Casino Royale
by Don Medford, John Frankenheimer, John Huston, Joseph McGrath, Ken Hughes
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DVD details
Actor: David Niven, Harry Townes, Michael Rennie, Peter Sellers, William LundiganDirector: Don Medford, John Frankenheimer, John Huston, Joseph McGrath, Ken Hughes
Brand: SELLERS,PETER
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); French (Original Language); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 137 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-10-15
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of Casino Royale
DVD Review: icchy-pooh
Summary: 1 Stars
even as a spoof, this movie doesn't know what it is! as a James Bond fan, i bought it to complete the set but as a Peter Sellers fan, this movie is just disappointing!! DVD Review: PLAYING AT A HEAD SHOP NEAR YOU
Summary: 3 Stars
Does everything have to be s-serious? Can't we all just g-get along? Alright! Ursula Andress' name (Bear Naked?) doesn't appear in David Thomson's BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONAR OF FILM, but so what? She's the best-looking piece of cineflesh in this hashish spectacle, and more than anything else, by far, partly naked, wiggling femenine bodies in every imaginable situation are in and of themselves all (or at least most) of what this movie has to offer. Wildly forgettable Jiggle Music by Burt Bacharach.
Hashish spectacle, you say? Well, mostly the result of confusion about production (who's in charge?); the primary star quits the show; there are at least three different, unresolved scripts; it appears there are four directors, each with his own favorite part of and kind of movie to direct, and casting is searching for any putative star or personality they can find to plug a hole as a cameo, and the scene designer(s) have gone stark, staring mad. Let's go back: It's 1967. Five years ago DR. NO and the new Sean Connery took the world by storm, launching the James Bond 007 craze. It was followed by FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, another sensation, and an even better movie. With what looks like a franchise in the bud, Albert Broccoli appears to have found a gold mine. How to get some of that money?
Fleming's first Bond novel, CASINO ROYALE, a wildly improbable story about an attempt by a novice agent to bankrupt a crack but corrupt soviet functionary with a gambling habit and millions of siphoned-off Soviet money to lose, at a crowded French casino, became somehow available. The Producers dove for it and began production as quickly as possible. Catastrophe! The story proved useless. They couldn't get Connery, but they got his co-star from DR. NO, the stunning Ms. Andress, gave her the name of Vesper Lind and kept her before the camera for as long as possible. Apparently Peter Sellers, headliner, was to have played a presumably comic Bond, but he bailed out and then into the more professionally produced and sillier PINK PANTHER movies. Was he miffed because the producers hired Woody Allen to play yet another version of Bond? And let him bring his own material? He needn't have been. Allen's appearances on screen, are about as amusing as watching gangrene fester.
The star of the mix-up appears to be David Niven, who manages to get through it without making an ass of himself. He plays in rather an over-longish, not terribly funny bit, against Deborah Kerr. She's the widowed lady of a castle staffed and stuffed with horny, nubile red-haired scotch maidens, and he's an interloper come to confront or to comfort her. Either or both.
What saves this dog and pony show is the fact that the Psychedelic Sixties are in full bloom, and the Western World turns for a decade, into Lotus Land. It was like the 20s, but instead of Gin, with Marijuana. It was everywhere. It was cheap. In big cities, people gave it away on street corners. People kept it on cocktail tables in sticks, rolled, or they offered it to you as a matter of course. People everywhere began to find other aspects beside the obvious desirable, in viewing cinema, and were often to be seen with the sound low or disguised or overriden by other sounds or music, simply watching the screen and laughing simplemindedly at what they took to be hallucinations. This social blowback it was that gave the movie its saving grace. It wasn't funny, it was preposterous, but in a drugged-up, high kind of way. The movie began in hard focus, but changed until wide swaths of it oozed and swam in psychedellic pattern and color, indicative of nothing so much as a good head trip. At one point, toward the end, a shapely woman named Joanna Pettet (possibly an English, Australian or New Zeland musical comedy personality) who was supposed to be James Bond's daughter by Mata Hari, began an interminable music and dance sequence -- a blonde woman dressed in sort-of Baliinese pagoda costume -- that goes in every conceivable and many inconceivable directions, up, down, side-wise, until, somehow, it ends. Or just, just... Disintegrates. Don't ask. And somewhere in there there's George Raft, doing... Please, don't ask.
The long anticipated Bacarat game with LeChiffre takes place, more or less as expected, with Orson Welles, a sweaty Hindenberg -- corpulent quite beyond belief -- doing magic tricks above the gaming tables. Charles Boyer, William Holden, John Houston, Jean-Paul Belmondo do their five minutes, variously, and take their money and run. And somehow, throughout all this, occasionally, there's an extraordinary-looking woman in a big black wig, called Daliah Lavi, (East Jordan movie star) who apparently came with the Producer(s). At her entrance on camera she is first thrown to the ground, fully dressed; and later appears naked, strapped to an operating table for Woody Allen to play with. (Ms. Lavi can be seen to advantage in THE RETURN OF DOCTOR MABUSE, as The Photographer.) Please, don't...
Anyway, I have the BOND collection, love them all for their eccentricities and excesses, and watch them frequently. If what TV broadcasts or newscasts show me have any truth, drugs of many kinds are coming into the country regularly, dependably, and in quantity, and consequently one thinks they must be available at reasonable cost. Somewhere or other... If so, why not enjoy this particular 007 fantasy in the way it was intended/marketed? Or any of the others, for that matter? What's the difference? I certainly used to escape regularly into them and, for an hour or so, imagine myself the dashing stud assassin of British Intelligence, wallowing in conspicuous consumption and the wet laps of magnificent women. As long as the images remain stable on their media, why not enjoy ourselves again, and yet again? Bond films are all Boss-Man sex dreams. Why shouldn't we too dream we are Boss-Men?
DVD Review: Better the second time around
Summary: 3 Stars
I did not enjoy this film when I first saw it on television, because of the incoherent plot, but my opinion has changed after watching it again years later on DVD. After all, this is the only James Bond film that unabashedly makes fun of the world of 007 through sarcasm and slapstick, and incorporates the psychedelic atmosphere of the mid to late 1960s, with an all star cast including David Niven, Peter Sellers, Deborah Kerr, William Holden, Orson Welles, Woody Allen and Ursula Andress, arguably the best known Bond girl and only actress to appear in both an official Bond movie (Dr. No) and an unofficial one. The musical score is pleasant, topped off by Dusty Springfield's memorable rendition of "The Look of Love". Casino Royale is a welcomed alternative to the dark and humorless official Bond entries of Timothy Dalton and now Daniel Craig. Life is frequently somber and challenging, let's at least have fun when watching 007.
Even if you dislike this movie, you may still want to purchase it to complement your James Bond collection, and for the bonus material; the 1954 CBS television program Casino Royale, the first ever 007 production for either TV or cinema that features American actor Barry Nelson (not Sean Connery) as the first James Bond, Linda Christian the first Bond girl, and Peter Lorre the first Bond villian.
DVD Review: One of the Best Spy Spoofs
Summary: 4 Stars
What to say about this? Aside from some other spy-spoof style films of the sixties, this one dared to poke fun at the most successful movie franchise at the time (and still is). What started out as an attempt to make a serious Bond film turned into one mess of a film, but strange as it seems to me, it does seem to flow into one cohesive plot. This captures the essence of the sixties; the fashions, psychedelic craze (this was done in '67, in my opinion, the hippiest year of the late sixties). David Niven is funny as the "real" James Bond, though the stuttering in the beginning can get quite irritating. And I do enjoy his jabs at his namesake. Peter Sellers is his usual comic self as Evelyn Tremble and he has amazing chemistry with Bond alum Ursula Andress in another sexy Bond girl role, though more assertive than Honey Ryder. When they're together on screen, its some of the sexiest scenes I've seen (and done with classy taste compared to today's garbage). Burt Bacharach's score outdoes alot of the "canon" Bond films, easily outdoing YOLT, LALD, GE, TND, TWINE, DAD, CR and QOS. And Dusty Springfields' breathy rendition of "The Look of Love" I definately hold in higher regard than some of the more recent Bond songs, like Madonna and Jack White/Alicia Keys.DVD Review: not the best but still hilarious
Summary: 4 Stars
Casino Royale is a splendid, hilarious spoof of James Bond films--despite the fact that the film could be seen as being divided into long sequences or segments that are somewhat loosely tied together. The plot is easy enough to follow despite the fact that you will be introduced to a myriad castoff characters; and I really liked those funny scenes that poke fun at the romance scenes in the real James Bond flicks! The cinematography and the choreography are brilliant and the acting is convincing, too. The casting is also good and there are so many jokes and good performances here you'll never get bored in the slightest!
When the action starts, we quickly meet the "original" James Bond (David Niven) who is coaxed out of retirement by a small group of international emissaries sent to his reclusive home. There's a real problem all right--spies from all over the world are being killed off; and the world can only count on James Bond to solve the problem. Bond is quirky all right; and David Niven plays Bond to the hilt. We see Bond begin to counter evil forces when he delivers a toupee (yes, a toupee) to the widow of one of the emissaries who is in actuality "agent Mimi" (Deborah Kerr); and among the countless funny scenes is agent Mimi who winds up swinging from a drain pipe in a poorly planned attempt to get out of a locked room. Moreover, we also see James Bond take charge in London where he decides to name all the agents in the group James Bond so as to confuse the enemy organization SMERSH and also do away with "Le Chiffre" (Orson Welles), a man who raises money for his own gambling and SMERSH who aces his game at baccarat by wearing special glasses that let him see every card on the table!
James Bond (Niven) also must reunite with his daughter by Mata Hari, Mata Bond (Joanna Pettet)--and Joanna gives an excellent performance as Mata Bond who helps her father fight SMERSH and "Le Chiffre." There's another great performance by Ursula Andress as double-agent Vesper Lynd - 007; and Peter Sellers gives an outstanding performance as yet another "James Bond" spy whose name is actually Evelyn Tremble! Sellers as Tremble ahs some wonderful scenes playing baccarat with Orson Welles although reportedly they disliked each other so intensely that the camera crew had to film each one of them at a time and then cut and paste film together to make it look that they were at the table at the same time!
Of course, from here the plot can go anywhere; and the cast of character actors only serves to make the movie even livelier. Who exactly is "Le Chiffre?" Who is in charge of SMERSH--and what do they really want from James Bond and the forces of good? What happens when Vesper Lynd is kidnapped and Evelyn decides to rescue her? No plot spoilers here, folks--watch and find out!
The DVD has a few good bonus features. We get a copy of a television show from 1954 about Casino Royale from Climax! Mystery Theater; the theatrical trailer and a feature entitled "Psychedelic Cinema." The 40th Anniversary Edition should have additional features including a "making-of" documentary.
Casino Royale may not have been the best picture ever produced; but it's funny as all heck! This is great fare for people who want a lot of laughs and the sight gags are terrific, too. In addition, people who like the real James Bond films may also want to add this to their collections.
Description of Casino Royale
Welcome to Casino Royale, the ultimate psychedelic secret agent satire! Packed with girls, guns and gags galore, this "very funny picture" (The New Yorker) delivers "laughs all the way"(Cue)! Starring Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress, David Niven, Joanna Pettet, Orson Welles, Daliah Lavi, Woody Allen, Deborah Kerr, William Holden and others, and with an original score from Oscar? winner* Burt Bacharach, this groovy spy movie is "even farther out" (LA Herald-Examiner) than all other spoofs combined! British Intelligence is waning in every possible way! When the diabolical SMERSH begins killing off Her Majesty's Secret Service, super-agent James Bond (Niven) recruits six more "James Bonds" to confuse and conquer their enemies. But it won't be easy. They'll have to face an army of irresistibly sexy female operatives, exploding robotic fowl, parachuting Indians and a germ that makes all women beautiful but kills all men over 4'6"! *1981: Original Song (with Carole Bayer Sager, Christopher Cross, Peter Allen), Arthur; 1969: Original Song (Lyrics by Hal David), Score, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance KidJohn Huston was only one of five directors on this expensive, all-star 1967 spoof of Ian Fleming's 007 lore. David Niven is the aging Sir James Bond, called out of retirement to take on the organized threat of SMERSH and pass on the secret-agent mantle to his idiot son (Woody Allen). An amazing cast (Orson Welles, Peter Sellers, Deborah Kerr, etc.) is wonderful to look at, but the film is not as funny as it should be, and the romping starts to look mannered after awhile. The musical score by Burt Bacharach, however, is a keeper. --Tom Keogh
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