Cinema Retro’s Dr. No Movie Classics magazine rocks!

I’m a month late in writing this up, but I want to give a seriously laudatory shout-out to the good people of Cinema Retro for their latest issue of Movie Classics—a Cinema Retro Special Edition Magazine dedicated to the first James Bond film, 1962’s Dr. No.

Cinema Retro/Movie Classics dedicates a 148-page special edition magazine to Dr. No.

The magazine and online site Cinema Retro offers some of the most amazingly researched and slickly packaged features on 1960s and 1970s cinema that I’ve ever seen and though this latest issue has been available for several months, it certainly warrants attention and respect right now.

I ran into Cinema Retro editor-in-chief Lee Pfeiffer at a press event in late January and he was nice enough to slip me a copy of the Dr. No special and I’ve gotta tell you, it’s one helluva magazine!

Weighing in at nearly one pound and boasting some 148 full-color pages (some 84 more than the standard Movie Classics issue), the Dr. No edition is as comprehensive, entertaining and fully-realized as any publication I’ve ever seen on James Bond. It’s filled with the obvious profiles of the filmmaker and cast, loads of pictures and all the requisite archival materials that one expects in a magazine of this sort, but there’s so much more…

Mr. Pfeiffer and crew offer new interviews with a number of people involved with the production, including original Bond girl Ursula Andress and supporting players Marguerite Le Wars, Bettine le Beau and Timothy Noxon (in a never-before-published interview). Also interviewed are screenwriter Johanna Harwood, animator Trevor Bond and artist Mitchell Hooks, the man who created the artwork for the Dr. No poster, many English-language and imported variations of which are also included within.

There are also up-close-and-personal looks at the lives and careers of producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman and Bond creator Ian Fleming, an examination of the film’s production history and, most intriguingly, an analysis of the differences between the Fleming novel and the Terence Young-directed film. Also notably diverting are appreciations of the Dr. No by contemporary filmmakers Joe Dante and Brian Trenchard-Smith.

Again, it’s a gorgeous and impressive tome dedicated to the most successful franchise in cinema history—and that it arrives on 50^th anniversary of Bond’s cinematic birth makes it even more heartfelt and special. You can order a copy here.

And now, truth be told, the reason I’m a month late with this write-up is that it took me nearly that long to savor all the goodies that were crammed into the mag!

Bravo Cinema Metro and Movie Classics magazine! And please continue to feed film fans with the same kind of dedication and insight we’ve come to expect from you!