007 made his leap from page to screen 52 years ago with the London debut of "Dr. No," the first film based on Ian Fleming's James Bond books, on October 5, 1962. (It opened throughout the UK in the next few weeks and came to American theaters the following year.) The first Bond film presented financial and content-related challenges. It was produced on a $1.1 million budget, low even by 1962 standards. Some of the corners cut included using cardboard paintings in M's office and magnified goldfish footage in Dr. No's aquarium. Director Terence Young was concerned about getting the books' sex and violence past the film censors, and relied on a heavy dose of humor to lighten what could have been gritty content, an approach he referred to in British slang as "taking the mickey out."

Led by a 30-year-old Sean Connery in the lead role, the formula worked and the movie's $59 million box office take guaranteed that Bond (James Bond) would be sipping martinis and swapping leading ladies on screen well into the future. In addition to kicking off the Bond series itself, the movie launched a '60s spy craze that influenced TV shows like "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." while Ursula Andress' bikini-clad role boosted two-piece swimsuit sales and Fleming's Bond books also got a bump. And of course, without the series we'd have no Austin Powers.

More than 50 years later, Bond has remained eternally young and dapper through 23 films and six actors (and enough shaken, not stirred cocktails that some experts have speculated he should have long ago died of alcohol poisoning). This has led some fans to speculate that the 007 codename is actually recycled for different MI-6 agents over time…or maybe they just regenerate, like Dr. Who. Whatever his secret, Bond has pulled in around $5 billion in film revenue over half a century, and it's estimated that a quarter of the globe's population has seen at least one of his movies. The next movie (#24) is set to begin production in December, with a budget that will presumably exceed $1.1 million.

Via http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2012/10/dr-no-1962.jpg