Casino Royale (1967)

This film is a mess, one unrelated scene spliced together in the editing room with another. One of the reason it's so chaotic is the amount of directors (5 overall) The directors had no contact with each other, yet somehow managed to produce a passable film. The film's production had problem after problem, so much problems that I wonder how it was finished.--PLOT-- David Niven is brought out of retirement due to the assassination of British secret agents, you may wonder why I didn't put James Bond in David Niven's place. The problem with that is that they're MORE THAN ONE. I won't spoil anything else. --- The film is passable due to the good aspects. The special effect are brilliant and still look quite realistic today. The casting is good. There are sometimes alright jokes. The music is absolutely brilliant and there are plenty of good scenes in the film. --- Casino Royale could of been better. If it had one director and it wasn't nearly 2 and a half hours. It's still worth a look though due to the effect, music and the pure fun of certain scenes.

Associate producer: John Dark. Producers: Charles K. Feldman, Jerry Bresler. Executive producer: Charles K. Feldman.A Famous Artists Production, released worldwide by Columbia: April 30, 1967 (U.K.), 28 April 1967 (U.S.A.), December, 1967 (Australia). New York opening at the Capitol and Cinemai: 28 April 1967. 11,804 feet. 131 minutes. (Available on a 10/10 M-G-M DVD).COMMENT: Highly enjoyable romp spoofing the James Bond saga. The film cost $12,000,000, most of which was undoubtedly spent on engaging such a wonderful line-up of players and building such stupendous sets. The art directors merit some prestigious Hollywood award for their superb creations. The directors are not saying who directed what, but it is obvious that Huston directed the opening sequence in which he appears and its delightful sequel in which Deborah Kerr gives her best performance for twenty years. Richard Talmadge directed the uproarious (if over-long) free-for-all at the climax. My favorite scene is the superb send-up of Bond's gadget-outfitting department which is twice as funny as the one in Last of the Secret Agents. But who directed this is anybody's guess. I was right there on the set, so I know Val Guest shot the scene in which Woody Allen is introduced before a firing squad and also the sequence in which Daliah Lavi is strapped to a table. I also know Joe McGrath handled the special effects scenes, including the one with Ursula Andress dressed in Highland costume. But I would really like to know who directed Joanna Pettet's scenes and inspired her to give such an inventive and spirited impersonation. Despite the film's length, there is scarcely one dull moment (perhaps just a few too many close-ups of Miss Andress). It's a fun film almost all the way.

A schizophrenic Bond experience. In this take on Bond everyone is Bond, but this leads to multiple leads competing for screen time and underdeveloped villains. The plot is as hard to follow as the master spy is elusive and the jokes are easy to miss when one has to keep asking "how did we get here?"This film is worth watching for the riotous fun found in the last third of the film and sprinkled throughout the rest. Also making it worthwhile are the incredible sets ranging from a Scottish Lord's Gaudy Manor, to the classic bond villain hideout, even an entire spy school set in a German expressionism nightmare house.The Bonds all attempt to be icy cool with varying degrees of success, and although they all brought their own gags good enough to justify their inclusion, it was the indecisive, meandering following of the handful of agents that made the movie so boring. Watch it for the Woody Allen and Orson Welles scenes, for the climax, and for the Bond Girls, but don't watch it for a coherent story. Could have been better with a half hour trimmed off.

Though audiences today are likely to hear "Casino Royale' and think of Daniel Craig's 2006 debut in the role of James Bond, it had in fact been filmed twice before then. The first was a live television version aired on American TV network CBS in 1954. It followed more than a decade later by a feature film produced by Charles K. Feldman. After an attempt to produce a co-production with "official" Bond film production company Eon starring Sean Connery was rejected (likely due to a similar situation have arisen due to issues with the rights to Thunderball), Feldman eventually settled on a different approach to filming Fleming's novel. That approach was parody.The result was released in 1967 ahead of the release of EON's You Only Live Twice. It was a big budget film for its time, costing $12 million at a time and featuring an all-star cast including David Niven, John Huston, Woody Allen, Peter Sellers, Orson Welles, Bernard Cribbins, Barbara Bouchet, Jacqueline Bisset and Ursula Andress among others. It also featured the work of five directors (including Huston and the underrated Val Guest) and was beset by behind the scenes issues that included a budget that doubled over production and clashes between Sellers (who reportedly wanted to the film to be a straight adaptation) and Welles (who regarded Seller as an "amateur").Looking at the film, it isn't hard to understand all the issues. It begins with M (played by Huston) and the heads of several spy agencies approaching the original James Bond (played by Niven) who is living in retirement in the English countryside on a massive estate. SMERSH is ravaging the spy world by killing agents from all sides and they want Bond to do something about it. When he refuses, M gives orders for Bond's estate to be destroyed which eventually leads to M's death and Bond taking over MI6. Already entrenched in parody mode, the film becomes increasingly absurd as it goes along as Bond decides all MI6 agents will now be known as "James Bond" to confuse SMERSH and goes on a recruiting drive. The recruiting drive brings agents including Vesper Lynd (Andress), the oddly named baccarat master Evelyn Tremble (Sellers), Bond's daughter from Mata Hari who is also named Mata as well as Bond's nephew Jimmy (Allen) amongst others. As if that wasn't enough, it goes into an episodic mode that takes the viewer from M's estate in Scotland, the gaming clubs of London, an auction of erotic images in Berlin and the titular casino where not only do Temble and Le Chiffre (Welles) have their card game but which also where SMERSH has its base.As the description may suggest, the film is a hodgepodge and a messy one at that. Indeed, the film's description by the British Film Institute as "an incoherent all-star comedy" is an accurate one though to call it a comedy may be stretching the definition of the word. Many times the film, despite being a parody, isn't funny at all but rather is dull and tedious as it stumbles along from one episode to another. The five different directors and the variety of writers who wrote it mean that the film completely, totally and utterly lacks any kind of cohesion in terms of visual style or indeed tone. The film's last section, a free for all fight sequence set in the casino that ends in an explosion and the various James Bond's appearing in heaven playing harps, is a summation of not just the film but all that is wrong with it: it's a mess.Which isn't to write it off completely. Sections of the film are actually surprisingly faithful to the original novel despite the comic overtones such as the Niven Bond's choice of car (which matches that of Fleming's novels) and it's especially true of the section with Sellers, Andress and Welles set at the casino in the middle of the film The card game is largely played straight once Welles' Le Chiffre gets past doing some magic tricks and Sellers doing a comedy Indian accent. Even in the truly odd torture sequence, which becomes an assault on the mind of Tremble/Bond, there's echoes of Fleming's novel such as Bond finding himself sitting in a chair with the seat removed from it, thus making it even more uncomfortable for Bond. Of all the actors in the film, Sellers is probably the one who comes off the best though his appearances in the film see him dipping in and out before eventually just disappearing (a result apparently of behind the scenes issues) while many of the others are effectively wasted on frankly poor material.At the end of the day though, it's hard not to be utterly disappointed in the 1967 Casino Royale. It doesn't work at all either as a Bond film or as a parody of it. It's a hodgepodge of styles and tones that never works either in a way that's either episodic or as a whole. It's a rare waste of talent both in front of and behind the camera and, as a result, deserves the title of worst Bond film ever made.