By Lee Pfeiffer
Joe Dante sent us the head's up that he's just posted the original American trailer for the first James Bond movie, Dr. No on his Trailers From Hell web site as week long tribute to Connery's films. The trailer features an intro and narration by director Brian Trenchard-Smith, who remembers visiting Pinewood Studios as a child and being mesmerized by observing the movie being filmed. There are countless tales of exactly how Sean Connery got the part of Bond. Trenchard-Smith goes with the story, oft-told by long time Bond editor and director Peter Hunt, that it was he who brought the young Scot to the attention of producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. The film's director, Terence Young, also used to take credit for bringing Connery to the role. For the record, Broccoli told me that the first time Connery was suggested for the role of Bond occurred when he and his wife Dana attended a screening of Disney's Darby O'Gill and the Little People. Cubby admitted to me that he didn't initially see any potential in Connery as Bond until Dana convinced him that he had raw sex appeal that could translate to the role of 007. What is the actual truth behind all of these stories? There is probably truth in all of them, although Cubby always insisted that when he told Terence Young that they had cast Connery, with whom he had worked previously in the 1950s, the director simply put his head in his hands and said, "Disaster! Disaster!".
This much is indisputable: Connery himself says that without Young's mentoring, he would not have succeeded in the role. The young actor was a diamond in the rough and the erudite Young gave him a crash course in manners, dress and proper dining habits. In essence, he taught Connery the snobbier aspects of Bond's personality. It's doubtful all of these people would have been debating who got the credit for casting Connery as Bond if the film had not been a smash hit. As John F. Kennedy once observed, "Victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is an orphan." Click here to view