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Dr. No (also Dr No and Doctor No) is Ian Fleming's sixth James Bond novel, originally published on the 31 March 1958. This novel was inspired by Fleming's having read Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu stories at Eton College.
Dr. No was originally a screenplay for producer Henry Morgenthau III in 1956 for what would have been a half-hour television show titled Commander Jamaica. When those plans came to naught, Fleming adapted the screenplay, originally titled The Wound Man.
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Quotations
007 The double O means he has a license to kill when he chooses...where he chooses...whom he chooses!
Both hands on the wheel, Mr. Jones, I'm a very nervous passenger.
East, West, just points of the compass, each as stupid as the other.
Now meet the most extraordinary gentleman spy in all fiction!...JAMES BOND, Agent 007!
That's a Smith & Wesson, and you've had your six.
Encyclopedia
Dr. No (also Dr No and Doctor No) is Ian Fleming's sixth James Bond novel, originally published on the 31 March 1958. This novel was inspired by Fleming's having read Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu stories at Eton College.
Dr. No was originally a screenplay for producer Henry Morgenthau III in 1956 for what would have been a half-hour television show titled Commander Jamaica. When those plans came to naught, Fleming adapted the screenplay, originally titled The Wound Man. In 1962, the novel Dr. No was adapted as the first official James Bond film of the EON Productions James Bond 007 series by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, and Berkeley Mather, it was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, it featured Sean Connery in the first of his six official portrayals of British Secret Service agent Commander James Bond.
The plots of the novel and the film are similar, differing when events from the previous novels, From Russia with Love and Live and Let Die, are referred to. The cinematic Dr. Julius No, is a member of SPECTRE, while the literary villain is an operative of the U.S.S.R.; literarily, SPECTRE was not introduced until Thunderball (1961).
The novel Dr No marks the first appearance of several James Bond signature character elements: he is officially armed with a Walther PPK pistol, and Major Boothroyd, Q, the armourer, appears.
Plot summary
From Russia with Love ended in a cliffhanger with the status of James Bond unknown. Bond was poisoned by SMERSH agent Rosa Klebb and collapsed at the end of the novel. In Dr. No, M learns from the firm's neurologist that the poison was tetrodotoxin, which is obtained from the sex organs of the Japanese fish fugu. Tetrodotoxin paralyses the muscles of the victim while they stay fully conscious until eventually they die from asphyxiation. Bond is given first aid treatment by his friend Rene Mathis, while a doctor is urgently summoned (Klebb, we learn, is captured and has died). The Doctor had spent time in South America and had dealt with various poisons. He diagnoses curare poisoning and treats Bond accordingly. But his chances of survival are extremely slim.
Nonetheless, Bond survives. When he returns to duty, he is sent by M on a rest cure to Jamaica, a simple assignment to investigate the disappearance of Strangways, the head of Station J in Kingston, who had previously appeared in Live and Let Die. He learns that Strangways had been investigating the activities of Doctor Julius No, a reclusive Chinese-German who lives on an island called Crab Key that is said to be the home of a vicious dragon. Bond soon realizes that he is being watched. His hotel room is searched, a basket of poisoned fruit is delivered to his hotel room (supposedly a gift from the colonial governor), and then a deadly centipede is placed in his bed while he is sleeping.
With help of old friend Quarrel (also previously in Live and Let Die), as well as the beautiful Honeychile Rider,who visits the island to collect valuable shells (who, apart from her diving knife is completely naked), Bond discovers that Doctor No, who operates a business harvesting and exporting guano, is also working with the Russians and has build an elaborate underground facility from which he can sabotage American missile tests. Dr. No was previously a member of a Chinese "tong" (criminal gang) and his hands were amputatated by order of the "tong" leaders after he stole a large amount of money from the "tong" treasury. No was shot through the chest in a final execution wound but survived due to having dextrocardia (heart on the right side of the chest). No survived all this without revealing the location of the money he had stolen, and was left with artificial hands — and great wealth.
Bond and Honey are captured by No's men after Quarrel is burned to death by the Doctor's dragon – actually a flamethrower-equipped armoured swamp buggy to keep away trespassers.
Doctor No is interested in the ability of the human body to withstand and survive pain and stress, and so Bond is forced to crawl and climb through an obstacle course constructed in a section of the facility's ventilation system. Bond is kept under regular observation, suffering electric shocks, burns and an encounter with poisonous spiders along the way. The ordeal ends in a fight against a captive giant squid, which Bond defeats through his ingenuity at improvised and stolen objects made into weapons, as well as physical toughness. After his escape he rescues Honey from her own "ordeal" – she had been pegged out to be eaten by crabs but the crabs ingored her.
Bond kills Doctor No by taking over the guano-loading machine at the docks and diverting the guano flow from it to bury the villain alive in bird dung. Bond and Honeychile then escape from Dr. No's complex in the dragon buggy.
Adaptations
Film adaptation
In 1962, Dr. No was the first James Bond novel cinematically adapted by EON Productions. It introduced Sean Connery as the first actor to portray James Bond on the big screen; Joseph Wiseman portrayed Dr. No.
Dr. No's physical appearance changes in the film. In the book, Honey Rider appears nude save her belt with a knife. In the movie, she wears a bikini. In the book she is pegged out to be eaten by beach crabs. In the film, she is tied to drown in a water pool. Bond's fight with a giant squid is excluded from the film; the cinematic characters Felix Leiter, Sylvia Trench, and Professor Dent were introduced to the story and the series. The film adds the radiation-induced loss of Dr. No's hands and his nuclear-powered island. In the novel, his hands were cut off in punishment for stealing from a Tong.
Also Dr No in the movie is an operative of SPECTRE, which was not mentioned in the novel.
Comic strip
Dr. No was adapted as a daily comic strip published in the British Daily Express newspaper and syndicated worldwide. The adaptation ran from May 23 to October 1, 1960. The adaptation was written by Peter O'Donnell (later the creator of Modesty Blaise) and illustrated by John McLusky. The James Bond 007 Fan Club published a reprint of the strip in 1981. Dr. No was reprinted in 2005 by Titan Books as part of the Dr. No anthology that also includes Diamonds Are Forever and From Russia with Love.
Radio adaptation
On May 24th 2008 BBC radio 4 broadcast a radio adaptation of Dr. No. Actor Toby Stephens, who played Die Another Day Bond villain Gustav Graves, played James Bond 007 and Dr. No was played by David Suchet.
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