From Russia with Love (DVD, 2007)

A typical Bond plot of introduction, meeting bad guy, swinging the girl to your side, killing bad guy and getting with the girl at the end but Russia does it better than all others.

M16 hears of an opportunity to grab a special soviet decoding machine from a defecting agent and there is only one man to send: Bond, James Bond.

Robert Shaw makes a debut as the Russian assasin hired to entrap Bond.

Out of all the Bonds this is my favorite w\On Her Majesty's Secret Service close behind.
This is core Bond and has the patische about it.Great cast,exotic locations,lovely leading lady-what more can one ask for ?
Holds up nicely after all these years:no nonsense gritty action Bond !

-mby

This is a nice package and the images have been beautifully restored. In the series, this ranks as one of the best (under Goldfinger and Dr. No), mostly due to Shaw's part and the fight scene on the train, which sets the standard for all fights on trains. The sexual over and undertones are remarkable with regard to social history, as well as the politcs and paranoias.

This movie is the second in the Bond series but is my personal favorite of all the Bond movies. Sean Connery is by far the best James Bond, and here he is an unknowing pawn serving the scheme of the enemy SPECTRE. Although the title leads us to believe that Russia is the enemy, it is really SPECTRE, an international crime organization.

Lotte Lenya is superb as Rosa Klebb, the defected high level Russian spy to SPECTRE, who enlists an unsuspecting real Russian spy, the beautiful Tatiana Romanova (played by Miss Universe 1st Runnerup from Italy, Daniela Bianchi) to help Bond steal a fantastic new decoder from the Russian embassy in Istanbul and then turn it over to her. Klebb's hotel maid scene at the end of the movie is both comedic and serious and adds much to the final plot.

Tatiana (Daniela Bianchi) plays the beautiful Russian spy who is instructed to serve all the needs of Bond, and she willingly complies. She falls in love with Bond and ends up saving Bond's life. And she does NOT get killed in the end. If anything, she and the decoder are the two things given "from Russia with love."

A second SPECTRE character is Red Grant played by a bleached blond Robert Shaw, who seems an indestructible killer. At one point, Rosa Klebb (Lenya) is shown whipping him with a poker, and he does not even flinch. He eventually does have his day with James Bond but is done in by an exploding briefcase.

This plot is obviously complicated with two countries and an evil organization involved. However, if you carefully watch the movie, it all makes sense. The action scenes are well done, and the plot is explained throughout by the various characters.

The DVD itself has an 8 page insert that tells all about the movie. There are also 2 special features on the DVD as well as the usual trailers that also explain how hard it was to make this movie.

It is also explained how this movie became the 2nd Bond movie after the big success of "Dr. No." It seems that President Kennedy published his 10 favorite books of all time, and #9 was "From Russia With Love" by Ian Fleming. So the producers thus picked this book from Fleming's series to make as the second movie.

This movie will not let you down. But you must seriously watch it. Otherwise you will be lost. At least DVDs allow you to easily re-watch scenes that you just can't get on the first viewing.