Casino Royale

Wow. It must have sounded so great when it was finally synopsisied. David Niven and Peter Sellers star in a James Bond spoof. You'd be forgiven for wondering how it could possibly be bad. But if you knew the history behind it, then it might start to make some sense. Essentially Casino Royale was the first Bond novel and Fleming (despite thinking it was rubbish) always hoped he'd make a mint and sold the movie rights as soon as possible, but it became clear that it wasn't going to happen in a hurry, and all the other novel's movie rights were sold to Eon productions. Charles K Feldman ended up making Casino Royale as a spoof because of the official Bond series, and cast the hugely talented Peter Sellars as Evelyn Tremble, a man who would impersonate James Bond. Unfortunately he had no idea that Sellers would be astonishingly unpredictable and walk off set, and get into a personality clash with the other star Orson Welles. David Niven was brought into pick up the pieces. And you're left with a movie that...just has no cohesion at all.

It's rather strange to see the Colombia logo at the beginning of a Bond film, and for those who hadn't seen the trailer (bearing in mind this was the 60's and it was possible) it must have been a shock to find out the movie was a comedy. The pre-title sequence, while worthy of a chuckle, is a little strange, especially as it doesn't really tie into the movie, but it feels like it should. The title sequence is very imaginative, and it has to be said that the music is one of the finest things about the film. Burt Bacharach provides the soundtrack, as well as the wonderfully 60's song, "The Look Of Love", sung with such sultriness by Dusty Springfield. By the time Woody Allen's name appears in the titles you can be pretty certain you are going to be watching a comedy film, but when there are no less than five directors, you should also probably start to worry. And, as it turns out, with good reason.

If ever a movie could be described as being less than the sum of its parts, this is the film. The five directors clearly weren't on the same page as each other, and so we have parts of the movie that are hilarious, parts that are quite tense, and parts that are just completely bizarre. The cast is simply superb with names such as Valentine Dyall, Bernard Cribbins, Ronnie Corbett, Colin Gordon, Geoffrey Bayldon and (unsurprisingly given Sellars) Graham Stark. John Le Mesurier has a cameo, and strangely enough even David McCallum is on screen for about two seconds. It's a cast to die for.

David Niven plays Sir James Bond, and it is he that opens the movie in the first few set pieces which are all comedy, although the McTarry Castle sequences boarder on being just strange. Niven is brilliant and plays his part perfectly straight, dealing out some wonderful lines of dialogue and bringing to life a character that was essentially an add-on to the original film. Sir James, for instance, has a stutter at the beginning of the film but when he takes over as head of MI6 (or is it MI5? Q seems to think so), he decides to lose the stutter as they don't have time for that anymore. Equally it is sneakily suggested that the Eon Bond is not the real thing, rather a person employed to carry on the legend. Sir James dismisses him for his sexual appetite and reliance on gadgets, which, given Casino Royale was released in the same year as You Only Live Twice is acutely appropriate. One of the most impressive aspects of the character is the fact that he has a building purely for his piano.

Peter Sellers, on the other hand, is Evelyn Tremble - a card shark who is a baccarat expert and is asked to become James Bond in order to beat LeChiffre at the game so that LeChiffre will be destroyed by his own organisation: SMERSH. In the film The Life And Times Of Peter Sellers it is suggested that Sellers wanted to play the part seriously, and although the more wilder scenes of Tremble were outtakes used to tie the film together, even the deliberate takes are played somewhat jokingly, and Sellers gets to have his usual "dress up" scene in the movie, allowing him to become, amongst others, Toulouse LaTrec, forshadowing him doing the same thing in Return Of The Pink Panther. In fact, perhaps because it's a comedy and has Sellers, Niven and David Stark in it, the movie feels more like a Pink Panther film than a Bond film. Indeed, when Tremble arrives in France, the scenes in his hotel are played in a very Clouseau fashion. That aside, Sellers does get to deliver the line "Bond...James Bond" and he does so rather well. Equally there is real tension in his scenes at the baccarat table - although that could just be because Sellers hated Welles.

So with two brilliant stars, the script they were presented with has some first class dialogue. There are so many gems it would be unforgivable not to mention a few of my favourites:-

Sir James on the Connery Bond: "It's depressing that the words secret agent have become synonymous with sex maniac."

"M" informs us that Sir James "washes his intestines by hand."

The Russian Smirnoff (we'll get to the really bad jokes in a moment) remarks, on seeing Sir James' lions: "I did not come here to be devoured by symbols of monarchy!"

And when Evelyn Tremble says to Mathis: "Inspector, there's something that's been worrying me. You're a French policeman, but you speak with a Scottish accent." Mathis replies: "Aye, that's been worrying me too."

Sadly, for every clever piece of dialogue there are some obvious jokes (such as Smirnoff) to be found. Bond handing over "M"'s wig to his wife is told that the wig can "only be regarded as a hairloom." Oh dear.

And that's pretty much what the movie's faults are - they have a series of brilliant moments, but in order to make a funny film, free reign is given in the hope that the brilliant moments can be a continuously brilliant film, and frankly that just doesn't happen. The Niven and Sellers plotlines are so separate, it's hard to see what they have to do with each other; Sir James is investigating missing spies and suddenly asks Vesper to recruit Evelyn to play LeChiffre at baccarat...but it's never quite clear why this is, and so it has to be virtually spelled out for us later. Terrence Cooper (as Agent Cooper) turns up to be a Anti-Female-Spy Device...but it seems somewhat irrelevent. Mata Bond (Joanna Pettet) is recruited to stop the sale of LeChiffre's artwork...but because we haven't yet had the story played out, this again seems whimsical. And yet, the scene of Mata Bond meeting Sir James is simply beautiful, and the Bond girls are easily on the same calibre as the main series; beautiful, resourceful and cunning.

It essentially seems as though the entire kitchen sink has been thrown into the mix in the hope that at the end the movie will make sense and be funny. There are nods to the Bond films (a Q scene, girls dressed as Honey, Tatiana and painted gold all show up; while former Bond actors Ursula Andress [not dubbed either!], Vladek Sheybal, Burt Kwouk and the voice of Robert Rietty all star); Q's assistant is almost a precursor for Are You Being Served?; the spy school is truly surreal - the auction sequence ending in a fight that is just ridiculous. There seems to be an attempt to get all of Sellers' filmed material into the film as a dream sequence occurs with scenes that make no sense, and there is no logical thread between some of the scenes. This hits a low as Tremble arrives in France and punches a custom official (although we never find out why), drives with Mathis (when they met never happens), meets Miss Goodthighs and is poisoned, before going to the casino and playing LeChiffre. From here, Vesper is kidnapped, Tremble goes after her...and in the next scene is tied up by LeChiffre before apparently going into a dream sequence which seems to turn out to be real when Vesper kills Tremble and LeChiffre. Even explaining it makes no sense.
The plot of the novel is actually in the movie somewhere, buried beneath a pile of gratuitious comedy and the final baccarat game between Tremble and LeChiffre is actually quite tense. LeChiffre doing magic for no reason is odd, and I can't help but wonder if Tremble's (completely serious) sarcasm towards him isn't actually Sellers letting a little of the real him out.

You can't help but wonder how the movie was going to end or what was going to happen, but it's pretty clear that by the time it came to end the film there was just no way it was going to be achievable. From out of nowhere we get Woody Allen (slapsticking in a way that even Sellers and Niven refrained from sinking to) as Dr Noah, or Jimmy Bond, planning on making all women beautiful and killing all men over 4'6". This then turns into what appears to be a Mel Brooks film as the director clearly instructed his extras to get a costume from the costume store (doesn't matter what costume at all...could be anything) and then come in and fight in Casino Royale. Just before everything is blown up and everyone is killed. Yes, when Sir James speaks to Frankenstein's monster, it is a foretelling of what is about to come.

The real shame about this movie is that there are actually some really, really funny moments in it, and yet they are all washed away by the mess of trying to make a proper story without realising that this goal was unachievable. What's funny though, is how much this movie (along with Thunderball and You Only Live Twice) inspired Austin Powers. Look out for the Fembots, people!!!

"B" - for having the balls to do it.