Casino Royale (1954)

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Casino R.o.y.a.l.e (2006) is better. Dr. No is also better. From Russia with love is also a better. But has long as you don't have high expectations you can enjoy this move. Great acting. Story line is pretty good. Gold finger is better. Thunder ball is also better. You only live twice is also better. On her majesty's secret service is also better. Diamonds are forever is also better. Live and let die. The man with golden gun is also better. The spy who loved is also better. Moon r.a.k.e.r is also better. For your eyes only is also better. O.c.t.o.p.u.s.s.y is also better. Never say never again is also better. A view to a kill is also better. But still a pretty good movie.

"The name's Bond. Jimmy Bond."Or so this American James Bond might as well say in 007's screen debut.Before Sean Connery played Bond in 1962's big-screen "Dr. No," Barry Nelson (Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining") played the secret agent in this 1954 CBS small-screen live adaptation of Ian Fleming's first Bond novel.Jimmy Bond is an American CIA (Combined Intelligence Agency) officer. He is tasked with cleaning out communist agent Le Chiffre (Peter Lorre, "Casablanca") in a game of baccarat. Le Chiffre has been living like a high-roller on party funds, and if he can't recover the funds quickly, he's likely to be executed by his own party. He plans to stake everything on one card game at Casino Royale in France. Bond's mission is to make sure Le Chiffre is ruined. Bond is helped by British secret agent Clarence Leiter (perhaps a cousin of Felix Leiter) and sexy French double agent Valerie Mathis (Vesper Lynd and René Mathis from Fleming's novel rolled into one character).This early Bond film is markedly different from the later MGM series, and criticisms of it arise mainly from comparisons with the wildly popular franchise. To many, Sean Connery was the only Bond, and later actors were only replacements. Nelson still doesn't benefit by coming before Connery. Since "Casino Royale" was made for American TV as a part of the CBS series Climax!, the producers seemed to think they needed to make the hero American. Nelson plays Bond like a hard-boiled private eye. He talks with a stiff upper lip and drinks water instead of vodka martinis shaken-not-stirred. Peter Lorre, however, is spot-on as the villain. Even though he is a small man, he radiates an erratic intensity that makes him menacing.Since this version of "Casino Royale" was made for live TV, there are also mistakes as a result of not having multiple takes to get it right. There are long pauses in telephone conversations, Lorre is inaudible at times, and in one shot, he clearly didn't know the camera was still on him.This film probably won't be interesting to a general audience today, but it is a must-see for Bond fanatics.

If you have never read any of Ian Fleming's James Bond stories, I am sure you'll like this odd television version a lot less that those who have read them. Gone are the gadgets, sex and style you assume is Bond--none this was in the first book from his series ("Casino Royale") and aside from some sex, there aren't too many similarities in any of the books to the films...aside from the titles.It is very odd, then, that this first incarnation of Bond is the closest...yet in it Bond is an American here! And, his friend Felix Leiter (here, oddly called 'Clarence Leiter') is a Brit! Why they reversed their nationalities is probably because the show was made for American television but it is disconcerting seeing him played by Barry Nelson--a man without a hint of a British accent. As for Nelson, he was a solid square-jawed sort of guy...but hardly a sex symbol! There are a few other differences as well, such as Bond NOT having his testicles zapped with electricity (they could NEVER have gotten away with this on TV), the femme fatale was 100% good down deep in the TV show (she was conflicted and helped Bond in the end, but she was BAD in the book) and a relatively low-speed car chase is missing--mostly because it was made on a film set. Yet, despite these many differences, it IS the closest version to the books. Even though the recent James Craig version is the closest of the movies to the original stories, it is still not as close to the story as this show from "Climax!".The show, like the book, is set almost entirely within a casino and the mission is for Bond to bankrupt a vicious Communist agent, Le Chiffre. But this Le Chiffre is played by a chubby Peter Lorre and the action is rather muted. Because of this, the film seems more stagy and less exciting--but that WAS the book. The only huge changes I resented in the TV version is that Bond lacked the cynicism and misogynistic outlook he developed by the end of the novel.Overall, this is a curious oddity that probably will bore most Bond fans, but readers will appreciate. It's only 50 minutes long and is worth a look regardless.

Let's enter a dim, bygone alternate universe where James Bond was an American agent, strolling through a low-budget TV production adaptation of the Ian Fleming novel. In footage nearly lost, reflected in the muddy black-and-white presentation, we witness an historic first - the first TV or film incarnation of James Bond. Completing the reversal on Fleming's original concept, Bond's buddy Leiter is a British agent (always an American CIA agent in the future films). Yep, we've definitely entered a Twilight Zone-type warped version of the Bond mythology. It's typical, however, of the limitations of the live television format from the fifties: two or three different small sets (rooms) are used for the entire show; the action is slow, driven mainly by dialog, and it has the feel of a stage play, in three acts. What brief fight scenes there are, towards the end, are somewhat crude and awkward, not surprising since it is a live broadcast. The script follows Fleming's premise: Bond's mission is basically to outplay the main villain at cards (baccarat, in this case) and take his money; this remained the major plot point of the new film version in 2006.Filmmakers always seem to despair when given the task of making a card game exciting on film, but the potential is there - "The Cincinnati Kid"(65) is a good example and the 2006 version of "Casino Royale" also did a good job. Here, though a static game of cards seemed suitable for a TV episode, the solution was to make the scenes as short as possible. Bond (Nelson) gains the upper hand over Le Chiffre (Lorre) after only a couple of hands in the 2nd act and it's all over. The more intense scenes, in this version's favor, come about in the 3rd and final act, when Le Chiffre employs a tool of torture (below the bottom of the picture, off-screen) on a couple of Bond's toes; I guess he breaks them - actor Nelson gasps in pain convincingly. This retained the essential streak of sadism in Fleming's Bond stories (and the subsequent films), a surprising inclusion considering the bland TV standards of the fifties. Nelson was bland, as well, but adequate. Lorre was Lorre, one of those character actors known for stealing scenes, with an unforgettable voice. He was well cast as the first Bond villain, albeit a TV show version. This was, to its credit, a serious, no-nonsense approach, if quite a bit on the stiff side.Bond:6 Villain:7 Femme Fatale:6 Henchmen:5 Leiter:6 Fights:4 Gadgets:n/a Pace:5 overall:6-. This was the Bond title that the producers of the regular series of Bond films begun in 1962 were unable to use until the end of the century. The next film version of "Casino Royale" was in 1967, a completely different approach as a satirical silly romp. But James Bond would return on the big screen in "Dr.No"(1962).