Ian Fleming first wrote
Dr. No as a television outline for film producer
Henry Morgenthau III to promote the Jamaican tourism industry. After this project fell through Fleming began meeting with Canadian film producer
Harry Saltzman about making a screen adaptation. Although Fleming was not a fan of the "
kitchen-sink realist" genre Saltzman was known for producing, after seeing
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Fleming sold him the rights to all of the James Bond novels except
Casino Royale and
Thunderball for $50,000. Initially, Broccoli and Saltzman had wanted to produce the eighth Bond novel, 1961's
Thunderball, as the first film, but there was an
ongoing legal dispute between the screenplay's co-author,
Kevin McClory, and Ian Fleming. As a result, Broccoli and Saltzman chose
Dr. No: the timing was apposite, with claims that American rocket testing at Cape Canaveral had problems with rockets going astray. The producers' first choice for the director was
Phil Karlson, who asked for too high a salary. and
Ken Hughes to direct, but all of them turned it down. They finally signed
Terence Young, who had a long background with Broccoli's
Warwick Films as the director. Broccoli and Saltzman felt that Young would be able to make a real impression of James Bond and transfer the essence of the character from book to film. Young imposed many stylistic choices for the character, which continued throughout the film series. The producers asked United Artists for financing, but the studio would only put up $1 million. Later, the UK arm of United Artists provided an extra $100,000 to create the climax where Dr. No's base explodes. and many pieces of scenery were made in cheaper ways, with M's office featuring cardboard paintings and a door covered in a leather-like plastic, the room where Dent meets Dr. No costing only £745 to build, and the aquarium in Dr. No's base being magnified stock footage of goldfish. Production designer
Ken Adam later told UK daily newspaper
The Guardian in 2005:
Writing Broccoli had originally hired
Richard Maibaum and his friend
Wolf Mankowitz to write
Dr. Nos screenplay, partly because of Mankowitz's help in brokering the deal between Broccoli and Saltzman. They wanted to rewrite the character of Dr. No since they saw him as little more than a "
Fu Manchu with steel hooks". During the series' decades-long history only a few of the films have remained substantially true to their source material;
Dr. No has many similarities to the novel and follows its basic plot, but there are a few notable omissions. Major elements from the novel that are missing from the film include Bond's fight with a
giant squid, and the escape from Dr. No's complex using the dragon-disguised swamp buggy – although the film did use this as the inspiration behind the flame throwing vehicle that pursues Bond, Honey and Quarrel through the swamp. Elements of the novel that were significantly changed for the film include the use of a (non-venomous) tarantula spider instead of a
centipede; Dr. No's secret complex being disguised as a
bauxite mine instead of a
guano quarry; Dr. No's plot to disrupt
NASA space launches from Cape Canaveral using a radio beam instead of disrupting US missile testing on
Turks Island; the method of Dr. No's death by boiling in overheating
reactor coolant rather than a burial under a chute of guano, and the introduction of SPECTRE, an organisation that was not to be introduced in the books until
Thunderball. The introduction of Dr. No's disruptions of NASA launches was added because of a perception that the
United States was falling behind the
Soviet Union in the
Space Race. Additionally, although the series would be associated with the
Cold War, Saltzman and Broccoli introduced SPECTRE as a substitute for the
Soviet Union to avoid commenting on the international political situation. Another actor purported to have been considered for the role was
Patrick McGoohan on the strength of his portrayal of spy
John Drake in the television series
Danger Man: McGoohan turned down the role. Another potential Bond included
David Niven, who later played the character in the 1967 parody
Casino Royale.
Rod Taylor was also approached to screentest for the role, but he rejected the offer as he felt that the role was "beneath" him. There are several apocryphal stories as to whom Ian Fleming personally wanted. Reportedly, Fleming favoured actor
Richard Todd. Fleming's stepson Paul Morgan claims that Fleming preferred
Edward Underdown. Ultimately, the producers turned to 31-year-old
Sean Connery for five films. and introduced him to the high life, restaurants, casinos and women of London. In the words of Bond writer
Raymond Benson, Young educated the actor "in the ways of being dapper, witty, and above all, cool". The casting was announced on November 3, 1961.
Martine Beswick was also rejected for being too inexperienced as an actress, while
Gabriella Licudi was rejected as too young. Harry Saltzman picked Wiseman because of his performance in the 1951 film
Detective Story, and the actor had
special make-up applied to evoke No's Chinese heritage. The role as the first Felix Leiter was given to
Jack Lord. This is Bond and Leiter's first time meeting each other on film and Leiter does not appear in the novel. Leiter returns for many of Bond's future adventures and in the 2006 reboot of the film series,
Casino Royale, Leiter and Bond are seen meeting one another again for the first time. This was Lord's only appearance as Leiter, as he asked for more money and a better
billing to return as Leiter in
Goldfinger and was subsequently replaced. The cast also included a number of actors who were to become stalwarts of the future films, including
Bernard Lee, who played Bond's superior M for another ten films, and
Lois Maxwell, who played M's secretary Moneypenny in fourteen instalments of the series. Maxwell received the part after beginning to look for film roles to support her family when her husband Peter Marriot suffered from a severe
heart attack and was expected to die. Anthony Dawson, who played Professor Dent, met director Terence Young when he was working as a stage actor in London, but by the time of the film's shooting, Dawson was working as a pilot and crop duster in Jamaica. Zena Marshall, who played Miss Taro, was mostly attracted by the humorous elements of the script, and described her role as "this attractive little siren, and at the same time I was the spy, a bad woman", whom Young asked to play "not as
Chinese, but a
Mid-Atlantic woman who men dream about but is not real". The role of Taro was previously rejected by
Marguerite LeWars, the Miss Jamaica 1961 who worked at the Kingston airport, as it required being "wrapped in a towel, lying in a bed, kissing a strange man".
Talitha Pol, Lina Margo and Violet Marceau were also considered for the part. Location filming was largely in
Oracabessa, with additional scenes on the
Palisadoes strip and
Port Royal in
St Andrew. On 21 February, production left Jamaica with footage still unfilmed due to a change of weather. Five days later, filming began at
Pinewood Studios,
Buckinghamshire, England, with sets
designed by
Ken Adam, which included Dr. No's base, the ventilation duct and the interior of the British Secret Service headquarters. The studio was used on the majority of later Bond films. Adam's initial budget for the entire film was just £14,500 (£ in ), but the producers were convinced to give him an extra £6,000 out of their own finances. After 58 days of filming, principal photography was completed on 30 March 1962. Filmmaker
Brian Trenchard-Smith, who visited Pinewood with his
Wellington College film society during the shooting of the film, noted that Bond's awakening and first sighting of Honey was a
pick-up shot filmed in a ten-foot-long space on an otherwise empty soundstage, and that Adam's set for the nuclear reactor was "a lot smaller than it looks on the screen. That opened my eyes to the power of lenses when I saw the finished movie a year later." Costume designer
Tessa Prendergast designed Honey's bikini from a
British Army webbing belt. Simmons also served as the film's fight choreographer, employing a rough fighting style. The noted violence of
Dr. No, which also included Bond shooting Dent in cold blood, caused producers to make adaptations to get an
"A" rating – allowing minors to enter accompanied by an adult – from the
British Board of Film Classification. When Bond is about to have dinner with Dr. No, he is amazed to see
Goya's
Portrait of the Duke of Wellington. The painting had been stolen from the
National Gallery by a 60-year-old amateur thief in London just before filming began. Ken Adam had contacted the National Gallery in London to obtain a slide of the picture, painting the copy over the course of the weekend, prior to filming commencing on the following Monday. Editor
Peter R. Hunt used an innovative editing technique, with extensive use of quick cuts, and employing
fast motion and exaggerated sound effects on the action scenes. Hunt said his intention was to "move fast and push it along the whole time, while giving it a certain style", and added that the fast pacing would help audiences not notice any writing problems. == Soundtrack ==