Producers Broccoli and Saltzman chose to adapt From Russia, with Love as the second Bond film partly because President John F. Kennedy had listed Fleming's novel among his ten favourite books in Life magazine. It was reportedly the last film Kennedy watched at the White House before his assassination in November 1963.
The producers replaced the Soviet agency SMERSH from Fleming's novel with the fictional crime syndicate SPECTRE to avoid controversial Cold War political overtones.
The original screenwriter was Len Deighton, who scouted Istanbul with the crew but was replaced due to lack of progress; Johanna Harwood and Richard Maibaum then took over the script, with uncredited rewrites by Berkely Mather.
Several actresses were considered for Tatiana Romanova, including Sylva Koscina, Virna Lisi, Annette Vadim, Magda Konopka, Pia Lindström and Tania Mallet, before Daniela Bianchi was cast, reportedly at Sean Connery's suggestion; her dialogue was later dubbed by Barbara Jefford.
Pedro Armendáriz, cast as Kerim Bey on director John Ford's recommendation, was diagnosed with inoperable cancer during filming in Istanbul; production was rearranged to complete his scenes quickly, and he later took his own life shortly after finishing his role.
Terence Young cast Austrian singer Lotte Lenya as Rosa Klebb after hearing one of her musical recordings, while Katina Paxinou had originally been considered for the role.
Robert Shaw initially turned down the role of Donald Grant because he disliked the script, but his fiancée Mary Ure convinced him to accept, launching his film career; wrestler-turned-actor Joe Robinson had also been a strong contender for the part.
Desmond Llewelyn joined the series as Q (credited only as 'Boothroyd') because original actor Peter Burton was unavailable; Llewelyn went on to play the character in nearly every Bond film until his death in 1999.
During location scouting in Argyll, Scotland, for the climactic boat chase, Terence Young's helicopter crashed into the water, but everyone aboard escaped with only minor injuries and Young continued directing the same day.
The scene involving rats after the Lektor theft had to be shot in Spain because British law prohibited filming with wild rats, and an earlier attempt using white rats painted with cocoa in Turkey failed.
The fight scene between Bond and Grant took three weeks to film and was choreographed by boxer-trained director Terence Young alongside stunt coordinator Peter Perkins, with Connery and Shaw performing most of the stunts themselves.
The explosion for the boat chase sequence, filmed at Pinewood, went out of control, burning actor Walter Gotell's eyelids and seriously injuring three stuntmen.
The helicopter chase sequence was filmed using a radio-controlled miniature helicopter, and the sound of the boat chase was replaced in post-production because the real boats were not loud enough.
The opening chess match in which Kronsteen wins is a reenactment of the real 1960 game between Boris Spassky and David Bronstein.
The helicopter and speedboat chase scenes, not present in Fleming's novel, were inspired respectively by the crop-dusting scene in Hitchcock's North by Northwest and the earlier film The Red Beret.
Frank Sinatra was considered to sing the theme song but turned it down; it was ultimately composed by Lionel Bart and sung by Matt Monro.
This was John Barry's first film as primary composer for the Bond series, replacing Monty Norman, and he introduced the percussive '007' theme that became the series' secondary Bond theme.
From Russia with Love became a box-office blockbuster, grossing over $78 million worldwide against a $2 million budget, and was the top box-office film in Britain in 1963.
The film won the BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography for Ted Moore, becoming the first Bond film to win the award, and in 2004 Total Film named it the ninth-greatest British film of all time, the only Bond film on the list.
