In honor of my 700th post, my first ever thread, the Casino Royale appreciation thread!
Casino Royale(1967) is one of those movies which, if it’s on TV, I can’t not watch it–and TCM has shown it twice in the last month. It’s the ultimate 60s comedy, with an all-star cast, five directors (at least!) and more silliness and pure fun than mere humans deserve. This is the movie the Austin Powers series wants to be when it grows up. It manages to poke fun at the excesses of the James Bond franchise while at the same time wallowing in them. Beautiful women, hammy acting, ridiculous plots, funky sets, and non-sequiturs galore. (Peter O’Toole’s cameo actually makes sense if you’ve seen What’s New, Pussycat?) I find it more entertaining than at least half of the “official” Bond movies. The whole thing can best be summed up by David Niven’s line, "It’s a pity that the words ‘secret agent’ have become synonymous with ‘sex maniac’.
Surely, among the Teeming Millions, there are others who appreciate this neglected gem. Let’s hear from you!
I don’t care what people think about it - the last 15 minutes are pure gold. For some reason my DVD player won’t play the other great part of the movie - the UFO landing in Trafalgar Square and kidnapping Bond’s daughter. I took my DVD back to Best Buy three times before I shrugged it off as a bum DVD player.
But great movie. Make sure you take the time to watch the “Casino Royale” TV show on the DVD - its entirely different.
I have (correctly) pointed out, on multiple occasions, that Casino Royale is the only Bond flick worth a tinker’s damn. It was the pinnacle of Ian Fleming’s life’s work (even if it did depart a bit from the source novel), and I can only wish he had devoted more books to his real contribution to Western Literature:
How can anyone forget Ursula Andress’ slow-motion romp to Dusty Springfield singing “The Look of Love”? It’s merely the most beautifully erotic scene in movie-making, a masterpiece of camerawork and soundtrack contibuting to elevate a scene to perfection.
The other thread has it right. Absolutely. Anybody who says that Casino Royale is a 60s drug-fueled incoherent mess has it exactly correct.
It does have a few great scenes and a few laughs and some great satiric moments. Mostly, though, I have to feel for the poor editor who had to put together the stuff tossed through the door by five directors working with different scripts, different actors, and different visions and try to come up with a marketable movie. He didn’t succeed because no one could have.
But you could have fun in the 60s in a way no other decade ever achieved.