Dr. No/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Enforced Method Acting: Sean Connery is truly terrified of spiders. The legs of a stuntman were used when the tarantula crawled onto Bond. Note the shot when the spider is on his shoulder -- it's walking on a pane of glass. Once you've seen it you can't unsee it.
  • Fake Nationality:
    • Joseph Wiseman, who played the half-Chinese Dr. No, was Canadian.
    • Ursula Andress (Honey Rider) is a Swiss playing a Jamaican descended from an old-established (presumably British) colonial family (though not all Jamaicans have dark skin).
  • Fountain of Expies: Dr. No: the first of all Bond villains, though not the most emulated (that distinction goes to Blofeld, followed by Goldfinger).
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: Felix Leiter is Jack Lord of Hawaii Five-O fame.
  • No Budget: United Artists only lent $1 million. The art director got an extra cash from the producers' own pockets, and the special effects people convinced UA to give an extra $100,000 to do the Collapsing Lair.
  • The Pete Best:
    • Peter Burton as Q (although he's only identified by Q's real name, Major Boothroyd). He was unavailable for the second movie due to taking a role in another film that was never completed (a decision he regretted for the rest of his life), and Desmond Llewellyn would take over the role starting with From Russia with Love.
    • To a lesser extent, Jack Lord as Felix Leiter. Lord wanted a bigger role, more money, and co-star billing to appear in the next movie, which was declined, and Lord was too much in demand for leading roles to return to what was effectively a bit part. Leiter would be played by a succession of other actors in subsequent films.
  • Serendipity Writes the Plot: The idea of Rider being trapped among crabs was scrapped because the crabs that would attack her weren't moving (being flown frozen from the Caribbean helped...).
  • Similarly Named Works: The 2007 Systems in Blue song "Dr. No" is not intentionally related to the film, but there's a Fan Vid using clips from the film.
  • What Could Have Been: Sylvia Trench's role was meant to be a full blown Running Gag with Bond always being called away on a mission when he's about to sleep with her, but it was dropped after two films.