Stars:
Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress, David Niven, Joanna Pettet, Orson Welles, Daliah
Lavi, Woody Allen, Deborah Kerr, William Holden, Charles Boyer, John Huston,
Kurt Kaszner and George Raft
Writers:
Wolf Makowitz, John Law, and Michael Sayers
Directors:
John Huston, Ken Hughes, Val Guest, Robert Parrish, and Joe McGrath
Feature
length: 2 hours and 17 minutes
Extras:
Making Of Featurette With Val Guest, Original “Casino Royale” Made For TV
Movie, Theatrical Trailer
Languages:
English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and English and Spanish Language
Monaural Sound
Subtitles:
English Captions and Closed Captions and French, Spanish, and Portuguese
Language Subtitles
Packaging:
Keep Case
Chapter
Stops: 24
Sound:
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Monaural Sound
Year
of Theatrical Release: 1967/DVD Release: 2002
Home
Video Distributor: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Home Entertainment
MPAA
Rating: Not Rated
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
Like
“Never Say Never Again,” “Casino Royale” is the only other 007 James
Bond film that is not a part of the soon to be 20 official films released by
United Artists/MGM and produced by the Broccoli family. Unlike “Never Say
Never Again,” which was essentially a remake of “Thunderball,” “Casino
Royale” is based on one of Ian Fleming’s novels, but the general sketch has
been used to produce a Bond film that is a spoof of Bond films. A product of the
time in which it was produced complete with the psychedelic inspired colors and
at times off the wall action scenes as well as that really dated 60’s dramatic
music courtesy of Burt Bacharach that no one uses anymore unless they are
spoofing like “Austin Powers.” “Casino Royale” is a dated mess of a
comedy with a few cute moments, but nothing great.
The
real James Bond, (David Niven), now a retired Knight of the British Empire is
called back into service by several ambassadors to stop a diabolical SMERSH
plan. Bond is not too interested in coming back to duty and has not exactly
approved of how Her Majesty’s Secret Service has marketed his exploits to make
him a legend. In fact he is not too crazy about having six other operatives
working under the 007 trademarks, which includes both men and women played by
(Peter Sellers and Ursula Andress among others) as well. Soon things begin to
get downright crazy with the real Bond finding this latest mission almost
impossible because of the conflicting agendas of the various other Bonds, one of
which is really the criminal mastermind behind the fiendish plot.
Directed
by John Huston, Val Guest, and a few other directors, “Casino Royale” is
sort of a high concept comedy where we have a pseudo anthology of various
“Bonds” coming together to stop one villain, but the film at times gets
confusing and even dull with a 137 minute running length. Val Guest actually
managed to get much of the film together into some cohesive whole and dealt with
various production problems to boot, which he goes into with some detail in the
making of featurette (19:42) that is included on this DVD. Guest reveals that
Niven was an actor whom Fleming would have liked to see play Bond in the serious
feature film adaptations of his novels, but ironically Niven’s turn as the
“real” or “original” Bond in this film actually came to pass as a result
of this spoof. To be fair, I imagine fans in 1967 probably enjoyed this film a
lot more than I did, but while I can see where even elements from the “Austin
Powers” comedies might have even borrowed from this star studded and cameo
filled film, which features Peter O’Toole in a brief scene with Peter Sellers,
the reality is that “Casino Royale” has not dated very well.
However
with the new Bond film coming out and MGM re-releasing the special editions of
the official “Bond” films to DVD as well as “Never Say Never Again”
still being sold by MGM separately, if you want to have a complete 007 DVD
collection, you got to buy this DVD, which does feature a richly detailed and
colorful anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) aspect ratio presentation with a new
digitally enhanced English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack. While not
entirely the best 5.1 track I have heard, it is still a more than serviceable
track and a nice extra feature. The original English Monaural Soundtrack is also
included along with a Spanish Language Monaural Soundtrack and English Captions
and Closed Captions for the hearing impaired as well as English, French,
Portuguese, and Spanish Language Subtitles encoded as options.
The
original 1954 black and white made for TV dramatization of “Casino Royale”
(50:21) with Peter Lorre is also included and while it is pretty dry and time
has not been kind to the TV version, it is a nice touch to make this
presentation more complete. The widescreen (2.35:1) theatrical trailer wraps up
the extra features on this DVD.
The
main menu is animated while the subsequent menus are standard interactive still
frames and all are easy to navigate. Some might love this film and if they do,
they should be happy with this DVD, otherwise I recommend this for collectors or
as a rental first. “Casino Royale” is available on DVD-Video now from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Home Entertainment.
©
Copyright 2002 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.