Film at 11 Podcast: Episode 47 | Dr. No (1962)

I’ve previously used the Film at 11 podcast to introduce one of my sons to the James Bond franchise, and even started him off the right way with a Sean Connery entry. That was Thomas watching Goldfinger at the time, back in episode 18. I feel I’m overdue to bring my other son, Joseph, into the fold. This week, we go all the way back to the very beginning to see where Bond-mania started with Dr. No.

I watched Dr. No myself less than a year ago, but in my opinion, there’s never a bad time to watch or rewatch a James Bond movie, especially any of the good ones. I’ll happily do so again at any excuse.

Dr. No (1962) - Ursula Andress & Sean Connery
Title:Dr. No
Year of Release: 1962
Director: Terence Young
Watched On: 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
Also Available On: Blu-ray
Various VOD rental and purchase platforms

The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

I reviewed the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray edition of Dr. No last year. My feelings on the disc haven’t changed with this viewing, so I’ll just repeat relevant technical portions of that text here:

In June of 2025, the first James Bond 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray releases arrived in the form of a Sean Connery 6-Film Collection. The 1.75:1 image for Dr. No is bright and acceptably sharp, with nice colors and contrast. When compared directly, the 4K picture is noticeably softer and grainier than the older Blu-ray edition from 2008, which had some invasive digital remastering by a firm called Lowry Digital. Nevertheless, the 4K disc is arguably more “film-like” or “analog.” It looks very nice, and I would side with it being the best available version of Dr. No to date.

One area where the 4K Ultra HD decisively wins out over the Blu-ray is audio – though not because of the inclusion of a brand-new Dolby Atmos soundtrack. I actually don’t like the Atmos track much at all. It’s been heavily noise-reduced and rolled-off, and sounds very dull. Nor does Dr. No offer any particular reason to need Dolby Atmos in the first place, other than for a marketing bullet-point on the packaging. The film has exactly one shot of a Pan Am jet landing in the distance, and barely uses the overheard speakers anywhere else, at least not noticeably so. Other surround activity is mostly duplicated from the annoyingly gimmicky 5.1 remix that previously appeared on DVD and Blu-ray.

007 Sean Connery 6-Film Collection 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

In more compelling news, the 4K Ultra HD also offers the movie’s original mono soundtrack in lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 format, which is a big improvement over the heavily-compressed Dolby Digital mono track on the Blu-ray. The mono may be a little strident at times and has some unfiltered hiss, but it also has tremendously more life and vibrancy than the deadened Atmos remix.

Bonus features are all recycled from prior home video editions. These include an audio commentary assembled from interviews with director Terence Young and other members of the cast and crew, a handful of featurettes about various aspects of the franchise, and some vintage trailers, TV spots, and radio ads.

Related

Note: All screenshots on this page were taken from the standard Blu-ray edition of the film and are used for illustration purposes only.

4 thoughts on “Film at 11 Podcast: Episode 47 | Dr. No (1962)”

  2. Excellent point…I keep forgetting what kind of readers visit this joint. 😊

    I guess it was more surprise than anything else when they popped up on Netflix; I wasn’t expecting that…

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