Woody Allen rarely fails to be funny, and the massive presence of Welles makes one wish Le Chiffre had been handled seriously.īut the good things are lost, too often, in the frantic scurrying back and forth before the cameras. The five directors were given instructions given only for their own segments, according to the publicity, and none knew what the other four were doing. He meets Le Chiffre ( Orson Welles) in a baccarat game. Peter Sellers is the baccarat-playing Bond. Unfortunately, the threat is never explained. He is called out of retirement to meet a terrible threat by SMERSH. The senior Bond is Sir James Bond ( David Niven). What to do?įeldman apparently decided to throw all sanity overboard instead of one Bond, he determined to have five or six. But by the time Feldman got around to making the movie, Connery was firmly fixed in the public imagination as the redoubtable 007.

When Charles Feldman bought the screen rights for 'Casino Royale' from Ian Fleming back in 1953, nobody had heard of James Bond, or Sean Connery for that matter. How could they lose? They had bundles of money, because this film was blessed with the magic name of James Bond. One imagines the directors (there were five, all working independently) waking in the morning and wondering what they'd shoot today. Consistency and planning must have seemed the merest whimsy. No Time To Die contrasts this with a poignant portrayal of Bond’s last moments - a deed made perhaps even more surprising by the fact that the only 'real' Bond death prior took place in a parody.This is possibly the most indulgent film ever made. It typifies the parody genre by abruptly killing a character that in canon seems immortal, then almost immediately rolling credits. Casino Royale (1967) marks Bond’s first on-screen death. In Casino Royale (1967), and now No Time To Die, obituaries are, however, wholly necessary.

Obituaries are written about Bond in both Skyfalland You Only Live Twice, with both soon realized to be premature. Bond evading death is a pattern so entrenched in the Eon Productions franchise that viewers will always anticipate it, no matter how endangered he becomes. The concept of James Bond’s death is unexpected in canon: the character is consistently in situations of considerable mortal risk, but his unimaginable survival is usually the very essence of the films. Related: No Time To Die Makes A 1960s Era Bond Movie More Likely

Cast of 1967 casino royale