James Bond Character - Dr. No

The Character in the Movie

Dr. Julius No is the main villain in the James Bond movie Dr. No (1962). He was an unwanted child of a German missionary and a Chinese girl. He became the treasurer for the Tongs, a powerful criminal group at the time and stole $10 million in gold from them, escaping to America. Dr. No was a scientist who specialized in atomic energy. His expertise came at a great cost however, as he lost both of his hands in an accident. They were replaced with powerful mechanical black steel hands.

Dr. No offered his services to the west but they promptly refused. He seeked revenge and joined the criminal organization SPECTRE, where he planned to sabotage the American missile launch program using a powerful radio beam on his private island Crab Key.

He bought Crab Key and built an underground lair, which he had designed himself. From the outside, the island had nothing but an old Bauxite mine and a few guards on it, but underground Dr. No had a nuclear reactor that powered his powerful radio beam. His plan was to use the radio beam to override the rockets guidance systems, so he could destroy them on launch. The lair also contained a magnificent $1 Million aquarium.

Dr. No killed many people who had tried to interfere with his work. The head of section in Jamaica John Strangways and his secretary were killed by Dr. No's henchmen Professor Dent and the "Three Blind Men" when he took some radioactive samples from Crab Key. Bond came to investigate and sailed over to the island with Quarrel who was later burned to death by the flame-thrower of Dr. No's diesel dragon.

Dr. No had previously attempted to have Bond killed at least three times and when he came to the island Dr. No let him live, hoping that he may join SPECTRE. He realized Bond was just a "foolish policeman" and locked him in a cell. Bond escaped just as Dr. No was preparing to destroy another missile. He came into the control room dressed as one of the men and turned the nuclear reactor up to full power, overloading it and ruining Dr. No's plans.

While everyone evacuated the building, Dr. No ran after Bond and they fought, falling into a lift above the radioactive water pool. Bond managed to climb up the frame of the lift to safety. Due to his steel hands, Dr. No couldn't grip the metal frame and he slowly descended to his death in the radioactive water. Bond escaped just before the entire island blew to pieces because of the reactor overload.

The Character in the Book

In Ian Fleming's novel Dr. No, published in 1958, Dr. No is the main villain of the story. He was born in Peking (now Beijing), China to a German father and a Chinese mother. His mothers Aunt was payed to bring Dr. No up, and he has despised his father ever since for abandoning him. He later left home and went to work in Shanghai where he first got involved with the Tongs.

He started committing many crimes such as murder and arson and enjoyed it thoroughly. He became wanted by either the police or another gang, but was too valuable to the Tong's so they smuggled him into New York, USA where he joined the Hip Sings, a New York based Tongs gang. By the time he was thirty, he became the equivalent of the treasurer. In the 1920's, there was a big war between different gangs and Dr. No joined in with the torture and murder.

He got a tip that someone was going to attack the Hip Sings, so he stole $1 million in gold from the treasury. He was found by the rest of his gang and tortured, but he wouldn't give in and never told them where the gold was. They knew they couldn't break him so they cut his hands of to disgrace him and shot him in the heart. Dr. No was however one of the rare people who had Dextrocardia, where his heart was on the right side of his body. He survived because of this but spent months recovering.

Dr. No wanted his gold to be portable so he traded it all in for rare stamps, that would be easily transportable and maintain their value. He changed his appearance with surgery and later hid out in a medical school where he gained an interest of the human body and mind. He also changed his name to Julius No, the Julius after his father, and the No signifying his rejection of his father, because he had abandoned him.

Dr. No wanted somewhere private where he wouldn't be disturbed so he bought the island Crab Key. The hired over 100 workers to dig Guano, bird feces, and sell it on as a fertilizer. He built up a team of dependable staff, who all obeyed him and he retained his privacy. The Audubon society, a group of old women protecting rare birds, had a lease on part of Crab Key and had a camp with some men there. They discovered some rare birds and decided they would build a hotel and make Crab Key a tourist attraction. This would have ruined Dr. No's privacy and they would not sell their lease.

To fix his problems Dr. No ordered a big all terrain buggy that he converted into a dragon with a flame-thrower to scare off the birds, and kill the men at the camp so he could retain his privacy. Investigators were sent, but they met with an 'accident'. Fourteen years after Dr. No had first acquired the island, M sent Bond on a supposed "Holiday in the Sun", to investigate the matter of the birds and the suspicious death of the head of section John Strangways.

Bond ended up being captured by Dr. No, who told him about his life and revealed his latest plans for power. Dr. No was working with the Russians with a plan to control missiles with a powerful radio beam. He could then land the rockets and sell the designs, blow up any desired target or even make them blow up in big city's so the missile test centres would have to be shut down. He could sell these things for millions of dollars.

Dr. No then revealed his plan to test human endurance using Bond and Honey Rider. He tied Honey to some rocks, where hundreds of vicious crabs would slowly eat away at her. He put bond through a cruel test of pain, making him climb through boiling hot pipes and crawl past poisonous spiders while being monitored. Dr. No however had not been as careful as he should have been, and Bond had managed to slip a dinner knife and lighter into his possession.

Bond managed to escape after he was plunged into the sea, climbing back onto the mountain and following a path to where Dr. No was. Dr. No was supervising the shipment of bird dung which was to be used as fertilizer. A crane was controlling a pipe with a continuous flow of the dried bird dung. Bond killed the crane driver and took over, swinging the crane around until the pipe was over Dr. No's head. Dr. No choked as the horrible dust clogged his lungs and he was then covered with a twenty foot high pile of dung.

Additional Images