A Case of Mistaken Identity
A few years back I made a YouTube video about From Russia, With Love, characterizing it as a bleak, cold-war version of "Sleeping Beauty" for a modern age.
Unfortunately I had never seen Disney’s 1950 Cinderella, and thus had no idea Fleming was riffing on that other animated fairy tale throughout most of his book, until the dragon finally showed his fangs.
The plot of Cinderella boils down to this: An orphan girl tries to get into the Palace wearing something becoming, so that a handsome prince will fall in love with her. That’s it in a nutshell.
The mission is accomplished with remarkable ease in From Russia, With Love, when Tatiana Romanova slips into Bond’s bed at the Kristal Palas wearing Cinderella’s signature black velvet choker, and nothing else.
In addition, the laundry list of story elements which Fleming obviously lifted from the 1950 Disney film would include the following:
An ominous maternal figure violates a an orphan girl's personal space
Good guys spy on the opposition through a mouse hole in the woodwork
Jealous girls in love with the same beau engage in a clothing-ripping tussle
A faithful friend has bloodshot, watery eyes and a talented nose
An evil, skulking villain is chased out a window and falls to a cobbled street
The story makes a sharp turn on the Orient Express where it does become Sleeping Beauty. Fortunately, the wizards at “Q” Branch have equipped Bond with a dragon-slaying sword that pops into his hand as if by magic.
If anyone objects that the weapon is really only a dagger and that Bond also pumps a few bullets into Grant, I always point out that the blade is from “Wilkinsons, the sword makers,” and Fleming goes to some lengths to convince us that the wound it inflicts is indeed lethal. The bullets only let Bond put down the dying beast before those “violet teeth” can reach his tender flesh.
What I really should have said from the beginning is that From Russia, With Love is the story of a girl who keeps hoping she’s in a Cinderella story, until shortly before the chloral hydrate kicks in. If not for Bond, she just might sleep forever.