I saw Dr. No in 1963 when it came out in America, with my mom, at the Community Theater in Tacoma.
I’ve read the book series, seen all the films more than once throughout my life. I had the complete book series from my mom, when I moved out at 17 after graduating high school. Looking at the books today, it's a still pristine, first American edition publishing of the series.
When my oldest son was born, his mom noticed that I had the book series and read it. Though I'd been a fan of the film series, I hadn't yet gotten around to reading the books. She enjoyed the series quite a bit and suggested I take the time to read it, and so I did. It was quite different from what I'd expected from the films. I liked it a lot and it shaped how I viewed the films from then on. The books are far more down to earth and I got tired of the bigger explosion in every film theory of the Bond films.
This is just in, today, and interesting...Amazon have made a U-turn after editing out guns from James Bond movie posters on Prime Video following fan backlash.
Anyway...
I loved the human element. I loved the films of Michael Caine in the 1960s as Harry Palmer which led me to the books by Len Deighton, whom I've written about before. I was estranged from my birth father for most of my life, reconnecting with my half-brother at his funeral in 1988. He gave me the book our dad was reading at the time of his death. It was Deighton's book: Berlin Game.
Deighton's bibliography is amazing.
Bizarrely, I had been watching the Ian Holm series of Game, Set Match, while our father was dying and reading his book of the same name. It is from the trilogy of Deighton's who hated the video series and Holm's rendition of the main character, Bernard (with accent on the second syllable, unlike the "uncouth American pronunciation"). Deighton Despised the video series so much he did his best to kill it and I had great trouble find it on DVD years ago, finally finding a complete set in Australia.
Back to Bond.
I was just now watching Dr. No. It begins in Jamaca with three black men presented as being blind. The famous (for the film) "3 blind mice" men. Actually, hitmen trying to look harmless and utilized in the film as a statement of the tone of the film and eventual series being playful but serious and deadly.
I couldn't figure out why they were there (though I just stated the reasoning of the filmmakers as they had nothing to do with the book. Dr. No was also not the first Bond book by Ian Fleming, that would be Casino Royale and no, I won't get into the history of that title in film.
That led me to look up what the hell they were doing in the film. Just a cinematic device, it turns out. I went back to the film. Bond in his famous premiere in a Casion when he delivers his iconic line when asked his name, "Bond, James Bond."
Bond is then called from the casino to his boss "M"'s office where he is called out on his favored Beretta M1934 in 9mm Corto (.380 ACP). “M”, annoyed, orders him to give it up, declaring it underpowered and unreliable, even saying it jammed the last time he used it and it landed him up in the hospital. It is replaced with a Walther PPK chambered in 7.65mm (.32 ACP).
But wait, Bond gave up a Beretta for a Walther? I own both. Back in the 1970s the Walther PPK/s was my favorite concealed carry. It replaced my Ruger Blackhawk .357 Magnum with a 6.5 inch barrel in a shoulder holster, just like I describe in my screenplay The Teenage Bodyguard.
Mossad operatives have historically used small, suppressed .22 pistols for covert killings. It’s a well-reported tradecraft choice from the 1960s–70s era (and discussed in later reporting and histories).
The Beretta Model 70 / Model 71 (aka “Jaguar” / “Hushpuppy”) in .22 LR is often cited in open-source sources as a pistol used by Israeli agents, including Mossad. The Model 70 had versions with a threaded barrel to allow suppressor attachment. The Model 71 (a lightweight alloy-frame variant) is noted in reporting as having been fielded by Israeli elite units and possibly Mossad.
But why did the film switch happen?
Fleming’s Actual Choice (Novels).
In the early books, Bond carried a Beretta 418 in .25 ACP (6.35mm). That’s an even smaller, weaker cartridge than the .32 or .380. Fleming wasn’t a “gun nerd”; he chose it partly because it was small, concealable, and European. It fit Bond’s image more than it fit tactical reality.
The Boothroyd Letter
Getting back to the film, Bond is ordered by "M" to surrender his Beretta, deemed unreliable, and accept a Walther instead. The man who hands him the new pistol is Major Boothroyd, MI6’s armourer, played by Peter Burton. Boothroyd wasn’t just a fictional creation — he was named after Geoffrey Boothroyd, a Scottish firearms expert and Bond fan who wrote to Ian Fleming in 1956 to point out that Bond’s little .25 Beretta was “a lady’s gun” and unsuited for an agent.
Boothroyd recommended the Walther PPK in .32 ACP as a more practical sidearm, advice Fleming immediately adopted in the novels: “I like the books, but Bond’s gun is all wrong.” A handgun popular with police/military credibility in Europe.
Fleming was so taken with the advice he made the swap in Dr. No (the novel, 1958), even naming M’s armorer “Major Boothroyd” in gratitude. It’s one of the rare cases where a fan’s letter reshaped a global franchise.
The actual film prop Bond is given in the "M" scene by is a Walther PP., not the shorter PPK...and chambered for .380 ACP, not the .32 caliber mentioned in dialogue. The point being, the pistol he is ordered to give up as underpowered is actually more powerful than the one it is replaced with. A rather ironic twist I never noticed until just now.
The film adapted this moment — but muddled the details by replacing the .25 with a .380 Beretta and then claiming it was “underpowered.”
I find this odd because Fleming carried and used guns in his professional life so it’s odd he’d make such an odd choice of firearm.
But the background clears it up a bit:
The Film Confusion
By the time Dr. No (1962) was made, the filmmakers:
Dropped the .25 Beretta 418 and instead put Bond with a Beretta M1934 in .380 (a gun Fleming never wrote about).
Then followed the novel’s swap to the Walther PPK — but their prop was actually a PP in .380, even though the script says .32.
Why the “Odd” Choice Makes Sense
Fleming’s Bond wasn’t a gun hobbyist; he treated weapons as tools. Fleming himself owned and shot guns, but he chose the Beretta because it was stylish, concealable, and “continental.”
The realism came later — only when an actual firearms expert pushed him.
Ironically, the movies then muddled that correction and created the myth that the .32 PPK was a “step up” from a .380 Beretta.
👉 So Fleming’s “odd” choice wasn’t ignorance so much as aesthetic over ballistic logic. He cared more about the character of the weapon than its muzzle energy.
There's a lot going on in this film but in the end, it's just entertainment.
Interesting side note (to me), there is a shot of a Pan American plane landing in Jamaica after Bond leaves London on assignment. In 1958 my mother and sister and I flew from NYC Idyllwild Airport to Madrid, Spain on the same model Pan Am 707 “Clipper”, and I couldn't help but get a kick out of that. And wonder if it could even be the same exact plane.
It wasn’t a “wherever” stock shot of a plane landing—Bond’s arrival was filmed on location at Palisadoes Airport, Kingston, Jamaica (renamed Norman Manley International). Production actually started there on January 16, 1962, and the sequence shows a Pan Am Boeing 707 (“Jet Clipper”) landing and taxiing before Bond walks into the terminal.
Could it be the exact same aircraft we flew in 1958? Fun idea, but I can’t tell—there’s no visible tail number in the film, and Pan Am had a fleet of 707s by the early ’60s. So: same model, same airline—very plausible; the exact same tail number—unknowable.
Still, it's fun to consider...
Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!
Compiled with aid of ChatGPT
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