Casino Royale (1967)

*Get the film on Amazon here*

Over the years, I have watched this film twice. It's still a disaster of the highest caliber.

A retired James Bond (David Niven, creator Ian Fleming's original inspiration for 007) is called back into duty to battle SMERSH. The world has recruited a bunch of different people to pose as Bond, including Evelyn Tremble (Peter Sellers), who will eventually do battle playing cards, and matching wits, with the evil Le Chiffre (Orson Welles, who would have made a fantastic villain in a real James Bond film).

Sorry, but although the screenwriters, credited and uncredited, were inspired by Fleming's first Bond novel, the plot is non-existent and difficult. I'm not sure why half a dozen or so directors were needed, and the film lets down one of the greatest casts ever assembled onscreen. This should have been so much more, the money is certainly there, but I was bored stupid. A second viewing after my first- twenty years before- took me three days to get through. The only laughs come from what must have been Woody Allen's desperate ad-libs to try and salvage his scenes. I was embarrassed for Niven and Kerr, Welles isn't in this long enough, and Sellers looks (and was) miserable. The behind-the-scenes drama: the quittings, the firings, the walk-outs, and the waste of money is more compelling than the film.

On a positive note, the art direction and set decoration is amazing and should have received Oscar notice. Burt Bacharach's score is repetitious and annoying, but his and Hal David's song "The Look of Love" is beautiful. The Bond franchise is ripe for spoofing, just look at the Austin Powers and Johnny English films. This isn't really a James Bond film per se, but it is a curiosity for completists. It's also awful, one of the biggest bombs in movie history, a train wreck that you can't look away from.

Consider me shaken, not stirred.

Stats:
(1967) 131 min. (*) out of five stars
-Directed by Val Guest, Ken Hughes, John Huston, Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish
-Screenplay by Wolf Mankowitz & John Law & Michael Sayers, suggested by the novel by Ian Fleming
-Cast: David Niven, Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress, Orson Welles, Joanna Pettet, Daliah Lavi, Woody Allen, Deborah Kerr, William Holden, Charles Boyer, John Huston, George Raft, Kurt Kasznar, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jacqueline Bisset
(Not Rated)
*Academy Awards*
-Best Original Song- "The Look of Love" (lost to "Doctor Dolittle" for "Talk to the Animals")
*BAFTA*
-Best British Costume- Colour (lost to "A Man for All Seasons")