Which one is this? The spoof.
Who’s who in this one? Niven (Bond); Huston (M); Bayldon (Q); Bouchet (Moneypenny).
Where did you first encounter this one? Never seen it before.
Who’s the bad guy, and what does he want? Orson! Fucking! Welles!! as the villainous Le Chiffre! AND! Woody Allen as the über-bad, Dr. Noah! Le Chiffre just wants to win at cards, as usual, but Dr. Noah’s scheme is altogether more diabolical: he wants to murder all men over 4’8”, thus rendering him the tallest – and most eligible – man on the planet.
Who are the Bond girls? Actual Bond girl Ursula Andress as this version’s Vesper Lynd, plus an unquantifiable bevy of jiggly ‘60s dames in various other roles.
Opening number? A Monty Pythonish animated credit sequence of giant letters growing vines and flowers and faces, over a breezy instrumental theme by Herb Alpert – which gets lyrics later in the picture, c/o Burt Bacharach.
What’s memorable about this one? Seven James Bonds, only five of them male. Roundtable direction from John Huston, Ken Hughes, Robert Parrish, Joseph McGrath, and Val Guest. Being bugfuck crazy.
What did you rate it out of ten, from memory? n/a
What do you rate it now, having seen it again? 1. As excruciating to sit through as it is genuinely amazing in unconnected increments.
Oh, but we’re not done yet! I’ve come full circle with From A to Bond – beginning with Casino Royale and now ending with it too, by way of the off-franchise spoof by the people who, incredibly, held the rights to the original Ian Fleming James Bond novel – and weren’t Saltzman or Broccoli. At the very least we can credit the makers of Casino Royale with wisdom; they did not, as did those responsible for yesterday’s Never Say Never Again, attempt to compete directly with the mainstream franchise. I can’t argue that what they did with Casino Royale is a better idea, but points for trying.
Possibly the greatest invention in the development of the comedy film over the past hundred years is the 90-minute cutoff rule – which, while not strictly enforced, largely prevents movies like Casino Royale from happening any more. The 90-minute cutoff suggests an optimal mean for the audience’s patience, which thereby forces the filmmakers back to the table to figure out what skits are actually working, and which are just self-indulgent crap. Casino Royale is self-indulgent crap in large quantities, shot through with occasional inspiration and outright hilarity. I won’t say that the funniest 90-minute movie in the world is lost somewhere in Royale, fighting to get out, but the movie is so pleasing to look at in dribs and drabs and so unpleasant to watch in its extremity that I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
The movie qualifies as “a gas.” It repurposes James Bond as the greatest spy in history, long since retired, who now lives in an isolated mansion surrounded by lions, dressed in a housecoat and turban. Sir James Bond has nothing but contempt for the current, imposter Bond besmirching his name – by which he means Connery. “In my day, spying was an alternative to war, and a spy was a member of a select and immaculate priesthood,” Sir James intones. “Hardly a description of that sexual acrobat who leaves a trail of beautiful dead women like blown roses behind him.” Touché, your Lordship.
A visit from M and the subsequent destruction of his castle forces Sir James back out into the world to take on management of MI5, where he promptly renames all the agents “James Bond 007” and takes on SMERSH. And so we have an ostensible James Bond movie that is really just a long, long, longseries of extended riffs and skits featuring the various other James Bond 007s that have been pressed into service against Le Chiffre and Dr. Noah, with each sequence helmed by a different director and having wildly varying success rates as either comedy or interesting cinema.
For example, we have the “Look of Love” love scene between Vesper Lynd (Ursula Andress, given much better stead here, actually, than in Dr. No) and Evelyn Trimble (Peter Sellers), both of whom are now called James Bond, and which unfolds with Vesper twirling on the bed in a slow-motion hail of pink feathers, while Trimble does push-ups nearby. The scene was invented and executed by people who were likely not just high, but probably could not accurately recall the last time they were not high. It feels 45 minutes long, and isn’t funny.
And on the opposite side of the spectrum, the film infrequently transforms into a kind of surrealist cinematic masterpiece, as when James Bond and Mata Hari’s – er – daughter, Mata Bond (Joanna Pettet), goes to the espionage school from which her late mother graduated – which is a bona fide German Expressionist playground, complete with one-off gag rooms (the cipher training room; the dancing room) and mad staircases cut by scissor-sharp gashes of chiaroscuro light. “You’re insane, my child, quite insane,” the brusque Frau Hoffner assures Mata Bond, having confounded her with a lengthy stream of Who’s-On-First style babble. “I think she’s right,” Miss Bond admits.
I have limited patience for farce, and can’t believe Casino Royale was allowed to stretch to two and a quarter hours – hours which include, among other things, Orson Welles playing Le Chiffre as a corpulent pasha compulsively performing magic tricks, and Woody Allen escaping one firing squad by climbing over the wall, only to find another firing squad on the other side, using the same wall. Dear Miss Moneypenny, though, gets to behave in ways old Lois Maxwell would never have dreamed, assigned by Sir James to find the most attractive man in the world, which she manages by a lengthy auditioning process. Casino Royaleis a dream of the ‘60s that is likely more accurate than it would give itself credit for: a lot of people trying to get laid, who went at it for far too long.
From A to Bond counted down the Bond movies, in alphabetical order, every day of the week leading up to the release of Skyfall. If you live in Toronto, the proper, Daniel Craig Casino Royale is playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on December 8 and 30. If not, the entire series – not including Never Say Never Again or this Casino Royale – is available on blu-ray.