Casino Royale (1967 film)

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Casino Royale is a 1967 epic surrealistic satire^[1] 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 lightly 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 famous 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), his secretary Miss Moneypenny (Barbara Bouchet), Bond's daughter with Mata Hari, Mata Bond (Joanna Pettet) and British agents "Coop" (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 official James Bond movie (i.e. one made by EON Productions); however, the producers of the official series, Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, had turned him down. Believing that he could not compete with the official series, Feldman resolved to produce the film as a satire.^[2]

[edit] Plot

[edit] 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".^[3]

[edit] Opening sequence

The film's opening sequence is a deliberate ironic take on the dramatic opening sequences in the Eon Bond films. Evelyn Tremble and Inspector Mathis meet in a pissoir, where Mathis presents his credentials, setting the satirical tone of the film.

[edit] 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 007 (David Niven), a legendary British spy who retired from the secret service after luring 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.

Bond's 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 Bond decries his replacement as being "oversexed" and unsuitable as a "real spy".

The chapter also sets 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. Additionally, M and his colleagues describe Bond as the hero of the Ashanti Uprising and that he won a VC at the Siege of Mafeking. This would suggest Bond is much, much older than he appears.

[edit] Chapter 2 (director: John Huston)

Bond travels to Scotland to return M's remains to the grieving "widow". All that was left of M was a toupee, which is dubbed a 'hairloom' by the "widow" Lady Fiona McTarry (Deborah Kerr). Lady Fiona is actually Agent Mimi, chosen to impersonate the widow since she has "the best Scots accent". During the wake, Bond has to fend off the advances of McTarry's many young "daughters". Bond is then invited to a ceremonial grouse shoot even though grouse are out of season. Lady Fiona explains, "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 now doubt her loyalty and worry she has blown their cover, thus they imprison her.

The next morning is the grouse hunt, but the grouse turn out to be disguised flying bombs. Agent Mimi escapes and helps Bond to foil the attack by revealing that a magnetic button was placed on his jacket which 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. A car driven by a SMERSH agent blocks Bond's car from the front while the remote controlled dairy truck full of explosives chases behind him. The truck loses video contact with the SMERSH controllers. Bond passes the blocking car and escapes to safety within his compound, closing the gates behind him. When the gates close, the chasing car skids sideways up against the gates. The truck then crashes into the car and explodes.

[edit] 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.

Miss Moneypenny is charged with finding the irresistible agent. Such an agent is found in "Coop" Terence Cooper, who seduces Miss Moneypenny. She becomes smitten with Coop and chooses him to enter the anti-seduction training. Coop, now a 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. When resisting The Detainer's charms, Coop quips that he should have his head examined.

[edit] Chapter 4 (director: Joseph McGrath)

Bond recruits retired British secret agent Vesper Lynd (Ursula Andress) to assist in taking down SMERSH by promising to have her tax arrears written off. She in turn recruits baccarat master Evelyn Tremble (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 where she photographs Tremble dressed up as historical figures Hitler, Napoleon and Toulouse-Lautrec, he agrees to challenge Le Chiffre. Tremble receives a whirlwind indoctrination into the ways of spying from Q.

Logically, this chapter should occur after the Mata Bond sequence that follows, as Le Chiffre is playing baccarat to recoup losses from the auction Mata disrupts in the next.

[edit] 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." She is recruited into MI6 and sent to Berlin from London in a taxi driven by Carlton Towers, a British Foreign Office official played by Bernard Cribbins. Mata's assignment is to infiltrate International Mother's Help, ostensibly a school for nannies, but in reality a SMERSH spy school. International Mothers' Help is where Agent Mimi and the others had received their orders to intercept Bond in Scotland.

Mata encounters her mother's former 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 not to let the auction take place successfully. The pictures are being sold by Le Chiffre in order to make money to pay back SMERSH after he had embezzled the organization's money. Mata grabs the 35mm slides of compromising photos, outwits the staff, and throws the photos 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, much 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 clearly too young to have been her instructors.

[edit] Chapter 6 (directors: Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish)

Evelyn Tremble arrives in France, accompanied by Vesper Lynd, for his encounter with Le Chiffre (Orson Wells) at the Casino Royale. Vesper foils an attempt by Miss Goodthighs, a SMERSH agent, to kill Evelyn.

Meanwhile, Le Chiffre is in the Casino Royale, entertaining the crowd with elaborate magic tricks and illusions and playing -- and cheating at -- Baccarat. Evelyn and Vesper arrive, and while watching Le Chiffre play, realize that he is cheating by use of trick sunglasses. Evelyn challenges Le Chiffre while Vesper sneaks off with the trick sunglasses. Initially, Evelyn loses a few hands and must have more funds credited to him, but eventually 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 car.

Tremble himself is kidnapped and tortured by Le Chiffre. In a fleeting reference to the original novel, a carpet beater (one of the instruments of torture described by Fleming) is seen protruding from the chair Tremble is strapped to. During the hallucinogenic torture sequence which follows, Tremble finds himself as one of a large group of bagpipers. He encounters Peter O'Toole who asks Tremble if he is Richard Burton (a reference to a joke in What's New Pussycat? in which Sellers and O'Toole co-starred). Vesper arrives in the hallucination as a bagpiper and, with a machine gun concealed in her bagpipe, she slays all the bagpipe players. Tremble alone is still standing. Vesper faces him and says, "Never trust a rich spy" as she shoots Tremble. 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 most surrealistic parts of the film. The Lotus scene was usually cut out when played on network television. There are inconsistencies in this segment, such as no explanation as to how Tremble was captured by Le Chiffre. Further, Vesper's arrival in the hallucination is never explained, and it's unclear if the hallucination is a real event. In addition, Tremble is never actually shown being shot or falling down; when the establishing shot is revisited, he has simply disappeared. Most of these discontinuities were the result of Sellers leaving the production before finishing his scenes.^[4]

[edit] Chapter 7 (directors: Val Guest, Richard Talmadge)

After Mata Bond is kidnapped from the heart of London, by an agent of SMERSH disguised as a palace guard, on a horse and taken away in a giant flying saucer that lands where Nelson's Column stood before it had been bought by Vesper Lynd, 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 Bond's weak-kneed nephew, Jimmy Bond (Woody Allen), last seen escaping a firing squad in Central America earlier in the film. Unable to speak in Bond's presence, Dr. Noah'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. However the Detainer foils Dr. Noah's plans by successfully poisoning him with his own atomic pill. Meanwhile, 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 indians sky-dive into Casino Royale with wigwam-shaped parachutes. This is unquestionably a reference to Ian Fleming's own 30th Assault Unit during World War II, a unit he nicknamed his 'Red Indians' and which is mentioned in the original novel.

Jimmy Bond finally hiccups his last, setting off the 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 as harp playing angels, including Dr.Noah – a fact quickly rectified as the ghost-like angel of Evelyn Tremble still in a kilt, sends Jimmy "to a place where it's terribly...hot."

This version of Casino Royale is notable as being the only Bond film in which Bond dies.

[edit] Cast

See also List of James Bond characters in Casino Royale for a complete list of all actors who play a major, minor or uncredited role in the film.

• 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,^[5] EON Productions, however, chose Sean Connery for their series. In a documentary included with the U.S. DVD of the 1967 release of Casino Royale, Charles K. Feldman states that Ian Fleming had written the book with David Niven in mind, and therefore sent a copy of the book to Niven. David Niven is the only James Bond actor who is mentioned by name in the text of Fleming's James Bond novels. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Bond visits an exclusive ski resort in Switzerland where he is told that David Niven is a frequent visitor and in You Only Live Twice, David Niven is referred to as the only real gentleman in Hollywood.
• Peter Sellers as Evelyn Tremble – A Baccarat Master recruited, by Vesper Lynd, 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 – 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. She was 46 when she played the role and was the oldest Bond Girl in any of the James Bond films.
• 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 – 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.
• William Holden as Ransom – A CIA agent who accompanies M to persuade Bond out of retirement, then reappears in the final climactic fight scene.
• Charles Boyer as LeGrand – A Deuxième Bureau agent who accompanies M and Ransom to see Bond.

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, received the role of Naomi in The Spy Who Loved Me.

Major stars like 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.^[6]

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.^[6] 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.^[6]

[edit] Production

[edit] 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.^[3]

[edit] 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,"^[7] 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.

[edit] 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.^[8]

[edit] 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.^[8] 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.^[2]

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.^[2]

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.^[2]

[edit] 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.^[6] 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.^[2]

[edit] 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^[9]

[edit] Reception

The "chaotic" nature of the production was featured heavily in contemporary reviews. Roger Ebert said "This is possibly the most indulgent film ever made,"^[10] and Variety said "it lacked discipline and cohesion."^[11]

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).^[12]

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.^[6]

[edit] Music

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 Austin Powers 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.^[13][14]

Soundtrack listing

1. "Casino Royale Theme" - Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
2. "The Look Of Love" - Dusty Springfield
3. "Money Penny Goes For Broke"
4. "Le Chiffre's Torture Of The Mind"
5. "Home James, Don't Spare The Horses"
6. "Sir James' Trip To Find Mata"
7. "The Look Of Love (Instrumental)"
8. "Hi There Miss Goodthighs"
9. "Little French Boy"
10. "Flying Saucer" - First Stop Berlin
11. "The Venerable Sir James Bond"
12. "Dream On James, You're Winning"
13. "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.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Casino Royale at the Internet Movie Database
• Casino Royale original trailer
• Casino Royale satirical trailer in the style of Casino Royale (2006)

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