Directed by Terrence Young, Dr. No begins in Jamaica where Bond (Connery) has arrived because he's trying to find a secret service agent that disappeared named Dr. Strangeways (?).
Prior to this he was trying to find the mysterious scientist only known as Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman).
As Bond travels to Kingston, where Dr. No is supposed to be, he runs into seashell collector Honey Ryder (played by Switzerland-born Urusla Andress) and she agrees to work with him. The movie became a hit that fall mainly because of the appearance of Andress wearing a white bikini
(it caused a fashion explosion as "the little white bikini" was popularized in this film just like what "the little black dress" did for Breakfast at Tiffany's). Here courtesy of YouTube is the scene in which Andress comes out of the ocean:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByITBPNu7cU
After when From Russia With Love was released the next year and became a hit as well, producers Saltzman and Broccoli raised the stakes for the next Bond film: They changed directors and hired Guy Hamilton instead of Terrence Young; and it was the third Bond movie that became quite possibly the watershed entertainment moment of the decade: Goldfinger.
While vacationing in Miami Bond receives the mission of finding Auric Goldfinger(Gert Forbe)-who is in the midst of making a gold deal with Fort Knox.
With the help of Jill Masterson (Shirley Easton) he takes the case.
Then it takes an ugly turn when Goldfinger's assassin Oddjob (Harold Sakata) moves in and knocks him out with a champagne bottle.
When Bond wakes up, Jill is found dead: Naked and painted in gold.
She was killed by Goldfinger and in the process, she suffocated through the gold. Things get more murky for Bond as he chases Goldfinger across Europe after playing golf with him in England. Along the way Bond bumps into Tilly Masterson (Tania Mallet), who just happens to be the sister to the slain Jill. She wants revenge for what happened to her sister. But her redemption is short-lived when Oddjob strangles her to death. Then Bond, while waking up on a plane heading to the U.S., encounters Pussy Galore (!)
(Honor Blackman-who had just quit her role of Cathy Gale on the British TV show "The Avengers") and he doesn't believe her real name ("I must be dreaming!").
Before long he is tied to Goldfinger's table
but is let go when Bond tells him about his plan of taking over the world economy-dubbed "Grand Slam". In the end, Bond prevails as Goldfinger is killed (from YouTube here is the scene for you to enjoy).
And in Thunderball, in which Terrence Young returned as director, Bond is at a health club (of all places)
when he hears that Count Lippe (Guy Doleman-he would play agent Ross in the Harry Palmer films that producer Saltzman did) is hiding something and it turns out that he's working for SPECTRE-the agency that wants to kill Bond. Meanwhile Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi-who would later play the villain Ralph Vallmont in Danger: Diabolik as well as small parts in the war films Von Ryan's Express and King of Hearts) arrives at SPECTRE's base in France.
He has decided that he will put up $230 million so that NATO can let go of their nuclear weapons and also steal one of their planes. Back in England Bond is convinced that he must get Domino Derval (Claudine Auger) who is the daughter of a dead general.
Unaware by the fact that she is Largo's mistress. Arriving in the Bahamas Bond finds Domino and it leads to the three characters converging at a casino.
At the same time Bond meets Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi)
on the beach but doesn't know that she's a SPECTRE agent out to kill him. Then 007 gets a tip from a CIA agent that Largo's convoy has kidnapped agent Paula Caplan (Martine Beswick; her character would later die). It then leads up to a showdown underwater and a shootout at a dance club in which Largo dies and Bond ends up on top again.
The movie is noted for being the first to be shot in the Panavision widescreen format (which became the mainstay in the 60's and thereafter) and also the classic moment in which Connery uses a jetpack to fly away from the SPECTRE henchmen.
There were two reasons why the series became a success: One was the opening credits that were created by Maurice Binder (known for doing them for Stanley Donen) and the other was the music. The series turned composer John Barry from an unknown to one of the best in the movie business (more about him later) while the songs broke new ground. There are chills you can get when you hear Shirley Bassey singing the title song to Goldfinger (let alone the first few seconds of music that Barry creates) and listening to Tom Jones doing the tile song to Thunderball (and later with Nancy Sinatra for You Only Live Twice) is somewhat okay. In all, the Bond films was one of the many aspects of the legacy of film in the 60's.
Again, from YouTube here's the opening credits to Thunderball; which features Maurice Binder's credits and Tom Jones singing the title song (with music from John Barry) followed by Sean Connery fighting a man (who just happens to be Bond stuntman Bob Simmons!):
(Quick note: The decade ended with George Lazerby playing Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service
after when the producers couldn't find Sean Connery; and even though Connery had been committed to play 007 again for this movie, he was in Russia filming the movie The Red Tent!)
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