Although released in the UK in late 1963, From Russia With Love, the second movie in the James Bond movie spy series, debuted in the United States in May 1964. . .exactly sixty years ago.
In many ways it’s THIS movie that set the prototype for the modern action-adventure movie. Its influence can be felt in everything from the Indiana Jones series to the Mission Impossible series to countless popcorn entertainments of international intrigue, action set pieces, spy cloak and dagger.
Filmmakers from Steven Spielberg to Quentin Tarantino to James Cameron so wanted to direct a James Bond movie that, when rejected, ultimately found ways to make their own James Bond movies. Spielberg with Indiana Jones. Cameron with his Arnold Schwarzenegger starring True Lies (1994), Tarantino with a bit of satiric winking with his Michael Fassbender storyline in Inglorious Basterds (2009).
And later series like George Miller’s Mad Max series, while completely different in many ways, also share DNA with the James Bond series, in that they are action-adventure movies with practical car, stunt set pieces that center on law and order individuals trying to save the world (Mad Max was after all a police officer when the apocalypse came).
Even Christopher Nolan’s 2010 Inception drew inspiration from James Bond with the fashions, plotlines, and climactic sequence modeled after the snowy Blofeld layer in the Alps from 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
The James Bond formula and template both ignited and reflected…
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