Casino Royale (1967) is very underrated
Absolutely_Cart
NJ/NYC, United StatesPosts: 1,740MI6 Agent
It gets the reputation as the black sheep of the series. It's a parody of James Bond and not official lore. It's completely absurd and doesn't follow the protocol at all when it comes to what a Bond movie should be. It's often not included in people's list, and when it is, it's ranked low. Part of the hate it gets is due to legacy, and not just the film itself. It tried to undermine and cut into the then-young Bond franchise. And it stalled Eon's Casino Royale into the 21st century. Which on second thought, wasn't a bad idea. The delay preserved some of Fleming's material, like a freshwater glacier, for a new generation of viewers.
It also established the early spy spoof film, way before Austin Powers and other slapstick comedies. A bit ahead of its time. Even if it did totally piss on Fleming's work, I think parody is still a valuable act of free speech and criticism, even if it means upsetting a few people. But what matters is the film itself. Regardless of whether it's official and whether it was a jab at Fleming, I still find it to be a good film.
As much as I love the Bond franchise, even I can agree it has been braced with a formula. As great as movies like Skyfall and Goldeneye were, they were practically by-the-book. Ooh, the new vehicle. Ooh, the new gadget. Ooh, the new girl. Ooh, the new villain with his master plan. One reviewer put it that the formula plays us viewers like Pavlov dogs, awaiting the next predictable moment. And that's what I like about CR67. It's different, like, way way different. It has its own identity entirely. It's own score, it's own cast, it's own charm and even it's own thorns and downsides.
Joke or not, it brings a variety of different actors to the table and adds more to the interpretation of the Bond character than the main six actors alone. Sellers plays Bond with a charming sense of professorly stoicism and I can also see some of the qualities Fleming saw in Niven. 6 people impersonating James Bond and taking on SMERSH, with each doing their own part. That's a totally original story. Yes, one which could have been fleshed out a bit more (such as how SMERSH even reacted to there being 7 James Bonds). Or perhaps a directing that moreso emphasizing the fact that they're 7 heads of the same hydra. It's not fully fleshed out but it's deeper than it wants you to think it is.
It's absurd, and honest about it. All of the abstract thoughts the directors had in mind here were a mix of stupidity and brilliance. A flying saucer, an atomic bomb pill, an auction where people bid sitting down, a bagpipe with guns and so much more, a man running on a battery. Not unlike the book Phantom Tollbooth, which half of us have read in 4th grade. It shows an appreciation toward fourth dimensional nearly-disassociative thinking. It's cryptic, bizarre, hard to follow, a bastard with influences but no real father. It's entertaining and while I wouldn't say it's a great film, it makes a few other formulaic entries look dull. Imagination and wit beat guns and explosions in my book.
It also established the early spy spoof film, way before Austin Powers and other slapstick comedies. A bit ahead of its time. Even if it did totally piss on Fleming's work, I think parody is still a valuable act of free speech and criticism, even if it means upsetting a few people. But what matters is the film itself. Regardless of whether it's official and whether it was a jab at Fleming, I still find it to be a good film.
As much as I love the Bond franchise, even I can agree it has been braced with a formula. As great as movies like Skyfall and Goldeneye were, they were practically by-the-book. Ooh, the new vehicle. Ooh, the new gadget. Ooh, the new girl. Ooh, the new villain with his master plan. One reviewer put it that the formula plays us viewers like Pavlov dogs, awaiting the next predictable moment. And that's what I like about CR67. It's different, like, way way different. It has its own identity entirely. It's own score, it's own cast, it's own charm and even it's own thorns and downsides.
Joke or not, it brings a variety of different actors to the table and adds more to the interpretation of the Bond character than the main six actors alone. Sellers plays Bond with a charming sense of professorly stoicism and I can also see some of the qualities Fleming saw in Niven. 6 people impersonating James Bond and taking on SMERSH, with each doing their own part. That's a totally original story. Yes, one which could have been fleshed out a bit more (such as how SMERSH even reacted to there being 7 James Bonds). Or perhaps a directing that moreso emphasizing the fact that they're 7 heads of the same hydra. It's not fully fleshed out but it's deeper than it wants you to think it is.
It's absurd, and honest about it. All of the abstract thoughts the directors had in mind here were a mix of stupidity and brilliance. A flying saucer, an atomic bomb pill, an auction where people bid sitting down, a bagpipe with guns and so much more, a man running on a battery. Not unlike the book Phantom Tollbooth, which half of us have read in 4th grade. It shows an appreciation toward fourth dimensional nearly-disassociative thinking. It's cryptic, bizarre, hard to follow, a bastard with influences but no real father. It's entertaining and while I wouldn't say it's a great film, it makes a few other formulaic entries look dull. Imagination and wit beat guns and explosions in my book.
Comments
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
Yes, there is some fun to be had with CR67 which IMHO does have some funny moments and great ideas. Unfortunately they're frequently juxtaposed with the exact opposite. The score is terrific and so are the sets/costumes/art direction, but they can't rescue the film from being shapeless and incoherent.
What it lacks is direction, which is a strange statement to make regarding this film considering how many directors are credited. Or perhaps not: one guiding hand throughout might not have been a bad idea (I'm sure you know the tale of Val Guest refusing the title "Co-Ordinating Director") since the tone varies so much. "No real father" sums it up- and I enjoyed your glacier analogy, nice one.
It would've been more interested if they focused on the doppelganger aspect, and why they all needed each other because Eon's James Bond could do everything the 7 Bonds were able to do seperately.
Would agree with shapeless, but I wouldn't call rigid and boxy (aka the standard Bond formula) the goal either.
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But moreso it's the formulaic entries which I like less that feel so dull compared to CR67. For me, those would be movies like AVTAK, Moonraker and Diamonds Are Forever. But I'd say two-thirds of the Bond films are formulaic to a strong extent. And it boils down to personal preferences, but whichever films people dislike, it's likely because they're formulaic.
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CASINO ROYALE's Q Branch scene is amusing but the film's too disjointed. In fact it's a rare film in that you can see it unravelling before your eyes. Much of it must have been shot in sequence as by the end it's gone completely out of control. It's a relic of its time & as such I have a perverse liking of it but if ever celluloid could suffer a mental breakdown, this is it.
1 - Moore, 2 - Dalton, 3 - Craig, 4 - Connery, 5 - Brosnan, 6 - Lazenby
DVD of it but I've yet to sit through it, as I get bored. The humour hasn't dated
Well.
+1.
It also did not establish the spy spoof. A really big Bond spoof that came a year earlier was Our Man Flint. And on television a year before that was the premiere of Get Smart. According to Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_James_Bond_parodies_and_spin-offs), there were many spy spoofs starting in 1964. Casino Royale merely jumped on the bandwagon of making spy spoofs.
Way out, wild Spoof.
Looking at the predecessors of TSWLM, GE and SF respectively: Man with the Golden Gun, License to Kill and Quantum of Solace. These films were considered disappointment for Bond standards, partly because they strayed a bit (just a bit) from the formula.
I'm not saying Casino Royale is better than the greats just because it avoids the formula.
I'm just saying when it comes to a series with 15 formulaic movies, some are going to the do the formula better than others. You're probably going to have ~5 formulaic entries you love, ~5 you like and ~5 you don't really care for. For example, some may prefer the serious box-ticking of For Your Eyes Only over the silly box-ticking of Octopussy.
For me, I don't find CR67 better than the formulaic entries I love and like, but I find it better than the ones I don't care for.
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The Scottish stuff is SO steriotypically bad its funny. In a cringeworthy way. I wonder why they chose Killin to film a segment of the Sir James leaves Scotland scene? Odd.
The rest is a filled nappy. For more details, please see my lengthier comments in the "Which Bond Films Do You Not Own?" Thread.
Although, I appreciate Cart's well crafted defense of the film, I still pretty much hated it. I'm not a fan of Our Man Flint or the first Pink Panther movie and CR67 managed to be even more excruciatingly dull, nonsensical, and unfunny than anything I've ever seen. OMG that was the longest 2 hours and 15 minutes of my life.
I'm not the most hardcore Fleming fan and I don't always mind when the films stray from the source material. However, CR67 was downright insulting. Who did they expect to think this was funny? Fans of the novel might enjoy seeing Vesper in a feather headdress?
Everyone involved in this project, including former Bond stars, should be ashamed. All prints and copies should be destroyed.
At least it made me more grateful for the new, REAL Casino Royale.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
Maybe that's what CR67 is for ? To make us appreciate other Bond films ?
I agree with that 100% {[]
This film goes on forever. I just wanted some scenes to end so badly. It's just incredibly unfunny. It looks great, all the sets and all that, but it just turns out to be one of the most unfunniest films I have ever watched. The scenes in Scotland go on for an eternity. I'm glad I watched this online instead of buying it on DVD. Otherwise I would have burnt it.
Some films go through prep, production and post exactly as planned. Others have to improvise, jump through hoops, use inspiration. The Bond films themselves show both those patters in their history.
CR-67 however mutated from a potential competing alt Bond film (as NSNA eventually would) to the nonsensical phycadelic mess it ended up through chronic mismanagement, excess of facilities and waste of budget, no co-ordination between filming units and no cohesive writing control. Add to that no sense of PR management either.
Any one of these things can destroy a film, but to have all of them? Its amazimg CR-67 got in the can at all, far less there being any sembelance of a story. The Austin Powers films and Monty Python reach out comparable elements in surealism and spoof territory. But that doesn't change the fact CR-67 was not just badly made, it was barely made. For the most part it was a series of accidents and errors thst made it to the screen.
In retrospect, it does have one legacy. The next time it was decided to attempt to make a Casino Royale, it was CR-06. As it is my favorite Bond film with everything in the right place, I am grateful CR-67 did make such a mess all those years ago! Maybe the actual, official Eon Bond films would not be the same 40 years later if it hsdn't.
Ironically, the pattern is remarkably similar to the actual Bonds Captain Scarlet, Perhaps comparable to TMWTGG and QoS, but on a more severe scale. The arts press savaged it. Either generously dismissing it as incomprehensible, a singular oddity as a spoof, or gleefully ripping to shreds that it did not live up to expectations as a spoof, considering 007 has his own share of carefully played excess.
The general audience though, still caught up in Bondmania and the general love of the spy genre which was peaking, did go to see it. Financially it did not do as well as the Bonds but it was no financial asprin bomb. It did make a profit at the box office. But for Producer Charles Feldman, the damage was done to his reputation and his health.