From Russia with Love

The second James Bond film revolves around a cryptograph, quite a handy device with the cold war going on and such. The evil SPECTRE empire devises a plan to steal on such thing from the Soviets and then sell it back to them. In a film full of agent and double agents the big, bad, mysterious mastermind is only referred to as "Number 1". Yet we are treated to a shot of the (iconic!) white cat!

The bond girl, Tatiana Romanova, is recruited by SPECTRE's number 3 Rosa Klebb as a means to fool the Brits. Poor Tatiana (Tania to her friends) is led to believe she is doing it for Mother Russia, thinking Klebb to be working for SMERSH (whaterever that may be). Incidentally, Klebb is played by one Lotte Lenya, who was born in my hometown of Vienna.

The adventure begins in Istanbul and takes Bond and Tania (with an unfortunate contact from Turkey) via train, truck (already without their Turkish friend) and powerboat all the way to Venice. Hot on their heels is one SPECTRE minion, a well built blond agent.

Now, what is it with people laying out the entirety of their plans to someone they intend to kill? It is one of those story devises I always found rather puzzling and, ultimately, annoying. Here it is used through the blond guy, who thinks himself about to do away with 007. Oh, well.

In the end, British coolness prevails - girl, cryptograph and all.

6/10