Rating: ***
Director: Terence Young
Cast: Sean Connery, Daniela Bianchi
Sean Connery's second outing as James Bond is much better than the lightweight "Dr. No" (1962). A beautiful Russian cipher clerk (impossibly pretty Daniela Bianchi) defects and wishes to trade a valuable cryptographic device with the British Secret Service in exchange for political asylum. Naturally, Agent 007 is assigned to meet her, "inspect the goods", and escort her back to England. Little does she know, however, that she is being played by some nasty SPECTRE double agents in the KGB. Lots of cool action and beautiful babes in this exciting film. Ms. Bianchi gets my vote for prettiest Bond girl in the series.
The laserdisc, DVD, and Blu-ray versions of the film all contain the infamous gondola jump cut, which removes Grant's comment of "what a performance!" on the Orient Express along with Bond's comment of "what a performance!" while in Venice with Tania. Both refer to the erotic film of Bond and Tania in the hotel room. Sources claim that the uncut version of the film doesn't exist, which is a lie because that's the version I originally saw on television in the 1980's.