Andress, Ursula

Bond is further established as the object of the gaze a few scenes later when he emerges from the ocean in a way that harkens back to Ursula Andress famous scene in Dr. No. The first shot is a close-up of Bond s head as he comes up gasping for breath. He wipes his face and stands while the camera remains static, which results in his torso taking np the entire frame. Next there is a cut to Bond as he walks toward the camera... 

The curvy, comely bodies of Denise Riehards and Tanya Roberts are amply featured in these films for their exaggerated proportions—a tradition reinvigorated in Die Another Day by Halle Berry s bikini-elad entrance from the oeean. This entrance, of eourse, is homage to Ursula Andress s Honey Ryder in Dr. No. As Brace Rosenberg and Arm Harleman Stewart demonstrated, the books from whieh these films were based feature extensive deseriptions of women s breasts— and the qualities... 

In the first two feature films Woody Allen wrote. What s New Pussycat (1965) and What s Up Tiger Lily (1966), the reaction to James Bond is explicit. In his third film Casino Royale (1967), where was hired as an actor, he ad-libbed many of his lines, he actually played Janies Bond, or rather his nephew Jimmy. There he defines himself in reaction to his feelings of inferiority toward his uncle. In What s New Pussycat , Dr. No s Ursula Andress, while wearing a snakesldn body suit, falls, ala Goldfinger, out of the sky. She parachutes into the lead character s car. Later in a crowded hotel room, the therapist Dr. Fassbender is embracing Andress when his wife conies in. To excuse his behavior, he says to her, This is a personal friend of James Bond. ... 

An element in Dr. No later developed more fully was the wisecrack remark (some say overly developed in Roger Moore films). Another was its use of a marvelous villain. Dr. No is played chillingly by Joseph Wiseman, whose hooded eyes look through, not at, his enemies. And when Ursula Andress walked out of the sea, she initiated the parade of lovely women who later played Bond s lovers, foils, and hopeful assassins. Although it had not yet fully developed what would become Bond trademarks. Dr No still earns a respectable score. 

No particular pattern was set in the first movies. Dr. No does not even appear in his own film until less than half an hour remains. No is a megalomaniac with designs, one suspects, on taking over the world, but his particular job during the film is only to mess with the missiles of the United States for SPECTRE. But Dr. No does not stick in the mind with the lasting power of an Ursula Andress, the first of the Bond girls and in many eyes still the best. He is the first villain, he suggests the direction of future villains, but he is not the final prototype. 

That s easy. Take me, for instance. I saw my first Bond movies in 1970, when I was almost seven years old and my libido was just starting to say, Hallo I m here 1 might have been precocious, even by Italian standards, but 1 couldn t resist Ursula Andress or Luciana Paluzzi. 1 suddenly understood what life was all about fast cars, exotic places, beautiful girls The... 

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