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 1967 PG / Comedy Romance Directed by: Starring: |
- Casino Royale is too much for one James Bond!
Summary Capsule
- It may be labeled "spoof", but this is no Austin Powers, baby.
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Justin's Rating: This movie's plot was shaken, stirred and blown to smithereens.
Justin's Review: Personally, I can't see why we needed Mr. Blonde (Daniel Craig) to reprise the greatest 007 role ever, Mr. David Niven in Casino Royale. It was completely unnecessary to take the same source material and muck it up with fancy-pants action sequences instead of the nuanced discussions of phony Scottish ladies discussing how to properly prepare a goat for a funeral meal. Why shell out your hard-earned bucks for only one mere James Bond when you could be feasting on an entire bevy of Bonds in Casino Royale — including Woody Allen. Yes! THE Woody Allen! Why pay through the nose for an intricate spy plot when you can have crazy, wacky nonsense shot at you with a psychedelic bazooka?
Casino Royale is probably — certainly — the most famous of the "non-official" Bond movies, and not just because it makes you question your fundamental worldview in new and disturbing ways. I won't bore you with the legal issues involved with the rights involved with Ian Fleming's 007 novels, as they bore me as much as filling out my insurance forms ("In case of sudden death by a rogue baboon attack, my estate will be transferred to…"). Suffice it to say that Fleming's first novel swapped partners enough times to qualify it for an STD, and producer Charles K. Feldman ended up with the rights in the mid-60's, right about the time he was dropping acid on a daily basis.
At the time, Bond was fairly popular due to a certain Mr. Sean Connery and his Scottish laconic wit. Feldman knew he couldn't get Connery to star in his Bond pic, so he took the only other avenue available to him: to create a nonsensical Bond pseudo-spoof, hire six directors to film different segments, and cast multiple people as 007. Actually, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure he might have had other avenues available. But that acid, man, it creates tunnel vision. With numerous big stars (of the day) and an ever-ballooning budget, Casino Royale was posed to be a smash hit. It did fairly nice box office, but at a cost of being ridiculed as an agonizing spectacle forever after.
Watching this movie is like having an active, lucid dream where you can't change anything around you, and what's around you never has to make sense if it doesn't want to. It can be mildly amusing, to be sure, but also pointlessly long, full of failed attempts at bizarre comedy, and disjointed in every definition of the word. I cannot fathom that the directors were in any sort of contact with each other, resulting in a movie that shifts gears and repeatedly mows over what little plot there is.
The story? Why, do I have to? Fine. Hmph. The original James Bond (David Niven) is called out of retirement because… well… I'm not sure, exactly. There's some threat in the spy community, and that's good enough for him. Apparently, once retired Bond passed on his namesake to the "next fella" (aka Sean Connery), much like the Dread Pirate Roberts bestowed his moniker to an apprentice to keep the legend alive. So Bond goes hither and yonder, doing stuff that makes no sense to mere mortals such as you and I, and in the process ends up recruiting a number of other "James Bonds" to confuse his enemies. It must have worked, it boggled me.
As I said, the movie abruptly changes course at certain points to follow the adventures of the different James Bonds, none of whom are funny but all of whom exist in the trippy, Yellow Submarine world of the 60's. This makes for gaudy sets, women with beehive hairdos, and directors who consider themselves avant-garde for filming actors through an aquarium. It's a marathon in and of itself, and to cross the finish line will cost you every ounce of your flagging attention span.
Netflix, who employs a staff of such creative writers that it only produces envy in my heart, wrote this interesting little sentence on the back of my Casino Royale jacket, calling it a "wonderful, hilarious, all-star spoof of Ian Fleming's 007 stories." They apparently did not see the movie I witnessed, for wonderful and hilarious it was not. More like, the jacket writers merely take a glance at the DVD cover and spew out a summary so that they can take an early lunch and trade Dragonball Z cards.
Do not fall for their cunning trap, for both you and I know that what happens in the Swinging Sixties should stay in the Swinging Sixties.
 The unsexiest bedroom photo shoot EVER
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- What a cool opening sequence! And fancy fonts! I'm thrilled!
- James Bond can wash his intestines by hand, apparently.
- Lions like to ride on the roof of cars.
- "Joke shop spies" - I like that
- How to force James Bond back from retirement? Blow up his house with mortars.
- James Bond's original car looks like it was made in 1889 from a steamer trunk and a locomotive
- Ack! Horrible fake Scottish accents!
- PETA does not approve of Scottish funeral dinners
- Incestual references played for comedy… okay…
- Lady Mary's… abomindable… portrait
- That was a pointless dinner scene
- Wessle?
- Oh, wessle. I get it.
- No I don't.
- James Bond = Girls Bugling
- Exploding wooden ducks!
- Kama Sutra black belt? They have those now?
- Scottish ladies like to speak in French
- When remote controlling a milk truck, it's best to have toy cars in your control room doing the exact same thing
- Bond making out with Moneypenny's daughter
- Bond, Jimmy Bond
- Moneypenny's kissing test… yum
- Cooper, aka Coop, aka James Bond
Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?
...drool...
Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]
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Orson Welles (what kind of name is "Orson" anyway?) and Peter Sellers notoriously hated each other — to the point where they were filmed separately for the same scene. The rift between Orson Welles and Peter Sellers was partly caused by the arrival on set of Princess Margaret, sister of the Queen. Sellers knew her of old and greeted her in an ostentatious manner to ensure all cast and crew noticed. However, the Princess walked straight past him and made a big fuss over Welles. Nonplussed, Sellers stormed off the set and refused to film with Welles again.
Casino Royale was Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel. It was the only one not sold to EON Productions. As a result, CBS TV first adapted it for an episode of "Climax!" in 1954, starring Barry Nelson as CIA agent Jimmy Bond. When plans began to adapt the novel as a motion picture, the original thought was to do a straight film of the novel. But with the success of Sean Connery's Bond, it was decided the only way a rival Bond film could survive would be as a parody. The Peter Sellers sequence is the only part of Ian Fleming's novel to make it into the film. Despite being regarded as a "flop" financially in the press, the film actually did quite well in financial terms. Despite its very high production budget and additional costs in marketing and advertising, it still managed to make a net profit of well over $5 million for the studio. The film was generally reported as a failure financially in the press because it was outperformed at the box office by the official Bond film You Only Live Twice, which was released in the same year, and because of the film's high costs.
When the film was finally completed it had run twice over its original $6 million production budget. The final production budget of $12 million made it one of the most expensive films that had been made to that point.
Groovy Quotes
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Jimmy Bond: You can't shoot me! I have a very low threshold of death. My doctor says I can't have bullets enter my body at any time.
Sir James: I remember your chap Lenin very well. First class organizer. Second class mind.
Sir James: It's depressing that the words "secret agent" have become synonymous with "sex maniac."
Sir James: The whole world believes that you were eaten by a shark, Miss Lynd.
Vesper Lynd: That was no shark. That was my personal submarine. But enough of this polite conversation. What is the purpose of your visit?
James Bond: What are you going to do to me?
Le Chiffre: Physically, nothing, Mr. Bond.
James Bond: Ah, so you're going to nothing me to death.
Sir James: Should it be given a Christian burial? Just how personal is a toupee?
Agent Mimi: It can only be regarded as an hair-loom.
Soundtrack Review
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Imagine that you're eternally stuck in Barcelona during a parade. Trumpets, maracas, and harpsichords. It never ends. Ever. That is this film's soundtrack.
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This review page was last updated on 12.13.06
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