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I'd say Ian Fleming's novel From Russia with Love is a tough call. The book is arguably one of the best of the Bond novels. In fact, it was one of JFK's 10 favorite books of all time. And yet, the movie is, by the same token, one of the best of the Bond movies--mainly because of the hilariously over-the-top characters. I always get a kick out of Kronsteen, the slimy Russian chess player who shows up at the start of the movie; Rosa Klebb, the disgusting hag who happens to be a senior Soviet official, and, of course, Red Grant, played by Robert Shaw, the ruthless KGB assassin who has been hired to take out Bond. Sean Connery is at his best as Bond in this movie and Daniela Bianchi is pretty hot as Tatiana Romanova, the Russian babe. I especially get a kick out of the final scene in the movie, with the final confrontation between Bond and Rosa Klebb, who shows up disguised as a cleaning woman, to emphasize her disgusting hagginess, I guess. As Bond tries to avoid Rosa Klebb's poison tipped boot, Tatiana has to decide whether she wants to shoot Bond in the back, or shoot down Rosa Klebb. Luckily for Bond, she decides to shoot Klebb, but I hate to think what might have happened if she had given in to her Soviet indoctrination and shot Bond instead. What is interesting about the movie is that it remains ambiguous to the end--it could so easily have gone the other way. Tatiana might have shot Bond in the back instead of the Soviet hag, Rosa Klebb, and, instead of vacationing with Bond in Venice, she might have had to return to the Soviet Union with Klebb. So, I'd say, what makes this movie an instant classic is the open-endedness and ambiguity to the very end.
Last edited by darkhorse; 11-06-05 at 01:00 AM.