Late in Dr. No, the 1962 spy thriller that introduced moviegoing audiences agent 007, James Bond (Sean Connery) is sneaking through a network of large ventilation shafts, some of which release torrents of water and some of which are extremely hot. He comes to intersections and he has to make a quick decision to go left or right, up or down.
The scene is almost avant-garde by today’s action standards. It is wordless, the only sounds are far off rattles and clangs echoing in the shafts. Bond makes his way through the tunnels and actually into the heart of the command center of Dr. No, who is the villain of this first entry into the film franchise. The climax of the film starts to ramp up, when, finally, we hear something that has been absent for a long time: the score.
Indeed, this long stretch of the film has proceeded without any music backing it. Today, we are used to heavy, and sometimes quite good, compositions for action films. So, it is a little conspicuous to go without it for so long in an action thriller. However, the editing and the direction come together in a way that definitely builds tension towards the final confrontation.
