Casino Royale (1967)

Casino Royale (40th Anniversary Edition)

I’ve always wanted to see this movie. It’s a spoof of the Bond films, based loosely on the first Bond novel. The cast is that of legend. David Niven, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, Orson Welles, Ursula Andress, John Huston, William Holden, and there’s even more after that. I almost missed Jacqueline Bisset as the agent who tries to kill Peter Sellers. I did miss David Prowse (the man underneath Darth Vader’s helmet), dressed like Frankenstein in the film’s climax.

There was a lot going on in this film.

I’ll start with the good. The aforementioned cast. It’s just exciting to see all of these well known faces interacting on the screen. Peter Sellers versus Orson Welles at the card table at Casino Royale — unfortunately, not so great. A little research revealed rumours that the two men didn’t get along, which would explain why the the scene is painfully short, and this is the only scene with the two of them. Still, seeing them together at all was quite a blast.

More good — the females. This film boasted an overload of femme fatales — Ursula Andress, Barbara Bouchet, Joanna Pettet, Jacqueline Bisset, Daliah Lavi. The percentage of beauty seemed a great deal higher than the real Bond films.

The art direction and set decoration. There are sequences in this film that are wonderful to behold. Colorful, dizzying rooms in which the agents jump in and out. Large dance sequences among palace columns. The Casino Royale, itself, bustling with rich gamblers and beautiful ladies.

The concepts. There were some ideas here I really liked. The idea of James Bond and Mata Hari hooking up and having a daughter — Mata Bond. And the thought of the James Bond identity being passed down like a legacy, and the original Bond returning to oversee MI6. I’ve never really thought of Bond too much outside the context he’s presented in his films.

Now the bad — the plot. The only way I knew what was going on here was to immediately refer to Wikipedia once the movie was over. I don’t need everything laid out for me, but throw me a bone every now and then. I understood that the film is lad out in chapters, and that the chapters focus on different characters. I liked this structure, but what I needed were better connections. The slapstick nature of the much of the movie clouded the character’s motivations to the point that I didn’t know where they were or what they were hoping to accomplish by being there.

This problem makes the movie a candidate for a second viewing. Most of the time, the pretty pictures carried me through these head-scratching moments. One segment that confounded me was Peter Seller’s capture in the later half of the film. This is when the post-movie research came in handy. Sellers left the production early, and the filmmakers had to cut the scene awkwardly without him available for pick-up shots. There are other things involving Sellers character which are also unclear, to me at least. Again, a second viewing might fill in the blanks.

The music by Burt Bacharach didn’t connect with me as much as the song by Dusty Springfield, “The Look of Love”, which was nominated for an Academy Award. This song was downloaded to my iPod immediately. It was also played in the first Austin Powers film.

Overall, I’m glad I took the time to watch this movie because it’s definitely something to experience. My satisfaction with the imagery and the actors involved far outweigh the lack of plot and the somewhat goofy slapstick humor.