Movies - Casino Royale

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	Movies - Casino Royale

Casino Royale is a James Bond spoof released on 13 April, 1967 lightly based on the Ian Fleming novel of the same name. It features Orson Welles, as the villain Le Chiffre, battling James Bond in the guises of Sir James Bond (David Niven) and six other James Bonds: Terence Cooper (named Coop), Woody Allen (Bond's nephew Jimmy Bond), Joanna Pettet (Mata Bond, illegitimate daughter of Mata Hari and James Bond), and Peter Sellers (card-sharp Evelyn Tremble impersonating Bond at Casino Royale).

Prior to the release, Charles K. Feldman, the producer, had acquired the film rights and attempted to get Casino Royale made as an official James Bond movie; however, the producers of the official series, Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, turned him down. Believing he couldn't compete with official series, the novel was then adapted as a spoof of not only of James Bond, but of the entire spy fiction genre. The Sellers–Welles segment is the only portion based upon the novel.

Plot summary

The story of Casino Royale is told in a somewhat disjointed, episodic form and is best outlined in "chapters". Note: some of these chapters overlap.

Chapter 1: M (here referred to by his family name, McTarry, and played by John Huston) accompanies representatives of the CIA, KGB and French secret service to the massive country estate of Sir James Bond (David Niven), an eccentric First World War hero who resigned from the secret service after luring the love of his life, Mata Hari, to her death in front of a firing squad. (The film ignores the fact that these events would have taken place 50 years earlier, suggesting that in the Casino Royale universe, the First World War occurred during the time of the real world's Second World War.) During the intervening years, Bond's name has become symbolic of the spirit of the secret service, to the extent that another individual (decried by Bond as being oversexed) has been given his name and his number, 007 (a vague reference to Sean Connery's Bond).

M and the others beg Bond to lend his leadership to a mission investigating the disappearance and deaths of secret agents around the world. When Bond refuses, M orders a military strike on Bond's mansion; the mansion is destroyed, but M is killed in the attack.

Chapter 2: Sir James travels to McTarry Castle in Scotland in order to return McTarry's remains to his ancestral home. All that does remain of M is his toupee, which is promptly dubbed a "hairloom" by Lady Fiona (Deborah Kerr), his grieving widow. Bond soon finds himself fending off the advances of McTarry's many daughters. Unknown to Bond, McTarry's wife and family have been replaced by agents of the mysterious Dr. Noah, who have been assigned to either discredit or kill Bond. But after Bond handily defeats a gang of thugs in a sport involving players throwing heavy stone cannonballs at each other, Fiona falls in love with Bond, and is imprisoned by her fake daughters to prevent her from helping him. Bond is then invited to a grouse shoot, but the grouse turn out to be disguised flying bombs (though they really look more like puffins than grouse). Meanwhile, with some creative acrobatics, Lady Fiona manages to escape and helps Bond to foil the attack. En route back to London, Bond survives another attempt on his life involving a remote-controlled dairy truck, which fatally backfires on the female agent luring him into the trap.

Chapter 3: Bond, now promoted to the position of M, settles into McTarry's old office and his secretary, Miss Moneypenny's daughter (Barbara Bouchet). Bond's first order is to rename all remaining MI6 agents "James Bond 007" in order to confuse the enemy. He also orders that an agent be found who has enough self-control to resist the charms of female enemy agents. Such an agent is found in "Coop" (played by one-time Bond candidate Terence Cooper). Although Coop is able to resist the charms of M/Bond's "secret weapon" - an exotic agent known as The Detainer (Daliah Lavi), he is unable to resist entering into a romantic liaison with the smitten Miss Moneypenny.

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Movies - Casino Royale

Plot summary

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