QUARREL

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

Cayman Islander associate of James Bond (Sean Connery) portrayed by John Kitzmiller in Dr. No, one of the truly fun characters in the Bond series. Even in the early 1960s, Quarrel was a throwback to an earlier era when wide-eyed black sidekicks such as Eddie “Rochester” Anderson and Willie Best were common. But he’s made of tougher stuff than those predecessors—Rochester would never have talked out of the side of his mouth with a cigarette hanging from it—and his scenes have a strong reality to them, no doubt due to the perfect casting of Kitzmiller.

A Cayman Island fisherman, Quarrel is working for CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jack Lord) when Bond meets him on the beach in Kingston. Quarrel’s seamanship, plus a bellyful of rum, gets 007 to Crab Key in a small sailboat. However, the trusty fisherman pays with his life when he’s burned to death in the swamps by the flamethrower on Dr. No’s “dragon.”

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