucking condescending, to be honest.) But, whatever, her entrance, emerging from the ocean in that bikini, is one of the most classic scenes of all the Bond films.

SPECTRE!

In the early novels, Bond's main foe was SMERSH, a Soviet agency whose goal was the eradication of foreign spies. It was only later that SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) became the primary "big bad" of the series. In Dr. No we get to know SPECTRE, or at least Dr. No's role in it, straight off the bat. Again, as someone who read all the novels long before he saw most of the films, this incongruity is jarring; for the typical viewer it's probably meaningless, and I imagine many casual fans don't even differentiate between the two.

Conclusion

It's probably inevitable that Dr. No is one of the more interesting films of the series, given that it's the first. As stated above, that interest emerges both from how the later films diverge from its style (probably due to ever-larger budgets) and how so many of the tropes (exotic, tropical locales, "Bond girls", Bond's relationship with his colleagues, his choice of cocktail, etc.) begin with Dr. No.

Next up, From Russia With Love, featuring, in my opinion, the sexiest Bond girl of them all, Tatiana Romanova, played by Danielle Bianchi.