CASINO ROYALE
THE BOOK
Date: 1953
Author: Ian Fleming
I believe the story Ian Fleming wants to tell in this book is an origin story, that of a formidable espionage agent who falls in love for the first time, almost fouls up his assignment as a result, is betrayed, realizes his mistakes and comes through the crucible more dedicated, with a personal mission fueled by guilt and revenge.
Unfortunately, that’s not the book Fleming wrote.
For one thing, Fleming tells us that Bond is great agent, but that’s not what we’re shown.
The head of S. (chief of Soviet operations at MI6) says Bond is “tough, and M. (chief of MI6) thinks there may be trouble with Le Chiffre’s gunmen.”
But Bond is spectacularly useless against those gunmen. While he did extricate himself (barely) from the gun-cane, he doesn’t fare well in the pages to come. When he chases the kidnappers, they easily outfox him. He is kidnapped handily. When he tries to fight the gunmen, he loses badly. And he is tortured to the brink of death without any hope of escape — in fact, Bond has to be rescued … by SMERSH! He is armed throughout the book (except when he’s disarmed by Le Chiffre), and never gets off a shot.
Fleming does establish that Bond is a very careful, meticulous agent. He sets homemade burglar alarms, counts his cigarettes, notes and analyzes everything he sees. But all that fastidious effort doesn’t turn up the big ol’ microphone in the chimney — René Mathis of the Deuxième Bureau has to tell him about that.
The only thing he proves good at is winning at baccarat … which he initially loses. He is rescued at the last minute by American money. It actually amused me when the U.S. calvary rides in at the last minute, not with guns, but with greenbacks. It seems to arise from Fleming’s worldview, one where Britain’s postwar decline hasn’t really become obvious, and he is seeing the world through the lens of Britain’s 400-year domination of the globe. The upstart Americans, evidently, are to be tolerated for their money but not much else. It is still the Brits who must save the day.
Fleming also downplays the double-0 designation, through Bond’s own words. Vesper Lynd, assistant to Head of S. and Bond’s Number Two on this mission, says that the double-0s are heroes to the rest of the British intelligence services, and I believe her. Not because she’s a reliable narrator, but common sense: Why have this mythological designation, if not to impress people?
Bond is dismissive, and I believe him, too. He says he became a double-0 because of two almost routine assassinations. One where he was not in any personal danger (but was cold-blooded and efficient enough to do it) and another that was supposed to be ordinary … except that Bond bungled it, and it became personally dangerous. Not exactly resumé material. And that’s how Bond got his double-0, which he specifically says isn’t very impressive. And as he describes it, it’s not.
I think that in the interest of drama (all the botched operations) and establishing Bond’s cynical ennui (the double-O business), Fleming accidentally painted a portrait of an inept agent. Call it the law of unintended consequences.
Another mistake is being told (relentlessly) that Bond is a heartless agent, before being shown the opposite, as he falls in love with Vestper.
Mathis compares Bond to an ice floe. “I don’t think Bond has ever been melted,” he says.
The Head of S. says to Vesper, “He’s a dedicated man. … Don’t imagine this will be fun. He thinks of nothing but the job on hand and, while it’s on, he’s absolutely hell to work for. But he’s an expert and there aren’t many about, so you won’t be wasting your time. He’s a good-looking chap, but don’t fall for him. I don’t think he’s got much heart.”
Bond himself says “he had never yet been made to suffer by cards or by women.” He later says that all his liaisons follow the same bell curve, from first flirtations, up to climax (literal and figurative), and down to “disentanglement,” full of bitter women’s tears and sad goodbyes on rainy porches. And it is the women who suffer, not the unfeeling Bond.
But does that sound like the Bond Vesper Lynd meets?
“He is thrilled by her beauty and intrigued by her composure,” we are told at their first meeting. “The prospect of working with her stimulated him.” By the end of this first conversation he was smitten. “He realized that it would be quite easy after all to plan the details of his project with her. … He had imagined many hurdles before establishing a rapport, but now he felt he could get straight down to professional details.”
Before that, when Mathis tells her his Number Two will be female, Bond thinks, “Women are for recreation. On the job they got in the way and fogged things up with sex and hurt feelings and all the emotional baggage they carried around.”
But who starts thinking about sex first? Bond. And who gets their feelings hurt first? Bond, when Vesper rebukes him with an amused glance after he presumes to know what she will drink.
“For an instant he felt nettled at the touch of irony, the lightest shadow of a snub, with which she had met his decisiveness, and at the way he had risen to her quick glance.”
This is not the Bond as described. This is a high school boy worried he’s not impressing his date.
Then there’s the car chase. As Bond himself thinks, he really should go back to his hotel room and leave Vesper to her fate. As heartless as it sounds, I agree. Chasing after her jeopardizes the hard-won victory.
But that’s what Bond as described would do. But Bond has fallen in love and acts, from a secret agent standpoint, irrationally. He gives chase, and pays for his rash decision.
I do love his thoughts during the chase. Bond “cursed Vesper, and M. for having sent her on the job.”
He goes on: “This was what he was afraid of. These blithering women who thought they could do a man’s work. Why the hell couldn’t they stay at home and mind their pots and pans and stick to their frocks and gossip and leave men’s work to men. [sic] And now for this to happen to him, just when the job had come off so beautifully. For Vesper to fall for an old trick like that and get herself snatched and probably held to ransom like some bloody heroine in a strip cartoon. The silly bitch.”
This bit infuriated my wife, and it is, in fact, what we now call toxic masculinity. And we have to consider that it might have been considered the normal male reaction in 1953.
But I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. Because Vesper, as far as Bond knows, had done nothing wrong. Bond himself didn’t realize the note from Mathis was suspicious until it was too late, so why should he hold his Number Two — a glorified secretary — to a higher standard? Why did “this happen to him,” he whines, when it’s Vesper, as far as he knows, who is in mortal danger?
This is not a mature reaction to the situation. It’s that of a spoiled brat who isn’t getting what he wants and blames everyone else. And it’s really not very good tradecraft. As Bond himself admits, he shouldn’t have let his guard down so soon. “He cursed himself and cursed the hubris which had made him so sure the battle was won and the enemy in flight.”
Taken in total, I think Fleming wants us to understand is that Bond is thinking, and acting, irrationally. That rescues the book from both incoherence and petulant, outright misogyny. The alternative is to take Bond’s angry thoughts at face value, and where does that leave us? With a nasty man who’s not very good at his job. And I don’t think that’s what Fleming intends for us to take away from the scene.
Bond behaves as he’s described exactly once. It’s before the baccarat game, when he explains his plan to Vesper, coldly and efficiently. She feels rebuffed by his lack of warmth. That, finally, seems like the Bond of reputation. But almost none of his other interactions with Vesper do.
What Fleming needed to do, and might well have with a bit more experience, is lead the book with a short Bond mission where A) he ruthlessly defeats his opponents with élan and efficiency, and B) heartlessly uses and throws away a woman. This would show us what Fleming wants us to believe of his hero, and then his behavior in the rest of the book would stand in stark relief — alerting the reader that Bond is acting out of character.
Since we are told and not shown, we have to make these decisions for ourselves.
And it’s not a stretch that we have to help Fleming with the story, because he’s so very bad at it in so many ways! It’s hard to sift the signal (what Fleming wants us to know) from the noise (all the other stuff he throws in there).
Consider, for example, the other players at the table with Le Chiffre and Bond. They are all introduced one by one, as if we’re about to be in a murder mystery, and they are all suspects, and we need to memorize them. But no sooner are they introduced than they disappear. Only one or two even has a line of dialogue. It’s a waste of our time and of Fleming’s material — think of what could have been done with those characters!
Or take Bond’s car. We know a lot about it. We know he bought the Bentley before the war and kept it in storage. We know who his mechanic is. We know he drives it “hard and well” with “almost a sensual pleasure.” (Um, ick.) We know what kind of engine it has, what kind of headlights. But don’t get too attached, because it goes away about halfway through the book.
These are Chekhov guns, primed and set on the mantel piece, that do not go off.
Or consider this: Bond tells Felix at the casino bar that he only has one drink before dinner, by which he means a mission. “But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made.” Well, he’s right about the strong part. “Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet …” Whew! If a measure is an ounce, that’s five ounces of liquor.
But despite what Bond says, this isn’t his first drink of the day, and it won’t be his last. Earlier, after the bombing, he had “his first straight whiskey ‘on the rocks’” in his hotel room, the phrase implying more than one. Then there’s the drink at the bar. And with Vesper — yes, at dinner, but pre-mission — he has “a small carafe of vodka” and a bottle of Champagne. I’m amazed he doesn’t pass out.
But OK, he’s James Bond, let’s take it as given he’s a superhuman drinker. I can accept that. What bothers me is Fleming establishing a “one drink” rule and immediately flouting it. Do we write this one off, too, as Bond trying to impress Vesper? It’s either that, or bad writing.
Or consider this: Toward the end, Fleming spends page after page with Bond on the beach. These scenes add nothing to the narrative. No epiphany about Vesper’s true loyalties, nothing new about Bond’s character. Bond just walks around on the beach, takes off his Japanese pajamas (spelled “pyjamas,” British style), puts them down, goes swimming, looks for his pajamas, takes off his swim trunks, lies on the sand and looks at the sky, picks up the trunks, puts them on, takes them off, goes swimming some more, looks for his pajamas again … What is the point of all this? Was Fleming trying to hit a page count?
Or consider all the flagrantly exaggerated orders of food and drink. Bond knows a lot of fancy words for this, mostly in French. (Early on M. chastises Head of S. for using French to show off his erudition and not simply using English. Then Fleming does exactly that in scenes involving food for the rest of the book.)
I assume this was Fleming’s attempt to show Bond’s worldliness. Maybe it did in 1953. In 2022, it makes him look effete and a bit of a show-off.
But then, I’ve seen The Great, a Hulu TV series where the 18th century Emperor Peter of Russia (Nicholas Hoult) does exactly the same thing. That show is a dramedy, by the way, and Peter’s fixation on food — and extensive knowledge of it — is played for laughs. Times change, I suppose.
Whatever the intended purpose of all this extraneous verbiage, it contributes instead to noise at the expense of signal. How shall I sift through all these contradictions and superfluous details to find what’s important?
Well, there’s one aspect of Casino Royale that I find an easy call: It was pretty obvious from early on that Vesper was a double agent. There was a flashing red light over her head all along that Bond, thinking with the wrong head, never notices.
- At the first meeting, Bond “felt a vague disquiet. On an impulse he touched wood.” That’s called foreshadowing, and I took it to heart.
- When Bond arrives in Royale-les-Eaux, someone has tipped off Le Chiffre. There’s a microphone in the chimney that took a couple of days to set up, and some Bulgarians try to assassinate him. Bond should be wondering who the informant is. Say, who’s new in his life?
- Nobody notices the gunman poking a cane in Bond’s back, including his backup. “Two heads are better than one,” says M., but in this case they’re obviously not.
- Vesper’s always evasive. Bond knows she’s hiding something, but doesn’t care. “The conquest of her body, because of the central privacy in her, would each time have the sweet tang of rape.”
- Um, ick.
- She runs hot and cold but doesn’t commit. This is very frustrating for Bond after the baccarat game where he’s ready for the (cough) “award-taking.”
Then during and after the kidnapping:
- She wasn’t molested by Le Chiffre’s men. Not even a slap. While exposed from the waist down.
- Read that one again.
- Vesper’s explanation about the kidnapping was too facile by half. Show me how you accurately throw a bag through the window of a car in motion with a dress over your head.
- “I slept most of the time.” Really, Vesper? During your own kidnapping?
- SMERSH kills everyone at Le Chiffre’s house except Bond, which is explained poorly, and Vesper … which isn’t explained at all. SMERSH should have killed them both just for being eye-witnesses.
Then on the shared vacation with Bond:
- She has weird telephone calls, a serious oddity in ‘50s England, when telephones weren’t often private and you had to go through an operator.
- She’s terrified of strangers.
- She will have enthusiastic physical sex but is emotionally distant.
- She cries a lot. Especially after sex.
- She refuses to talk about any of this.
It was so blatantly obvious what her problem was that only love could explain Bond’s obliviousness. Which, of course, that was the case, even after the truth came out. Even when he calls her a “bitch” when reporting to his superiors.
This is the punchline to the story, so it may be there for emphasis, to show how angry and cold he has become. Fleming writes, “He saw her now only as a spy. Their love and his grief were relegated to the boxroom of his mind. They would be dragged out, dispassionately examined, and then bitterly thrust back with other sentimental baggage he would forget.”
I’m not sure that’s true. I think his first real love affair and its deep betrayal should change him in ways that I hope we will see in future books. That’s why I call this an origin story.
Well, that and the speech Bond gives to Mathis in the hospital. You know the one, where he says there’s no difference between the good guys and the bad guys, and he’s going to quit.
Let’s get this part out of the way: I was startled by this speech, which seemed to come of the blue. Was there some foreshadowing somewhere that Bond was disgruntled? I didn’t notice any. I’m chalking that up to bad writing.
But the content isn’t that surprising. Even today, it’s considered worldly and sophisticated in some circles to say we’re just as bad as the bad guys. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Balloq said, “We are not so different, you and I” and I think the bad guy has made that speech in every movie since. (My wife and I cheerfully shout, “Drink!” every time somebody on TV says “We are not so different, you and I” or “in another life, we could be friends,” or similar.)
But Balloq was wrong. So is Bond. And I think Fleming wants us to know that.
Mathis does such a superb job of poking holes in Bond’s newfound philosophy that it lies in shreds. His strongest point is Bond’s current position. “You mean this precious Chiffre who did his best to turn you into a eunuch doesn’t qualify as a villain?” Mathis says.
“You admit that Le Chiffre did you personal evil and that you would kill him if he appeared in front of you now?” he continued. “Well, when you get back to London you will find there are other Le Chiffres seeking to destroy you and your friends and your country. … And now that you have seen a really evil man, you will know how evil they can be and you will go after them to destroy them in order to protect yourself and the people you love. You won’t wait to argue about it. …
“Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles.”
He is inarguably correct. As every study shows, most soldiers don’t fight for principles or patriotism — they fight to protect their buddies and their sweethearts.
At the end of the book, Fleming confirms his position. Bond thinks “How soon Mathis had been proved right, and how soon his own little sophistries had been exploded in his face!” There are real bad guys, Fleming wants us to know, and it’s men like Bond who need to protect us from them. Saying otherwise is “sophistries.”
But we can take one more thing from this speech, and it’s part of my case of what I think is the throughline of the book: Bond may have been an excellent agent (we are told), but he wasn’t a dedicated one. That is to say, he had no personal motivation to do what he does.
Until this book. Now he has motive. And it’s really personal.
So there’s my thesis. Vesper was killed to motivate Bond, formerly a spy who was going through the motions, but now one with a mission of vengeance (hello, Punisher!) and guilt (hello, Spider-Man!).
I don’t know what they called that trope in 1953. But in today’s world, we call it fridging.
Fun Facts to Know and Tell
The oft-referenced Deuxième Bureau did not exist in 1953. This French foreign intelligence service split in two after the fall of France in 1940, with the Free French calling it one thing and the Vichy French calling it another. But Wiki tells me that for some time everyone kept calling it “Deuxième Bureau” anyway. (It means the Second Bureau, focusing on foreign intelligence. The First Bureau was intelligence on domestic troops and allies.) It is now called the SDECE, for Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage.
In England, domestic intelligence is Military Intelligence 5, or MI5, and foreign intelligence is Military Intelligence 6, or MI6. It appears there used to be many MI departments, ranging from 1 to 19, but most have been folded into MI5 and MI6. Or possibly not. Why would they tell us?
Vesper is “evening star” in Latin. A vesper bell is one rung in early evening. Vespers is the evening service in Catholic and related religions. Vesper says she was given the name because she was born in the early evening, which is why Bond wants to use the name for his drink. “Sounds perfect for the violet hour when it will now be drunk all over the world.”
Le Chiffre means “The Cypher” (or “The Digit” or “The Number”). Most of his aliases — Die Nummer, Herr Ziffer, etc. — are the same word/concept in other European languages.
“Banco,” as you’d expect, means “Bank” in French, and it signifies you’re matching the bank’s bet. (Le Chiffre is the bank in Casino Royale, the player who puts up the money others must match. The casino’s role is to have a croupier and an umpire called the chef de partie.) If you want to play the next hand, you say “Suivi,” which means “follow up.”
The origin of the game of baccarat is debated, but the likeliest origin of the name is the town of Baccarat, France. However, in the play of the game, “baccarat” is also used by the chef de partie to denote the worst hand you can get: two face cards, which are worthless.
THE TV SHOW
Date: Oct. 21, 1954
The program: Episode 103 of Climax! (CBS)
Director: William H. Brown Jr.
Adapted by: Antony Ellis, Charles Bennett
Starring: Barry Nelson (James Bond), Peter Lorre (Le Chiffre), Linda Christian (Valerie Mathis), Michael Pate (Clarence Leiter)
Notable songs: None.
The show: The television adaptation of Casino Royale is an eccentric artifact, that I can recommend only to completists. Since that’s sort of the point of all this, I watched it (on Roku, for free).
I’ll get the bad news out of the way first.
This was filmed in the “Golden Age of Television,” which is a nice way of saying it’s not very sophisticated, especially to a modern audience. Spotlights visibly move. Bullet holes appear many seconds after you hear the shot. Fights, such as they are, are stagey. (The scene where Bond escapes the cane-gun is almost comical.) The dialogue can be hokey. Genuine drama or suspense are in short supply. And on the version I watched, the video quality was poor and it buffered constantly (which could be the platform).
But while it varied significantly from the book, it is recognizably Casino Royale. It begins with the assassination attempt on James “Jimmy Card Sense” Bond (albeit with bullets, not bombs). Bond meets Leiter and they become fast allies. (He explains baccarat to viewers by explaining it to Leiter, just as in the book Bond explains baccarat to readers by explaining it to Vesper.) There’s a microphone in the chimney in Bond’s room. The game with Le Chiffre unfolds just as in the book, with Bond initially defeated but saved by a last-minute cash infusion. He hides the check in the door plate. He and the love interest are kidnapped, and Bond is tortured. (It’s unseen what actually happens to him, but to the show’s credit he does not snap back into action-hero mode, but is instead in pretty bad shape.) This is all from the book.
I won’t reveal what happens next, because it is entirely different than the book, and you might enjoy finding out on your own.
The most interesting part of the show, especially for Bond experts, is the mix-and-match of characters. James Bond is American, for example, an agent of the Combined Intelligence Agency (which hyphenates as C-I-A, an initialism which is left unspoken). My wife and I both remarked on how very American Bond is, as Barry Nelson mugs and grimaces in 1950s American TV fashion throughout.
Leiter is with England’s MI6, neatly flipping the Anglo-American alliance for an American audience. (For some reason, someone thought Clarence would be a better first name than Felix. Go figure.)
Valerie Mathis is the most interesting character, in that she is a combo plate of René Mathis and Vesper Lynd. She is initially introduced as a former Bond flame (although their liaison seems to have been brief) and a subordinate/girlfriend of Le Chiffre. In true Casino Royale fashion she is not exactly what she seems, and I spent the whole show wondering if she’d have a similar tragic ending.
Lastly, we have Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre. I was looking forward to this, especially the strange accent and unsettling line delivery he did so well in M, The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca and other favorites. Sadly, due to age, actor’s choice or some other factor, his accent is faint. But his facial tics sometimes don’t match his line delivery, which made Le Chiffre seem a bit demented — and therefore dangerous. Needless to say, Lorre is the best part of the show.
Alas, no car chase. No wicker chair (the torture is in a bathtub). No lengthy hospital stay. No holiday with, uh, Valerie. In short, this one-hour show necessarily compresses Casino Royale, but includes most of the major plot points in mostly the right order.
Fun Facts to Know and Tell
Linda Christian, who plays Valerie Mathis, was born in Mexico to a Dutch father and a Mexican mother. She was married to (and had two children by) Tyrone Power. She co-starred with Johnny Weismuller in Tarzan and the Mermaids. Technically, she is the first Bond Girl.
Climax! aired on CBS. MGM’s purchase of the rights to the 1967 Casino Royale brought the TV rights with it, paving the way for the 2006 movie.
Ian Fleming got $1,000 for adaptation rights. That’s about $11,000 in today’s money.
Climax! was filmed in color, but most episodes were lost. Two black-and-white kinescope versions of “Casino Royale” are all that still exist.
Michael Pate, who played Clarence Leiter, was from Australia. He often played Native Americans, and is best known for Hondo (1953), The Court Jester (1955) and Julius Caesar (1953).
THE FIRST MOVIE
Date: 1967 (Movie #6)
Director(s): Val Guest, Ken Hughes, John Huston, Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish, Richard Talmadge
Starring: David Niven (Sir James Bond), Peter Sellers (Evelyn Tremble/James Bond), Woody Allen (Jimmy Bond/Dr. Noah), Joanna Pettet (Mata Bond), Terence Cooper (Cooper/James Bond), Ursula Andress (Vesper Lynd/James Bond), Daliah Lavi (The Detainer/James Bond), Deborah Kerr (Agent Mimi), Barbara Bouchet (Miss Moneypenny/James Bond), Orson Welles (Le Chiffre), Duncan Macrae (René Mathis), Jacqueline Bisset (Miss Goodthighs), John Huston (M.), Geoffrey Bayldon (Q.)
Notable songs: “The Look of Love”: Composed by Burt Bacharach with lyrics by Hal David, it was performed by Dusty Springfield. It reached #22 on the Billboard Top 100 and was nominated for an Oscar.
“Casino Royale Theme”: Composed by Burt Bacharach with lyrics by Hal David, the instrumental was performed by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. The lyrics were only sung during the closing credits, by Mike Redway. It spent two weeks at #1 on the Easy Listening chart and peaked at #27 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The movie: Well, this was a waste of everyone’s time, including mine.
It had six directors, none of whom knew what the others were doing, and it shows. It had an out-of-control star (Sellers), who left before filming was complete, resulting in missing scenes that would give the film some sense of cohesion. For example:
- We see Vesper being kidnapped. We cut to Tremble being tortured, because the interstitial scenes were never filmed.
- We see Vesper inviting Tremble to join MI6. We cut to Tremble in the James Bond training academy, because the establishing shot (with the academy in the basement of Harrod’s) never filmed.
- We see Vesper shoot Tremble in an obviously edited scene. It even ends in a freeze frame with Tremble cropped out.
The movie’s credits say it was “inspired” by Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale, but that’s being generous. Bond does play Le Chiffre (Orson Welles) in baccarat, but for some reason Welles also performs magic tricks. Bond and Vesper are kidnapped, but we never see how. Bond is tortured but not physically (although the rug-beater is in evidence, and the chair he sits in “isn’t upholstered”). Vesper is a traitor, but it’s not clear why: She’s a millionaire who stakes Tremble a million pounds for the baccarat game (which he wins) and lives in luxury, but the only motive given is Sir James saying, “Oh, Vesper, is there anything you won’t do for money?”
Otherwise the film is an incoherent invention, and leaves me with many questions. Why is Bond celibate? Why is M. Scottish? Why does so much of the movie take place in Scotland (actually filmed in Ireland)? Why did Deborah Kerr (The King and I, An Affair to Remember, Black Narcissus, From Here to Eternity) agree to this?
Fun Facts to Know and Tell
For some reason, the SMERSH academy is presented entirely in German Expressionism, like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
SMERSH agent Polo, who has a German accent, looks a bit like comedian Arte Johnson, and hides behind a fern (which does not hide him) while talking to Tremble. On Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, which was contemporaneous, Johnson would hide behind a fern (which does not hide him) in a German uniform and say “Verrrrry interestink … but schtupid!” I would really like to know which came first, or if there’s something earlier that inspired both of these performances.
This was David Prowse’s first movie. He plays Frankenstein’s monster.
Bond is in retirement because of death of Mata Hari, his one true love. In the real world she was executed in 1917 (when David Niven was 7), so if Bond had a romance with her, he should be in his 70s or 80s, not 57 as Niven was when this film was made. There is a throwaway line by Bond about his mansion in that “in this place, time doesn’t exist.” But even if you accept that, his daughter by Hari should be at least 50, but Joanna Pettet, who plays Mata Bond, was 25.
THE SECOND MOVIE
Date: 2006 (Movie #23; Eon #21)
Adapted by: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Paul Haggis
Director: Martin Campbell
Starring: Daniel Craig (James Bond), Eva Green (Vesper Lynd), Judi Dench (M.), Jeffrey Wright (Felix Leiter), Mads Mikkelson (Le Chiffre), Gincarlo Gianinni (René Mathis)
Notable songs: “You Know My Name,” composed by David Arnold, performed by Chris Cornell. It peaked at #79 on U.S. charts.
The movie: I forgot how good this movie is.
Craig turns in a bravura performance as Bond, and Green’s snarky and elusive Vesper is convincing as someone who could fool Bond. Jeffrey Wright’s Felix, Mikkelson’s Le Chiffre — the acting throughout is well done.
The entirety of Casino Royale is adapted, which both the spoof and the TV show failed to do. That includes the torture scene, which was genuinely shocking (both in the book and in the movie).
The famous Aston-Martin makes its first appearance ... being won in a poker game, like the Millennium Falcon. Because of course!
The parkour chase scene at the beginning is genuinely thrilling (and occasionally heart-stopping).
The movie starts Bond at the beginning of his career, and meets a number of supporting characters. All these bits of business carry across the five Craig films, for a complete, satisfying character arc for Bond, M., Felix, etc.
But the best part: It’s an improvement over the book!
1) For one thing, we are shown Bond at work before the beginning of the book where he succeeds in a prior mission through ruthlessness. And he callously uses and discards a woman, who is tortured and killed — leaving Bond completely unmoved. (Which even M. seems a bit taken aback by.)
This is exactly what I asked for in my discussion of the book above. Now when he falls for Vesper, or makes genuine mistakes, it is obvious. I don't have to guess.
2) We see Bond attaining his double-0 ranking in a much more interesting, and entertaining, fashion than described in the book.
3) Bond figures out someone ratted him out to Le Chiffre. He's just wrong about who it is (he thinks it's Mathis). In the book, he never seems to consider the possibility of a double agent when his cover is blown, which doesn't make him look very smart. Especially with Vesper essentially screaming "I WORK FOR THE SOVIETS."
4) Speaking of which, the movie Vesper is much more canny. I bet a lot of movie-goers were surprised to find out her true agenda. We book-readers knew in advance, and even so I found no flaws in her cover.
5) The many mistakes Bond makes in the book have to be written off to his infatuation with Vesper making him irrational. The movie corrects this by placing Bond at the beginning of the career, where his mistakes can be explained by simple inexperience, as well as innate recklessness.
6) Bond’s pre-Casino Royale actions are what costs Le Chiffre so much money that he has to win it at baccarat. This makes for a more linear narrative, because in the book Le Chiffre's money problems come from something unrelated. (Brothels, of all things.)
7) Vesper’s job at Treasury gives her a more plausible reason to tag along with Bond than the book gave us, where she's assistant to S.
8) The movie gives us a plausible explanation for why SMERSH doesn’t kill Bond and Vesper. Very plainly, Vesper (a double agent) cuts a deal: The money for Bond’s life. This is far superior to the book version, where the SMERSH agent doesn’t kill Bond because he doesn’t have orders to. (Like he would need orders to kill a British agent, who is also a witness. And he is perfectly fine with killing agents on his own side, so he's certainly not squeamish.) And he doesn’t kill Vesper because … well, he just doesn’t.
9) Bond catches up to Mr. White (the SMERSH agent who killed Le Chiffre) and eliminates him. That was left a loose end in the book, which the movie turns into a satisfying finish.
10) Just like the book, this is Bond’s origin story — only moreso. The double-0 bit at the beginning sets the stage, and by the end of movie Craig has become the 007 of legend. He ends the movie appropriately, delivering his famous catch phrase: “The name is Bond. James Bond.” Because now he is.
Fun Facts to Know and Tell
The rights to Casino Royale had been tied up in one set of hands or another since the 1954 TV show. According to The New York Times, Eon Productions gained the rights to Casino Royale in 1999 after Sony Pictures Entertainment exchanged them for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's rights to Spider-Man.
Two fight scenes were cut from the U.S. theatrical release (for brutality) that are available on the U.S. 4K release and were included in the version I saw on HBO Max.
Casino Royale won the BAFTA award for best sound.
Daniel Craig was born in 1968, making him four years younger than the movie series.
THE GRAPHIC NOVEL
Date: 2018
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment
Creators: Van Jensen (writer), Dennis Calero (artist)
The GN: Ironically, I have the least to say about the graphic novel, which one would assume is my area of expertise. But I do find that it’s a better read than the actual novel.
The adaptation is so faithful that virtually every word is lifted from the book. But, by necessity, a lot of words from the book have been left out — which is actually an improvement. The GN is leaner and more linear.
The adaptation also separates out Bond’s Holmesian observations in a different font and presentation. This also benefits the narrative, making it more cohesive and giving it room to breathe. In the book, the digressions into Bond's observations could be distracting, and in many cases irrelevant. The GN solves that problem.
I wasn't blown away by the art, but it does its job. I don’t how you can make a card game visually interesting, but Calero tries. I found he’s especially good at cars.
Replies
Interesting format: examining the book, the TV show, two movies and the comic in a single post. Impressive!
THE BOOK: I like to reread certain books at various stages of my life and see how my own life experiences change my opinion of them. I have read all 14 James Bond thrillers as a set at three different times in my life: in junior high school, in college, and in my 30s. One thing I will never be able to do is read them all for the first time in my 60s. I really can't dispute any of your criticisms, criticisms I didn't notice when I read the books at different stages of my life but seem obvious now that you've pointed them out. Even when I read them in my 30s, my perception was still being filtered through the eyes of my 13-year-old self.
Having recently watched the Pierce Brosnan James Bond movies, I am currently working my way through John Gardner's novelization of Goldeneye. Gardner is arguably a better technical writer than Fleming (certainly at this stage in Fleming's career), but he does emulat Fleming's style. I had to chuckle when I read you paragraph about Bond's car. A hallmark of Fleming's writing (one I enjoy, I must admit) is the level of specific detail to adds to certain things. The movie's teaser sequence includes a scene of Bond bungee-jumping off a dam. In the paperback, Gardner goes into Fleming-esque detail about the cord he used and the way he packed it and how he trained, etc.
"Or consider all the flagrantly exaggerated orders of food and drink." See, I loved that shit when I was 13, and I love it now because I loved it when I was 13.
I don't want to be the guy who, after recommending a character to someone who ends up not liking it, says, "Oh, you didn't read the right one." I think I cautioned you in advance against reading them for the first time at this stage in your life. However, I know I said something about Casino Royale being my least favorite so, going forward, they'll only get better. Or not.
THE TV SHOW: Barely counts as "James Bond" at all. A curiosity ("for completists" as you pointed out).
THE FIRST SPOOF MOVIE: "Well, this was a waste of everyone’s time, including mine." I did tell you.
THE SECOND MOVIE: I'm glad you liked it. Danial Craig is my second favorite Bond (after Sean Connery, of course). "But the best part: It’s an improvement over the book!" A good movie adaptation should always improve upon the book.
THE GRAPHIC NOVEL: I don't have the graphic novel but I do have the comic strips (which have been repackaged several times, what I assumed this was).
AUDIOBOOK: When you first announced your intention to read the books I thought I might follow along on audio. (I bought five of the first six on clearance at Half Price Books years ago.) But I sat down to listen to the first chapter and compare it against the text and discovered quite a bit of it was abridged. Maybe I will read some of the later books along with you.
Yes, you did warn me about all the thing you say you warned me about above. Sexism, racism, etc. All fine, really, as I expected it.
The only part that proved something of a challenge is how badly written the book is. I had to basically reconstruct the book in my head to make it coherent. I had to figure out what Fleming probably intended to say, then cherry-pick the parts that supported my thesis. That's bad writing. And bad editing, for that matter.
But that didn't stop me from reading Casino Royale and writing an English paper. Plus, the 2006 movie and the Dynamite graphic novel both found ways to improve the narrative. (Both of which supported my thesis, so whew.) Ask me your questions, bridge-keeper, I'm not afraid!
Oh, and speaking of the graphic novel, it really is an original from Dynamite, which is currently publishing new, original adventures of James Bond (the initial run was by Warren Ellis). Casino Royale the GN came out in 2018, and was followed by an adaptation of Live and Let Die. I want to say that the intent was to adapt all 14 Fleming books, but the series died after the first two.
I am familiar with the collections of James Bond comic strips, which are available on Amazon. The art doesn't appeal to me, and I don't see what they would contribute to the conversation. Here's the first one:
Now I'm off to Live and Let Die, which I expect will show improvement in the writing department.
"I don't see what they would contribute to the conversation."
I started a discussion of them on the old board but lost interest a couple of stories in. They are faithful adaptations, but I have uet to read beyond the adaptations. I prefer John McClusky's style to Yaroslav Horak's... at least I did last time I read them back in the early 2Ks. The general consensus among fans is that the Horak ones are better, but that may well be because of the writer, who changed at the same time as the artists.
"I note that the comic strip began before the movie series, and also began with Dr. No instead of Casino Royale."
Actually, the comic strip did begin with Casino Royale (here is a complete list of storylines). That's not the series I have (the cover you posted); it's the series I wish I had. I have all of the strips collections from 1958-1983 in softcover; the series you posted is hardcover, but I'm not sure if it actually went all the way to the end. I think both series were published by Titan Books, an English publisher. (The series I have certainly was.) Note the "The Complete James Bond" covers the years 1958 through 1960. Although the title is "Dr. No," the collection includes adaptations of the first six novels. (They did that with the softcovers, too, although they were only about half the length.)
I don't intend to get the comic strip collections, but if I ever do, this is valuable information.
I own a two volume set of the English newspaper strips titled The James Bond Omnibus (volumes 001 and 002) published by Titan. With the exception of The Hildebrand Rarity and The Spy Who Loved Me, that appear at the end of the second volume, the stories are in the same order as the novels. I think these collections are great if you are looking for a "Cliffs Notes" version of the Fleming stories.
John McClusky's art is definitely old school. I think there is a preference for Horak because of the bolder graphic style which appears more modern in comparison.