Saturday, June 15, 2013

Free HBO weekend film review: Casino Royale (1967)


A caveat, I've never seen the whole thing from beginning to end, but has anyone? This is a movie so unwatchable, I can't imagine anyone sitting through the whole thing. You can hear the directors say, "The imbeciles will laugh at this...speed up the film, imbeciles always like that. It's the 60s, make this scene psychedelic."

A true piece of shit for our time.



Some minor positives. It's cool to watch David Niven in a role he came very close to playing. This isn't news but Ursula Andress and Jacqueline Bissett were astonishingly beautiful.
But what is so horrible is the colossal waste of colossal talent. Orson Welles, David Niven, Woody Allen, John Huston, William Holden. Criminal!

For the talent and money they should have kept Niven as Bond, Welles as LeChiffre, and made it serious.

At no point during the making of this did they not see it for the piece of crap it was?

It brings up a good game of 'What if?' What if the rights to a James Bond novel fell in your lap somehow (Not as impossible as it sounds, the rights to Casino Royale and Thunderball have been bouncing around for decades). Whom would you cast if you were to make the film in the 60s? 70s? Today? The only rule is you can't cast someone exclusive to the Broccoli family in the decade you're making the film.


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