To begin with it was financed, not by the producers of the regular Bond series, Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli, but by Charles Feldman who just had a huge hit with What’s New Pussycat (1965).

Ranging from surreal black comedy to pure slapstick, the movie boasts remarkably little in the way of coherent plotting, a fault that was compensated for by the numerous plots and counterplots hatched before and during its turbulent shooting. Foremost among the Bond imitators were the Matt Helm series of films starring Dean Martin – The Silencers (1966), Murderer’s Row (1966), The Ambushers (1967), The Wrecking Crew (1969) – the two Derek Flint films starring James Coburn – Our Man Flint (1966), In Like Flint (1967) – and the various Man From UNCLE feature films created by combining television episodes and adding extra footage – The Spy With My Face (1965), One Of Our Spies Is Missing (1966), One Spy Too Many (1966), How To Steal The World (1968) – all of which became progressively far-fetched.īut the most way-out spy film of all was Casino Royale (1967), a bizarre concoction that has virtually nothing to do with the first (and arguably the best) of Ian Fleming‘s James Bond novels.

The James Bond films began the trend in which science fiction elements were increasingly incorporated into thrillers during the sixties, a trend which reached boom proportions in the latter half of the decade. The world’s richest agent, Vesper Lynd, helps convince Tremble to masquerade as 007.” Bond, hoping to clear his name from its current low repute, hires Evelyn Tremble to meet Le Chiffre at the gambling tables at Casino Royale. 007’s nephew Jimmy Bond is supposedly incompetent. The current agent using the Bond name, Cooper, has his hands full, despite his assistance by beautiful secretary, Moneypenny. Bond’s illegitimate daughter, Mata Bond, whose mother was the late Mata Hari, is going to help out. Bond is taken in by Agent Mimi (alias Lady Fiona McTarry) who immediately falls in love with him. “Sir James Bond is enjoying his retirement when four international agents press him into service again in hopes of smashing SMERSH and topple Le Chiffre at the baccarat tables.

Original casino royale movie 1967 cast