Trivia for
Dr. No (1962) More at IMDbPro »

• A script developed by producer Kevin McClory, screenwriter Jack Whittingham and novelist Ian Fleming, reportedly titled "James Bond, Secret Agent" was originally going to be the first James Bond movie, but Fleming caused legal problems before any production could begin by writing and publishing what he thought of as 'the book to the movie' without consulting the others. This novel was published in 1961, titled "Thunderball" by Fleming, and resulted in legal action by McClory. This legal action tied up rights to the script and story, and made McClory's participation problematic, so Dr. No (1962) wound up being chosen instead. Subsequent editions of the novel "Thunderball" carry a credit for McClory and Whittingham, and McClory eventually saw the original concept more or less produced under the title "Never Say Never Again".
  
  
• Author Ian Fleming wanted his cousin Christopher Lee to play Dr. No. (Lee would later appear as Scaramanga in the 007 flick The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), and would play the character that inspired Fleming to create Dr. No, Dr. Fu Manchu, in several films.) Fleming originally asked Noel Coward to play the part of Dr. No. Coward turned down the part by replying with a telegram that read, "Dr. No? No! No! No!" One of Coward's objections was having to wear metal hands.
  
  
• Max von Sydow turned down the part of Dr No in order to play Jesus Christ in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).
  
  
• At first Eunice Gayson was to play Miss Moneypenny and Lois Maxwell was to play Sylvia Trench, but they switched roles.
  
  
• This was chosen to be the inaugural film in the James Bond series as the plot of the source novel was the most straightforward. It had only one major location (Jamaica) and only one big special effects set piece.
  
  
• "Dr No" was the sixth published James Bond novel. Its working title was "The Wound Man." The complete name of the villain in the book is Doctor Julius No, only ever referred to as Dr. No in the film. Ian Fleming is said to have based him on Sax Rohmer's Dr Fu Manchu.
  
  
• Vehicles featured included the swamp vehicle Dragon Tank at Crab Key; a marine blue 1961 Sunbeam Alpine Series 5 Sports Tourer convertible II Tiger rental car which James Bond drives whilst being tailed by a pre-war Packard LaSalle hearse; Bond rides in a taxi driven by Mr. Jones which is a black 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible; a motorboat; Mk II Ford consul taxi; Quarrel's boat; an Austin A55 Cambridge and a Ford Zephyr.
  
  
• SPECTRE stood for SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, Extortion. This is the only James Bond movie ever to feature SPECTRE without the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
  
  
• Of the £1,000,000 budget, production designer Ken Adam was given £14,000. Adam argued for an extra £6,000 to create his now-exemplary sets.
  
  
• One of the biggest problems for the crew while filming on location in Jamaica was the terribly wet weather.
  
  
• As detailed as Dr No's underwater lair was, one vital element was very nearly forgotten - background plates of fish swimming in the sea to be added to the thick-glass window. The necessary film was quickly found among library footage the day before the scene was to be filmed. When it turned out the footage featured extreme close-ups of fish, it was decided to have Dr. No explain that the window works as a magnifying glass
  
  
• Although there are persistent rumors that Ursula Andress was nude in the shower scene to clean her of radiation, closer inspection reveals that she is wearing a flesh-colored bikini.
  
  
• Producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli were adamant that the film be directed by an Englishman, someone cultivated enough to understand the world of 007.
  
  
• Marguerite LeWars, who plays the photographer girl, was working as a flight attendant when Terence Young approached her with the age-old line "Would you like to be in movies?" Lewars' brother-in-law Reggie Carter was also in the movie - he played Bond's duplicitous driver.
  
  
• Strangways (played by Tim Moxon) is shot at the beginning by the "Three Blind Mice," one of whom is played by Moxon's dentist.
  
  
• Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, the original producers of the James Bond films, cast Sean Connery because they liked how he was a big, tough-looking man who nonetheless moved gracefully ("like a cat").
  
  
• Sean Connery won the role of James Bond after producer Albert R. Broccoli attended a screening of Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959). He was particularly impressed with the fist fight Connery has with a village bully at the climax of the film. Broccoli later had his wife Dana Broccoli see the film and confirm his sex appeal.
  
  
• Sean Connery wears a toupee in all the James Bond movies and this started with Dr. No (1962).
  
  
• The script for the classic scene where Honey emerges from the water read: BOND'S EYELINE : DAY. WHAT HE SEES - HONEY, staring at the water's edge, her back to him. She is naked except for a wisp.
  
  
• According to Inside 'Dr. No' (2000) (V), the introduction of the James Bond character utilizes a technique which is a homage to the 1939 William Dieterle film, Juarez (1939) starring Paul Muni. This technique is performed using a series of close-ups of the character without revealing the face, cross-cutting with the other characters in the scene and the gambling table. Finally, the face of the person is revealed, stating his name, "Bond, James Bond." This classic introduction of the James Bond character to cinema audiences of the world was filmed on 2 March 1962.
  
  
• The aquarium in the Fairmont Hamilton Hotel's Gazebo Bar in Bermuda was reportedly the inspiration for Dr. No's aquarium, itself later inspiring the aquarium in Stromberg's lair in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
  
  
• Director Terence Young wanted Richard Johnson to play James Bond.
  
  
• First of three James Bond films directed by Terence Young. The others would be From Russia with Love (1963) and Thunderball (1965).
  
  
• The character of Sylvia Trench, whom Bond first meets in the casino scene, was supposed to become a recurring character, her romantic intentions continually foiled by Bond's missions. She was to going to feature in the first six Bond movies, becoming the lead Bond Girl in the sixth. She reappeared in From Russia with Love (1963) and she is the only Bond girl to appear in two films (as the same character) but the character was dropped from the series after that.
  
  
• Ursula Andress was apparently paid $6000 for doing the picture. She had a salary of $1000 per week for six weeks work.
  
  
• It is long standing misconception that John Barry wrote "The James Bond Theme". It actually originated from a song, "Good Sign, Bad Sign" composed by Monty Norman, from an aborted musical, "The House of Mr. Biswas". Barry arranged and orchestrated Norman's theme to produce the theme as it is known throughout the world.
  
  
• The location of the classic scene where Honey Rider (Ursula Andress) walks out of the sea and meets James Bond (Sean Connery) was Laughing Waters Beach on the Laughing Water Estate owned by Mrs. Minnie Simpson in Ocho Rios, St. Ann, Jamaica. Mrs. Simpson had been a fan of the Ian Fleming James Bond novels.
  
  
• The directing job was originally offered to Guy Hamilton, Guy Green and Ken Hughes. Bryan Forbes was also asked to direct. They all turned it down. Phil Karlson was also considered.
  
  
• The armorer who gives Bond his Walther PPK at the start of the film is Major Boothroyd, who in the next film, From Russia with Love (1963) would be played by Desmond Llewelyn. Beginning with Goldfinger (1964), the "armorer" would forever be known as "Q" (for "Quartermaster"). The character of Boothroyd, also appears in Fleming's original Dr. No novel. He is named for Geoffrey Boothroyd, who wrote to Fleming complaining about Bond's use of a beretta in the early Bond books and recommending Bond use a Walther PPK instead. This detail was included in the novel and later included in this film, establishing part of the Bond legend. Q is based loosely on Charles Fraser-Smith, who designed spy gadgets called "Q-devices" (named for Q-ships, the Royal Navy's disguised warships of World War One) for MI-6.
  
  
• In footage, producer Harry Saltzman stated that they originally planned to use Roger Moore but he was unavailable. However, this has since been discredited by others, including Moore himself.
  
  
• To get a feel for the clothes, director Terence Young asked Sean Connery to sleep in his finely tailor fitted suit which was purchased at Turnbull and Asser Tailors and made to play James Bond.
  
  
• The story of Dr. No was originally written for an episode entitled 'Commander Jamaica' of a never-produced 1956 TV series that was to have been titled "James Gunn Secret Agent". Fleming later expanded the story treatment into a James Bond novel.
  
  
• The movie's line "Bond. James Bond." was voted as the #22 movie quote by the American Film Institute, and as #51 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere.
  
  
• The scheme by which Dr. No's activities interfere with Cape Canaveral rockets was known as Toppling. This occurred by "throwing gyroscopic controls of the rockets off balance using a radio beam". The operation is co-ordinated from an atomic-powered radio beam sent from Dr. No's Crab Key mountain lair. The rockets in the film story are said to have crashed in the Brazilian jungle and that is where Drax's rockets are launched in the later James Bond movie Moonraker (1979).
  
  
• Most types of card games ever seen in a James Bond movie totaling three. These were Bridge, Patience and Chemin de Fer / Baccarat. James Bond is seen playing two of these, they being the latter.
  
  
• The name of the spy role that James Bond performed before he became a Double-O agent was in Standard Intelligence Duties.
  
  
• The per centile decrease in Double-O casualties / fatalities since the current M came to office was 40%.
  
  
• The Japanese office of United Artists originally interpreted the title as "Dr.? No!" and produced posters with a translation that meant "We don't want a doctor". The mistake was discovered at the last moment.
  
  
• Joseph Wiseman was the only early Bond villain not to have his voice dubbed by another actor.
  
  
• After the film's release in Italy, the Vatican issued a special communiqué expressing its disapproval at the film's moral standpoint.
  
  
• Sean Connery is morbidly afraid of spiders. The shot of the spider in his bed was originally done with a sheet of glass between him and the spider, but when this didn't look realistic enough, the scene was re-shot with stuntman Bob Simmons. Simmons reported that the tarantula crawling over Bond was the scariest stunt he had ever performed.
  
  
• A Goya painting of the Duke of Wellington, stolen in 1961, is found on an easel next to the stairs in Dr. No's dining area, which is why Bond stops to notice it as he passes it while going up the stairs. It was recovered in 1965.
  
  
• Maurice Binder designed the gun barrel opening at the last minute, by pointing a pinhole camera through a real gun barrel. The actor in the sequence is not Connery, but stuntman Bob Simmons. Connery didn't film the sequence himself until Thunderball (1965).
  
  
• The character of Miss Moneypenny was said to have been inspired by Vera Atkins (born Vera Maria Rosenberg), portrayed by Avice Landone in Carve Her Name with Pride (1958).
  
  
• Moneypenny, the epitome of British efficiency, is played by Lois Maxwell, a Canadian.
  
  
• In the novel, the character Puss-Feller is said to have that name because of wrestling an octopus. In the film, it's said he wrestles alligators, which renders the name meaningless.
  
  
• The gimmick of having the audience first think of Leiter as a villain would be used again in other Bond films (due in part to the ever-changing actors in the role), specifically Thunderball (1965), Never Say Never Again (1983) and The Living Daylights (1987).
  
  
• The famous pose of Sean Connery holding a gun across his chest had to be redone at the last second. The Walther PPK was left at the studio, but the photographer had an old air pistol in his car. The gun in the picture is the air pistol
  
  
• The film's USA release was forestalled by the political climate after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
  
  
• Dent shot "Bond" (actually pillows in bed) six times. After some plot point explanation by Bond, Dent lurches for his gun, but it's empty, hence the Bond line, "That's a Smith and Wesson, and you've had your six." As a kind of payback coda, Bond shoots Dent once, and Dent flips off the bed onto the floor. Bond then fires five more rounds into Dent's back. Censors scaled this back to two total shots, with just one to the back. Reportedly a second version of the scene was filmed, but not in the final film, showing Dent firing off one last bullet before being shot down by Bond. This actually explains why Dent is shown firing a seven-shooter, rather than a six-shooter.
  
  
• Location manager Chris Blackwell (who was uncredited) was later the founder of Island Records. He is also the son of Blanche Blackwell who was neighbor, friend and lover of James Bond creator Ian Fleming. He makes a cameo in the film as the tall blond man dancing at Puss Feller's club.
  
  
• Ian Fleming was so impressed by Sean Connery's performance as James Bond that he gave his character Scottish ancestry in the novel "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".
  
  
• The only James Bond movie that does not feature a pre-titles sequence.
  
  
• When James Bond sings "Under The Mango Tree" in this movie, it is the only ever time that James Bond has sung in a Bond movie.
  
  
• Product placements, brand integrations and promotional tie-ins seen in the movie included Turnbull & Aser tailoring; Pan Am Airlines; Rolex Watches, James Bond wears a Rolex Submariner; Dom Perignon Champagne; Red Stripe Beer; Black & White Scotch, BOAC Airlines and Smirnoff Vodka including Smirnoff Blue and Smirnoff Red.
  
  
• in the source novel, the full names of Honey Ryder and Doctor No are Honeychile Ryder and Doctor Julius No. The freelance photographer (unnamed in the film) is named Annabelle Chung.
  
  
• During the initial briefing, M says that he recently was put in charge of MI7. Bernard Lee originally said MI6 during the take, but this has been overdubbed, possibly for fear of offending the real-life organization. In later Bond films, however, 007 clearly works for MI6.
  
  
• The first scene Sean Connery filmed as James Bond is the sequence in the Kingston Airport where he passes a female photographer and throws a hat in front of his face. The filming date was 16 January 1962.
  
  
• The initial reason that MI6 launches an investigation, mysterious radio interference being picked up at Cape Cenaveral isn't as far out of the question as one might think. A memorandum to the Pentagon in the year the film was released, reported unusually heavy radio emissions from Cuba, and that if John Glenn's upcoming orbit of the Earth were to fail, a case could successfully made (whether true or not) of Cuban sabotage.
  
  
• Ken Adam's sets so impressed Stanley Kubrick that he hired him the following year to be production designer on Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).
  
  
• John Stears was asked to help with the miniatures. He only a budget of £1000 for the effect of the destruction of Dr. No's Fortress. In the next Bond outing Stears took over as Special Effects Supervisor
  
  
• Ian Fleming didn't originally like the casting of Sean Connery as James Bond. Bond was English and Connery was Scottish, Bond was upper-class and Connery was working-class, Bond was refined and educated and Connery was too rugged. However, Fleming would later change his view of Connery after the success of the James Bond films.
  
  
• The literal translations of some of this film's foreign language titles include Licence to Kill / Agent 007: Licence to Kill (Italy); James Bond Versus Dr. No (Belgium & France); Dr. No: Mission-Killing / Agent 007 - Mission: Kill Dr. No (Denmark); James Bond Chases Dr. No (Germany); Dr. No: 007 Is The Killing Number (Japan); Agent 007 With A Licence To Kill (Sweden); Agent 007 Versus Dr. No (Spain); James Bond, Agent 007 Against Dr. No (Greece); 007 Seized The Secret Island (China); 007 - The Secret Agent (Portugal); 007 And Dr. No (Finland) and 007 Against The Satanic Dr. No (Brazil & Spanish-speaking South America)
  
  
• First James Bond movie to receive a Golden Globe Award nomination and first James Bond movie to win a Golden Globe Award. This was for Ursula Andress as Best Newcomer.
  
  
• The name of the tank which was mythically known as a fire-breathing dragon was the Dragon Tank. An ordinary vehicle was fitted out with armor-plating, a large flame-thrower, high-powered head-lights and was painted to look like a dragon. James Bond creator Ian Fleming based the Dragon Tank on a marshlands swamp jeep with very large wheels which he had seen in 1956 on the island of Inagua in the Bahamas.
  
  
• The brand of silencer on James Bond's Walther PPK gun was a Brausch.
  
  
• Sean Connery was originally rejected as James Bond by United Artists. The studio cabled producer Harry Saltzman of this information on 23 August 1961. However, UA later rescinded this decision and agreed with the producers' casting choice.
  
  
• In the original novel, the scene in which Bond escapes "imprisonment" worked a little differently - Dr. No had actually had an obstacle course set up to challenge Bond. At the end of the obstacle course there was a seaside cage, with a giant squid inside. The film altered and toned down all of this, and the "obstacle course" idea got lost in the translation from novel to film.
  
  
• The white bikini worn by Ursula Andress in the movie was sold by her at Christie's Auctions in London on 14 February 2001 for 35,000 UK pounds. It was purchased by Robert Earl of Planet Hollywood and with commission and tax fees, the total was actually around 41,000 UK pounds. Before the auction, the bikini had been estimated to fetch 40,000 UK pounds.
  
  
• Other actors considered for the lead role included Cary Grant, David Niven, Trevor Howard, Stanley Baker and Rex Harrison. Grant and Niven were rejected as being too old, while Baker was unwilling to commit to a three-picture deal. Niven would go on to play James Bond in the parody Casino Royale (1967).
  
  
• Ursula Andress' dialog was looped by voice artist Nikki Van der Zyl. It was her task to recreate Andress' voice but give it only a mild accent. Andress' singing voice was dubbed by Diana Coupland. Both Andress and Eunice Gayson were dubbed by the same actress. Gayson's real voice can be heard on the theatrical trailers for the film, included on the DVD release.
  
  
• United Artists executives were first screened a print of the film at 10:00 am one morning with Arthur Krim in attendance. When the movie finished around midday, there was a silence at the end of the screening. The European head exec stated that the only good thing about the picture was that they couldn't lose with it with only a budget of about $(US)840,000. Producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli were shaken and stirred.
  
  
• Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman used Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959) as the template for this film and the subsequent early James Bond films. In fact, the role of James Bond was first offered to Cary Grant, the star of North by Northwest (1959), who would commit to one film only, and its suave and urbane villain, James Mason, who would commit to only two, while Broccoli and Saltzman wanted an actor willing to make a multi-film commitment to the role and the projected series. The role of James Bond was offered to American actor Steve Reeves who turned it down. At the time, Reeves had become an international box office sensation in a group of European-made mythological/historical spectacles. Patrick McGoohan is another actor who was considered for the role of Bond, due to his popularity on "Danger Man" (1960). According to legend, McGoohan turned the role down on moral grounds. Other actors considered for the lead role included Trevor Howard, and Rex Harrison, Richard Johnson, William Franklyn, Ian Hendry (co-star of "The Avengers" (1961)) and Richard Burton. Director John Frankenheimer claims Broccoli offered him the role of James Bond.
  
  
• According to Albert R. Broccoli's autobiography "When the Snow Melts", Roger Moore was Ian Fleming's choice to play Bond, largely based on his performance as "The Saint" (1962). This, however, turns out not to be true, as "The Saint" (1962) didn't begin airing in the UK until October 1962, one day after the premiere of Dr. No (1962).
  
  
• Although Sean Connery landed the lead role via casting agents, for publicity purposes there was a contest to find the perfect man to play James Bond. Six finalists were chosen and screen-tested by Albert R. Broccoli, Harry Saltzman and Ian Fleming. The winner was a 28-year-old model called Peter Anthony who looked the part but completely lacked the acting technique to play it.
  
  
• Two weeks before filming was due to start, the part of Honey Ryder was still to be cast. The producers then saw a photograph that actor John Derek had taken of his wife, Ursula Andress, and offered her the part without even meeting her. Some sources claim that the photograph allegedly featured Andress in a wet T-shirt competition. Andress, who wasn't overly interested in acting at the time, only agreed to do it when family friend Kirk Douglas read the script and urged her to take it on.
  
  
• The first-ever day of filming at England's Pinewood Studios for both Dr. No (1962) and the EON Productions James Bond series was on Monday, 26 February 1962. The first take was Slate 310 at 11.25 am on Stage D. The scene was in M's office and featured Bernard Lee, Peter Burton and Sean Connery. Many of the cast and crew including director Terence Young had been late arriving on set due to harsh cold and inclement weather.
  
  
• The budget was only $1,000,000, but when costs overran by $100,000 United Artists wanted to pull the plug, fearing it would never recoup its outlay.
  
  
• There is a longstanding rumor that in the early drafts of the script, Dr. No turned out to be a monkey. When first approached by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, screenwriters Wolf Mankowitz and Richard Maibaum discarded most of the source material and wrote a story treatment about a shipping magnate called Buchwald attempting to blow up the Panama Canal. Dr. No was a monkey god worshiped on the island, and the villain kept a capuchin monkey as a pet. Broccoli and Saltzman told them to try again and this time stick more closely to the source material. Mankowitz was dissatisfied with the script and had his name removed from the credits. He later co-wrote the James Bond parody film Casino Royale (1967), which co-starred Ursula Andress, who played Honey Ryder in Dr. No (1962).
  
  
• A sequence involving Honey Rider being tied to the ground and attacked by a swarm of crabs was scrapped because many of the crustacean arrived frozen, dead and damaged. The scene was changed so water water was the threat instead.
  
  
• According to the Inside 'Dr. No' (2000) (V) documentary, Ian Fleming was so smitten by Ursula Andress that when he wrote "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", he described the character of Tracy Di Vicenzo (played by Diana Rigg in the film version) as looking like Andress.
  
  
• When the film was released in L.A. in May 1963, it was double-billed with The Young and the Brave (1963).
  
  
• For a long time, this film was tied with Goldfinger (1964) as the shortest James Bond movie in the EON Productions official series, with a running time of 111 minutes. Quantum of Solace (2008) is now the shortest at 106 minutes.
  
  
• The name of the casino in London, England, was Le Cercle Les Ambassadeurs. Its interiors were, however, a set at Pinewood Studios.
  
  
• The players who participated in the bridge card game were Cmdr. John Strangways, Principal Secretary Playdell-Smith, Prof. R.J. Dent and Gen. Potter.
  
  
• The base for the production offices while in Kingston, Jamaica was the Courtleigh Manor Hotel.
  
  
• Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, originally did not like Sean Connery being cast as Bond because he felt that he was too "unrefined". The actor whom Fleming embodied James Bond in Fleming's mind was 'Cary Grant (I)'. Ian Fleming later changed his mind and admitted Connery was ideally cast in the role.
  
  
• First completely animated opening title sequence in the EON Productions James Bond official film series until Casino Royale (2006).
  
  
• The sounds of birds whistling were made by a child's bird call whistle.
  
  
• Cameo: [Bob Simmons] [The series regular stuntman is the actor appearing in the gun barrel sequence at the beginning of the film. The same footage was used for the first three James Bond movies, the others being From Russia with Love (1963) and Goldfinger (1964).]
  
  
• A number of movies and TV shows went on to spoof or reference this film's title after it was released. These include "Get Smart: Dr. Yes (#3.9)" (1967); Blunderball, or from Dr. Nofinger with Hate (1966); "Suddenly Susan: Dr. No (#1.2)" (1996); Dr. Yes (1965); "A.E.S. Hudson Street: Dr. No-No (#1.1)" (1978); "Bobby's World: The Revenge of Dr. Noo (#1.10)" (1990) and James Stoned: 0.07 Uhr bei Dr. Njet (1992).
  
  
• The World Premiere of Dr. No (1962) was held on 5th October 1962 at the London Pavilion, Piccadilly Circus, London. The launch of the first ever James Bond film in a cinema was attended by Sean Connery, Zena Marshall and James Bond creator Ian Fleming.
  
  
• According to the film's CD Soundtrack sleeve notes, the James Bond theme debuted in the UK charts on 1st November 1962 where it peaked at No. #13. It entered the US charts on 27 July 1963 where it went to No. #82. Two pieces of music heard in the film are not included on the film's soundtrack. These are the electronic sound effects music at the very beginning of the film and the suspenseful music from the tarantula sequence.
  
  
• Henchmen and henchwomen in this film included the assassins the Three Blind Mice and their hearse driver, Miss Taro, Jones the chauffeur (the first villain James Bond ever encountered in the series), Annabelle Chung (freelance photographer for the Daily Gleaner), Professor R. J. Dent and the "sisters" Lily and Rose.
  
  
• The charred trees in the area where Bond confronts the Dragon Tank are part of the sanctuary for rare birds that Dr. No has disrupted. All mention of the sanctuary was deleted from the final film.
  
  
• According to Steven Jay Rubin's 1981 book "The James Bond Films", the tarantula that shares a bed with Sean Connery and crawled over stuntman Bob Simmons chest was named Rosie.
  
  

• SPOILER: The son of the Quarrel character in this movie appears in Live and Let Die (1973). Quarrel would have appeared but because he was killed in this movie, Quarrel Jnr. was invented.
  
  
• SPOILER: The character of Prof. Dent did not appear in the original novel. There was a professor character in the novel, but his name was not Dent and he was not a double agent working for the title villain, like the character seen in the movie.
  
  

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