Casino Royale [1967 version] (4 Stars)

This film was made in 1967, but its story starts years before. "Casino Royale" was the first James Bond novel, written by Ian Fleming in 1953. It was originally filmed for television in 1954 with an American playing James Bond. Horror of horrors! Incidentally, that's a good question for pub quizzes, if the question is phrased well enough to deceive the teams: "Who was the first actor to play James Bond?" Barry Nelson.

Ian Fleming went on to write more novels about James Bond, and they were all bestsellers, so Charles Feldman bought the rights to "Casino Royale" in 1960, hoping to make a film. It was short-sighted of him to only buy the rights to one novel, because Albert Broccoli, the founder of Eon Productions, bought the rights to all of the other James Bond novels shortly afterwards. Eon was able to make the first James Bond film for the big screen, "Dr. No", while Feldman was still struggling to finance "Casino Royale". After this he tried to make "Casino Royale" in partnership with Eon, but they couldn't reach an agreement. Eon wanted to buy the rights from Feldman to make the film themselves, but Feldman wasn't selling.

By 1965 Eon had made four James Bond films, and Feldman was still sitting on his hands. He wanted to make a film based on his vision of James Bond, claiming it was the real James Bond, but he was afraid of lawsuits if Eon felt he was in any way harming their ability to make future films. The final result was effectively capitulation; instead of making a film that he claimed to be the first real film about James Bond, he made a satire. His views on Eon's James Bond franchise can be found in the film, barely disguised, but everything is presented humorously, so Eon had no basis for a lawsuit.

The film stars David Niven as the original James Bond, 007, who has now gone into retirement. He complains that MI6 has given his name and his number to a new agent, who is nothing more than a sex maniac. The whereabouts of this new agent are unknown, so M asks him to return to active duty. First Bond refuses, but there's an assassination attempt while M is visiting. Bond survives, but M is killed. Bond returns to MI6 as the new M, and his first job is to pick a new 007 that lives up to his own principles of chastity and morality. He soon finds an adequate agent, Cooper, who is renamed James Bond. James Cooper Bond is trained to resist women, however close they come to him. That's a skill that Sean Connery never mastered.

The whole film parodies the sexy female spies of the Eon Bond films. For instance, when the original James Bond goes to console M's wife for her loss, she's been replaced by the Scottish SMERSH agent Mimi. She has eleven daughters, aged between 16 and 19, who all want to seduce and kill Bond. Yes, you must be asking the same questions that I did.

We see very little of James Cooper Bond after he's appointed. M (the original Bond), has a genial idea to confuse SMERSH. All of the MI6 agents are called James Bond. Even the female agents are designated as 007. Never mind SMERSH, I think that confuses the viewers as well.

This isn't who you think it is. It's James Bond.

This is Agent 007 as well. No, I'm not talking about Ronnie Corbet, I mean the girl. Her real name was Mata Bond, the daughter of James Bond and Mata Hari. Now she's been sent into action as a super-spy who doesn't hesitate to use the weapons of a woman.

Women have all the advantages. If the weapons of a woman aren't enough, which is a statistical possibility of 0.1%, they can fall back on the weapons of a man: guns!

Guns, guns, guns, wherever James looks, and he has only one gun in his hand. He doesn't know which way to point it.

The evil mastermind Le Chiffre, played by Orson Welles, is surrounded by beautiful women. Why does he need so many? I'd be satisfied with the identical twins Susan and Jennifer Baker. Or is it Jennifer and Susan? I don't know which is which.

Ursula Andress plays Vesper Lynd, who's also Agent 007. Wasn't she in another James Bond film?

The film degenerates into total chaos in the final scenes. It's so similar in character to the final scenes of "Blazing Saddles" that I can't help feeling it was the inspiration for Mel Brooks. Despite its comic elements, it keeps approximately to the plot of the original novel. One major difference is that whereas it's the same man in the novel (and the 2006 remake), in the film it's different James Bonds in action from scene to scene.

Success Rate:  + 1.5

	Order from Amazon.com
	Order from Amazon.co.uk
	Order from Amazon.de