'''Casino Royale''' is a
1967 surrealistic satire originally produced by
Columbia Pictures starring an
ensemble cast of directors and actors. Set as a satire of the
James Bond film series and the
spy genre, it is very lightly based on
Ian Fleming's
first Bond novel, which was published in 1953.
Most of the film centers around
David Niven as the original Bond, Sir James Bond. Forced out of retirement to investigate the deaths and disappearances of international spies, he is soon battling the mysterious Dr. Noah and
SMERSH. Along the way, as a ruse to confuse the enemy forces, Sir James designates all agents involved to be named James Bond, including the second primary character,
Peter Sellers as
Baccarat Master Evelyn Tremble. The other 5 Bonds specified as such in the film are millionaire spy
Vesper Lynd (
Ursula Andress), Sir James' nephew Jimmy Bond (
Woody Allen), the daughter of
Mata Hari and Sir James
Mata Bond (
Joanna Pettet), "Coop" (
Terence Cooper), and "The Detainer" (
Daliah Lavi). Other stars with fairly large parts include
Deborah Kerr as Lady Fiona/Agent Mimi,
Orson Welles as Le Chiffre, and
Barbara Bouchet as Miss Moneypenny.
Charles K. Feldman, the producer, had acquired the film rights and attempted to get ''Casino Royale'' made as an official James Bond movie (i.e. one made by
EON Productions); however, the producers of the official series,
Albert R. Broccoli and
Harry Saltzman, turned him down. Believing that he could not compete with the official series, Feldman adapted the novel as a satire of not only James Bond, but also of the entire
spy fiction genre.
Plot
Overview
The story of ''Casino Royale'' is told in an episodic format and is best outlined in "chapters". Val Guest oversaw the assembly of the sections, although he turned down the credit of "co-ordinating director".
The film begins with an unexplained and meaningless meeting between two of the characters that don't actually meet until chapter 6. This short pre-chapter section of the movie seems totally random in its placement.
Chapter 1 (director: John Huston)
The first chapter starts as the head of
British MI6,
M (
John Huston), and representatives of the
CIA,
KGB and
French secret service drive to the country estate of Sir James Bond (
David Niven), an eccentric
WW I hero who retired from the secret service after duty bound having to lure the love of his life,
Mata Hari, to her death in front of a
firing squad.
M and the others beg Bond to lend his leadership to a mission investigating the disappearance and deaths of secret agents around the world. When Bond refuses, M orders a military strike on Bond's mansion; the mansion is destroyed, but M is killed in the attack.
Sir James' name has become symbolic of the spirit of the British secret service, to the extent that another individual has been given his name and his number 007 to keep the legend alive. This no doubt refers to
Sean Connery's Bond, as Sir James decries his replacement as being "oversexed" and unsuitable as a "real spy". The chapter also has the first of the film's many
anachronisms, Mata Hari was executed in 1917, 50 years prior to the movie's timeline, which would mean that Bond retired as a 20 year old.
Chapter 2 (director: John Huston)
Bond travels to
Scotland to return M's remains, a
toupee, which is dubbed a 'hairloom' by Lady Fiona (
Deborah Kerr), his grieving "widow". Bond has to fend off the advances of McTarry's many young "daughters".
Lady Fiona is actually Agent Mimi, chosen to impersonate the widow since she has "the best
Scots accent". Bond is invited to a ceremonial
grouse shoot even though grouse are out of season. Lady Fiona tells him "Whenever a McTarry dies, the grouse come into season."
That night, Bond handily defeats a gang of thugs in a cannonball throwing competition. Lady Fiona is so impressed with his victory she starts telling him in French that he is magnificent. The other SMERSH agents begin to doubt her loyalty and imprison her.
The next day the grouse turn out to be disguised
flying bombs. Agent Mimi escapes and helps Sir James to foil the attack, he has a magnetic button that is being used to lead the grouse bombs towards him. Agent Mimi and Bond launch the button back at the SMERSH agents who volley it back to them. After several such volleys, the button lands in the launch truck, destroying it. Mimi subsequently leaves to join a convent.
Returning to London, Bond survives another attempt on his life involving a remote controlled dairy truck filled with explosives. When the truck loses video contact with the controllers, it is put on auto-pilot. Entering his compound he opens and closes the automatic gates; when they close, the chasing car skids sideways up against the gates. The truck then crashes into the car and blows up.
Chapter 3 (director: Val Guest)
Bond is now promoted to the position of
M and finds his secretary is his original
Miss Moneypenny's daughter, Miss Moneypenny, (
Barbara Bouchet). His first order is to rename all remaining MI6 agents "James Bond 007", as a ruse, to confuse the enemy. He also orders that an irresistible male agent be found who has enough self-control to resist the charms of opposing female enemy agents.
Such an agent is found in "Coop",
Terence Cooper. He seduces Miss Moneypenny and she becomes smitten with him, so he is picked to enter the anti-seduction by females training. This new James Bond 007 is even able to resist the charms of M/Sir James' "secret weapon" - an exotic agent known as The Detainer (
Daliah Lavi), herself another James Bond 007, this makes Coop want to have his head examined.
Chapter 4 (director: Joseph McGrath)
Bond recruits retired British secret agent,
Vesper Lynd, played by
Ursula Andress, to assist, by promising to have her tax arrears written off. She recruits baccarat master
Evelyn Tremble, played by
Peter Sellers to challenge Le Chiffre at baccarat and bankrupt him in order to get at his employers, SMERSH. Le Chiffre had embezzled SMERSH's money and plans to cheat at baccarat at Casino Royale in order to recover the money
After a brief fling with Vesper involving her photography and his dressing up as historical figures
Hitler,
Napoleon and
Toulouse-Lautrec, Tremble agrees to become involved in the plans and receives a whirlwind indoctrination into the ways of spying from
Q.
Logically, this chapter should occur after the Mata Bond sequence that that follows, as Le Chiffre is playing baccarat in this chapter because of the loss of money from the auction she disrupts in the next.
Chapter 5 (director: Ken Hughes)
Bond reconciles with his estranged daughter Mata Bond (
Joanna Pettet) who looks just like her mother,
Mata Hari. Mata spends her time giving, what Bond calls, poor dance recitals. Recruited into MI6, and is sent to
Berlin from
London in a taxi driven by Carlton Towers, a British Foreign Office official played by
Bernard Cribbins in order to infiltrate "International Mother's Help," a school for
nannies. It is in reality a SMERSH spy school and is where Mimi and the others had received the orders to intercept Bond in Scotland.
Mata encounters her mother's instructors including the diminutive Polo, played by
Ronnie Corbett, who was in love with her mother and now falls in love with her. She discovers a plan to sell compromising photographs of military leaders from the
United States,
USSR,
China and
Great Britain at an "art auction." She is told to not let the auction succeed. The pictures are being sold by Le Chiffre in order to make money to pay back
SMERSH after he had embezzled the organisation's money. Mata grabs the 35mm slides, outwits the staff, and throws the artwork away. Carlton Towers helps her to escape. Upon hearing the news, Le Chiffre realizes he will have to raise the money by gambling in the casino.
The Berlin scenery has an anachronistic feel including features germane to both World War II and the
Cold War. The set design is a clear parody of
German Expressionist cinema. However, a lot of the school's decor and some of the references are to World War I. This is another mixture of time periods, with Mata Hari's teachers looking no older than 50.
Chapter 6 (directors: Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish)
Evelyn Tremble arrives in France accompanied by Vesper Lynd for his encounter with Le Chiffre at the Casino Royale. Vesper foils an attempt by
Miss Goodthighs, a SMERSH agent, to kill Evelyn.
He survives to face Le Chiffre, who amuses the crowd with elaborate magic tricks and illusions before playing and cheating at Baccarat. Vesper replaces the trick sunglasses Le Chiffre uses to cheat. After losing and having more funds credited to him, Tremble beats Le Chiffre at baccarat and wins the entire pot. While leaving Casino Royale, Vesper is kidnapped, and Tremble chases the kidnappers in a
Lotus Formula Three.
Tremble himself is kidnapped and tortured by Le Chiffre. During a hallucinogenic torture sequence, which involves a huge group of bagpipers and
Peter O'Toole asking Tremble if he is
Richard Burton, a reference to a joke in ''
What's New Pussycat?'', Vesper arrives in the hallucination and, with a bagpipe, slays all the bagpipe players. Tremble alone is still standing. Vesper then faces him and says, "Never trust a rich spy" and fires again. Le Chiffre is killed in a suitably bizarre fashion as a punishment by SMERSH for failing: a gun smashes out of his monitor screen and shoots him in the head.
This is one of the least coherent parts of the film, and the Lotus scene was usually cut out when played on network television. Besides inexplicably jumping from Tremble driving off to his being in Le Chiffre's clutches, Vesper arriving in the hallucination is never explained nor do we know if it's a real event. In addition, Tremble is never actually shown being shot or falling down; when the establishing shot is revisited, he simply is not standing in the shot anymore. These discontinuities were the result of Sellers leaving the production before finishing his scenes.
[1]
Chapter 7 (directors: Val Guest, Richard Talmadge)
After Mata Bond is kidnapped from the heart of London by an agent of SMERSH disguised as palace guard on a horse and taken away in a giant
flying saucer that lands where the statue of Lord Nelson stood before it was bought, Bond travels with Miss Moneypenny to Casino Royale to rescue her. They discover that the casino is located atop a giant underground base run by Dr. Noah. He turns out to be Sir James' weak-kneed nephew, Jimmy Bond (
Woody Allen), last seen escaping a firing squad in
Central America earlier in the film. Unable to speak in Sir James' presence, Jimmy's plan is to kill all men over 4 foot 6 inches tall, leaving the diminutive villain himself the "big man" who gets all the girls. Meanwhile, as a huge brawl breaks out in the casino involving secret agents, a French Legionnaire (
Jean-Paul Belmondo), stereotypical movie
cowboys and
Indians,
George Raft and
William Holden.
The Detainer foils Dr. Noah's plans by successfully poisoning him with his own atomic pill. This leads to an explosive finale in which Casino Royale, along with practically all of the characters, is destroyed. As the film ends, the seven Bonds are seen in
Heaven, including Jimmy Bond – a fact quickly rectified as the ghost-like angel of Evelyn Tremble still in a kilt, all the rest are in angel clothes playing harps, sends Jimmy "to a place where it's terribly...hot."
This version of ''Casino Royale'' is notable as the only Bond film in which Bond dies.
Cast
★ '
David Niven' as '
Sir James Bond 007' – a legendary
British secret agent forced out of retirement to fight SMERSH. David Niven, had, in fact, been
Ian Fleming's preference for the part of James Bond.
[2],
EON Productions, however, chose
Sean Connery for their series. David Niven is the only James Bond actor who is mentioned by name in the text of one of Fleming's James Bond novels. In ''
On Her Majesty's Secret Service'', Bond visits an exclusive ski resort and is told that David Niven is a frequent visitor.
★ '
Peter Sellers' as '
Evelyn Tremble' – a
Baccarat Master recruited to challenge
Le Chiffre at ''Casino Royale''.
★ '
Ursula Andress' as '
Vesper Lynd' – a retired British secret agent forced back into service in exchange for writing off her tax arrears.
★ '
Orson Welles' as '
Le Chiffre' – SMERSH's financial agent, desperate to win at baccarat in order to repay the money he has embezzled from the organisation.
★ '
Woody Allen' as 'Dr.Noah/Jimmy Bond' – James Bond's nephew and head of SMERSH.
★ '
Barbara Bouchet' as '
Miss Moneypenny' – the beautiful daughter of Bond's original Miss Moneypenny who helps him in his fight against SMERSH.
★ '
Deborah Kerr' as '
Agent Mimi/Lady Fiona McTarry' – A SMERSH agent who masquerades as the widow of M but cannot help falling in love with Bond.
★ '
Jacqueline Bisset' as '
Miss Goodthighs' – a SMERSH agent who attempts to kill Evelyn Tremble but is killed by Vesper Lynd.
★ '
Joanna Pettet' as '
Mata Bond' – James Bond's daughter born of his love affair with
Mata Hari.
★ '
Daliah Lavi' as 'The Detainer' – a British secret agent who successfully poisons Dr.Noah with his own atomic pill.
★ '
Terence Cooper' as 'Coop' – a British secret agent trained to resist the charms of women, making him think he is mad for doing so.
★ '
Bernard Cribbins' as 'Carlton Towers' – A British Foreign Office official who drives Mata Bond all the way from
London to
Berlin in his taxi.
★ '
Ronnie Corbett' as 'Polo' – A SMERSH agent at the International Mothers' Help who was in love with Mata Hari and expresses the same feelings for Mata Bond but is outwitted by her.
★ '
John Huston' as '
M/McTarry' – Head of
MI6, dies from an explosion caused by his bombardment of Bond's estate.
''Casino Royale'' also takes credit for the greatest number of actors in a Bond movie either to have appeared or to go on to appear in the rest of the 'official' series: besides
Ursula Andress in
Dr. No,
Vladek Sheybal appeared as
Kronsteen in ''
From Russia with Love'',
Burt Kwouk featured as Mr Ling in ''
Goldfinger'' and an unnamed
SPECTRE operative in ''
You Only Live Twice'', Jeanne Roland plays a
masseuse in ''
You Only Live Twice'', and
Angela Scoular appeared as Ruby Bartlett in ''
On Her Majesty's Secret Service''.
Caroline Munro, who was an extra, took a much larger role as Naomi in ''
The Spy Who Loved Me.
Major
stars like
William Holden,
George Raft and
Jean-Paul Belmondo were given top billing in the film's promotion and
screen trailers despite the fact that they only appeared for a few minutes in the final film sequence.
What is noteworthy about ''
Casino Royale'' is its high status within the film industry. Well established
stars like
Peter O'Toole and sporting legends like
Stirling Moss were prepared to take uncredited parts in the film just to be able to work with the other members of the cast.
The film also proved to be young
Anjelica Huston's first experience of work in the movie industry as she was called upon by her father,
John Huston to cover the screen shots of
Deborah Kerr's hands.
Production
Directors
The production proved to be rather troubled with five different directors helming different segments of the film. In addition to the credited writers,
Woody Allen,
Peter Sellers,
Val Guest,
Ben Hecht,
Joseph Heller,
Terry Southern, and
Billy Wilder are believed to have added to the screenplay. Val Guest was given the responsibility of splicing the various "chapters" together, and was offered the unique title of "Co-ordinating Director" but declined, claiming the chaotic plot would not reflect well on him if he were so credited. His extra credit was labeled "Additional Sequences" instead.
Budget
The studio approved the film's production budget of $6 million, already quite a large budget in 1966. However, during filming the project ran into several problems and the shoot ran months over schedule, with the costs also running well over. When the film was finally completed it had run twice over its original budget. The final production budget of $12 million made it one of the most expensive films that had been made to that point. The previous official Bond movie, ''
Thunderball'', had a budget of $11 million while ''
You Only Live Twice'', which was released the same year as Casino Royale, had a budget of $9.5 million. The extremely high budget of "Casino Royale" caused it to earn the reputation as being "a runaway mini-Cleopatra,"
[3] referring to the runaway and out of control costs of the 1963 film
Cleopatra. The film was due to be released in time for Christmas 1966 but premiered in
April 1967.
Feud
The film is notable for the legendary behind-the-scenes drama involving the filming of the segments with
Peter Sellers. Supposedly, Sellers felt intimidated by
Orson Welles to the extent that, except for a couple of shots, neither were in the studio simultaneously. Other versions of the legend depict the drama stemming from Sellers being slighted, in favour of Welles, by
Princess Margaret (whom Sellers knew) during her visit to the set. Welles also insisted on performing magic tricks as Le Chiffre, and the director obliged. Sellers ultimately walked off the film before he completed all his scenes, which is why Tremble is so abruptly captured. Some biographies of Sellers suggest that he took the role of Bond to heart, and was annoyed at the decision to make ''Casino Royale'' a comedy as he wanted to play Bond straight; this is illustrated (in somewhat fictionalized form) in the film ''
The Life and Death of Peter Sellers'', based upon a biography by
Roger Lewis, who claims that Sellers kept re-writing and improvising scenes himself to make them play seriously. This would match that the only parts of the film close to the book are the ones featuring Sellers and Welles.
Missing footage
Eventually, Sellers' involvement with the film ended. Whether or not he was fired or simply walked off is unclear. Given that he often left for days at a time, improvised scenes or re-wrote parts, and given the conflicts between him and Orson Welles, it would hardly be surprising whatever the explanation. Regardless, not having the principal character of the novel's story available left the film-makers without a beginning or an ending, as well as often missing much of the linking footage to explain the details. The framing device of the rest of the film with
David Niven, was invented to salvage the footage, as is clear from watching the film.
Signs of missing footage from the Sellers segments are evident at various points. The entire Evelyn Tremble kidnap scene is gone - instead, an out-take of Sellers messing about on set with a racing car was substituted. Sellers calls for the car, a la Pink Panther, to chase down Vesper and her kidnappers; the next thing that is shown is Tremble being tortured. Outtakes of Sellers were also used for Tremble's dream sequence (pretending to play the piano on
Ursula Andress' torso), in the finale (blowing out the candles whilst in highland dress) and in the end of the film when all the various "James Bond doubles" are together. In the kidnap sequence, Tremble's death is also very abruptly inserted: it consists of pre-existing footage of Sellers being rescued by Vesper, followed by a later-filmed shot of her abruptly deciding to shoot Tremble, followed by a freeze-frame over some of the previous footage of her surrounded by bodies (noticeably a zoom-in on the previous shot). Equally telling is there is never any explanation of why Vesper shoots Tremble.
So many sequences from the film ended on the cutting room floor that several well-known actors were cut from the movie altogether, including
Mona Washbourne and
Arthur Mullard.
Final sequence
Jean Paul Belmondo and
George Raft received
major billing, even though both actors appear only briefly. Both appear during the climactic brawl at the end, Raft flipping his trademark coin and promptly shooting himself dead with a backwards-firing pistol, while Belmondo appears wearing a fake moustache as the
French Foreign Legion officer who requires an English phrase book to say 'ooch!' when he punches people. At the Intercon science fiction convention held in
Slough in 1978,
Dave Prowse commented on his part in this film, apparently his big-screen debut. He claimed that he was originally asked to play "Super Pooh", a giant
Winnie The Pooh in a superhero costume who attacks Tremble during the Torture Of The Mind sequence. This idea, as with many others in the film's script, was rapidly dropped, and Prowse was re-cast as
Frankenstein's Monster for the closing scenes. The final sequence was principally directed by former actor and stuntman
Richard Talmadge.
Rights
Columbia Pictures produced and distributed this version of ''Casino Royale''. In 1997, following the Columbia/MGM/Kevin McClory lawsuit on ownership of the Bond film series, the rights to the film reverted to
MGM (whose sister company United Artists co-owns the Bond film franchise) as a condition of the settlement. Years later, as a result of the
Sony/
Comcast acquisition of MGM, Columbia once again became responsible for the distribution of this 1967 version as well as the co-distribution of the entire Bond series, including the
2006 adaptation of ''Casino Royale''.
Reception
The chaotic nature of the production featured heavily in contemporary reviews.
Roger Ebert said "This is possibly the most indulgent film ever made,"
[4] and ''
Variety'' said "it lacked discipline and cohesion."
[5]
Despite the lukewarm nature of the reviews the pull of the James Bond name was sufficient to make it the third highest grossing movie in North America in 1967 with a gross of $22,744,718 and a worldwide total of $41,744,718 ($252,000,000 adjusted).
[6]
Orson Welles attributed the success of the film to a marketing strategy that featured a naked tattooed lady on the film's posters and print ads.
Music
{{Infobox Album
| Name = Casino Royale
| Type =
Soundtrack
| Artist =
Burt Bacharach,
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass and
Dusty Springfield
| Cover = cr671.jpg
| Background = gainsboro
| Released = 1967
| Recorded = 1967
| Genre =
| Length = 34:27
| Label =
| Producer =
| Reviews =
★
All Music Guide link
| Misc =
The original music is by
Burt Bacharach.
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass performed some of the songs with Mike Redway singing the lyrics to the title song as the end credits rolled.
The single most successful element of the film was the song "
The Look Of Love", performed by
Dusty Springfield and heard during a Peter Sellers segment. Nominated for an
Academy Award for
Best Song, it has become a standard for its era, with the biggest-selling version recorded by
Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 (#4 on the Billboard pop charts in 1968). It was heard again in the first film, which was to a degree inspired by ''Casino Royale''.
John Barry's song "
Born Free" was also used in the film. At the time, Barry was the main composer for the official Bond series.
The original album cover art was done by
Robert McGinnis, based on the movie poster and the original stereo vinyl release of the soundtrack is still highly sought after by
audiophiles. It is regarded by many music critics as the finest-sounding album of all time.
[7][8]
'Soundtrack listing'
#"Casino Royale Theme" -
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
#"The Look Of Love" -
Dusty Springfield
#"Money Penny Goes For Broke"
#"Le Chiffre's Torture Of The Mind"
#"Home James, Don't Spare The Horses"
#"Sir James' Trip To Find Mata"
#"The Look Of Love (Instrumental)"
#"Hi There Miss Goodthighs"
#"Little French Boy"
#"Flying Saucer" - First Stop Berlin
#"The Venerable Sir James Bond"
#"Dream On James, You're Winning"
#"The Big Cowboys And Indians Fight At Casino Royale / Casino Royale Theme (reprise)"
One track notable by its omission from the soundtrack is the instrumental piece "Bond Street", heard in the film during the brawl at the military auction and Carlton Towers's and Mata Bond's subsequent escape. It bears a fair resemblance to the non-Casino Royale-related instrumental, "
Yakety Sax" (as frequently heard on ''
The Benny Hill Show'' ). In fact, either accidentally or deliberately, "Bond Street" has been used in other shows to soundtrack
Benny Hill-style scenes, such as
Stewie Griffin's "sexy parties" in ''
Family Guy''. "Bond Street" itself has since appeared on the early-90s
easy listening compilation CD, ''This Is...Easy''.
References
1. Lane, Andy & Simpson, Paul (2002). ''The Bond Files''. Virgin Publishing. ISBN 0-753-50712-9.
2. Ian Fleming, Author or Spy ?
3. Casino Royale - Through the Looking Glass Shatterhand007.com. Retrieved May 29, 2007.
4. Ebert, Roger. Casino Royale, review by Roger Ebert (May 1 1967). Rogerebert.com. Retrieved May 29 2007.
5. Casino Royale, review by ''Variety'' (May 1967). Variety.com. Retrieved May 29, 2007.
6. Casino Royale - Box Office Data, Movie News, Cast Information
7. Joe Stachler on Casino Royale's Great Soundtrack
8.
'Casino Royale' Is an LP Bond With A Gilt Edge
External links
★
★
The Post-Modern Epic in Spite of Itself
★
Review of the production Casino Royale including details of deleted sequences
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español![Last Minute Travel Deals: Make Sure You\](images/articles/thumbs/klastminutethumb.jpg "Last Minute Travel Deals: Make Sure You\")
![Walking in Waikiki: The Sauce-erer\](images/articles/thumbs/waikikidrinkumbrellathumb.jpg "Walking in Waikiki: The Sauce-erer\")
![Fall & Autumn US Staycation Holidays that Won\](images/articles/thumbs/staycationsthumb.jpg "Fall & Autumn US Staycation Holidays that Won\")
