39 Things We Learned from the Banned “Dr. No” Commentary
Film School Rejects presents 39 Things We Learned from the Banned “Dr. No” Commentary by Kevin Carr. Here are five of my favorites…
1. The iconic James Bond theme was not in the original picture. The score had “Underneath the Mango Tree” as Bond’s theme, and Young thought “that’s a really stupid idea” because eventually they would make a James Bond movie without mango trees. John Barry was referred to him, and he wrote the recognizable theme without even seeing the film.
7. It took ten takes of Bond tossing his hat onto the coat tree to get the shot. In later films, Connery became good enough to hit the mark on the first try.
23. When the Three Blind Mice try to assassinate Bond in the parking lot, Hunt did not have a shot of the passing car’s headlight that distract them from following through because Young never shot it. In order ot make the shot work, Hunt flared the film on the actors in post production to show the flash of light.
31. Young discovered Ursula Andress in a pile of photographs on the desk of a producer. He asked if he could keep the photo and took it to Cubby Broccoli to find her for the role of Honey Ryder. They cast her primarily because of her looks and never had a formal audition or test of her acting ability.
34. Ursula Andress was overdubbed by actress Nikki Van der Zyl because her accent was too thick and the filmmakers could not understand all of her lines.
