CHLORAL HYDRATE

Contributed by: The James Bond Movie Encyclopedia by Steven Jay Rubin

A sleeping powder that Grant (Robert Shaw) slips into the champagne glass of Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi) on the Orient Express in From Russia with Love. According to Grant, posing as British agent Captain Nash, the drug is “quick but mild.” As to why he drugged the defecting Russian cipher clerk, Grant explains to Bond (Sean Connery) that his escape route is only for one. This tidy bit of information appears to satisfy Bond, who then lowers his gun—one of 007’s biggest mistakes in the series.

Chloral hydrate is also used by Kara Milovy (Maryam d’Abo) to drug James Bond (Timothy Dalton) in The Living Daylights. She’s been told, mistakenly, by renegade general Georgi Koskov (Jeroen Krabbé), that Bond is a KGB agent.

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