The World Premiere of Dr. No was held on 5th October 1962 at the London Pavilion, Piccadilly Circus, London. The launch of the first ever James Bond film in a cinema was attended by Sean Connery, Zena Marshall and James Bond creator Ian Fleming.
There is a longstanding rumor that in the early drafts of the script, Dr. No turned out to be a monkey. When first approached by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, screenwriters Wolf Mankowitz and Richard Maibaum discarded most of the source material and wrote a story treatment about a shipping magnate called Buchwald attempting to blow up the Panama Canal. Dr. No was a monkey god worshiped on the island, and the villain kept a capuchin monkey as a pet. Broccoli and Saltzman told them to try again and this time stick more closely to the source material. Mankowitz was dissatisfied with the script and had his name removed from the credits. He later co-wrote the James Bond parody film Casino Royale, which co-starred Ursula Andress, who played Honey Ryder in Dr. No.
This is the only James Bond movie to feature SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) without showing its supreme commander Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
This movie won a Golden Globe Award for Ursula Andress as Best Newcomer.
This was chosen to be the inaugural film in the James Bond series as the plot of the source novel was the most straightforward. It had only one major location (Jamaica) and only one big special effects set piece.
To get a feel for the clothes, director Terence Young asked Sean Connery to sleep in his finely tailor fitted suit which was purchased at Turnbull and Asser Tailors and made to play James Bond.
Two weeks before filming was due to start, the part of Honey Ryder was still to be cast. The producers then saw a photograph that actor John Derek had taken of his wife, Ursula Andress, and offered her the part without even meeting her. Some sources claim that the photograph allegedly featured Andress in a wet T-shirt competition. Andress, who wasn't overly interested in acting at the time, only agreed to do it when family friend Kirk Douglas read the script and urged her to take it on.
United Artists executives were first screened a print of the film at 10:00 am one morning with Arthur Krim in attendance. When the movie finished around midday, there was a silence at the end of the screening. The European head exec stated that the only good thing about the picture was that they couldn't lose with it with only a budget of about $(US)840,000. Producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli were shaken and stirred.
Vehicles featured included the swamp vehicle Dragon Tank at Crab Key; a marine blue 1961 Sunbeam Alpine Series 5 Sports Tourer convertible II Tiger rental car which James Bond drives whilst being tailed by a pre-war Packard LaSalle hearse; Bond rides in a taxi driven by Mr. Jones which is a black 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible; a motorboat; Mk II Ford consul taxi; Quarrel's boat; an Austin A55 Cambridge and a Ford Zephyr.
When James Bond sings "Under The Mango Tree" in this movie, it is the only ever time that James Bond has sung in a Bond movie.
When the film was released in L.A. in May 1963, it was double-billed with The Young and the Brave.
Bob Simmons:
The series regular stuntman is the actor appearing in the gun barrel sequence at the beginning of the film. The same footage was used in From Russia with Love and Goldfinger.