Casino Royale (1967) - film review

Against his will, the original James Bond is brought out of retirement to foil a dastardly plot by SMERSH, an enemy organisation run by the evil Dr Noah.  In a desperate bid to thwart their enemies, the British secret service renames its remaining agents 007, including Bond’s daughter, Mata.  They also recruit a fumbling baccarat expert Evelyn Tremble to take on the villainous Le Chiffre at the Casino Royale.  Where will it all end?

The James Bond films are a ripe target for parody, but whilst Casino Royale manages to pull off some of the obvious jokes, it is far from satisfactory overall.  The film suffers obviously from talent overload, with no less than 5 directors and 5 script writers and a veritable cavalcade of star names, including Peter Sellers, David Niven, Woody Allen and Ursula Andress.  As a result, the film is totally directionless, a confused, disorganised mess, which many Bond enthusiasts are keen to forget.  Also unpardonable is the fact that leading French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo should end up with such a small part in the film: star billing for a twenty second appearance, right at the end of the film!

Despite its obvious faults, this is a film which it is actually quite difficult to dislike.  From the start, the film almost seems to realise it is going to fail, and so it soon ends up laughing at itself.  It is this typically British self-deprecatory sense of fun which gives the film sufficient charm for it to be watchable.   There are also a few genuinely funny moments, although these tend to get lost in the rambling, confused plot.  (The first thirty minutes of the film is almost totally unfathomable).

The film’s strongest selling point has to be Burt Bacharach’s racy score, played Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass band, somewhat over-used but always a pleasure to listen to.  If the whole film had been of a similar calibre, Casino Royale would probably be regarded as a classic, rather than a clumsy attempt to parody one of British cinema’s most popular film series.

© James Travers 1999

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