Bondathon: From Russia With Love

I suppose that with the success of Dr. No, it was natural that MGM would seek out the production of another James Bond film. The choice this time was From Russia With Love, probably due to then-President Kennedy's statement that it was one of his favorite books of all time. Sean Connery was back in the role as Bond, as well as recurring characters such as Moneypenney and M. So, how is this second entry of the series and how does it do in comparison to Dr. No.

I'd say that From Russia With Love is actually quite a bit better than Dr. No.  For one, the plot is quite a bit more cohesive than the previous installation. In this one, the SPECTRE villain group, as mentioned by the titular villain in Dr. No, is looking to steal a Soviet Lektor decoding machine. In order to do so, they plan to play the British and Russian governments against each other, where Bond teams up with a Russian beauty, Tatiana Romanova, played by Daniela Bianchi, who he believes is madly in love with him, so much so to help him receive the Lektor, just to have it stolen by top Spectre agent Red Grant, played by Robert Shaw. 

I just feel like FRWL is a cleaner and far more entertaining than Dr. No (not saying that Dr. No wasn't good). The characters portrayed just made it felt the little bit more...realistic and more like an interesting espionage adventure. The villains don't seem like such a waste as in the previous film, you see more of certain main characters, and all sorts of other goodies.

So, yeah...From Russia With Love is by far one of the greatest entries in the series, I'd even go far as to say it's in my top ten Bond films. I rate it a solid 5 out of 5 stars.

Up next week, we've got what many people regard as their favorite in the series, the one that sparked so many Bond cliches that I can barely count, Goldfinger.