Dr. No
60th Anniversary 1962-2022

On Wednesday January 17, 1962 production moved to the Port Royal Road to capture Bond’s fight with the chauffeur Mr. Jones (played by Reggie Carter), who is an agent of the as yet unseen Doctor No. Stunt arranger Bob Simmons doubled for Carter. Production progressed with the meeting between Bond and Quarrel on Thursday January 18th, and shots required for later in the film where the two men are in a boat on the open sea as they travel to Doctor No’s island – Crab Key. These scenes were filmed over a period of three days with many shots played ‘day for night’. Several interior scenes scheduled to be filmed in Jamaica could not be completed due to ongoing weather delays. Production Designer Ken Adam was therefore sent back to England to design appropriate sets that could be used when the crew returned after location filming. Art Director Syd Cain stayed behind in Jamaica to deal with the remaining locations; his contribution to the film was sadly uncredited due to main title designer Maurice Binder accidentally omitting Cain’s name from the credits. As compensation co-producer ‘Cubby’ Broccoli gifted Cain a solid gold pen, as it would have cost too much to re-create the titles. Cain would go on to become overall Production Designer on From Russia With Love (1963) [credited as Art Director], On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) and Live And Let Die (1973) – finishing his distinguished Bond career as storyboard artist on GoldenEye (1995).

The Morgan's Harbour Hotel at Port Royal in Kingston served as the location of Puss-Feller’s bar over three days beginning Monday January 22, 1962. Chris Blackwell had introduced Monty Norman to local band-leader Byron Lee, who with his group The Dragonaires performed ‘Jump Up’ in Dr. No. The backing track used for playback on location was recorded on Wednesday January 24, 1962, at the Federal Recording Studio in Kingston under the supervision of Monty Norman and arranger Carlos Malcolm. The rest of the month of January was taken up with the other scenes set in and around Kingston, including Strangways house and the murder of his secretary Mary (played by Dolores Keator), who owned the house at 5 Kinsale Avenue where the filming took place. Two different houses owned by Richard and Dolores Keator on Kinsale Avenue were used for exterior and interior filming. The Liguanea Club in the heart of Kingston served as the exterior of the fictional Queen’s Club; whilst the façade of King's House, residence of the Governor General of Jamaica, was seen as the non-fictional Government House. The location saw the introduction of Bond’s first throwaway line, “Sergeant, make sure he doesn't get away.” - which set the tone for the tongue-in-cheek humour of Dr. No, and was an unscripted invention on the part of Sean Connery and Terence Young.

Ursula Andress arrived in Jamaica on January 29, 1962, as the first block of location shooting came to an end. She then filmed her first scene with Sean Connery - actually the final sequence of the film when Bond and Honey kiss in a boat after escaping from Doctor No’s island. A close-up of the kiss was later filmed at Pinewood Studios. On February 6, 1962, the production moved its base to the Carib Ochos Rios Hotel on Jamaica’s north shore. Monty Norman had already begun recording several of the songs featured in the film while he was still in Jamaica; among these was ‘Under The Mango Tree’, which was to be sung by Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder as she makes her iconic entrance from the sea - filmed on February 8, 1962. Andress, by her own admission, couldn’t carry a tune, and her vocal performance (including the singing) was re-voiced by Nikki (Monica) van der Zyl during post-production. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli famously noted in his autobiography, When The Snow Melts, that the Swiss-born actress had ‘a voice like a Dutch comic’!

Terence Young recalled that during the filming of the scene four men were seen walking up the beach, ruining the shot. He yelled at them to get down and then forgot about them. After the shot was completed assistant director Clive Reed rounded up the men, who turned out to be James Bond creator Ian Fleming, his friend playwright Noel Coward, poet and novelist Stephen Spender, and writer Peter Quennell. This was the first time Ian Fleming visited the set of a James Bond film and was so taken with Ursula Andress that he included mention of her in his next novel, ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE (1963). The crew then moved to the Vanzie Swamp in Falmouth to film the sequence involving Doctor No’s ‘Dragon’ Tank. The working vehicle was actually a marsh wagon transported from the Florida Everglades, augmented by a Ken Adam design, and modified by Syd Cain on location in Jamaica. Over three days in the stinking swamp from February 13, 1962, cast and crew endured very unpleasant conditions in order to film the sequence. The crew captured the scenes for the exterior of Doctor No’s Crab Key hideaway at Reynold’s Bauxite Docks, and this site would be recreated in miniature, and then destroyed back at Pinewood Studios on the Paddock Tank by Special Effects Supervisor Frank George.

During the filming in Jamaica, American glamour photographer Bunny Yeager was present on location and used the time in between scenes to capture a series of iconic stills of Ursula Andress for use in the publicity campaign for the film. In February 1962, Yeager had been contacted unexpectedly by United Artist’s National Publicity Director, Samuel J. Friedman, who asked her if she was able to leave for Ocho Rios via Montego Bay the next day for a three-day assignment photographing Ursula Andress – and Sean Connery. Her photographs are among the best and most famous of any taken on the Jamaican location. At Dunn’s River Falls, the scenes of Bond and Honey washing (which preceded the ‘Dragon’ sequence) were filmed on February 18th, followed three days later by shots at the Sans Souci Hotel, which stood in as the exterior of Miss Taro’s bungalow on the fictitious Magenta Drive. Interiors were later shot at Pinewood Studios. A decade later the Sans Souci Hotel in Ocho Rios would also be used as the backdrop for Baron Samedi’s nightclub floorshow performance in Live And Let Die (1973). On Thursday February 22, 1962, the production office in Jamaica closed and the cast and crew flew back to the UK the next day on a charter flight, costing another £5,000.

Studio filming began on ‘D’ Stage at Pinewood Studios on Monday February 26, 1962, with the scenes involving Sean Connery, Bernard Lee, Peter Burton and Lois Maxwell. The set constructed as M’s office was put into storage after filming had finished, and re-used in subsequent films for the next 25 years, with sections even shipped across to Paris for the filming of Moonraker (1979).

Filming continued with James Bond’s now iconic introduction on the lavish casino set designed by Ken Adam based on Les Ambassadeurs Club in London. James Bond's introduction at the chemin de fer table opposite Sylvia Trench (Eunice Gayson) was shot on March 2, 1962, with Sean Connery delivering the immortal line, “Bond. James Bond.” for the first time. Ironically, it was at Les Ambassadeurs that Harry Saltzman had first met Ian Fleming in December 1960, when he first took out the option on the novels, and later as the venue chosen for the party held after the Gala Screening of Dr. No at the London Pavilion on October 5, 1962.

During this period American actor Joseph Wiseman arrived at Pinewood Studios to start work on the film, and on March 6th underwent makeup, hair, and wardrobe tests for his transformation into the Chinese-American title character (above left). Publicity stills were photographed on the set of Miss Taro’s bungalow in between setups. Among the scenes filmed on this set was Bond’s shooting of Professor Dent, culminating in another iconic line, “That’s a Smith & Wesson. And you’ve had your six.” Several versions of the scene were filmed, but it was the first and most cold-blooded iteration that ended up in the finished film – a second bullet in Dent’s back while he lay prone on the floor was deemed too violent by the British censor.

As filming continued at Pinewood Studios in mid-March 1962, the budget was gradually running out. The sparse anteroom where Professor Dent collects the tarantula that is intended to kill the sleeping James Bond was a last-minute creation by Ken Adam, using the final £450 of his construction budget. Cleverly filmed from below to emphasise the circular vent in the ceiling, the set was dressed with just a table and chair. Anthony Dawson nervously picks up the cage containing Thomas (a Goliath bird-eating spider hired for the production at a cost of £14/10 shillings) under Doctor No’s off-screen instructions on a set that was so striking, original and imaginative that the crew all burst into spontaneous applause when the rushes were screened. A model spider made by the props department was used for publicity purposes, and later sold in auction at CHRISTIE'S for £2,990 on September 17, 1998.

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