Where to watch Dr. No (1962)

Trivia & production notes

• Wolf Mankowitz had his name removed from the Dr. No credits after viewing early rushes because he feared the film would be a disaster.
• An early screenplay draft reimagined Dr. No as a marmoset controlled by a shipping magnate villain named Buckfield who planned to destroy the Panama Canal locks.
• The film changed Dr. No's death from being buried under guano to being boiled in overheating reactor coolant, and replaced a giant squid fight from the novel with a tarantula spider instead.
• SPECTRE was introduced in Dr. No despite not appearing in the novel until Thunderball, partly to avoid the film commenting on Cold War politics by substituting the organization for the Soviet Union.
• Cary Grant and James Mason were both rejected as Bond candidates because they would only commit to one or two films, and producers wanted an actor who could anchor a series.
• Sean Connery was 31 years old when cast as Bond after impressing producers Broccoli and Saltzman by adopting a macho, devil-may-care attitude during his meeting with them.
• Director Terence Young took Sean Connery to his tailor and hairdresser and introduced him to London's high life, restaurants, casinos, and social circles to prepare him for the role.
• Ursula Andress was chosen as Honey Ryder just two weeks before filming began after Kirk Douglas persuaded her to take the part at a party hosted by her then-husband John Derek.
• Andress had her lines redubbed by voice actress Nikki van der Zyl due to her heavy Swiss-German accent, though she had a tan painted on to appear more convincing as a Jamaican.
• Jack Lord played Bond's ally Felix Leiter in Dr. No, a character who does not appear in the novel, but Lord asked for more money and better billing to return for Goldfinger and was replaced.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Dr. No (film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.