The monster finally gets a DVD release. More complex and surreal than the 'Thunderball' / 'Never Say Never Again' saga, 'Casino Royale' was the first James Bond novel by Ian Fleming. Adapted into a one-hour teleplay in 1954 for NBC's 'Climax' show, the novel's film rights were ultimately purchased by top Hollywood agent Charles K. Feldman, yet it took years before a feature film could finally be made. By that time, Sean Connery had already debuted as James Bond, and the first wave of spy spoofs were beginning to leave the studio gates and saturate theatre and television audiences.
Feldman conceded the only usable bits of the novel were the brief scenes in the actual casino, and decided to go for comedy, engaging initially four directors to make separate segments, and have the whole lot wrapped together with some cohesive 'sleigh,' ending with a big slapstick finale at the casino (Royale). The legendary production was ultimately co-ordinated (cleaned and wrapped up) by veteran Val Guest, an able craftsman in various genres, and the beast was unleashed to audiences in 1967, where it did make a kind of impression.
It's an aberration in the Bond filmography (and not part of the Official List, no Broccoli here), but for many it's a guilty pleasure, boasting extraordinary sets, a magnificent roster of stars - many in one-shot cameos - and arguably Burt Bacharach's best film score. The album sold and continues to sell well, partly due to the immortal perfection of 'The Look Of Love,' and its audiophile quality. (Yes, there's even new vinyl pressings out there.) The cover art (blotted out on the DVD but present in the featurette) is classic 60s psychedelia - that latter word being a key instruction from agent/producer Feldman to his directors: make weird and wonderful.
Casino Royale 1967 Book Review
MGM's transfer is luminous, capturing the lush colours of the diverse sets and locations - stuffy English estates, Kafkaesque East Berlin, Ursula Andress' expansive boudoir, Woody Allen's lair under the Playboy Club - and exotic costumes for the lead characters and oddball villains (heavily spoofed by Mike Myers in his Austin Powers series).
Originally released in mono, 'Casino Royale' has been given a Dolby 5.1 retrofit, placing mono music tracks (with slight pseudo-stereo warming) in the front surrounds; dialogue, sound effects and music in the centre speaker; and rear surrounds offering panning effects with slight reverb/echo; and a few sound effects processed for explosions. It's one of the better remixes, in part because each of the stems hasn't been drenched in reverb.
A commentary from co-director Val Guest would have immortalized the production's history (his recollections regarding 'The Day The Earth Caught Fire' are highly informative), but his comments in the included featurette certainly paint vivid images of working with John Huston and some of the film's main cast - Niven, Lavi, and Allen in particular - and offers a concise history lesson of Feldman's efforts to get Bond onscreen for almost a decade. Guest, spriteful at 91 years, mentions his upcoming memoirs, though the more curious can glean brief production anecdotes from John Huston's 1980 autobiography, 'An Open Book,' and volume 2 of Robert Parrish's memoirs, 'Hollywood Doesn't Live Here Anymore.'
I first saw 'Casino Royale' on B.B.C.-1 on Boxing Day 1973. It was a bewildering experience, partly because the plot kept jumping about all over the place, with the entire cast seemingly playing 'James Bond 007', but also because it bore little resemblance to the Ian Fleming book. The Broccoli family not only hoped to reboot their franchise but also sought to eradicate from memory the debacle of the 1967 version of the literary legend, Ian Fleming’s book, “Casino Royale.” Peter Sellers was cast as the main star of a movie where James Bond was to be played by six different actors in a classic farce.
Along with an original trailer, MGM has included a real treat for Bond fans - the original 1954 'Climax' teleplay, starring Barry Nelson as the first James Bond (here, Americanized for TV), with Peter Lorre as the villainous Le Chiffre, Linda Christian as the babe, and Michael Pate as Leiter. This legendary live broadcast, adapted by Antony Ellis & Charles Bennet, is typical of the era: a tight distillation of the book's card battle, fifties tough talk, and some roughing up at the end before Bond wins the day. Besides archival value for Bondphiles, fans of live TV will no doubt be delighted to add one of the few surviving kinescopes to their collection. MGM's transfer is quite good, showing no visible artifacting from a decent 16mm print, with straightforward mono sound. (Before the widespread use of videotape, Kinescopes - filming off a special monitor - was the only way to record and preserve a live TV broadcast. The filmed copies were also used to broadcast programs in different time zones, since it was impractical to repeat live productions hours later.)
The more formal tone of Ian Fleming's novel was properly revisited in the 2006 film version of 'Casino Royale.'
© 2002 Mark R. Hasan
FLEMING, Ian.
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Youtube Casino Royale 1967
$150,000.00
Casino Royale 1967 Book
Item Number: 98575
London: Jonathan Cape, 1953.
First edition of the first novel in Ian Fleming’s James Bond series. Octavo, original black cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “To Ralph, We have now both reduced our remainders by one copy! Ian.” With a note of explanation by the recipient underneath, “I having told Ian, from the depths of my publishing experience, that he would be lucky if he made £200 out of this, his first thriller!! R.A.” The recipient Ralph Arnold was a novelist, historical writer and publisher who joined Constable in 1936 and was chairman from 1958 to 1962. Arnold and Fleming studied together at the Tennerhof School in Kitzbühel, Austria, and it was there that both made their first forays into story-writing. Having left Sandhurst without obtaining a commission, Fleming “was sent to ‘sort himself out’ at a quasi-finishing school for men in Kitzbühel … There, while skiing and climbing mountains, he came under the benevolent tutelage of Ernan Forbes Dennis, a former British spy turned educationalist, and his wife, Phyllis Bottome, an established novelist. Forbes Dennis brought out Fleming’s aptitude for languages and introduced him to literature, while his wife encouraged him to write his first stories.” (Oxford DNB). Near fine in a near fine first state dust jacket (without the Sunday Times review on the inner front flap) with the lightest of rubbing to the extremities. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box.
Casino Royale was written by Ian Fleming in Jamaica over a period of around two months, largely from his own experiences and imagination; he also devised the artwork for the cover. 'Within the first few pages Fleming had introduced most of Bond's idiosyncrasies and trademarks,' which included his looks, his Bentley and his smoking and drinking habits. The full details of Bond's martini were kept until chapter seven of the book and Bond eventually named it 'The Vesper', after Vesper Lynd' (Andrew Lycett). It has been filmed twice as a feature film, the first being the 1967 spoof starring David Niven, and later as the twenty-first official Bond film starring Daniel Craig as James Bond.