Casino Royale (1967 film) | James Bond Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Casino Royale (1967 film) Share Ad blocker interference detected! Wikia is a free-to-use site that makes money from advertising. We have a modified experience for viewers using ad blockers Wikia is not accessible if you’ve made further modifications. Remove the custom ad blocker rule(s) and the page will load as expected. Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass (Composers, performers) Running Time: 131 minutes Casino Royale is a 1967 comedy spy film originally produced by Columbia Pictures starring an ensemble cast of directors and actors. It is set as a satire of the James Bond film series and the spy genre, and is loosely based on Ian Fleming 's first James Bond novel . The film stars David Niven as the original Bond, Sir James Bond 007 . Forced out of retirement to investigate the deaths and disappearances of international spies, he soon battles the mysterious Dr. Noah and SMERSH .

The film's slogan: "Casino Royale is too much… for one James Bond!" refers to Bond's ruse to mislead SMERSH in which six other agents are designated as "James Bond", namely, Baccarat master Evelyn Tremble ( Peter Sellers ), millionaire spy Vesper Lynd ( Ursula Andress ), Bond's secretary Miss Moneypenny ( Barbara Bouchet ), Bond's daughter with Mata Hari , Mata Bond ( Joanna Pettet ), and British agents "Cooper" ( Terence Cooper ) and "The Detainer" ( Daliah Lavi ). Charles K. Feldman , the producer, had acquired the film rights and had attempted to get Casino Royale made as an EON Productions Bond film; however, Feldman and the producers of the Eon series, Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman , failed to come to terms. Believing that he could not compete with the Eon series, Feldman resolved to produce the film as a satire. [1] Contents 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".

[2] Opening sequence Evelyn Tremble/James Bond 007 ( Peter Sellers ) and Inspector Mathis meet in a pissoir (public urinal), where Mathis presents his credentials—in a shot suggesting a display of Mathis' genitals, and setting the tone of the film by satirizing the dramatic opening sequences in the Eon Bond films. Plot summary Sir James Bond , a legendary British spy who retired from the secret service 50 years previously, is visited by the head of British MI6 , M , CIA representative Ransome, KGB representative Smernov, and Deuxième Bureau representative Le Grand. All implore Bond to come out of retirement to deal with SMERSH who have been eliminating agents: Bond spurns all their pleas. When Bond continues to stand firm, his mansion is destroyed by a mortar attack at the orders of M, who is, however, killed in the explosion. Bond travels to Scotland to return M's remains to the grieving widow, Lady Fiona McTarry. However, the real Lady Fiona has been replaced by SMERSH 's Agent Mimi.

The rest of the household have been likewise replaced, with SMERSH ’s aim to discredit Bond by destroying his "celibate image". Attempts by a bevy of beauties to seduce Bond fail, but Mimi/Lady Fiona becomes so impressed with Bond that she changes loyalties and helps Bond to foil the plot against him. On his way back to London, Bond survives another attempt on his life. Bond is promoted to the head of MI6. He learns that many British agents around the world have been eliminated by enemy spies because of their inability to resist sex. Bond is also told that the 'sex maniac' who was given the name of 'James Bond' when the original Bond retired has gone to work in television. He then orders that all remaining MI6 agents will be named "James Bond 007", to confuse SMERSH . He also creates a rigorous programme to train male agents to ignore the charms of women. Moneypenny recruits "Coop", a karate expert who begins training to resist seductive women: he also meets an exotic agent known as the Detainer.

Bond then hires Vesper Lynd, a retired agent turned millionaire, to recruit baccarat player Evelyn Tremble, whom he intends to use to beat SMERSH agents raid Le Chiffre's base and kill him for his failure. Daliah Lavi, captured by Dr. Noah. In London, Mata Bond is kidnapped by SMERSH in a giant flying saucer, and James and Moneypenny travel to Casino Royale to rescue her. They discover that the casino is located atop a giant underground headquarters run by the evil Dr. Noah, who turns out to be Sir James's nephew Jimmy Bond. Jimmy reveals that he plans to use biological warfare to make all women beautiful and kill all men over 4-foot-6-inch (1.37 m) tall, leaving him as the "big man" who gets all the girls. Jimmy goes to check on The Detainer, and tries to convince her to be his queen, she apparently agrees, but foils his plan by poisoning him with one of his own atomic pills, which will cause him to hiccup till he explodes.

Sir James, Moneypenny, Mata and Coop manage to escape from their cell and fight their way back to the Casino Director's office where Sir James establishes Vesper is a double agent. The casino is then overrun by secret agents and a battle ensues. Eventually, Jimmy's atomic pill explodes, destroying Casino Royale along with everyone inside. Sir James and all of his agents then appear in heaven and Jimmy Bond is shown descending to hell. Cast & Characters John Huston (scenes at Sir James Bond's house and scenes at Scottish castle) Joseph McGrath (scenes with Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress and Orson Welles) Robert Parrish (some casino scenes with Peter Sellers and Orson Welles) Richard Talmadge (uncredited as co-director of the final sequence) Early screenplays Ben Hecht's contribution to the project, if not the final result, was in fact substantial. The Oscar-winning writer was the first person whom Feldman recruited to produce a screenplay for the film. He created a number of complete drafts with various evolutions of the story incorporating different scenes and characters. All of his treatments were “straight” adaptations, far closer to the original source novel than the spoof which the final production became.

The first, from as early as 1957, is a direct adaptation of the novel, albeit with the Bond character absent, instead being replaced by a poker-playing American gangster. [4] Later drafts see vice made central to the plot, with the Le Chiffre character becoming head of a network of brothels whose patrons are then blackmailed by Le Chiffre to fund Spectre. The racy plot elements opened up by this change of background include a chase scene through Hamburg's red light district that results in Bond escaping whilst disguised as a lesbian mud wrestler. New characters appear such as Lili Wing, a brothel madam and former lover of Bond whose ultimate fate is to be crushed in the back of a garbage truck, and Gita, wife of Le Chiffre. The beautiful Gita, whose face and throat are hideously disfigured as a result of Bond using her as a shield during a gunfight in the same sequence which sees Wing meet her fate, goes on to become the prime protagonist in the torture scene that features in the book, a role originally Le Chiffre's.

[4] Hecht never produced his final script though, dying of a heart attack two days before he was due to present it to Feldman in April 1964. Time reported in 1966 that the script had been completely re-written by Billy Wilder, and by the time the film reached production almost nothing of Hecht's screenplay remained. The one thing that did endure, and indeed became a key plot device of the finished film, was the idea of the name “James Bond” being given to a number of other agents. In the case of Hecht's version, this occurs after the demise of the original James Bond (an event which happened prior to the beginning of his story) which, as Hecht's M puts it “not only perpetuates his memory, but confuses the opposition." [4] Peter Sellers hired Terry Southern to write his dialogue (and not the rest of the script) in order to "outshine" Orson Welles and Woody Allen. [5] 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 Eon Bond film, 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," [6] 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 was 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. Director Val Guest wrote that Welles did not think much of Sellers, and had refused to work with "that amateur". 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 story is in agreement with the observation that the only parts of the film close to the book are the ones featuring Sellers and Welles. [7] In the end, Sellers' involvement with the film was cut abruptly short. Missing footage Sellers left the production before all his scenes were shot, which is why Tremble is so abruptly captured in the film. Whether he was fired or simply walked off is unclear.

Given that he often went absent for days at a time and was involved in conflicts with Welles, either explanation is plausible. [7] Regardless, Sellers was unavailable for the filming of an ending and of linking footage to explain the details, leaving the filmmakers to devise a way to make the existing footage work without him. The framing device of a beginning and ending with David Niven was invented to salvage the footage. [1] Val Guest indicated that he was given the task of creating a narrative thread which would link all segments of the film. He chose to use the original Bond and Vesper as linking characters to tie the story together. Guest states that in the originally released versions of the film, a cardboard cutout of Sellers in the background was used for the final scenes. In later versions, this cardboard cutout image was replaced by a sequence showing Sellers in highland dress, inserted by "trick photography". Signs of missing footage from the Sellers segments are evident at various points. Evelyn Tremble is not captured on camera; an outtake of Sellers entering a racing car was substituted.

In this outtake, Sellers calls for the car, à la Pink Panther , to chase down Vesper and her kidnappers; the next thing that is shown is Tremble being tortured. Out-takes 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 at 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). [1] So many sequences from the film ended on the cutting room floor that several well-known actors were cut from the film altogether, including Mona Washbourne , Ian Hendry and Arthur Mullard . [1] 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 translate Template:' merde!' into 'ooch!' during his fistfight. [3] Raft's coin flip, which originally appeared in Scarface (1932), had been spoofed a few years earlier in 1959's Some Like It Hot . At the Intercon science fiction convention held in Slough, England 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 a Frankenstein -type Monster for the closing scenes. The final sequence was principally directed by former actor and stuntman Richard Talmadge . [1] Rights Columbia Pictures 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 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (whose sister company United Artists co-owns the Bond film franchise) as a condition of the settlement. [8] Years later, as a result of the Sony / Comcast acquisition of MGM, Columbia would once again become responsible for the co-distribution of this 1967 version as well as the entire Eon Bond series, including the 2006 adaptation of Casino Royale. However, MGM Home Entertainment changed its distributor to 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment in May 2006, and MGM Television started to self-distribute again. Sony still controls the 2006 adaptation and theatrical rights to this version. Alongside six other MGM-owned films, the studio posted Casino Royale on YouTube . [9] Release and reception The "chaotic" nature of the production was featured heavily in contemporary reviews, while later reviewers have sometimes been kinder towards this.

Roger Ebert said "This is possibly the most indulgent film ever made," [10] and Variety said "it lacked discipline and cohesion." [11] Some later reviewers have been more impressed by the film. Andrea LeVasseur, in the Allmovie review, called it "the original ultimate spy spoof", and opined that the "nearly impossible to follow" plot made it "a satire to the highest degree". Further describing it as a "hideous, zany disaster" LeVasseur concluded that it was "a psychedelic, absurd masterpiece". [12] Robert von Dassanowsky has written an article on the artistic merits of the film and says "like Casablanca , Casino Royale is a film of momentary vision, collaboration, adaption, pastiche, and accident. It is the anti-auteur work of all time, a film shaped by the very zeitgeist it took on." [13] Writing in 1986, Danny Peary noted, "It's hard to believe that in 1967 we actually waited in anticipation for this so-called James Bond spoof.

It was a disappointment then; it's a curio today, but just as hard to get through." Peary described the film as being "disjointed and stylistically erratic" and "a testament to wastefulness in the bigger-is-better cinema," before adding, "It would have been a good idea to cut the picture drastically, perhaps down to the scenes featuring Peter Sellers and Woody Allen. In fact, I recommend you see it on television when it's in a two-hour (including commercials) slot. Then you won't expect it to make any sense." [14] Despite the lukewarm nature of the contemporary reviews, the pull of the James Bond name was sufficient to make it the thirteenth highest grossing film in North America in 1967 with a gross of $22.7 million and a worldwide total of $41.7 million [15] ($291 million in 2012 dollars). 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. [3] Since its release the film has been widely criticised by a number of people.

For instance, Simon Winder called Casino Royale "a pitiful spoof", [16] while Robert Druce described it as "an abstraction of real life". [17] In his review of the film, Leonard Maltin remarked, "Money, money everywhere, but [the] film is terribly uneven - sometimes funny, often not." [18] Conversely, Romano Tozzi complimented the acting and humour, although he also mentioned that the film has several dull stretches. [19] References Casino Royale (1967) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error In an early spy spoof, aging Sir James Bond comes out of retirement to take on SMERSH.

Directors: From $9.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 25 titles created 25 May 2011 a list of 43 titles created 16 May 2012 a list of 26 titles created 05 Nov 2012 a list of 26 titles created 21 Jul 2013 a list of 42 titles created 02 Jul 2015 Search for " Casino Royale " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 3 nominations. See more awards » Photos A SPECTRE agent has stolen two American nuclear warheads, and James Bond must find their targets before they are detonated. Director: Irvin Kershner A playboy who refuses to give up his hedonistic lifestyle to settle down and marry his true love seeks help from a demented psychoanalyst who is having romantic problems of his own.

Directors: Clive Donner, Richard Talmadge Stars: Peter Sellers, Peter O'Toole, Romy Schneider James Bond woos a mob boss's daughter and goes undercover to uncover the true reason for Blofeld's allergy research in the Swiss Alps that involves beautiful women from around the world. Director: Peter R. Hunt A resourceful British government agent seeks answers in a case involving the disappearance of a colleague and the disruption of the American space program. Director: Terence Young A diamond smuggling investigation leads James Bond to Las Vegas, where he uncovers an evil plot involving a rich business tycoon. Director: Guy Hamilton Agent 007 and the Japanese secret service ninja force must find and stop the true culprit of a series of spacejackings before nuclear war is provoked. Director: Lewis Gilbert James Bond heads to The Bahamas to recover two nuclear warheads stolen by SPECTRE agent Emilio Largo in an international extortion scheme. Director: Terence Young James Bond is led to believe that he is targeted by the world's most expensive assassin while he attempts to recover sensitive solar cell technology that is being sold to the highest bidder.

Director: Guy Hamilton James Bond willingly falls into an assassination ploy involving a naive Russian beauty in order to retrieve a Soviet encryption device that was stolen by SPECTRE. Director: Terence Young 007 is sent to stop a diabolically brilliant heroin magnate armed with a complex organization and a reliable psychic tarot card reader. Director: Guy Hamilton James Bond investigates the hijacking of British and Russian submarines carrying nuclear warheads with the help of a KGB agent whose lover he killed. Director: Lewis Gilbert A fake Fabergé egg and a fellow agent's death lead James Bond to uncover an international jewel-smuggling operation, headed by the mysterious Octopussy, being used to disguise a nuclear attack on N.A.T.O. forces. Director: John Glen Edit Storyline After the death of M, Sir James Bond is called back out of retirement to stop SMERSH. In order to trick SMERSH and Le Chiffre, Bond thinks up the ultimate plan. That every agent will be named James Bond. One of the Bonds, whose real name is Evelyn Tremble is sent to take on Le Chiffre in a game of baccarat, but all the Bonds get more than they can handle.

Written by simon Casino Royale is too much for one James Bond! See more » Genres: 28 April 1967 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Charles K. Feldman's Casino Royale See more » Filming Locations: 70 mm 6-Track (Westrex Recording System) (70 mm prints)| Mono (35 mm prints) Color: Black and White (archive footage: Keystone Cops)| Color (Technicolor) Aspect Ratio: Cameos by Frank Sinatra , Sophia Loren , and Barbra Streisand were planned. See more » Goofs When the pod from the flying saucer "drives" up out of the water in the underground dock, the cable pulling it is plainly visible near the bottom of the screen. See more » Quotes Sir James : [In Mata's room] Who are all these people? Mata Bond : They're the high priests of the temple. Okay, Fred, up it! [a priest gets up and bows as he leaves] Sir James : What an extraordinary performance. They seem to treat you like some kind of goddess. Mata Bond : Well, I am the celestial virgin of the sacred altar.

See more » Crazy Credits The opening credit animation by Richard Williams parodies illuminated manuscripts with cartoon-style calligraphy. It sets the tone for the film as a psychedelic "knight's tale" of Sir James Bond. See more » Connections "Too many cooks spoil the broth". 5 October 2005 | by Galina (Virginia, USA) – See all my reviews What a mess of the royal proportions - such a great cast (Peter Sellers, David Niven, Orson Welles, Woody Allen, Ursula Andress, Deborah Kerr, and Jean-Paul Belmondo), the James Bond's story, plenty of beautiful (and I mean it) girls, the music by Burt Bacharach, most famous sets - but the movie is almost totally unwatchable. It started funny enough - at Sir James Bond's (David Niven) home where he was approached by four international agents that forced him to come out of retirement and head up the operation against the evil organization SMERSH. His mission is to destroy Topple LeChiffre (Orson Welles} at the baccarat tables where he never loses and wins a lot of money to supply SMERSH.

Then, the movie becomes silly, stupid, pointless, and (what is the worst) not funny. Only Woody Allen, (as Bond's incompetent nephew, Jimmy Bond) brilliant as usual has appeared in two scenes and made them silly and hilarious. I think that "Casino Royale" (the way it was made) illustrates the fact that bigger is not always better - overlong and overblown, written and directed by five or more writers and directors, it brings to mind an old saying, "Too many cooks spoil the broth". OT: the abbreviation SMERSH really existed during the WWII. It means "Death to the Spies" in Russian. 49 of 70 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes Casino Royale | film [1967] | Britannica.com Casino Royale Casino Royale, British-American spy film , released in 1967, that is a parody of Ian Fleming ’s first James Bond novel (1953). Plagued by a chaotic production, the movie is notable for being largely incoherent. David Niven and Barbara Bouchet (centre left) in Casino Royale (1967).

© 1967 Columbia Pictures Corporation Bond (played by David Niven ) is living in opulence after his retirement from MI6 . However, following the mysterious murders of agents from different countries, he is coerced back into service by his former boss, M ( John Huston ), and other international intelligence officials. Bond learns that one of the targets of the investigation is a rich gambler named Le Chiffre ( Orson Welles ), who is actually a top operative in a crime syndicate known as SMERSH. Bond decides to confuse his enemies by enlisting numerous agents to adopt the name James Bond. He utilizes the services of agent Vesper Lynd ( Ursula Andress ) to seduce Evelyn Tremble ( Peter Sellers ), the world’s greatest baccarat player. Tremble agrees to pose as James Bond and challenge Le Chiffre to a high-stakes game at the famed Casino Royale, which is a front for SMERSH operations. Tremble wins the game, causing Le Chiffre to lose an enormous amount of the crime syndicate’s money—a mistake that results in Le Chiffre’s death. When Lynd is kidnapped from the casino , Tremble dashes off to rescue her.

However, he discovers all too late that she is a double agent, and she kills him. Peter Sellers (seated in background) and Ursula Andress (standing, in white dress) in … © 1967 Columbia Pictures Corporation Meanwhile, the real Bond succeeds in confronting the secret head of SMERSH, Dr. Noah, who is actually his nephew Jimmy Bond ( Woody Allen ). Jimmy has devised a series of incredible schemes, including the elimination of all men taller than him and the development of a time-release atomic bomb concealed in a pill. A British agent (Daliah Lavi) surreptitiously slips one of the pills into Jimmy’s champagne, turning him into a walking atomic time bomb. Meanwhile, a wild battle ensues in Casino Royale, with MI6 and its allies (including U.S. agents dressed as cowboys and Indians) fighting the forces of SMERSH. No one emerges as a winner, however, because Jimmy’s bomb explodes, killing everyone in the casino. Similar Topics The Incredibles The film is loosely based on Fleming’s Casino Royale , the only Bond book for which producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman did not hold the rights.

Rather than try and compete with the popular Sean Connery movies, the filmmakers decided to shoot the novel as a spoof. However, the production quickly spiraled out of control with five directors working simultaneously but never in conjunction with each other. Eight writers (most uncredited) also worked on the screenplay, including Billy Wilder , Joseph Heller , and Ben Hecht . In addition, there were problems with the performers, most notably Sellers, who reportedly did not get along with Welles and refused to shoot scenes with him. Eventually, Sellers left the production. The resulting film is disjointed and nearly impossible to follow. However, with an all-star cast, an outstanding production design, and a soundtrack that included Burt Bacharach and Herb Alpert, Casino Royale was a box-office hit, and it later became a cult classic. A second big-screen adaptation of Casino Royale was released in 2006 to great acclaim; a dramatic version of Fleming’s novel, it starred Daniel Craig . Production notes and credits Watch Full movie: Casino Royale (1967) Online Free | ffilms.org ADs Watch Full movie: Casino Royale (1967) Online Free.

In an early spy spoof, aging Sir James Bond comes out of retirement to take on SMERSH. Directors: Val Guest, Ken Hughes Writers: Wolf Mankowitz (screenplay), John Law (screenplay) Stars: David Niven, Peter Sellers and Ursula Andress Your rating: 5 Casino Royale (1967) Author: Brandt Sponseller from New York City Casino Royale has some outstanding elements. The production design is worth a 10. There are beautiful, often provocatively dressed or relatively undressed women everywhere you look. Many of its segments are funny; it's even occasionally hilarious. The problem arose in putting all of it together. And with at least five directors and at least ten writers, it's not difficult to see why. The whole is a mess. There is little in the way of overarching plot. Most threads are just completely abandoned after awhile. The story, which is very loosely based on Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Casino Royale (published in 1953--it's the first Bond novel), is a spoof of the typical adventure featuring the infamous secret agent. The real Bond (David Niven) went into retirement when his skills were at their peak.

This Bond is quite different than the Bond we know--he is almost chaste, he's a homebody, he dedicates each evening's twilight to playing Debussy on the piano, and so on. Casino Royale has it that the Bond we know from other films is a decoy. A group of older men, representing the secret agencies of the US, the UK, Russia and France, are on their way to the real Bond's home to ask for his assistance. It seems that someone has been trying to wipe out as many secret agents as they can. While they're pitching the idea of coming out of retirement to Bond, they're attacked. Bond's house is blown up, and he (implicitly) agrees to the assignment. Casino Royale is the story of the real Bond trying to get to the bottom of the sinister agent-wipeout plan. Part of carrying that out involves changing the identity of nearly every spy to James Bond--if the real Bond is to work unimpeded, he can't always be worrying about being killed by the criminal mastermind. Each director worked on a different segment in relative isolation from the rest. This went so far as having their own portions of the script written.

The problem was that despite Eon Productions (the production company behind most of the Bond films) not owning the rights to Casino Royale, they had used many of the "bits" in other Bond films. So there wasn't much of the book left to adapt. In addition, it was felt that a serious alternative Bond film couldn't compete against the Albert R. Broccoli/Harry Saltzman-produced films. So Casino Royale producers Jerry Bresler, John Dark and Charles K. Feldman had different writer/director teams create their own, parodic Bond segments that would be loosely tied together--it was almost a filmic version of the "Exquisite Corpse" game, in which you fold a piece of paper so that you can't see other persons' work, and you have to continue the drawing on your section with only a couple visual anchors. Each segment features a different set of stars--the primary sets centering on Niven, Woody Allen, and Peter Sellers with Ursula Andress and Orson Welles. Those are all great actors, and great comedians in at least two cases. They all do a bit of their own schtick--in some cases, they demanded this.

Woody does his neurotic New York Jew character, Peter Sellers rides the gray area between bumbling buffoon and suave playboy, with a couple generic Indian and Chinese impersonations thrown in for good measure, Orson Welles does his best Paul Masson Wine-pitching "elder statesman" demeanor, and also throws in a few of his more famous magic tricks. All of this stuff is good, but does it work as a unified film? No. And if that's not enough evidence for you, consider that the segments were further chopped up into set-pieces. There's the "M", or McTarry funeral stuff, the Niven car chase stuff, the Sellers/Andress romance stuff, and so on. Each set piece ends up being largely independent--you could almost see this as a series of skits on a similar theme. These facts make Casino Royale not quite work. It's certainly no match for a legitimate Bond film, despite the similarity of location-hopping, outrageous villains, spy gadgets and so on. But, in isolation, the segments tend to be good to excellent. The stretch with Bond visiting the faux M widow is probably the funniest.

It also presages the Sir Robin section of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), but bests it in a way, if only because of its extension. The madcap ending of the film is a lot of fun for its embrace of absurdism as a supreme aesthetic disposition--and it may have even influenced some later films. And the segments with the trippiest visuals, both in the climax, are a fantastic treat for any fan of surrealism. They're good enough to watch the film just to see them. The production design is incredible throughout the film. Not just for the surrealism, but the lush Edwardian and Victorian interiors, complete with copies and works in similar styles to unique, influential artists such as Gustav Klimt and Otto Dix. If we felt like being overly generous, we might be able to argue that the overarching mess of a plot was part of the point. This is a spoof of Bond, after all, and Bond novels and films tend to have sprawling plots--both geographically and narratively. We do travel to many exotic locales, meet many exotic people, doing exotic things, and we receive many plot intricacies and twists in both the typical Bond story and in Casino Royale.

However, Bond films aren't quite convoluted or messy enough to deserve this kind of spoofing, so excusing the messiness of the whole to parodic intent seems an over-ambitious stretch. Casino Royale is worth seeing, particularly if you're a big Bond fan or a big fan of any of the cast, or even if you just like a lot of late 1960s/early 1970s big, madcap comedies. Just don't expect anything like a tight story. Was the above review useful to you? On DVD: Casino Royale, 1967: a 007 Comedy Spectacular - MTV mtv Glenn Erickson 10/22/2008 "Charlie Feldman said, 'You've done so much on this picture for me, I'm going to give you an extra credit title: Coordinating Director.' And I said, well, if you do that, Charlie, I'll sue you!

'What do you mean?' I said, people are going to look at this and say, 'This was coordinated?'" --Val Guest, one of Casino Royale's numerous co-directors If you think we have movie fads now -- Indiana Jones, Batman, Harry Potter -- they're nothing like the Bond mania that swept the world in the 1960s. The Beatles may have been the number one sensation, but from approximately 1964 to 1969 Ian Fleming 's James Bond reshaped the film landscape into big letters reading "007." As embodied by Sean Connery , a handsome bruiser with a lady-killing smile, Her Majesty's dashing Cold Warrior held the center of international attention. Spies were suddenly big business. Dozens of filmic imitators rushed to compete with the four or five official Bond movies: serious espionage stories, cartoonish escapism, silly comedies, and knock-offs from every country with a film industry. Even after television got into the act, the market stayed bullish for secret agents. The absolutely craziest Bond was a bona fide production with a strange pedigree.

The film rights to Ian Fleming's first 007 novel Casino Royale had been sold very soon after publication, and several years later they were acquired by the legendary agent-turned-producer Charles K. Feldman . But what could Feldman do with them? The public image of James Bond was Sean Connery, and competing directly with Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli 's official United Artists series was seen as an unwise move. Yet the ability to make an authorized 007 movie from an official Ian Fleming book made it easy for Feldman to raise money -- a LOT of money. "All remaining agents and trainees will be known as James Bond 007, including the girls. The enemy won't know which way to turn." -- Sir James Bond (David Niven) MGM's Casino Royale Collector's Edition is an update of the 2002 DVD release, but with extras that tell the full story of perhaps the most out-of-control production of the Mod Sixties. Feldman's Bond spoof cost eleven million 1967 dollars, enough to produce an epic like Doctor Zhivago . The film was begun without a complete script, with pieces being added as it went along.

Producer Feldman signed enough big stars to float eight or nine pictures, and none of them knew exactly what they were getting into. Writer Wolf Mankowitz 's first script was more or less abandoned in the rush to make Casino Royale more like a free-form party than an organized film. Feldman fired director Joseph McGrath in an attempt to placate million-dollar star Peter Sellers , who often disappeared from the set and refused to act with Orson Welles . Replacement director Robert Parrish lasted all of two weeks, while director and actor John Huston blew the budget by moving his episode (one of the few from the original script) to his home base of Ireland, and filming for months instead of weeks. The movie is less an adventure than a collection of wild characters. David Niven is Sir James Bond, who must be forced out of retirement to once again deal with SMERSH. Peter Sellers is baccarat cardsharp Evelyn Tremble, hired to win against enemy gambler Le Chiffre (Orson Welles). First among the femmes fatales is Vesper Lind ( Ursula Andress ), a millionaire with a habit of murdering her lovers.

Woody Allen plays Little Jimmy Bond, a neurotic klutz (surprise!) who proves to be hiding a diabolical secret identity. Instead of reining in the costs, Charles Feldman encouraged the film to get bigger, wilder, and more far-out (a sixties term interchangeable with "groovy"). Roles and scenes were expanded to accommodate more actors, more special effects, more gags invented on the set. Feldman wanted a crazy circus with an "anything goes" atmosphere that hadn't been seen since the wild 1941 comedy Hellzapoppin'. Any star within reach was recruited for a cameo -- William Holden , Jean-Paul Belmondo , Charles Boyer , George Raft , Peter O'Toole . Fourth director Ken Hughes filmed an elaborate East German spy school sequence in full-on expressionist mode, with crazy shadows and distorted sets. As Mata Bond, the illegitimate daughter of James Bond and Mata Hari, Joanna Pettet dances in an elaborate musical number to Burt Bacharach 's musical score.

Famed second unit director Richard Talmadge directed 1001 gags for the casino battle finale, that includes Keystone Kops, cowboys and Indians and trained seals wearing "007" medallions. Woody Allen was brought on to play Little Jimmy Bond, 007's neurotic nephew. Having seen his screenplay for Feldman's What's New Pussycat? altered beyond recognition, Allen refused invitations to do rewrites, preferring to just maintain control over his own scenes. "Oh. You're going to nothing me to death." -- Evelyn Tremble (Peter Sellers) Somewhere along the line Feldman finally realized that a bunch of lavish but uncoordinated scenes do not a movie make, and asked director Val Guest to invent new connective scenes to unify the unwieldy story. The original main star Peter Sellers had been fired before completing his role, leaving a big hole in the story arc. Guest fashioned a series of interstitial London scenes with David Niven, and put things together the best he could. Characters disappear (Ursula Andress) or make ridiculously arbitrary entrances and exits ( Daliah Lavi ). A flying saucer lands in Trafalgar Square.

Expensive scenes dropped for time are re-purposed as material for psychedelic montages. Coming out at the perfect time in the Bond craze, Casino Royale was a film one had to see. It's a hugely enjoyable mess, one of those movies where one strains to catch the in-jokes and identify all of the guest stars, like Jacqueline Bisset playing a seductress named "Miss Goodthighs." Silly slapstick alternates with rapturous visuals, like a view through a tropical fish aquarium as Peter Sellers and Ursula Andress walk in slow-motion to Dusty Springfield's vocal The Look of Love. The Tijuana Brass title theme became an inescapable radio hit. Critics scoffed at the overblown movie but it made plenty of money. Charles Feldman's business acumen was vindicated, if not his crazy production method. The Bond craze did wane, and rather quickly. By 1969 the public had had its fill of super-spies, with films like Dean Martin 's raunchy Matt Helm series devolving into cheap exploitation pix. The official Bonds remained very popular, but the wanna-be imitators quickly disappeared.

Nothing in today's industry can compare with the grandiose madness of the original Casino Royale and its galaxy of dazzling film stars. Agent Cooper (Terence Cooper): "Beauty is only skin deep." Lorelei: "How about some skin diving?" Weirdly, this renegade Ian Fleming property was "reunited" with the official Broccoli-Danjaq Bond series in the late 1990s, as part of a court settlement between Sony and MGM. Note that certain Bond trademarks have apparently been reserved for official series entries only. The tattooed Bond Girl figure on the Casino Royale disc cover is not the original artwork, which proudly displayed a psychedelic "007" logo. The disc packaging does not use the 007 designation, either. "This germ, when distributed in the atmosphere, will make all women beautiful and destroy all men over four-foot-six." -- Doctor Noah, alias Little Jimmy Bond (Woody Allen) This Collector's Edition of Casino Royale has apparently undergone a last-minute name change. It's still being listed at Amazon as a "40th Anniversary Edition" even though that anniversary passed a year ago.

The beautiful transfer is not appreciably improved over the 2002 disc, but the extras are very different. The 2002 disc offered a short interview with director Val Guest. This new edition comes with a lengthy, five-part making-of documentary. Surviving crewmembers share their memories along with stars Jacqueline Bisset and Joanna Pettet, assembling a mosaic portrait of the larger-than-life Charles K. Feldman and the absolute chaos of his production. Loud music and distracting graphics -- lots of images flipping and flopping -- make the docu difficult to follow, but its content is always good. Bond craze authors Steven Jay Rubin and John Cork are kept busy on the feature commentary just identifying all the noted actors. They explain who filmed what -- no easy task -- and draw the connections between Casino Royale and shows like What's New Pussycat? and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang . Rubin and Cork also offer insights on several filmed but unused scenes, telling us that Peter Sellers' visit to the 007 "gadget room" is supposed to be taking place in the basement of Harrod's department store in London.

The disc includes the original trailer -- which uses the original 007-tattooed Bond Girl graphic, and a still photo gallery. Not listed among the extras but included in the package is a set of miniature character cards, which are derived from artwork used as "door panel posters" to decorate the glass doors of theaters showing Casino Royale. Should you already own the original 2002 disc edition, don't throw it away. It contains the entire original 1954 Climax Theater TV presentation of Casino Royale featuring Barry Nelson as an Americanized Bond and Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre. It's an early live TV production: when cues are missed, we get to watch Lorre do some fast-thinking improv work. Perhaps when MGM gets around to releasing a Blu-ray disc of Casino Royale, the extras of both editions can be combined. Glenn Erickson Casino Royale (location) | James Bond Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Novel — Film — Soundtrack — Song — Characters — Location Unused exterior shots of Casino Royale, as seen in the official trailer for Casino Royale (2006).

Casino Royale is a fictional casino which first appears in Ian Fleming 's 1953 James Bond novel Casino Royale , located in the fictional French seaside resort of Royale-les-Eaux . The casino was subsequently featured in the 1954 CBS television adaptation and official 2006 Eon film adaptation of Fleming's novel (with the latter casino located instead in Montenegro ). A very different version of Casino Royale also appeared in the unofficial 1967 spoof film of the same name . Contents Appearances Novel appearance Casino Royale is located in the fictional French seaside resort of Royale-les-Eaux. There had been a casino at Royale (as the town was formerly named) since the Victorian era. But since then the once popular coastal town had fallen on hard times, losing business to the towns of Le Touquet and Deauville . The town thereafter survived on seaside holidaymakers in the summer and its small fishing fleet in the winter, as well as "the crumbs which fell to its elegantly dilapidated Casino from the table at Le Touquet". Royale's renaissance came after the Second World War.

Encouraged by the post-war revival of Brighton and Nice , in 1950 Royale-les-Eaux was identified as a potential source of revenue by a Paris syndicate which invested funds on behalf of exiled Vichyites . The Casino, the public gardens and the two main hotels were refurbished and Paris jewellers and couturiers were given rent-free sites on which to establish branches. [1] For the year in which the events of Casino Royale take place, the Société des Bains de Mer de Royale has succeeded in securing bookings from "a considerable number of the biggest operators in America and Europe", and leased some of the baccarat tables to a group of Egyptians, the Mahomet Ali Syndicate. [2] Film appearance For the official film adaptation of Casino Royale, the Casino's location has been changed to Montenegro. During the film, the terrorist financier Le Chiffre uses a Ugandan warlord's money to short-sell stock in an aviation firm, thus betting the money on the company's failure.

After his plan to bankrupt the company is foiled by the intervention of James Bond , Le Chiffre is left with a major financial loss and is forced to set up a high-stakes poker tournament at Casino Royale in Montenegro to recoup the money. Intent on preventing this, the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6) sends 007 to participate in the tournament using government funds. Unknown to Bond, the American CIA had also sent a participant to the event, Felix Leiter . Despite several setbacks, the Bond won the tournament, netting $115,000,000 (115 million US dollars). Non-Eon appearance Exterior of the Casino Royale, as seen in Casino Royale (1967). In the 1967 spy comedy film Casino Royale, baccarat expert Evelyn Tremble is recruited to beat agent Le Chiffre . Having embezzled SMERSH 's money, Le Chiffre is desperate for money to cover up his theft before he is executed. Tremble arrives at the Casino Royale accompanied by Vesper Lynd , who foils an attempt to disable him by seductive SMERSH agent Miss Goodthighs.

Later that night, Tremble observes Le Chiffre playing at the casino and realises that he is using infrared sunglasses to cheat. Lynd steals the sunglasses, allowing Evelyn to eventually beat Le Chiffre in a game of baccarat. Lynd is apparently abducted outside the casino, and Tremble is also kidnapped while pursuing her. Le Chiffre, desperate for the winning cheque, hallucinogenically tortures Tremble, before being kiled by SMERSH SMERSH in a giant flying saucer, and Sir James Bond and Moneypenny travel to Casino Royale to rescue her. They discover that the casino is located atop a giant underground headquarters run by the evil Dr. Noah , secretly Sir James' nephew Jimmy Bond, a former MI6 agent who defected to SMERSH to spite his famous uncle. Jimmy reveals that he plans to use biological warfare to make all women beautiful and kill all men over 4-foot-6-inch (1.37 m) tall, leaving him as the "big man" who gets all the girls.

Sir James, Moneypenny, Mata and Coop manage to escape from their cell and fight their way back to the Casino Director's office where Sir James establishes Lynd is a double agent. The casino is then overrun by secret agents and a battle ensues. American and French support arrive, but just add to the chaos. Eventually, the casino explodes, killing everyone inside. Behind the scenes 'Lazne I' or Spa I, the former 'Kaiserbad Spa' in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. During production of the official 2006 Eon film adaptation of Casino Royale, location filming for the casino and its adjacent hotel took place in the town of Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic during April-May 2006. Although the casino part of the storyline is set in Montenegro, no filming took place there. A famous Czech spa named 'Lazne I' or Spa I, the former 'Kaiserbad Spa' [3] [4] was used as the exterior of the Casino Royale, with the nearby Grandhotel Pupp serving as " Hotel Splendide ".

[5] Trivia Notably, in May 2013 the original artwork for the set of the casino in the spoof James Bond film Casino Royale went on sale for £30,000. The 36in by 30in work by the art director Michael Stringer was a detailed bird’s-eye view of the set built at Pinewood Studios that featured in the 1967 film starring David Niven and Peter Sellers. [6] References

Question: Who played Sir James bond in the 1967 comedy spy film ‘Casino Royale’?
Answer: David Niven