The Name’s Bond, Jimmy Bond: Casino Royale (1954)

Hi there! On November 9th (which just happens to be my birthday, by the way), the latest James Bond film will opening here in the States. The early reviews of Skyfall have been nothing sort of amazing, with several critics declaring it to be the best Bond film ever. Well, time will tell. The fact of the matter is that many of those same critics said the exact same thing about Quantum of Solace before it was actually released.

That said, the James Bond franchise seems to be one of the few things that everyone on this planet has in common. It seems that everyone has seen (and loved) at least one Bond film. There’s a reason why Skyfall is going to be the number one film in the world despite having a totally generic title. For over 50 years, people have loved Bond.

Here at the Shattered Lens, we’re observing the 50th anniversary of the James Bond franchise by reviewing every single James Bond film that’s ever been made. In the days leading up to the American release of Skyfall, we’ll be taking a look at every single adventure that the cinematic James Bond has had. Everything from the good to the bad to the ugly.

Everyone knows that Sean Connery made his debut of James Bond in 1962’s Dr. No but what they may not know is that Sean Connery was not the first actor to play James Bond. James Bond made his first appearance 8 years earlier when an American television show called Climax! presented a 48-minute adaptation of Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel, Casino Royale.

In this version of Climax!, James Bond was known as Jimmy Bond and he was about as American as you can get. (Felix Leiter, meanwhile, was now English and named Clarence Leiter). Jimmy Bond was played by Barry Nelson, an actor who is probably best known for playing the blandly friendly hotel manager in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Casino Royale’s villain, Le Chiffre, was played by none other than Peter Lorre.

This version of Casino Royale was initially meant to serve as a pilot for a weekly television series but, perhaps fortunately, the Climax version of Casino Royale didn’t get much attention when it was originally aired. According to Sinclair McKay’s authoritative Bond book, The Man With The Golden Touch, this version of Casino Royale was forgotten about until a copy of it was discovered in the 1980s. By that time, of course, everyone knew that James Bond was English and that Felix Leiter was American.

Thanks to YouTube, I’ve seen the Climax! Casino Royale and it’s a curiosity. If Dr. No hadn’t launched the James Bond film franchise, there would be little reason to watch this version of Casino Royale. It moves a bit slowly, is way too stagey, and it reveals that, contrary to what we’ve all heard, live television was not always the greatest thing on the planet. Not surprisingly, this adaptation contains none of the brutality or the moral ambiguity that makes Fleming’s novel such a fun read. American television audiences would not see Jimmy Bond strapped naked to a chair and an American television show would never end with the hero saying, “The bitch is dead.” The best you can say about this version of Casino Royale is that Peter Lorre makes for a good villain (in fact, of the three versions of Casino Royale, the television version is the only one to feature an effective Le Chiffre) and Barry Nelson would have made a good Felix Leiter.

That said, I still find the television version of Casino Royale to be fascinating from a historical point of view. This is the type of show that you watch for curiosity value. This is the type of show that you watch so that you can think about how different things could have been.

So, presented for your viewing pleasure, here’s the original version of Casino Royale:

Coming tomorrow: The James Bond film franchise gets off to its proper start with … Dr. No!

Well, there you go, weird stuff that I didn’t know about in regards to James Bond.

Lisa Marie said:

“The early reviews of Skyfall have…several critics declaring it to be the best Bond film ever.”

I call this the Dark Knight Syndrome. It’s like all those folks who claim that “The Dark Knight” is not only the greatest Batman film of all-time, but also the best film ever made, period.

The general belief is that movies from past years benefit from the nostalgia effect, and maybe this is so, but at least you can dust off those old films, watch them again and see if they still stand the toughest test of all, the test of time.

The Dark Knight syndrome occurs when a movie (or something) for whom people have high hopes generates such a buzz, that it becomes one of the most eagerly awaited films (or things) ever released. The level of anticipation is so strong that when the product finally arrives, people trick themselves into believing that it is nothing short of the greatest thing since sliced bread, regardless of the actual quality of the product. Also, people do this because they want the arrival of the film (or thing) to be a major milestone in the history of its industry, so that they can say to their children, grandchildren or simply film fans yet to be born, a few decades from now:

” You know, I was there back when ‘The Dark Knight’ first hit cinemas. I remember lining up around the block at midnight, waiting to be the first kid on my block to see it…ah, those were the days.”

Basically, because kids these days don’t have a moon-landing or a Woodstock to celebrate, they look for an equivalent in their own generation, which is, rather sadly, the release of the next Batman film.

I’m glad that I didn’t get caught up in the hype of “Pulp Fiction” when it was released. It took me many years to finally sit down and watch the movie. Without saying too much, there is absolutely no way that I would even consider it to be one of the best films of all time, because it’s not even one of the best from its year.

I still haven’t seen any of the Daniel Craig entires into the James Bond saga. I shall watch them at my own pace, separated from the hype and inflated expectations of the mainstream media “experts” (many of whom don’t view movies as anything more than flashy timewasters or excuses for award ceremonies).

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6 responses to “The Name’s Bond, Jimmy Bond: Casino Royale (1954)”

trashfilmguru says:

October 16, 2012 at 13:00

Weird stuff! Stiil, when I think of Jimmy Bond, I’ll always think of Woody Allen in the real “Casino Royale” — the one with David Niven, which remains my personal favorite Bond film.

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Mark V says:

October 16, 2012 at 21:13

Well, there you go, weird stuff that I didn’t know about in regards to James Bond.

Lisa Marie said:

“The early reviews of Skyfall have…several critics declaring it to be the best Bond film ever.”

I call this the Dark Knight Syndrome. It’s like all those folks who claim that “The Dark Knight” is not only the greatest Batman film of all-time, but also the best film ever made, period.

The general belief is that movies from past years benefit from the nostalgia effect, and maybe this is so, but at least you can dust off those old films, watch them again and see if they still stand the toughest test of all, the test of time.

The Dark Knight syndrome occurs when a movie (or something) for whom people have high hopes generates such a buzz, that it becomes one of the most eagerly awaited films (or things) ever released. The level of anticipation is so strong that when the product finally arrives, people trick themselves into believing that it is nothing short of the greatest thing since sliced bread, regardless of the actual quality of the product. Also, people do this because they want the arrival of the film (or thing) to be a major milestone in the history of its industry, so that they can say to their children, grandchildren or simply film fans yet to be born, a few decades from now:

” You know, I was there back when ‘The Dark Knight’ first hit cinemas. I remember lining up around the block at midnight, waiting to be the first kid on my block to see it…ah, those were the days.”

Basically, because kids these days don’t have a moon-landing or a Woodstock to celebrate, they look for an equivalent in their own generation, which is, rather sadly, the release of the next Batman film.

I’m glad that I didn’t get caught up in the hype of “Pulp Fiction” when it was released. It took me many years to finally sit down and watch the movie. Without saying too much, there is absolutely no way that I would even consider it to be one of the best films of all time, because it’s not even one of the best from its year.

I still haven’t seen any of the Daniel Craig entires into the James Bond saga. I shall watch them at my own pace, separated from the hype and inflated expectations of the mainstream media “experts” (many of whom don’t view movies as anything more than flashy timewasters or excuses for award ceremonies).

LikeLike

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