What a quirky, goofy, unfunny mess this unofficial entry in the Bond film canon is. 1967's CASINO ROYALE was produced by Charles Feldman, who had the rights to this one Ian Fleming novel.
He must have assumed that he couldn't compete with the official OO7 films, as he hired FIVE different directors to put together a big budget comedy about James Bond.
David Niven is Sir James Bond, called out of retiement to go after SMERSH. There is virtually no other plot to speak of, with scenes just loudly colliding together without any true flow.
Woody Allen is mildly amusing as Jimmy Bond, 007's nephew and William Holden gets some of the biggest laughs in the film playing straight while the lunacy encircles him.
Bond film veterans like Ursula Andress and Vladek Sheybal pop up in minor roles while Orson Welles and Peter Sellers wonder through scenes totally wasted by a non-existent script.
There is one very funny three minute scene in which all the nations of the world battle over the best way to blow it up, but its the only clever writing in the whole mess.
Luckily, EON was able to secure the rights and produce a truly great version of the Fleming novel with the 2006 version in which Daniel Craig debuted as Bond.
The best part of this dud is the fantastic movie score by Burt Bacharach, which was widely collected as one of the best engineered and composed movie soundtracks ever. The music score still holds up as the only bright spot.
This Casino Royale truly is a massive Bond bomb with a license to bore and gets an F.
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