The James Bond Film Festival. Part 22: Casino Royale (1967)

Johnny_L.A · April 19, 2005, 2:46am

Okay. I’ve finally gotten round to watching the 1967 spoof version of Casino Royale. I watched it once before a few years ago, and I could barely take it. Took me a while to watch it again.

Basically it goes like this: An aging James Bond (David Niven) is called out of retirement to investigate who’s behind the disappearance of a number of fellow spies (or something like that). When ‘M’ McTerry (John Huston), a CIA agent, a Soviet agent, and a French agent visit Bond at his palatial estate, Bond refuses the assignment. M gives a signal to a nearby mortar team, who blows up Bond’s mansion – killing M in the process. Bond has no choice but to become the new MI6 leader.

One of his first acts is to rename all agents ‘James Bond - 007’ in order to confuse the enemy (and the audience, no doubt). Now, unlike his imitators, this James Bond is celibate. ‘A good spy is a pure spy.’ He goes to the McTerry Estate in Scotland for M’s send-off, carrying the remains – M’s ginger toupee – with him. Lady McTerry (Deborah Kerr), who is really Agent Mimi, tries everything to seduce him. First she tries using the bevy of beauties in the home; and, when that fails, she tries to seduce him herself. Of course she falls in love with him. Since Bond cannot be corrupted, the decision is made to kill him. Those friendly beauties suddenly become sinister, and attack him with grouse-shaped missiles. Agent Mimi/Lady McTerry saves the day and those nasty women are blown up instead.

There’s more, but it’s difficult to construct a coherent plotline. This isn’t surprising, since the plotline was an afterthought that they came up after filming! The idea was that Ken Hughes, John Huston, Joseph McGrath and Robert Parrish would each direct a segment of the film. Val Guest either had his own segment (there were supposed to be four segments, but there are five directors) or was brought in to finish off the segments of the other directors when their contracts expired. The directors were told to make a ‘psychedelic film’, and apparently no thought was ever given to tying it all together. As I said, it was only after the filming was completed that Val Guest was assigned to write a thread to do it.

Another difficulty was that for some reason Orson Welles (‘Le Chiffre’) took a dislike to Peter Sellers (‘James Bond/Evelyn Tremble’). He refused to work with him, even though they were in scenes together. When Sellers called in sick one day (and as we know, Sellers was not a well man) he was fired. Lovely. They still needed him for scenes! Some of the supporting characters’ parts were expanded, and there was some creative editing. In the very end of the film, they used a life-sized cut-out of Sellers in one shot, and added him with an optical process (in the ‘wrong’ costume) in another.

And why Casino Royale? Well, it was the only book that the filmmakers could get the rights for. They couldn’t use the story, since bits of it had been used in other (AON) Bond films. Basically, they had the title and the casino.

Casino Royale is a bizarre mish-mash of absurdity. It’s a good thing it was meant as a ‘psychedelic film’ (and yes, some sets do have that Swingin’ Sixties psychedelia) because you’d probably have to be frying to enjoy it.

Or maybe I’m just offended that the filmmakers would do this to Mr. Bond. If you ignore that it’s specifically a satire of Bond films, it’s almost not as bad as any other madcap '60s comedy. The lack of the coherent plot hurts, but it contains the typical elements: Sexual innuendo, misunderstandings, over-the-top characters, all-star cast, topical humour, and the most absurd ‘fight scene’ imaginable. (Cowboys ride horses into the casino, and indians skydive through the roof with tepee-shaped parachutes while everyone else goes crazy-ape bonkers and George Raft flips a coin.) It does have some funny bits. Too bad I’m not quite old enough to ‘get’ some of them. (I did get the ‘400 Tiny Time Bombs’ gag, but the ‘Lotus Formula 3’ gag made me think I was missing something.)

Overall though, they really should have thought of a plot before they exposed a frame of film.

El_Kabong · April 19, 2005, 3:46am

Not much to add except that not onlyw was this (IMO) by far the worst Bond film (hell, I’ll even take Never Say Never Again over this one), but one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. I’d rate it somewhere in my bottom ten, if it wouldn’t depress me so much to have to think of another nine films that are equally shite.

Did I not hear recently the next ‘real’ Bond flick wiil be CR? If it is, and it solely consists of Clive Owen or whoever reading the Swindon phone directory it will likely be better than the '67 version.

I have a feeling I’m being less than clear. I really didn’t like Casino Royale very much.

Oh, all right, I thought Woody Allen was actually fairly funny in it. But that’s about it.

Exapno_Mapcase · April 19, 2005, 3:48am

The only reason not to cut this film up for mandolin picks, in the old phrase, is the fantasy romance sequence set to Dusty Springfield singing “The Look of Love.” That’s just about the most wonderfully romantic scene of the entire 60s. And the frustrating thing is that I keep trying to find the movie version in Dusty Springfield’s CD catalog, but I keep getting an alternate take instead that’s not nearly as good.

It may also be true that 60s women were the most beautiful set of stars ever to grace the screen.

As for the rest of the “movie” the problem wasn’t so much that Orson Welles wasn’t talking to Peter Sellers as that none of the five directors appeared to be talking to one another. Much of the time they didn’t seem to be talking to themselves, their editors, or the screenwriters. Little wonder that Woody Allen used this experience and What’s New Pussycat to swear to himself that he would never be caught up in Hollywood filmmaking ever again. Which is by far the second best thing to come out of this unholy mess.

Rocketeer · April 19, 2005, 1:24pm

I thought the redeeming aspect was the Expressionistic sets in the one sequence. I love that Cabinet of Dr. Caligari look.

The rest of the movie was mediocre, though, especially the ending…

Johnny_L.A · April 19, 2005, 2:14pm

Never Say Never Again will be the next review. It was a long time between the thread on the 1954 version of Casino Royale and this one. I’ll try to get the next one out more quickly. Then I’ll be done!

Well, at least until the next canon film comes out…

Yes, that was a good set. I’ve always liked the Caligari look. I think Tim Burton used it to better effect in Beetlejuice though. It was kind of funny when what’s-his-name was struggling up the stairs as if he was having trouble with them being askew (but it was really that his battery needed recharging).

They psychedelic sets were also interesting. I’m a bit of a fan of the '60s. But the psychedelia was only a small part of the era. I think what I liked about the '60s was the Mod look more than the psychedelia. I liked that transistor radios were still a new thing, and I liked the chrome accents on everything. Many of the cars of the time were pretty. The MGB (I didn’t see any in the movie) of course, had lines that are still beautiful today – and not beautiful in an ‘old fashioned’ way; they still look fresh. I liked the saloons and coupés, such as the Fiat 1600 and 500, the Toyota Corona, the Austin Mini, etc. I think that in the '60s cars could be styled instead of ‘aerodynamically engineered’. Clothes were cool, too. That one Enemy Spy in Casino Royale who was pretending to fish was quite fetching in her tweed jacket and hat. (You know, I find those funky hats they wear at Hot Dog On A Stick strangely attractive…)

But I can only take the psychedelia in small doses. The swirls and spirals and garish colours are fun, but I wouldn’t want a room in my house like that!

h.sapiens · April 19, 2005, 2:31pm

In my opinion, the redeeming feature of this movie is the score. It doesn’t get much better than Burt Bacharach, Herb Alpert, and Dusty Springfield.

Johnny_L.A · April 20, 2005, 2:08pm

Does anyone know what kind of car David Niven was driving? He didn’t drive an Aston-Martin in the books, but some sort of supercharged car from the 1920s(?). (Was it a Bentley?) The car in the film looked like it might have been what Fleming said Bond drove, but I don’t know enough about pre-war cars to tell them apart.

Rocketeer · April 20, 2005, 3:51pm

I believe that in the books Bond drove a blower Bentley, a picture of which is here:

http://nerv.org.uk/photos/cars/bentley.jpg

Neat cars, but not very successful in racing, surprisingly enough.

Exapno_Mapcase · April 20, 2005, 4:11pm

How similar is this car to the Bentley that Steed drove in The Avengers?

dropzone · April 20, 2005, 4:18pm

This was one of the few movies I have ever seen alone (unlike TV viewing, movies should be a communal experience) and loved it, but that was 1968. I rented it a couple years back and soon found myself alone again. It was appallingly bad, but I am still in love with Joanna Pettet (Mata Bond).

mobo85 · April 20, 2005, 4:31pm

As an semi-animation-buff, I love the opening credits to this movie. Neat looking wordplay and a catchy Herb Alpert song- what’s not to love? (The animation was done by Richard Williams, animation director for Roger Rabbit and *I Wasted 30 Years of My Life on This Thing and Now It Looks Like An *Aladdin Ripoff Especially Now That They’ve Added Musical Numbers to the Thing…I mean Arabian Knight…I mean The Thief and the Cobbler.)

Skywatcher · April 20, 2005, 4:32pm

Yeah, great music!

I think the best sequence in the movie was the van-bomb.

Johnny_L.A · April 20, 2005, 4:38pm

Yes, a blower Bentley. I remember now. Wasn’t it a nineteen-twenty-something in the books? A google search indicates that the one in Casino Royale (the film) is a 1933 model. If the book-Bond didn’t drive a '33, I’ll at least give the filmmakers props for putting him in a Bentley.

Skywatcher · April 20, 2005, 6:55pm

I don’t remember the books either but this site says Ian Fleming did put him in a '33 model.

BrotherCadfael · April 20, 2005, 7:19pm

“He’s not really such a wonderful spy,
But for winning lots of money
And with gals he’s a fabulous guy!”

We had the album when I was a kid. Aside from the above, it is one of the great movie scores.

Johnny_L.A · April 21, 2005, 7:02am

Thanks for that. I remember now, after reading the link, that Bond’s car was grey. I remember reading the reason for it, but I’ve forgotten. (Because he was a Royal Navy officer?) The car in Casino Royale (the film) was dark (BRG)?

DrMemory · April 21, 2005, 12:44pm

Truely AWFUL film.
Why DO I own the DVD? :eek:

Favorite sceen was Peter Sellers taking pictures with Ursula Andress. He changed
costumes several times, and ad libbed a bit. Scary how good a Hitler he looked.