Inside 'from Russia with Love' (2000 Video) User Reviews

More implausible than ANY James Bond\Agent 007 plot . . .

[tadpole-596-918256 · 8/10 · 21 October 2014]

. . . which is REALLY saying something, INSIDE FROM RU$$IA WITH LOVE reveals that STAGECOACH director John Ford foisted off a dying buddy (Pedro Armendariz) to play the second-billed role of "Kerim Bey." (This is EXACTLY how the world-championship-bound Boston Red Sox sabotaged both the 2013 and 2014 Detroit Tigers seasons, trading a shortstop with two broken legs to enable the Tigers to purge the players involved in their wife-swapping\steroids scandals, which inadvertently crippled Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera when he got caught up in a clubhouse scuffle.) INSIDE says Pedro was in so much pain from terminal cancer that RU$$IA's production company was forced to shoot all his scenes in two weeks, while he was being held up by 2X4's outside the camera frame. Then, before the movie was half finished, Pedro shot himself to death in his L.A. hospital bed. As if that wasn't bad enough, a helicopter carrying three crew members including director Terence Young crashed into a Scottish Ness and sank into 45' of water before the soaked foursome barely escaped alive. THEN lead actress Daniela Bianchi was temporarily disfigured in a car crash before Young had dried out. FINALLY, their Scot location was polluted ON PURPOSE with hundreds of gallons of gasoline ON THE WRONG DAY, so that within 24 hours it was "double the pollution, double the fun" (no word on any birth defects among the local seafood lovers in ensuing months).

An excellent and informative retrospective documentary

[Woodyanders · 9/10 · 18 August 2009]

This extremely enjoyable and engrossing 34 minute documentary offers an illuminating portrait on the making of the second James Bond action spectacle "From Russia With Love." The movie was made on twice the budget of "Dr. No" and the filmmakers did their best to either match or possibly surpass the quality of the first 007 outing (they certainly succeeded in surpassing "Dr. No" and thus raised the bar for all subsequent Bond flicks). Actress Lotte Lenya in reality was a total sweetheart and hence nothing like the evil character she played. Lovely leading lady Daniela Bianchi and her equally fetching co-stars Martine Beswick and Alizu Gur were all beauty pageant winners. Beswick and Gur trained for three weeks for their big catfight scene. Actor Pedro Armendarez was diagnosed with terminal cancer during the shooting of the film, but insisted on finishing his part and died shortly after completing his role. Actor Anthony Dawson was Blofield's hands in the picture. The script was being constantly rewritten throughout the course of the shooting. Sean Connery and Robert Shaw did almost all of their own stunts for their major rough'n'ready physical confrontation on the Orient express. Although the film went over budget and over schedule, director Terence Young's unbreakable enthusiasm kept morale up despite all the production problems. Editor Peter Hunt's innovative techniques added an extra visceral quality to the picture. This movie introduced the now popular pre-credit teaser. Of course, the final finished film proved to be a massive international box office smash. Patrick Macnee handles the narrator duties with perfectly smooth élan. Essential viewing for fans of the movie.

Fascinating

[dtucker86 · 10/10 · 28 September 2023]

From Russia With Love was the second James Bond movie and there is an interesting bit of trivia about it. It was the last film President John F. Kennedy saw at the White House before his assassination. In fact it was JFK who was credited with igniting "Bond mania" in the United States when he mentioned From Russia With Love was one of his favorite books. This is a wonderful documentary on the making of the film narrated by "Avengers" star Patrick MacNee (who co starred in a later Bond film A View To A Kill). The documentary mentions the tragic story of Pedro Armendariz who co starred in the film and struggled to finish it because he was dying of cancer at the time and killed himself shortly afterwards. To me Sean Connery will always be the best Bond.