Casino Royale: WTF.

= 3 stars

Starring Peter Sellars, Ursula Andress, David Niven
Directed by Ken Hughes, John Huston, Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish, Val Guest

Amazon Link

For completeness’ sake, I watched the 1967 spy spoof Casino Royale, which features several James Bond type characters and more than one director. It’s stuffed with familiar actors: Orson Welles, David Niven, Peter Sellars, and Woody Allen. To call this film bizarre is an understatement (it’s a “psychedelic comedy”). I found it particularly surreal to watch after the recent, way serious, Casino Royale starring Daniel Craig as Bond.

So what’s good? The music: Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass offer up the catchy theme song, and most notable is Burt Bacharach’s awesome The Look Of Love sung by Dusty Springfield. Also fascinating are the wild, colorful and acid-laced sixties sets. There are almost too many gorgeous women littering the scenery like candy, making a joke of Bond’s promiscuity. Most enthralling are Ursula Andress (featured in Dr. No) as Vesper Lynd and Barbara Bouchet (featured in a Star Trek episode), as Moneypenny.

Unfortunately, that’s it. Bad points: the plot is confusing - I honestly had no idea what was going on through half of it. It’s the type of film that keeps stuffing things into it to keep it interesting, and in the absence of any logical explanation, all heck breaks loose near the end with parachuting Indians, a ping-pong ball battle, and a flying roulette wheel that explodes. Imagine several Bond films plus Barbarella and a Godzilla movie taking place in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

Supposedly, the chaos wasn’t limited to the audience and included the filmmakers themselves. According to Wikipedia, Peter Sellars grew frustrated with the comedic direction and quit, resulting in a lack of a beginning or ending. Therefore, the film’s beginning features David Niven as Bond and the ending Niven facing off with Woody Allen as Jimmy Bond / Dr. Noah (don’t laugh, it’s not that funny).

Anyhow, in conclusion I found Casino Royale mildly amusing, but it’s a borderline rental at best. Let’s put it this way: I’d sooner buy the soundtrack.

Note: The DVD includes an extra: an old television version of Casino Royale. I enjoyed it as an early realization of the James Bond character. It captures the sneaky spy, casino, and creepy villain feel (with Peter Lorre as Le Chifre) - the best part being the tense Baccarat game. But as it was for television, it was really low budget and any sense of style is stifled. Also note the character of Bond is American (the character is renamed Jimmy Bond [hmm, is that what the Woody Allen character was referencing?]). It’s an interesting part of James Bond history, and after watching that take, I appreciate the Daniel Craig Casino Royale all that much more.

IMDB: Casino Royale (1967)
Wikipedia: Casino Royale (1967)
Rotten Tomatoes: Casino Royale 94%

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