Dr. No

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Dr. No: The Americans are fools. I offered my services, they refused. So did the East. Now they can both pay for their mistake.
James Bond: World domination. The same old dream. Our asylums are full of people who think they're Napoleon. Or God.

Dr. No is the first James Bond film, starring Sean Connery. After a British agent and his secretary are murdered in Jamaica and their files stolen, James Bond is sent to investigate. As the first film of the series, it lacked many of the traits that would become iconic of the franchise but nonetheless set the groundwork.

Tropes used in Dr. No include:
  • Adaptation Distillation: Ian Fleming loved the movie so much that he made Bond Half-Scottish in honor of Sean Connery. He also gave Ursula Andress a cameo in his novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
  • Adaptation-Induced Plothole: Major Boothroyd says Bond's Beretta, which is in .380 ACP, is underpowered and assigns him a less powerful pistol, a Walther PP in .32 ACP. This conversation is directly from the book, where Bond's Beretta was a slightly different model in .25 ACP which is less powerful than .32 ACP.
  • Air Vent Passageway: Double-subverted. When Bond tries to escape his cell through the vent, he gets shocked when he touches the grill. However, he tries again by using his shoe to push it out and succeeds in escaping. As a nice touch, he experimentally taps the grill at the other end with his feet to make sure it isn't electrified.
    • Also justified in the novel. It's designed to be a part of a Deadly Game.
    • And the reason it's so wide? It's not an air vent; it's a water vent, as Bond learns to his dismay.
  • Animal Assassin: The poisonous spider (in the film) or centipede (in the book) which gets dropped into Bond's room, as well as the one Honey put in her landlord's bed after he raped her.
  • Antagonist Title
  • Artificial Limbs: Dr. No's Robot Hands.
  • Artistic Title: The Dr. No film doesn't use artistic title montages, instead it uses a stylized geometric animation.
  • Badass Boast: Pussfeller gives one when Leiter introduces him to Bond.

Leiter: "That's Pussfeller, he owns the place."
Bond: "I hope he cooks better than he fights!"
Pussfeller: "Nobody died from my cooking...yet."

  • Better to Die Than Be Killed: Bond's driver.
  • Big Red Button: The large wheel that Bond turns to set the reactor to danger level.
  • Bond One-Liner: "What happened?" "I think they were on their way to a funeral!"
  • Clipboard of Authority: The sheaf of papers Bond picks up while infiltrating the reactor room.
  • Collapsing Lair: After Bond overrides the nuclear reactor, Crab Key goes kaboom.
  • Convenient Decoy Cat: A flock of birds saves the protagonists from Dr. No's guards.
  • Creepy Centipedes: A poisonous centipede is used in an attempt to kill Bond in the novel. Never mind that their poison is almost harmless to humans.
  • Cyanide Pill: A henchman uses a suicide cigarette.
  • Damsel in Distress: Honey Rider at the end of the movie.
    • Subverted in the book - she was tied up with the threat of being eaten by a swarm of crabs. She knew the crabs were harmless, and let them swarm over her; her distressed attitude was over what would happen to Bond.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Decontamination Chamber: Used to cleanse Bond and Ursula of radiation. Ursula wears a flesh-colored towel in an ineffectual attempt to convince the audience she is nude.
  • The Dragon: Professor Dent to Dr. No.
  • Dressing as the Enemy: How Bond infiltrates Dr. No's nuclear facility.
  • Drowning Pit: How Dr. No tries to dispose of Honey Ryder.
    • What Could Have Been: The original scene would've involved hungry crabs attacking her, but it was cut as they couldn't get them to be menacing enough.
  • Early Installment Weirdness: They had just $1 million to spend, so it's rather subdued (it helps that the franchise loves Sequel Escalation). Also, Q is only called by his name -- Major Boothroyd. There are no major "gadgets" here, either: Q Branch sends Bond an ordinary Geiger counter.
  • Enigmatic Minion: Doctor No himself, working for SPECTRE.
  • Every Car Is a Pinto: The hearse following blows up when it runs down a cliff.
  • Evil Genius: Professor Dent (one of Dr. No's henchmen). Also Doctor No himself.
  • Expy: Doctor No is a somewhat scaled back Fu Manchu. Oddly, resembling the Devil Doctor from his earliest appearances when he was just a high ranking member of the Si-Fan rather than its leader.
  • Fan Service: The famous bikini scene. In the novel, she was just wearing the belt.
  • Fire-Breathing Weapon: The Dragon-tank.
  • Handy Cuffs: When Bond is captured by the crew of Dr. No's "dragon".
  • Hazmat Suit: Dr. No's radiation suit.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: The metal hands of Dr. No do not have enough grip to allow him to climb out of the superheated pool of water.
  • Idiot Ball: Bond himself does it twice: multiple times in his hotel room and by murdering Professor Dent rather than capturing him for interrogation.
  • I Shall Taunt You: Bond taunts Dr. No when they're eating dinner.
  • It Will Never Catch On: First, it was ignored by many studios. Then United Artists gave little money and attention on the US release. 22 movies later...
  • Just Between You and Me: A not too blatant example, since the US had worked out before the events of the film that their rockets were being toppled; they just didn't know who the culprit was, and Bond works out by himself that Dr. No is responsible. However, Dr. No also freely gives away the existence of SPECTRE, who Bond and, presumably, MI 6 had been totally ignorant of until that point. In fairness, he only told him because he was trying to recruit him, and Russia and China definitely know because they keep doing business with them (No is on a mission for SPECTRE, but it is strongly implied that they were hired by Red China; No even has an army of Chinese henchmen), so its not so bad if half the world knows anyway.
  • Let's You and Him Fight: Bond and Quarrel, who's working with CIA agent Felix Leiter.
  • The Load: Honey is as useful as a rubber spanner. About all she does is help find the "dragon" that takes them to Dr. No's base. We know she's there for the Fan Service, to play the Damsel in Distress and get rescued. And for the bedroom cut-away as the credits roll.
  • Mauve Shirt: Quarrel. Killed by a flamethrower tank painted to look like a dragon.
  • Mexican Standoff: With Professor Dent.
  • Mickey Mousing: Done each time Bond whacks the tarantula with the butt of his gun.
  • The Mole: Miss Taro, Dr. No's spy in Government House.
  • Mugged for Disguise: How Bond gets the radiation suit he needs to infiltrate the reactor room.
  • My Card: Occurs twice in the gambling club.
  • Nebulous Evil Organization: The first on-screen appearance of SPECTRE. Doctor No explains what the organization is about.
  • No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: The Trope Maker, to be codified in Goldfinger, which also provided the line the trope is punnily named from.
  • No Name Given: The three black assassins are only known as "Three Blind Mice" after the song that plays in their introduction.
  • Noodle Incident: The mission that ended with Bond hospitalized because his gun jammed (in the book, this refers to the previous novel's Cliff Hanger ending).
  • Not My Driver: Subverted when Bond checks on the driver and finds out he's a phony, then deals with him.
  • Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "That's a Smith and Wesson, and you've had your six."
  • Red Right Hand: Dr. No's mechanical metal hands. Although they're moderately maneuverable and super strong in the film, they're little more than crude pincers in the novel.
    • Their explanation differs between book and film. In the book, his hands were cut off by the Tong; in the film, they were damaged in his radiation experiments.
  • Reed Snorkel: Used by Bond, Quarrel and Honey Rider to avoid Dr. No's guards.
  • Same Language Dub: Strangways and the photographer are dubbed, and Nikki Van der Zyl dubbed over Eunice Gayson and Ursula Andress...
  • Shout-Out: The title character was Fleming's tribute to the iconic Yellow Peril villain Fu Manchu.
  • Sleeping Dummy: Bond uses several pillows under the covers of his bed.
  • Spiteful Spit: Miss Taro to Bond after he has her arrested.
  • Tank Goodness: The "Dragon".
  • Token Trio: Bond, Honey and Quarrel on their journey through Crab Key.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: Since it's Bond's first movie, the Leitmotif is used for everything, including arriving at the airport and driving by the coast.
    • The making-of featurette on the DVD has a scene that adds extra explosions to Bond's signature line.

"Name's Bond. *EXPLOSION* James Bond *ANOTHER EXPLOSION*"

  • What the Hell, Hero? A bit of irony: Bond does this with Honey when she describes how she murdered a man who raped her by putting a black widow spider in his bed, causing him to die over the course of a week. "I wouldn't make a habit of it" he says, shocked. But later, after Bond somewhat unnecessarily stabs one of Dr. No's men to death, Honey acts shocked and asks why he had to kill the man.
  • Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Averted and lampshaded.

Dr. No:"That's a Dom Perignon '55, it would be a pity to break it."

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