Casino Royale

Buy This Item Casino Royale by MGM (Video & DVD)  Available from Amazon  $14.94  on 10-4-2008     Welcome to Casino Royale, the ultimate psychedelic secret agent satire! Packed with girls, guns and gags galore, this "very funny picture" (The New Yorker) delivers "laughs all the way"(Cue)! Starring Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress, David Niven, Joanna Pettet, Orson Welles, Daliah Lavi, Woody Allen, Deborah Kerr, William Holden and others, and with an original score from Oscar® winner* Burt Bacharach, this groovy spy movie is "even farther out" (LA Herald-Examiner) than all other spoofs combined! British Intelligence is waning in every possible way! When the diabolical SMERSH begins killing off Her Majesty's Secret Service, super-agent James Bond (Niven) recruits six more "James Bonds" to confuse and conquer their enemies. But it won't be easy. They'll have to face an army of irresistibly sexy female operatives, exploding robotic fowl, parachuting Indians and a germ that makes all women beautiful but kills all men over 4'6"! *1981: Original Song (with Carole Bayer Sager, Christopher Cross, Peter Allen), Arthur; 1969: Original Song (Lyrics by Hal David), Score, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Reader Reviews `Casino Royale', the original 1960's version is one of those movies which seems to improve with age. I can recall reviews at the time of its release saying that its primary failing was that it parodied a genre, the James Bond movies, which were themselves a parody of the spy thriller genre, so it was much like taking coals to Newcastle. The movie was done with much of the same talent which contributed to the similar `What's New Pussycat', primarily the superb comic talents of Peter Sellers and Woody Allen. One of the very best things I can say about `Casino Royale' is that where these two failed to redeem `What's New Pussycat', they succeeded quite well thank you in the spy spoof. One of the things one notices upon looking back at this flick is that it may have been an unsung precursor to the general genre of `all star' spoof movie. Most of this genre has usually been traced back to `Airplane', `Blazing Saddles', and maybe the early Woody Allen movies such as `What's New, Tiger Lily' and `Take the Money and Run'. In fact, I think Casino Royal stands up quite well as one of the better early representatives of this genre. One thing this has in spades is a fine collection of cameo and major performances by the likes of David Niven, Orson Welles, George Raft, William Holden, Deborah Kerr, John Huston and many others. And, each one contributes just the right amount of panache to their stereotypical characters. But Sellers, Niven, and Allen do most of the heavy lifting, with Sellers doing a superb job in his character, far, far better than his silly character in `Pussycat'. I also am very fond of the inventiveness behind some of the silliness, although there is more than enough simple-minded silliness, especially in the final scene. The primary premise of five James Bond characters, flubbing their roles in the field, leading to the need to bring James Bond senior out of retirement to straighten things out creates lots of opportunities for a wide variety of situations and subplots. While the new `Casino Royale' is a superb `classic' Bond flick, its release may have the secondary benefit of bringing this old warhorse spoof out of the closet to be enjoyed once more.

Casino Royale Available from Amazon Price: $14.94 Updated on 10-4-2008.

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