Reviews of the film were generally mixed, with perhaps the most perceptive comment coming from Penelope Gilliatt in the Observer. ‘It is easy to get angry about Ian Fleming’s James Bond. He is snobbish, brutal and sneering, and his rapacious little character is full of the new upper-class thuggishness: he is a vile man to be given as a hero,’ she began, before admitting that ‘the first of what is obviously going to be a series of James Bond films, takes the wind out of one’s rage: it makes him seem funny. Instead of admiring his vodka martinis and his idle grabs at girls and his cool way of
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