From Russia With Love (1963)

I love when we get a glimpse into how “to get” to a villain’s physical location. It’s one thing to hear a villain’s speech or sit in on a SPECTRE meeting scene, but a whole other bit of awesomeness to take into account setup location shots and see where you would actually find a world-class villain. Not necessarily in a hollowed-out volcano or some other stereotypical villainous “lair” that Bond laymen refer to, but as in the case here in From Russia With Love (1963), an unassuming, anchored luxury yacht (steamship?) off a beautiful coastal city.

In the scene, we see SPECTRE Number 5 Kronsteen summoned from his victorious chess match to this luxury liner to meet his faceless and heavily guarded boss, the movie’s villain and head of SPECTRE – Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Alongside Blofeld is the uncharacteristically nervous Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya) whose pointy shoes won’t help her out here. She’s chopped liver in this scene, and she knows it.

Blofeld’s boat in From Russia With Love (1963)

The faceless Blofeld is effective here, even though his fascination with the fighting fish is a bit disconcerting. He seems to have properly small-sized and compartmentalized tanks for betta fighting fish, but they look to be halfway filled and raise so man questions as to their maintenance and upkeep on the boat. (he likes these kinds of fish *that* much?

Klebb would agree to the oddity, and can only muster that his comparison of SPECTRE to a lurking fighting fish killing a weakened one was “amusing.” Blofeld is trying to say that SPECTRE as a whole “strikes” when they are most effective – regardless if it’s up against a weakened or oblivious opponent, it’s at the right time.

Russia‘s villain’s eccentricity is on display here a bit, but what I wouldn’t give to check out that awesome bar/lounge combo in that boat!