By Philip Schweier
After watching last year’s documentary Everything or Nothing: the Untold Story of 007, I decided I should
revisit the original Bond films, including “Casino Royale” as it was presented
on CBS in 1954. This episode of the television series Climax! featured an American Jimmy Bond played by Barry Nelson.
As bad as that was, it was only slightly more palatable than
the 1967 James Bond spoof of the same name. According to some sources, it was
originally intended to be filmed by the Bond producers Albert “Cubby” Brocolli
and Harry Saltzman, but the recent partnership with Kevin McClorry on Thunderball (1965) had left a bad taste
in their mouths, so Charles K. Feldman, who held the rights to Casino Royale, proceeded without
them.
Rather than produce an entirely independent spy film as
McClorry would later do with Never Say
Never Again (1983), Feldman chose to play the story for laughs. Sure, let’s
cast Peter Sellers and Woody Allen, and the laughs will just happen. Of course,
in Hollywood that never works.
Starring as Bond is David Niven, brought out of retirement
by the assassination of his former boss M (John Huston). Bond immediately takes
over the old department, and realizing that James Bond 007 has a target on his
chest, he immediately sets out to confuse the enemy – SMERSH – by
designating all his agents as James Bond 007 just to confuse the enemy –
including his nephew Jimmy (Allen).
With the help of Vesper Lynd (former Bond girl Ursula
Andress), a trap is laid for SMERSH operative le Chiffre (Orson Welles) by
causing him to lose at baccarat, drawing the enmity of his superiors. Subbing
for Bond is baccarat authority Evelyn Tremble (Sellers).
Meanwhile, the real Bond sends his daughter Mata (Joanna
Pettet) to infiltrate a SMERSH hive located in West Berlin. It’s trippy in a
deChirico sort of way, and merely provides a diversion from the original story
while introducing a kidnappable sidekick for later in the film.
The film is dull, despite the hand of six different
directors and 10 different writers (most of them, such as Allen, Sellers, Ben
Hecht, Jospeh Heller and Billy Wilder) would be uncredited. To call it a comedy
is being generous, as there are painfully few laughs to be had. In all, it adds
up to 131 minutes of painful watching best left for desperate rainy afternoons,
or those days when one is suffering from a cold and misery is such that
anything else can hardly do any further harm.
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