It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Bond

 


There's really only word word to describe the 1967 James Bond spoof "Casino Royale". That word is "silly". This is neither a complaint or a compliment. It just is. Is it good? Not really. Is it bad? Not really. It is just plain silly.

I understand why producer Charles K. Feldman decided to go in the direction he did with the material. He had been rebuffed by Broccoli and Saltzman when he approached them about doing a serious co-production (they had just done a co-production on "Thunderball" and were not keen on going that route again). Between the script problems (which is credited to Wolf Mankowicz, John Law and Michael Sayers but is known to have passed through the hands of Ben Hecht, Billy Wilder, Terry Southern, Joseph Heller, Val Guest, Peter Sellars and Woody Allen -- who would only rewrite the scenes he was in), the revolving door of directors (Joseph McGrath, John Huston, Ken Hughes, Robert Parrish and Val Guest with uncredited work by Richard Talmadge on the final scene) and the huge cast that includes major stars in barely registered cameos (George Raft appears in the final scene for no reason other than Feldman knew he was in town and told Val Guest to write him in), the film has no pace, no plot, no point. It meanders from scene to scene like Frankenstein's Monster (who also wanders in on the final proceedings).

The only film I can think to compare this to is Stanley Kramer's "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"...and even that's not quite accurate. They match up in sheer size -- large cast, big set pieces, comedy out the wazoo (this would also ultimately have the largest budget for a "Bond" film up until that time at $11 million), but that's about it. Kramer's film has a tightly wound plot that uses set pieces to push the comedy along. This film has barely any plot and the set pieces just come and go as they please.

Don't get me wrong. "Casino Royale" has it's funny moments, but most of them come once Peter Sellars disappears from the film (since he quit due to feuds with Welles) taking whatever plot from the original Fleming novel was left with him.

It's a weird piece of British pop culture from the late 1960s that attempts to parody the Bond craze without actually understanding it.