Why Does Peacekeeping Always Involve Killing? (Dr. No)

fig. 1: Dent in the room.

One of the more interesting aspects of Dr No is how, in contrast to its successors, it holds off on the introduction of its villain until almost an hour into the film. The eponymous evildoer begins as a name on a file folder, then a name overheard, then a voice in an empty room, ordering one of his subordinates to perform a hit on James Bond. It's a microcosm of the introduction of SPECTRE, first referenced by No in his tet-a-tet with Bond, then glimpsed fitfully until Blofeld's full reveal, five years later, in You Only Live Twice. It is, also, a macrocosm of James Bond's own introduction.

Bond is introduced after a flurry of activity. The hit on Strangways, a malfunctioning rocket, and those files on Doctor No being stolen lead to a string of phone calls before the hero is seen, first from the back, then to the reveal, and that classic line.

fig. 2: Man, if everybody wasn't already smoking in 1962, they were by the end of this.

It's a moment of effortless cool. I gave Connery the short shrift through much of this blog, but it's hard to deny the sheer magnetism of the guy. It's no mean feat to make delivering your own name sound cool, and Bond's delivery, "Bond, James Bond" isn't even his own. He's parroting Sylvia Trench here, who introduced herself a moment before in just the same way. It's a way of trumping her, mimicking her style but signifying "I'm kind of a bigger deal."

This general command of the room is what defines Bond in this first picture, and every film going forward. It's key to his appeal. He arrives in Jamaica and generally takes over the situation, issuing clipped orders to the help and his CIA contact alike. Seas of paragraphs have surely been sailed through about the fantasy appeal of the character, and it's on full display here. He's unflappable, he takes charge, he's adored by the ladies.

The spy film didn't begin with James Bond, or Dr. No. There have been espionage and intrigue movies as long as there have been movies. Much of the time, however, these films, particularly those made by Alfred Hitchcock in the 1930's, were about ordinary people caught up in the workings of espionage, or of home agents defending against invasion and sabotage. Along with the more famous trappings of his sub-genre, James Bond turned a character that would have easily been a villain in, say, The Thirty-Nine Steps, and made him the center of the film. Rather than an invasion/sabotage picture, or the paranoid thriller of mistaken identity, Dr. No is an imperial film. The British agent heads out into the uncivilized world to set it all to rights.

Which, again, has been covered, by people more qualified than I am, surely. What's interesting to me, again, is this film's preoccupation with esoteric and removed spaces. This also is nothing particularly new for the genre. As early as Fritz Lang's 1928 film Spies, audiences were being introduced to the idea of secret headquareters. Where the Bond films of the Seventies would be the high point of this trend, Dr No finds the idea still in its infancy. The eponymous physicist's hideout is on a secluded island no one will willingly visit. Supposedly it contains a bauxite mine, and when Bond finally gets there he sees some of the trappings of this before being led inward into the place's truer and more sinister purpose.

fig. 3: I wonder if this is a radiation zone?

Inexplicably, the place is run by a bunch of cheery nuns, who serve no real purpose to the plot other than to accentuate the strangeness of the place. The same thing is true, generally, of the Evil Doctor's hands. Withered from exposure to radiation, Doctor No had them replaced with bionics, and while the threat of him crushing Bond to death is made explicit, all he manages in the film's finale is a couple of well-placed judo chops before the hero dispatches him.

No is an operative of SPECTRE. I'd forgotten how early on that organization rears its head. He makes his claims about the organization opposite this big fish tank. "Minnows pretending they're whales," Bond remarks. "Rather like you, Doctor."

"Depends on which side of the glass you're on," No replies. There's a host of aquatic imagery associated with SPECTRE in its early days. Doctor No and his fish, the octopus logo, Blofeld's Japanese fighting fish (as well as his boat) in From Russia with Love and his piranhas in You Only Live Twice. To say nothing of the entire plot of Thunderball. Even Honey Rider, here, is threatened with death by drowning. Minnows and sharks. Throughout this film, James Bond is never seen to be out of his element, or much more than inconvenienced by the threats against his life. It's only there, facing those minnows,that Bond seems as thoguh he's stepped into the middle of something.

fig. 4: That's some fish story.

It makes sense then that this would cast such a long shadow over the franchise. Fifty-three years on, Spectre rushes through this establishment. "You're a kite in a hurricane, Mister Bond," Mr. White tells our hero, subbing in wind for water. Ultimately, it's why the reveal in Spectre that Blofeld was, in fact, Bond's long-lost brother was so goddamn disappointing. There is no deeper water there. Doctor No refers to East and West as mere points on a map, and in its staking out a claim on the spy adventure genre, the Bond series' use of SPECTRE as antagonists played a crucial role. It emphasized the escapist aspect in a world beset by the Cold War, but also the organization served as the ultimate esoteric space. Like those secret labs and lairs just to the side of the world you know, SPECTRE is the ultimate criminal threat, existing just outside the conflict between East and West that Doctor No so quickly dismissed as petty bickering. Carried with those minnows and sharks is the promise of the strange future that is to come.