Casino Royale (1967) on Netflix
Sir James Bond is asked by British, American, Soviet and French intelligence to stop SMERSH, which is killing their agents. He refuses. He names every MI6 agent James Bond 007.
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Trailer
Plot summary
Twenty years into retirement, Sir James Bond receives M of MI6 along with the CIA's Ransome, the KGB's Smernov and Le Grand of the Deuxième Bureau. SMERSH is killing their agents, and they want the original Bond back. He refuses and scolds M for handing his name to other field agents. A mortar attack on Bond's estate kills M. Back in London, Bond takes charge of MI6, orders that every remaining agent be codenamed James Bond 007 to confuse SMERSH, and has male agents trained to resist women. Moneypenny brings in the karate expert Cooper, and Vesper Lynd is hired to recruit the baccarat master Evelyn Tremble, whom Bond intends to pit against Le Chiffre, SMERSH's financial agent, who has lost the organization's money gambling and needs to win it back.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Casino Royale (1967)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Sellers went absent for days or weeks at a time, refused to appear in his scenes with Welles and exited before all of his scenes had been shot, so the framing device of a beginning and ending with Niven was created to salvage the material.
- As late as 2011 the film was still making money for the estate of Peter Sellers, who negotiated an extraordinary 3% of the gross profits, an estimated £120 million, the proceeds going to the daughter and sole heir of his fourth wife Lynne Frederick.
- In addition to the credited writers, Woody Allen, Peter Sellers, Val Guest, Ben Hecht, Joseph Heller, Terry Southern and Billy Wilder, who at one point re-wrote the script completely, are all believed to have contributed; Feldman called it "a four ring circus".
- Well-established stars such as Peter O'Toole and sporting legends such as Stirling Moss took uncredited parts solely in order to work with the other cast members; Moss played Evelyn's driver, and O'Toole supposedly took payment in a case of champagne.
- Feldman approached Sean Connery to play Bond, but rejected Connery's offer to do the film for $1 million; he had originally intended to cast Terence Cooper as Bond and had him under personal contract for two years prior to production.
SPOILER
Because Sellers left early, Evelyn's death is very abruptly inserted: pre-existing footage of Evelyn being rescued by Vesper, then a later-filmed shot of her abruptly deciding to shoot him, then a freeze-frame over previous footage of her surrounded by bodies.
