[RayChuang88]

Many have said that From Russia With Love is the only James Bond movie that fairly matches the feel of the original novel version. I've read that novel and enjoyed it as much as the film version.

[Dr. Ursus]

Agreed!

[Terry L Smith]

I started reading and becoming a Bond fan, in the early 1960’s, by picking up a novel from the turnstile in the local drugstore.

So, a happy 50 years of watching and reading Bond novels!

It is true that the ‘original flavor and slant’ was kept most to the novels, in the movie “From Russia With Love”. The actor that played the SPECTRE-trained assassin, and the Russian Colonel Klebb, oozed with villainy usually noted from ‘that shadow world’. A joke thread can be made, in the movie, when the assassin starts to don his gloves. “Time for no more Mr. Nice Guy is here!” If you follow most TV ‘whodunits’ since then, you can remember the visual signal of the ‘donning of the gloves’ by the show’s evil-doer. Maybe a silent salute to this movie? (if you HAVE read the novel F.R.W.L., this guy was bad news from a way-back-when, before SPECTRE got hold of him!)

Always remember .... never order red wine with fish!

[Cincinatus]

Actually, the first four films (Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball) pretty much faithfully follow the books. True enough, with Goldfinger, the gadgets started taking over, but the plot was pretty much identical to the book. I consider the first four films to be about as good as most movies get to realizing the vision of the books.

If you have the time, it is worth your while to read the Bond novels in chronological order, starting with Casino Royale and finishing with The Man With the Golden Gun (you can figure out the order by looking at the dates on the copyright page). It is very interesting how Bond deteriorates physically and mentally throughout the series. After he is kidnapped by the Soviets at the end of You Only Live Twice, he is brainwashed and sent back to London to assassinate "M." Bond fails to kill him, but is then sent on what the Service considers to be a "suicide mission" to get rim of him. Great stuff!