This 1954 adaptation of Casino Royale was an interesting experience as it felt more noir-ish and a precursor to all the Bondian aspects that we may expect nowadays. Barry Nelson as Bond gives a good performance with a human touch which coincidentally wouldn't be seen as much in the character till the 2006 adaptation along with Linda Christian. The movie was called Casino Royale, based on the first novel by Ian Fleming. The movie was adapted from this novel for a CBS broadcast, with the hopes of adapting more of Ian Fleming's novels on TV.but the broadcast was pretty much bashed by critics and ignored by viewers. The movie was broadcasted only once and lost. Casino Royale’s greatest contribution of all was the birth of an icon of both literature and film. James Bond would live on for far longer than his creator would have anticipated, and the book’s sequel would further establish the formula for success. Overall Rating: 9 out of 10. Better than the 1954 Film? Yes Better than the.

1. Casino Royale 1954 Cast
2. Casino Royale 1954 Movie
3. Casino Royale 1954 Review
4. Casino Royale 1954 Review Film
5. Casino Royale 1954 Reviews

'Casino Royale' is a live 1954 television adaptation of the 1953 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. An episode of the American dramatic anthology series Climax!, the show was the first screen adaptation of a James Bond novel, and stars Barry Nelson, Peter Lorre, and Linda Christian. Though this marks the first onscreen appearance of the secret agent, Nelson's Bond is played as an American spy working for the 'Combined Intelligence Agency', and is referred to as 'Jimmy' by several characters.

Most of the largely forgotten show was located in the 1980s by film historian Jim Schoenberger, with the ending (including credits) found afterward. Both copies are black and white kinescopes, but the original live broadcast was in color. The rights to the program were acquired by MGM at the same time as the rights for the 1967 film version of Casino Royale, clearing the legal pathway and enabling it to make the 2006 film of the same name.

Plot[edit]

Act I 'Combined Intelligence' agent James Bond comes under fire from an assassin: he manages to dodge the bullets and enters Casino Royale. There he meets his British contact, Clarence Leiter, who remembers 'Card Sense Jimmy Bond' from when he played the Maharajah at Deauville. While Bond explains the rules of baccarat, Leiter explains Bond's mission: to defeat Le Chiffre at baccarat and force his Soviet spymasters to 'retire' him. Bond then encounters a former lover, Valerie Mathis, who is Le Chiffre's current girlfriend; he also meets Le Chiffre himself.

Act II Bond beats Le Chiffre at baccarat, but, when he returns to his hotel room, is confronted by Le Chiffre and his bodyguards, along with Mathis, who Le Chiffre has discovered is an agent of the Deuxième Bureau, France's external military intelligence agency at the time.

Casino Royale 1954 Cast

Act III Le Chiffre tortures Bond in order to find out where Bond has hidden the check for his winnings, but Bond does not reveal where it is. After a fight between Bond and Le Chiffre's guards, Bond shoots and wounds Le Chiffre, saving Valerie in the process. Exhausted, Bond sits in a chair opposite Le Chiffre to talk. Mathis gets in between them, and Le Chiffre grabs her from behind, threatening her with a concealed razor blade. As Le Chiffre moves towards the door with Mathis as a shield, she struggles, breaking free slightly, and Bond is able to shoot Le Chiffre.

Cast[edit]

• Barry Nelson as James Bond
• Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre
• Linda Christian as Valerie Mathis (a composite character of Vesper Lynd and René Mathis)
• William Lundigan as Host/Himself
• Michael Pate as Clarence Leiter
• Eugene Borden as Chef De Partie
• Jean Del Val as Croupier
• Gene Roth as Basil
• Kurt Katch as Zoltan
• Juergen Tarrach as Schultz
• Herman Belmonte as Doorman

Production[edit]

In 1954 CBS paid Ian Fleming $1,000^[2] ($9,520 in 2019 dollars)^[3] to adapt his first novel, Casino Royale, into a one-hour television adventure^[4] as part of their dramatic anthology series Climax!, which ran between October 1954 and June 1958.^[5] It was adapted for the screen by Antony Ellis and Charles Bennett; Bennett was best known for his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, including The 39 Steps and Sabotage.^[6] Due to the restriction of a one-hour play, the adapted version lost many of the details found in the book, although it retained its violence, particularly in Act III.^[6]

The hour-long Casino Royale episode aired on October 21, 1954 as a live production and starred Barry Nelson as secret agent James Bond, with Peter Lorre in the role of Le Chiffre,^[7] and was hosted by William Lundigan.^[8] The Bond character from Casino Royale was re-cast as an American agent, described as working for 'Combined Intelligence', supported by the British agent, Clarence Leiter; 'thus was the Anglo-American relationship depicted in the book reversed for American consumption'.^[9]

Clarence Leiter was an agent for Station S, while being a combination of Felix Leiter and René Mathis. The name 'Mathis', and his association with the Deuxième Bureau, was given to the leading lady, who is named Valérie Mathis, instead of Vesper Lynd.^[10] Reports that toward the end of the broadcast 'the coast-to-coast audience saw Peter Lorre, the actor playing Le Chiffre, get up off the floor after his 'death' and begin to walk to his dressing room',^[11] do not appear to be accurate.^[12]

Legacy[edit]

Four years after the production of Casino Royale, CBS invited Fleming to write 32 episodes over a two-year period for a television show based on the James Bond character.^[4] Fleming agreed and began to write outlines for this series. When nothing ever came of this, however, Fleming grouped and adapted three of the outlines into short stories and released the 1960 anthology For Your Eyes Only along with an additional two new short stories.^[13]

This was the first screen adaptation of a James Bond novel and was made before the formation of Eon Productions. When MGM eventually obtained the rights to the 1967 film version of Casino Royale, it also received the rights to this television episode.^[14]

The Casino Royale episode was lost for decades after its 1954 broadcast until a black and white kinescope of the live broadcast was located by film historian Jim Schoenberger in 1981.^[15][16] The episode aired on TBS as part of a Bond film marathon. The original 1954 broadcast had been in color, and the VHS release and TBS presentation did not include the last two minutes, which were at that point still lost. Eventually, the missing footage (minus the last seconds of the end credits) was found and included on a Spy Guise & Cara Entertainment VHS release. MGM subsequently included the incomplete version on its first DVD release of the 1967 film Casino Royale.^[1]

David Cornelius of Efilmcritic.com remarked that 'the first act freely gives in to spy pulp cliché' and noted that he believed Nelson was miscast and 'trips over his lines and lacks the elegance needed for the role.' He described Lorre as 'the real main attraction here, the veteran villain working at full weasel mode; a grotesque weasel whose very presence makes you uncomfortable.'^[6] Peter Debruge of Variety also praised Lorre, considering him the source of 'whatever charm this slipshod antecedent to the Bond oeuvre has to offer', and complaining that 'the whole thing seems to have been done on the cheap'. Debruge still noted that while the special had very few elements in common with the Eon series, Nelson's portrayal of 'Bond suggests a realistically human vulnerability that wouldn't resurface until Eon finally remade Casino Royale more than half a century later.'^[17]

Casino Royale 1954 Movie

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abBritton 2004, p. 30.
2. ^Black 2005, p. 14.
3. ^Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. 'Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–'. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
4. ^ ^abLindner 2009, p. 14.
5. ^Lycett 1996, p. 264.
6. ^ ^abc'Now Pay Attention, 007: Introduction and Casino Royale '54'. Efilmcritic.com. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
7. ^Benson 1988, p. 11.
8. ^Andreychuk 2010, p. 38.
9. ^Black, Jeremy (Winter 2002–2003). 'Oh, James'. National Interest (70): 106. ISSN0884-9382.
10. ^Benson 1988, p. 7.
11. ^Lycett 1996, p. 265.
12. ^Mikkelson, David (April 13, 2014). 'Dead Character Walks Off Stage'. Snopes Media Group Inc. Retrieved October 23, 2020.
13. ^Pearson 1967, p. 312.
14. ^Poliakoff, Keith (2000). 'License to Copyright - The Ongoing Dispute Over the Ownership of James Bond'(PDF). Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal. Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. 18: 387–436. Archived from the original(PDF) on March 31, 2012. Retrieved September 3, 2011.
15. ^Benson 1988, p. 10.
16. ^Rubin 2002, p. 70.
17. ^Debruge, Peter (May 11, 2012). 'Revisiting 'Casino Royale''. Variety. Retrieved May 20, 2012.

Bibliography[edit]

• Andreychuk, Ed (2010). Louis L'Amour on Film and Television. McFarland. ISBN978-0-7864-3336-0.
• Balio, Tino (1987). United Artists: the company that changed the film industry. Univ of Wisconsin Press. ISBN978-0-299-11440-4.
• Barnes, Alan; Hearn, Marcus (2001). Kiss Kiss Bang! Bang!: the Unofficial James Bond Film Companion. Batsford Books. ISBN978-0-7134-8182-2.
• Benson, Raymond (1988). The James Bond Bedside Companion. London: Boxtree Ltd. ISBN978-0-88365-705-8.
• Black, Jeremy (2005). The Politics of James Bond: from Fleming's Novel to the Big Screen. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN978-0-8032-6240-9.
• Britton, Wesley Alan (2004). Spy television (2 ed.). Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN978-0-275-98163-1.
• Chapman, James (1999). Licence To Thrill: A Cultural History of the James Bond Films. London/New York City: I.B. Tauris. ISBN978-1-84511-515-9.
• Cork, John; Scivally, Bruce (2006). James Bond: The Legacy 007. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN978-0-8109-8252-9.
• Lindner, Christoph (2009). The James Bond Phenomenon: a Critical Reader (2 ed.). Manchester University Press. ISBN978-0-7190-8095-1.
• Lycett, Andrew (1996). Ian Fleming. London: Phoenix. ISBN978-1-85799-783-5.
• Macintyre, Ben (2008). For Yours Eyes Only. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN978-0-7475-9527-4.
• Pearson, John (1967). The Life of Ian Fleming: Creator of James Bond. London: Jonathan Cape.
• Pfeiffer, Lee; Worrall, Dave (1998). The Essential Bond. London: Boxtree Ltd. ISBN978-0-7522-2477-0.
• Rubin, Steven Jay (2002). The James Bond films: a behind the scenes history. Westport, Conn: Arlington House. ISBN978-0-87000-523-7.

External links[edit]

• Casino Royale (1954) on IMDb
• Casino Royale 1954 Trailer on YouTube

Casino Royale 1954 Review

Our Word Is Our Bond is a new series which will look at every 007 film in chronological order. Jonathon Dabell kicks off the series with a look at Casino Royale (1954) starring Barry Nelson and Peter Lorre.
Imagine, if you will, that you are on a TV quiz show. The host looks you in the eye and asks you “who was the first actor to portray James Bond on screen?” You smile inwardly, confident in your own knowledge, and reply “Sean Connery”. You may even be enough of a smart-ass to add “in Dr. No“, just to prove you know your onions. Wrong. More paranoid players, anticipating a trick question, might plump for David Niven who portrayed an in-name-only version of the character in Casino Royale, a wacky 007 spoof made by other hands. But here again they would be wrong. The spoof Casino Royale was actually made in 1967, when the Connery Bond films were already well established.

James Bond (Barry Nelson) weighs up the odds in Casino Royale (1954).

The correct answer to the question is actually Barry Nelson. An anthology TV show called Climax! ran in America from 1954 to 1958, each episode around 50-60 minutes in length and many of them filmed in front of a live audience in colour (the episodes which survive, alas, are all black-and-white kinescope copies). The third show in the first season of the show was one Casino Royale, based on a recent novel by a then little-known chap named Ian Fleming.
It’s amusing to note from the off that James Bond (often referred to throughout the film as ‘Jimmy’) is an American agent working for some organisation vaguely mentioned as ‘Combined Intelligence’. His inside contact at the casino is a British agent named Clarence Leiter, played with the stiffest of upper lips by Michael Pate. Aside from this juggling of nationalities, and changes to the character names (‘Clarence’ is actually named ‘Felix’ Leiter throughout the Bond novels and films, while the main female character here, Valerie Mathis, is a combination of Rene Mathis, a French Deuxieme agent, and Vesper Lynd, a tormented double agent, from Fleming’s book), the film remains fairly faithful to the source novel.

Casino Royale 1954 Review Film

James Bond (Barry Nelson) teaches Clarence Leiter (Michael Pate) the finer points of baccarat, in Casino Royale (1954).

Bond (Nelson) has been assigned to beat a French-based Russian agent, Le Chiffre (Peter Lorre), at baccarat. Le Chiffre is a dangerous and enormously valuable agent, incorruptible and totally reliable apart from one key character flaw – he has an addiction to gambling. After using money provided him in good faith by his Russian spy-masters to fund his gambling, Le Chiffre has lost almost all of it and needs to win it back urgently before he is ‘retired’ (that’s code for ‘assassinated’, just in case you missed the point). Bond’s job is to defeat him at the baccarat table and leave him to his fate. To add to the intrigue, Bond’s ex-lover Valerie (Linda Christian) is now Le Chiffre’s moll, although it’s clear she still holds a candle for Bond as does he for her. Bond receives an anonymous phone-call informing him that is he beats Le Chiffre at the baccarat tables, Valerie will be killed.

James Bond (Barry Nelson) and Valerie Mathis (Linda Christian) in Casino Royale (1954).

There’s very little in common between this Bond production and the many Eon productions that followed. Nelson admitted that he had little idea how to play the character – there were no existing Bond films for him to use as reference points, and he had not read the novel (it was not well-known at all in America – indeed, it wasn’t until John F. Kennedy labelled From Russia With Love as one of his favourite books that the Bond novels took off in America). He felt the role was poorly written and found the process of filming before a live audience rather terrifying on the whole, though the chance to act opposite the legendary Peter Lorre was enough to make him want to do it. The film is split, as if to reinforce its stage-play approach, into three acts. The opening act is mainly about getting the plot machinations into gear; the second deals with the card game at which Bond and Le Chiffre square up to each other; and the final act sees a desperate Le Chiffre torturing Bond in his hotel room in an effort to recover the money he has lost.

Le Chiffre (Peter Lorre) tortures Bond (Barry Nelson) in the bath tub, while a distraught Valerie (Linda Christian) looks on. Casino Royale (1954).

While Nelson is right about the role being underwritten, he lacks the charisma to raise it on the strength of his personality alone. His generally bland line delivery and posturing make one realise just how commanding a performance is given by Sean Connery in the later entries. Linda Cristian is also somewhat out of her depth as the hopelessly wooden leading lady of the piece. Lorre, though, is pretty good as Le Chiffre. Always a sinister and unpredictable presence in a movie, Lorre is close to Fleming’s original depiction of Le Chiffre and utterly steals the film from everyone else around him. The torturing of Bond in the final act is too graphic in the novel to be shown in any real detail in a 50s TV production (heck, even the 2006 Daniel Craig version it is still toned down a little from the book), but Lorre’s urbane savagery makes the scene effective. I watched the film for the first time recently with my wife, and during the torture scene she turned to me and said “this is quite dark for a 50s film!” which is pretty much what I was thinking myself at that moment. The effect is not achieved through visceral visual nastiness; it’s all down to Lorre’s uncanny knack for making one believe his ruthless evilness.

Casino Royale 1954 Reviews

For many years, Casino Royale (1954) was considered a lost movie, until a kinescope copy was discovered in the 80s. Even that was missing the final two minutes, a final twist in which Le Chiffre tries to thwart Bond by taking Valerie as a hostage while he holds a razor blade to her throat. This final scene has since been found as well, although the picture and sound quality during this final frisson is clearly more deteriorated than the rest of the film. It’s just about watchable, albeit rather scratchy and washed-out.
Overall Casino Royale has not held up well, certainly not when measured against the best of the Eon productions. The low budget makes the casino scenes rather unconvincing, and Nelson’s general insipidness as Bond is a major distraction. However, it deserves credit for being a reasonably faithful adaptation of a fine novel, plus further praise needs adding for Lorre’s confident display of silky menace. Generally-speaking, though, it is more of a curiosity piece than anything else. Bond completists should give it a look just to say they’ve seen it. And remember, if you’re ever on that TV quiz show and they ask you who was the first person to play Bond on screen… Barry Nelson’s the name you’re looking for!
MoM Rating: 5/10