Starring Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman and Jack Lord, it was adapted by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, and Berkely Mather from the 1958 novel by Ian Fleming.

The trail leads him to the underground base of Dr. Julius No, who is plotting to disrupt an early American space launch from Cape Canaveral with a radio beam weapon.

Upon awakening, the pair are escorted to dine with the base's owner, Dr Julius No: a Chinese-German scientist with prosthetic metal hands due to radiation exposure.

Additional cast members include Lester Pendergast as Quarrel's friend Puss Feller, William Foster-Davis as Police Superintendent Duff, Dolores Keator as Strangways' personal assistant Mary Trueblood, and Anthony Chinn as Chen, one of No's lab technicians who was impersonated by Bond.

[12] 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.

[11] Young also decided to inject much humour, as he considered that "a lot of things in this film, the sex, and violence, and so on if played straight, a) would be objectionable, and b) we're never gonna go past the censors; but the moment you take the mickey out, put the tongue out in the cheek, it seems to disarm.

[27] 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.

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.

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.

[36] Moore appeared as Simon Templar on the television series The Saint, airing in the United Kingdom for the first time on 4 October 1962, only one day before the premiere of Dr.

[49] 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.

[17] Dawson also portrayed Ernst Stavro Blofeld, head of SPECTRE, in From Russia with Love and Thunderball, although his face was never seen and his voice was redubbed by Austrian actor Eric Pohlmann.

[61] 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".

[9] The primary scenes there were the exterior shots of Crab Key and Kingston, where an uncredited Syd Cain acted as art director and also designed the Dragon Tank.

[17] 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.

[9] The scene where a tarantula walks over Bond was initially shot by pinning a bed to the wall and placing Sean Connery over it, with a protective glass between him and the spider.

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.

[71] 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.

[20] 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.

[75] Monty Norman was invited to write the film score because Broccoli liked his work on the 1961 theatre production Belle, a musical about murderer Hawley Harvey Crippen.

"[79] The music for the opening scene is a calypso version of the nursery rhyme "Three Blind Mice", with new lyrics to reflect the intentions of the three assassins hired by Dr.

[80] Lee and other Jamaican musicians who appear in the soundtrack, including Ernest Ranglin and Carlos Malcolm, were introduced to Norman by Chris Blackwell, the owner of then-small label Island Records who worked in the film as a location scout.

[84] Eon and United Artists made licensing deals revolving around the character's tastes, having merchandising tie-ins with drink, tobacco, men's clothing and car companies.

[85] After Dr. No had a successful run in Europe, Sean Connery and Terence Young did a cross-country tour of the US in March 1963, which featured screening previews for the film and press conferences.

[84][85] Some of the campaign emphasised the sex appeal of the film, with the poster artwork, by Mitchell Hooks, depicting Sean Connery and four scantily clad women.

[101] The Vatican condemned Dr. No describing it as "a dangerous mixture of violence, vulgarity, sadism and sex",[102] whilst the Kremlin stated that Bond was the personification of capitalist evil – both controversies helped increase public awareness of the film and greater cinema attendance.

Writing in 1986, Danny Peary described Dr. No as a "cleverly conceived adaption of Ian Fleming's enjoyable spy thriller ... Picture has sex, violence, wit, terrific action sequences, and colorful atmosphere ... Connery, Andress, and Wiseman all give memorable performances.

[123][124] The character James Bond was introduced towards, but not at, the beginning of the film in a "now-famous nightclub sequence featuring Sylvia Trench",[125] to whom he makes his "immortal introduction".

"[129] In the short scene introducing Bond, there are portrayed "qualities of strength, action, reaction, violence – and this elegant, slightly brutal gambler with the quizzical sneer we see before us who answers a woman when he's good and ready.

[133] Around the time of Dr. No's release in October 1962, a comic book adaptation of the screenplay, written by Norman J. Nodel, was published in the United Kingdom as part of the Classics Illustrated anthology series.