Rosa Klebb: Kronsteen's plan should be as succesful as his chess.
Kronsteen: It will be. I've anticipated every possible variation of countermove.
-- On Kronsteen's plan to get the Lektor and kill James Bond
Intro:
The second Bond film, released in 1963 and directed by Terence Young, is still very much low budget, although not as much so as the first. Sean Connery plays a convincing and cool James Bond, setting the stage for the franchise, although many token Bond features won't appear until the next movie, Goldfinger. Still, this movie is a lot of fun, has aged well, and was a sufficient success to warrant another sequel and the rest is history.
Bond: Red wine with fish. Well that should have told me something.
Grant: You may know the right wines, but you're the one on your knees. How does it feel old man?
Teaser:
In the first pre-credit teaser (which were to become a regular feature of Bond movies from then on), a large, blond man stalks James Bond through a hedge maze. He ambushes him, garrotes him with a wire pulled from his watch (it will be a long time until MI-5 will be able to copy this mysterious technology), and apparently kills him. Floodlights immediately illuminate the area and another man appears and announces he's been timing the proceedings. It's revealed that "Bond" is just a man in a mask and it was all a training exercise for some mysterious organization. With this, the stage is set for the main plot, giving some foreshadowing of the things to come. This suspenseful dress-rehearsal of Bond's murder was later repeated in The Man With The Golden Gun.
Plot:
Blofeld: Twelve seconds. One day we must invent a faster-working venom.
-- Comment after watching Kronsteen's death agony
The British Secret Service has been trying to get their hands on to the new Russian cypher machine, the Lektor, for a long time, so when a defecting Russian agent offers to provide one, they send out their best man, James Bond, to Istanbul. However, in reality, the whole thing is a plan by S.P.E.C.T.R.E. to trap James Bond and kill him, in order to avenge their late agent, Dr.No. The Russian defector is Tatiana, who is supposedly in love with a picture of Bond she got from his file, which is why M sent him, rather than some other agent.
And we get (but not quite yet see) Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the cat-stroking villain of many faces and devious plots, and eternal Nemesis of Bond's, for the very first time. He doesn't appear very often though, and as one does not even get to see his face, the direct opponents of Bond are Robert Shaw as Red Grant, the killer assigned to kill Bond; and Lotte Lenya as Rosa Klebb (IIRC the model for Austin Powers' Frau Farbissina).
Trivia:
Bond: You're one of the most beautiful girls I've ever seen!
Tatiana: Thank you, but I think my mouth is too big!
Bond: No, it's just the right size, for me that is!
Bond girls are Daniela Bianchi as Tatiana Romanova, a russian office clerk, romanced by Bond for her information on the Lektor. Eunice Gayson returns as Sylvia Trench from Dr. No, having a small picnic with Bond at the beginning.
Tatiana: The mechanism is... Oh James, James... Will you make love to me all the time in England?
Bond: Day and night. Go on about the mechanism.
-- Moneypenny, M, and other officials are listening to Bond's taped interview of Tatiana Romanova
This movie also features the first appearance of the late Desmond Llewelyn as "Q" (In Dr. No, the role was played by Peter Burton). Q pops into "M"'s office to outfit Bond with the famous briefcase containing 50 gold sovereigns, 2 knives, 2 tubes of ammunition, a canister of poisonous dust (held to case by magnetic device). He also provides a special Rollieflex camera with a recording device and a armalite rifle.
To finish up and complete the writeup, here is a nice link to all things Bond:
Previous Bond: Dr. No, James Bond will return in: Goldfinger