Casino Royale (novel)
Encyclopedia
Casino Royale is Ian Fleming
's first James Bond novel. It paved the way for a further eleven novels by Fleming himself, in addition to two short story collections
, followed by many "continuation" Bond novels by other authors.
The story entails James Bond
, Special Agent 007 of the "Secret Service", travelling to the casino at Royale-Les-Eaux in order to bankrupt a fifth-columnist, Le Chiffre
, the treasurer of a French union and a member of the Russian secret service. Bond is supported in his endeavours by Vesper Lynd
, a member of his own service, as well as Felix Leiter
of the CIA
and René Mathis of the French Deuxième Bureau
.
Since it was first published on 13 April 1953, Casino Royale has been adapted for the screen three times. The first was a 1954 episode
of the CBS
television series Climax! with Barry Nelson
as CIA agent "Jimmy Bond". The first Casino Royale film
was a 1967 spoof
with David Niven
playing "Sir James Bond", with the second being the twenty-first official film
in the Eon Productions
film series
with Daniel Craig
as James Bond, released on 17 November 2006. Casino Royale has also been published in comic strip format in a British national newspaper, The Daily Express.
Casino Royale was written by Ian Fleming in Jamaica over a period of around two months, largely from his own experiences and imagination; he also devised the artwork for the cover. The book was given broadly good reviews by the critics at the time and sold out in less than a month in the UK, although US sales a year later were much slower.
, the Head of the Secret Service, assigns James Bond
, Special Agent 007, to play against and bankrupt Le Chiffre
, the paymaster for a SMERSH
-controlled trade union, in a high-stakes baccarat
game at the Royale-Les-Eaux casino in northern France. As part of Bond's cover as a rich Jamaican playboy, M also assigns as his companion Vesper Lynd
, personal assistant to the Head of Section S (Soviet Union
). The French Deuxième Bureau
and the CIA also send agents as observers. The game soon turns into an intense confrontation between Le Chiffre and Bond; Le Chiffre wins the first round, bankrupting Bond. As Bond contemplates killing Le Chiffre outright, CIA agent Felix Leiter
helps Bond and gives him an envelope with thirty-two million franc
s and a note: "Marshall Aid
. Thirty-two million francs. With the compliments of the USA." The game continues, despite the attempts of one of Le Chiffre's minders to kill Bond. Bond eventually wins, taking from Le Chiffre eighty million franc
s belonging to SMERSH.
Desperate to recover the money, Le Chiffre kidnaps Vesper and subjects Bond to brutal torture
, threatening to kill them both if he does not get the money back: before he does so, a SMERSH assassin bursts in and kills Le Chiffre as punishment for losing the money. The agent does not kill Bond, saying that he has no orders so to do, but cuts a Cyrillic
'Ш
' (sh) to signify the SHpion (Russian for spy) into Bond's hand so that future SMERSH agents will be able to identify him as such.
Lynd visits Bond every day as he recuperates in the hospital and he gradually realises that he loves her; he even contemplates leaving Her Majesty's Secret Service to settle down with her. When Bond is released, they spend time together at a quiet guest house and eventually become lovers. One day they see a mysterious man named Gettler tracking their movements, which greatly distresses Vesper. The following morning, Bond finds that she has committed suicide. She leaves behind a note explaining that she had been working as an unwilling double agent
for the MVD. SMERSH had kidnapped her lover, a Polish RAF pilot, who had revealed information about her under torture; SMERSH then used that information to blackmail
her into helping them undermine Bond's mission, including her own faked kidnapping. She had tried to start a new life with Bond, but upon seeing Gettler – a SMERSH agent – she realised that she would never be free of her tormentors and that staying with Bond would only put him in danger. Bond informs his service of Vesper's duplicity, coldly telling his contact, "The bitch is dead now."
, an agent of the "Secret Service". For his protagonist, Fleming appropriated the name of James Bond
, author of the ornithology guide, Birds of the West Indies
. Fleming explained to the ornithologist’s wife that "It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born". He further explained that:
According to a Fleming biographer, Andrew Lycett
, "within the first few pages Ian [Fleming] had introduced most of Bond's idiosyncrasies and trademarks", which included his looks, his Bentley and his smoking and drinking habits. The full details of Bond's martini were kept until chapter seven of the book and Bond eventually named it "The Vesper"
, after Vesper Lynd.
Speaking of Bond's origins, Fleming said that "he was a compound of all the secret agents and commando types I met during the war", although Fleming himself gave many of his own traits to the character. Bond's tastes are often taken from Fleming’s own, as is some of his behaviour: Fleming used the casino to introduce Bond in his first novel because "skill at gambling and knowledge of how to behave in a casino were seen...as attributes of a gentleman". Lycett sees much of Bond's character as being much "wish fulfilment" by Fleming. Continuation Bond author, Jeffery Deaver
says that Bond "is a classic adventure-story hero. He confronts evil. Simple as that." Deaver also clarifies the point, saying that Bond is not a superhero, but that he is very human, doubting himself and making errors.
Bond's number of 007 was assigned by Fleming in reference to one of British naval intelligence's key achievements of World War I: the breaking of the German diplomatic code. One of the German documents cracked and read by the British was the Zimmermann Telegram
, which was coded 0075, and which was one of the factors that led the US entering the war. Another reason for using the 007 number was the polymath and Elizabethan spy, John Dee
, who would sign his letters to Elizabeth I
with 00 and an elongated 7, to signify they were for her eyes only.
Bond's superior, M, was largely based on Fleming's superior officer in Naval Intelligence during the war, Admiral Sir John Godfrey
; Godfrey was known for his bellicose and irascible temperament. One of the likely models for Le Chiffre was the influential English occult
ist, astrologer
, mystic
and ceremonial magic
ian Aleister Crowley
, whose physical features are similar to Le Chiffre's; his tastes, especially in sado-masochism, were also akin to those of Le Chiffre and, as Fleming biographer Henry Chancellor notes, "when Le Chiffre goes to work on Bond's testicles with a carpet-beater and a carving knife, the sinister figure of Aleister Crowley is there lurking in the background."
Casino Royale was written shortly after, and was heavily influenced by, World War II. As the power of British Empire was beginning to decline, journalist William Cook observed that "Bond pandered to Britain’s inflated and increasingly insecure self-image, flattering us with the fantasy that Britannia could still punch above her weight." In 1953, when Casino Royale was published, coal and many items of food were still rationed, and Bond was "the ideal antidote to Britain's postwar austerity, rationing and the looming premonition of lost power", according to historian and The Times journalist Ben Macintyre
. The communist influence of Le Chiffre, with the overtones of a fifth column struck a chord with the largely British readership as Communist influence in the trade unions had been an issue in the press and parliament at the time. Britain had also suffered from defections to the Soviet Union from two MI5 operatives who were part of the Cambridge Five
spy ring that betrayed Western
secrets to the Soviets, thus Lycett observes that Casino Royale can be seen as Fleming's "attempt to reflect the disturbing moral ambiguity of a post-war world that could produce traitors like Burgess
and Maclean".
The question of Anglo-American relations was also raised within the novel, where Bond and Leiter's warm relationship was not mirrored in the wider US-UK association. Christopher Hitchens
has observed that "the central paradox of the classic Bond stories is that, although superficially devoted to the Anglo-American war against communism, they are full of contempt and resentment for America and Americans". Fleming was aware of this tension between the two countries, but he did not focus on it too strongly. Academic and writer Kingsley Amis
, in his exploration of Bond in The James Bond Dossier, pointed out that "Leiter, such a nonentity as a piece of characterization...he, the American, takes orders from Bond, the Britisher, and that Bond is constantly doing better than he".
, Ian Fleming had mentioned to friends that he wanted to write a spy novel. It was not until 1952, however, shortly before his wedding to his pregnant girlfriend, Ann Charteris, that Fleming began to write Casino Royale, to distract himself from his forthcoming nuptials. Fleming started writing on his book at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica on 17 February 1952, typing out 2,000 words in the morning, directly from his own experiences and imagination. He finished work on the script in just over two months, completing it on 18 March 1952. Describing the work as his "dreadful oafish opus", Fleming showed it to an ex-girlfriend, Clare Blanchard, who advised him not to publish it at all, but that if he did so, it should be under another name.
Casino Royale was inspired by certain incidents that took place during Fleming's career at the Naval Intelligence Division of the Admiralty
. On a wartime trip to Portugal, en route to the United States, Fleming and the Director of Naval Intelligence, Admiral Godfrey
, went to the Estoril Casino. Due to Portugal's neutral status, a number of spies from warring regimes were present. Fleming claimed that while there he was cleaned out by a "chief German agent" at a table playing Chemin de Fer. Admiral Godfrey told a different story: Fleming only played Portuguese businessmen and that afterwards he fantasised about playing against German agents. The references in the novel to "Red Indians" (four times, twice on last page) came from Fleming's own 30 Assault Unit, which he nicknamed his "Red Indians". The failed attempt to kill Bond while at Royale-Les-Eaux was also inspired by a real event: a miscarried assassination against Franz von Papen
, Vice-Chancellor of Germany
and Ambassador under Adolf Hitler
. Both Papen and Bond survived their assassination attempts, carried out by Bulgarians
, due to a tree that protected them from a bomb blast.
, priced at 10s, 6d each, with a cover devised by Fleming himself. 4,728 copies of Casino Royale were printed, selling out in less than a month; a second print run the same month also sold out, as did a third run of more than 8,000 books published in May 1954. In the US three publishers had turned the book down before Al Hart of Macmillan Publishing Co
offered Fleming a deal. Casino Royale was published in 23 March 1954 in the US, but sales in the territory were poor, totalling only 4,000 copies across the entire US during the course of the year. When the novel was released as a paperback in 1955, it was re-titled by publisher American Popular Library
; Fleming's suggestions for a new title, The Double-O Agent and The Deadly Gamble, were disregarded in favour of You Asked For It, but this marketing ploy failed to raise the interest. The Popular Library version also changed Bond’s name, calling him "Jimmy Bond".
, writing in The Manchester Guardian
, thought that Casino Royale was "a first-rate thriller...with a breathtaking plot". Although he considered the plot "schoolboy stuff", he felt the novel was "galvanised into life by the hard brilliance of the telling". Alan Ross, writing in The Times Literary Supplement
wrote that Casino Royale was "an extremely engaging affair", and that "the especial charm...is the high poetry with which he invests the green baize lagoons of the casino tables". Concluding, Ross thought that "altogether, Mr. Fleming has produced a book that is both exciting and extremely civilized." For The Listener, Simon Raven
believed that Fleming was a "kind of supersonic John Buchan", but he was somewhat dismissive of the plot, observing that it is "a brilliant but improbable notion" that includes "a deal of champagne-drinking, bomb-throwing, relentless pitting of wits etc...with a cretinous love-affair". Raven also dismissed Bond as an "infantile" creation", but did allow that "Fleming tells a good story with strength and distinction...his creation of a scene, both visually and emotionally, is of a very high order indeed."
John Betjeman
, writing in The Daily Telegraph
, considered that "Ian Fleming has discovered the secret of the narrative art...which is to work up to a climax unrevealed at the end of each chapter. Thus the reader has to go on reading". Publishers Jonathan Cape included many of the reviews on their advertisements for the book, which appeared in a number of national newspapers; the reviews included those from The Sunday Times
, which concluded that Fleming was "the best new English thriller-writer since Ambler" and The Observer
, which advised their readers: "don't miss this".
Time
magazine praised Casino Royale, saying that "Fleming keeps his incidents and characters spinning through their paces like juggling balls." In the review, which also critiqued Raymond Chandler
’s The Long Goodbye, the Time writer went on to say that "As for Bond, he might be Marlowe's younger brother except that he never takes coffee for a bracer, just one large Martini laced with vodka."
Writing for The New York Times
, Anthony Boucher
wrote that the book belongs "pretty much to the private-eye school" of fiction. He praised the first part, saying that Fleming "manages to make baccarat
clear even to one who's never played it and produced as exciting a gambling sequence as I've ever read. But then he decides to pad out the book to novel length and leads the weary reader through a set of tough clichés to an ending which surprises nobody save Operative 007. You should certainly begin this book; but you might as well stop when the baccarat game is over."
In 1954 CBS
paid Ian Fleming $1,000 ($ in dollars) to adapt Casino Royale into a one-hour television adventure as part of its Climax! series. The episode aired live on 21 October 1954 and starred Barry Nelson
as secret agent "Card Sense" James 'Jimmy' Bond and Peter Lorre
as Le Chiffre.
A brief tutorial on Baccarat is given at the beginning of the show by the presenter of the programme, William Lundigan
, to enable viewers to understand a game which was not popular in America at the time. For this Americanised version of the story, Bond is an American agent, described as working for "Combined Intelligence", while the character Felix Leiter from the original novel is British, renamed "Clarence Leiter" and an agent for Station S. René Mathis does not appear as such. His surname is given to the leading lady, named Valérie Mathis, instead of Vesper Lynd.
Comic strip adaptation (1958)
Casino Royale was the first James Bond novel to be adapted as a daily comic strip
which was published in the Daily Express
newspaper and syndicated worldwide. It ran from 7 July 1958 to 13 December 1958, and was written by Anthony Hern and illustrated by John McLusky
.
To aid the Daily Express in illustrating James Bond, Ian Fleming commissioned an artist to create a sketch of what he believed James Bond to look like. The illustrator, John McLusky, however, felt that Fleming's 007 looked too "outdated" and "pre-war" and thus changed Bond to give him a more masculine look.
Howard Hawks film (1962)
According to the biography Howard Hawks
: The Grey Fox of Hollywood, by Todd McCarthy
, the director of His Girl Friday
considered filming a version of Casino Royale in 1962, possibly starring Cary Grant
as James Bond, but, ultimately, chose not to.
Casino Royale (1967)
In March 1958, Ian Fleming sold the film rights of Casino Royale to producer Gregory Ratoff
for $6,000 ($ in dollars). After Ratoff's death, producer Charles K. Feldman
represented Ratoff's widow and obtained the rights to make the film. Feldman decided the best way to profit from the film rights was to make a satirical version, which was produced and released in 1967 by Columbia Pictures
. The film, which starred David Niven
as Bond, was made with five credited and one uncredited directors and a cast that included Peter Sellers
, Ursula Andress
, Orson Welles
and Woody Allen
. The 1967 version has been described as an "an incoherent all-star comedy".
Unproduced stage play (1985)
In 1985, Raymond Benson adapted Fleming's novel into a stage play. Although the play never received a full production, a staged reading was held for an audience off-off-Broadway in New York City in February 1986. The play was submitted to a British agent who recommended that it not be produced. In an interview Benson stated:
Casino Royale (2006)
In 1999, following legal action between Sony Pictures Entertainment
and MGM/UA
, Sony traded the rights to Casino Royale for MGM's partial-rights to Spider-Man
, which led to Eon Productions making a version of Casino Royale. The film stars Daniel Craig
as Bond, supported by Eva Green
as Vesper Lynd
and Mads Mikkelsen
as Le Chiffre
; Judi Dench
returns for her fifth Bond film as Bond's superior, M
. Casino Royale is a reboot
, showing Bond at the beginning of his career as a 00-agent and overall stays true to the original novel. The film had its premiere on 14 November 2006 and on DVD and Blu-ray Disc 13 March 2007.
Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
's first James Bond novel. It paved the way for a further eleven novels by Fleming himself, in addition to two short story collections
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
, followed by many "continuation" Bond novels by other authors.
The story entails James Bond
James Bond (character)
Royal Navy Commander James Bond, CMG, RNVR is a fictional character created by journalist and novelist Ian Fleming in 1953. He is the main protagonist of the James Bond series of novels, films, comics and video games...
, Special Agent 007 of the "Secret Service", travelling to the casino at Royale-Les-Eaux in order to bankrupt a fifth-columnist, Le Chiffre
Le Chiffre
Le Chiffre is a fictional character and the main antagonist in Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Casino Royale. On screen Le Chiffre has been portrayed by Peter Lorre in the 1954 television adaptation of the novel for CBS's Climax! television series, by Orson Welles in the 1967 spoof of the novel and...
, the treasurer of a French union and a member of the Russian secret service. Bond is supported in his endeavours by Vesper Lynd
Vesper Lynd
Vesper Lynd is a fictional character featured in Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Casino Royale. The name is a pun on "West Berlin". It has been claimed that Fleming based Lynd on the real life Special Operations Executive agent Christine Granville. In the 1967 film of Casino Royale, she is played by...
, a member of his own service, as well as Felix Leiter
Felix Leiter
Felix Leiter is a fictional CIA agent created by Ian Fleming in the James Bond series of novels and films. In both, Leiter works for the CIA and assists Bond in his various adventures as well as being his best friend. In further novels Leiter joins the Pinkerton Detective Agency and in the film...
of the CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
and René Mathis of the French Deuxième Bureau
Deuxième Bureau
The Deuxième Bureau de l'État-major général was France's external military intelligence agency from 1871 to 1940. It was dissolved together with the Third Republic upon the armistice with Germany...
.
Since it was first published on 13 April 1953, Casino Royale has been adapted for the screen three times. The first was a 1954 episode
Casino Royale (Climax!)
Casino Royale is a 1954 television adaptation of the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. The show is the first screen adaptation of a James Bond novel and stars Barry Nelson and Peter Lorre...
of the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
television series Climax! with Barry Nelson
Barry Nelson
Barry Nelson was an American actor, noted as the first actor to portray Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond.-Early life:...
as CIA agent "Jimmy Bond". The first Casino Royale film
Casino Royale (1967 film)
Casino Royale is a 1967 comedy spy film originally produced by Columbia Pictures starring an ensemble cast of directors and actors. It is set as a satire of the James Bond film series and the spy genre, and is loosely based on Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel.The film stars David Niven as the...
was a 1967 spoof
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
with David Niven
David Niven
James David Graham Niven , known as David Niven, was a British actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Lytton, a.k.a. "the Phantom", in The Pink Panther...
playing "Sir James Bond", with the second being the twenty-first official film
Casino Royale (2006 film)
Casino Royale is the twenty-first film in the James Bond film series and the first to star Daniel Craig as fictional MI6 agent James Bond...
in the Eon Productions
EON Productions
Eon Productions is a film production company known for producing the James Bond film series. The company is based in London's Piccadilly and also operates from Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom...
film series
James Bond (film series)
The James Bond film series is a British series of motion pictures based on the fictional character of MI6 agent James Bond , who originally appeared in a series of books by Ian Fleming. Earlier films were based on Fleming's novels and short stories, followed later by films with original storylines...
with Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig
Daniel Wroughton Craig is an English actor. His early film roles include Elizabeth, The Power of One, A Kid in King Arthur's Court and the television episodes Sharpe's Eagle, Zorro and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: Daredevils of the Desert...
as James Bond, released on 17 November 2006. Casino Royale has also been published in comic strip format in a British national newspaper, The Daily Express.
Casino Royale was written by Ian Fleming in Jamaica over a period of around two months, largely from his own experiences and imagination; he also devised the artwork for the cover. The book was given broadly good reviews by the critics at the time and sold out in less than a month in the UK, although US sales a year later were much slower.
Plot
MM (James Bond)
M is a fictional character in Ian Fleming's James Bond series, as well as the films in the Bond franchise. The head of MI6 and Bond's superior, M has been portrayed by three actors in the official Bond film series: Bernard Lee, Robert Brown and since 1995 by Judi Dench. Background =Ian Fleming...
, the Head of the Secret Service, assigns James Bond
James Bond (character)
Royal Navy Commander James Bond, CMG, RNVR is a fictional character created by journalist and novelist Ian Fleming in 1953. He is the main protagonist of the James Bond series of novels, films, comics and video games...
, Special Agent 007, to play against and bankrupt Le Chiffre
Le Chiffre
Le Chiffre is a fictional character and the main antagonist in Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Casino Royale. On screen Le Chiffre has been portrayed by Peter Lorre in the 1954 television adaptation of the novel for CBS's Climax! television series, by Orson Welles in the 1967 spoof of the novel and...
, the paymaster for a SMERSH
SMERSH (James Bond)
SMERSH is a Soviet counterintelligence agency featured in Ian Fleming's early James Bond novels as agent 007's nemesis. СМЕРШ is an acronym from two Russian words: "SMERt' SHpionam" meaning "Death to Spies"...
-controlled trade union, in a high-stakes baccarat
Baccarat
Baccarat is a card game, played at casinos and by gamblers. It is believed to have been introduced into France from Italy during the reign of King Charles VIII , and it is similar to Faro and Basset...
game at the Royale-Les-Eaux casino in northern France. As part of Bond's cover as a rich Jamaican playboy, M also assigns as his companion Vesper Lynd
Vesper Lynd
Vesper Lynd is a fictional character featured in Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Casino Royale. The name is a pun on "West Berlin". It has been claimed that Fleming based Lynd on the real life Special Operations Executive agent Christine Granville. In the 1967 film of Casino Royale, she is played by...
, personal assistant to the Head of Section S (Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
). The French Deuxième Bureau
Deuxième Bureau
The Deuxième Bureau de l'État-major général was France's external military intelligence agency from 1871 to 1940. It was dissolved together with the Third Republic upon the armistice with Germany...
and the CIA also send agents as observers. The game soon turns into an intense confrontation between Le Chiffre and Bond; Le Chiffre wins the first round, bankrupting Bond. As Bond contemplates killing Le Chiffre outright, CIA agent Felix Leiter
Felix Leiter
Felix Leiter is a fictional CIA agent created by Ian Fleming in the James Bond series of novels and films. In both, Leiter works for the CIA and assists Bond in his various adventures as well as being his best friend. In further novels Leiter joins the Pinkerton Detective Agency and in the film...
helps Bond and gives him an envelope with thirty-two million franc
French franc
The franc was a currency of France. Along with the Spanish peseta, it was also a de facto currency used in Andorra . Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amount of money...
s and a note: "Marshall Aid
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
. Thirty-two million francs. With the compliments of the USA." The game continues, despite the attempts of one of Le Chiffre's minders to kill Bond. Bond eventually wins, taking from Le Chiffre eighty million franc
French franc
The franc was a currency of France. Along with the Spanish peseta, it was also a de facto currency used in Andorra . Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amount of money...
s belonging to SMERSH.
Desperate to recover the money, Le Chiffre kidnaps Vesper and subjects Bond to brutal torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, threatening to kill them both if he does not get the money back: before he does so, a SMERSH assassin bursts in and kills Le Chiffre as punishment for losing the money. The agent does not kill Bond, saying that he has no orders so to do, but cuts a Cyrillic
Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
'Ш
Sha
For other uses, see Sha .Sha is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. It commonly represents the voiceless postalveolar fricative , like the pronunciation of ⟨sh⟩ in "sheep", or the somewhat similar voiceless retroflex fricative . It is used in every variation of the Cyrillic alphabet, for Slavic and...
' (sh) to signify the SHpion (Russian for spy) into Bond's hand so that future SMERSH agents will be able to identify him as such.
Lynd visits Bond every day as he recuperates in the hospital and he gradually realises that he loves her; he even contemplates leaving Her Majesty's Secret Service to settle down with her. When Bond is released, they spend time together at a quiet guest house and eventually become lovers. One day they see a mysterious man named Gettler tracking their movements, which greatly distresses Vesper. The following morning, Bond finds that she has committed suicide. She leaves behind a note explaining that she had been working as an unwilling double agent
Double agent
A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...
for the MVD. SMERSH had kidnapped her lover, a Polish RAF pilot, who had revealed information about her under torture; SMERSH then used that information to blackmail
Blackmail
In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...
her into helping them undermine Bond's mission, including her own faked kidnapping. She had tried to start a new life with Bond, but upon seeing Gettler – a SMERSH agent – she realised that she would never be free of her tormentors and that staying with Bond would only put him in danger. Bond informs his service of Vesper's duplicity, coldly telling his contact, "The bitch is dead now."
Characters and themes
The leading character of Casino Royale is James BondJames Bond (character)
Royal Navy Commander James Bond, CMG, RNVR is a fictional character created by journalist and novelist Ian Fleming in 1953. He is the main protagonist of the James Bond series of novels, films, comics and video games...
, an agent of the "Secret Service". For his protagonist, Fleming appropriated the name of James Bond
James Bond (ornithologist)
James Bond was a leading American ornithologist whose name was appropriated by writer Ian Fleming for his fictional spy, James Bond.-Biography:...
, author of the ornithology guide, Birds of the West Indies
Birds of the West Indies
Birds of the West Indies is a book containing exhaustive coverage of the 400+ species of birds found in the Caribbean Sea, excluding the ABC islands, and Trinidad and Tobago, which are considered bio-geographically as part of South America.Written by ornithologist James Bond, the book was first...
. Fleming explained to the ornithologist’s wife that "It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born". He further explained that:
- When I wrote the first one in 1953, I wanted Bond to be an extremely dull, uninteresting man to whom things happened; I wanted him to be a blunt instrument...when I was casting around for a name for my protagonist I thought by God, (James Bond) is the dullest name I ever heard.
According to a Fleming biographer, Andrew Lycett
Andrew Lycett
Andrew Lycett is an English biographer and journalist.He was educated at Charterhouse School and studied history at Christ Church, Oxford University. He then worked for a while for The Times as a correspondent in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia...
, "within the first few pages Ian [Fleming] had introduced most of Bond's idiosyncrasies and trademarks", which included his looks, his Bentley and his smoking and drinking habits. The full details of Bond's martini were kept until chapter seven of the book and Bond eventually named it "The Vesper"
Vesper (cocktail)
The Vesper or Vesper Martini is a cocktail that was originally made of gin, vodka, and Kina Lillet.-Origin:The drink was invented and named by fictional secret agent James Bond in the 1953 novel Casino Royale....
, after Vesper Lynd.
Speaking of Bond's origins, Fleming said that "he was a compound of all the secret agents and commando types I met during the war", although Fleming himself gave many of his own traits to the character. Bond's tastes are often taken from Fleming’s own, as is some of his behaviour: Fleming used the casino to introduce Bond in his first novel because "skill at gambling and knowledge of how to behave in a casino were seen...as attributes of a gentleman". Lycett sees much of Bond's character as being much "wish fulfilment" by Fleming. Continuation Bond author, Jeffery Deaver
Jeffery Deaver
Jeffery Deaver is an American mystery/crime writer. He has a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Fordham University and originally started working as a journalist. He later practiced law before embarking on a successful career as a best-selling...
says that Bond "is a classic adventure-story hero. He confronts evil. Simple as that." Deaver also clarifies the point, saying that Bond is not a superhero, but that he is very human, doubting himself and making errors.
Bond's number of 007 was assigned by Fleming in reference to one of British naval intelligence's key achievements of World War I: the breaking of the German diplomatic code. One of the German documents cracked and read by the British was the Zimmermann Telegram
Zimmermann Telegram
The Zimmermann Telegram was a 1917 diplomatic proposal from the German Empire to Mexico to make war against the United States. The proposal was caught by the British before it could get to Mexico. The revelation angered the Americans and led in part to a U.S...
, which was coded 0075, and which was one of the factors that led the US entering the war. Another reason for using the 007 number was the polymath and Elizabethan spy, John Dee
John Dee
John Dee was a Welsh mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I.John Dee may also refer to:* John Dee , Basketball coach...
, who would sign his letters to Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
with 00 and an elongated 7, to signify they were for her eyes only.
Bond's superior, M, was largely based on Fleming's superior officer in Naval Intelligence during the war, Admiral Sir John Godfrey
John Henry Godfrey
Admiral John Henry Godfrey CB was an officer of the Royal Navy and Royal Indian Navy, specializing in navigation....
; Godfrey was known for his bellicose and irascible temperament. One of the likely models for Le Chiffre was the influential English occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
ist, astrologer
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
, mystic
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
and ceremonial magic
Ceremonial magic
Ceremonial magic, also referred to as high magic and as learned magic, is a broad term used in the context of Hermeticism or Western esotericism to encompass a wide variety of long, elaborate, and complex rituals of magic. It is named as such because the works included are characterized by...
ian Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
, whose physical features are similar to Le Chiffre's; his tastes, especially in sado-masochism, were also akin to those of Le Chiffre and, as Fleming biographer Henry Chancellor notes, "when Le Chiffre goes to work on Bond's testicles with a carpet-beater and a carving knife, the sinister figure of Aleister Crowley is there lurking in the background."
Casino Royale was written shortly after, and was heavily influenced by, World War II. As the power of British Empire was beginning to decline, journalist William Cook observed that "Bond pandered to Britain’s inflated and increasingly insecure self-image, flattering us with the fantasy that Britannia could still punch above her weight." In 1953, when Casino Royale was published, coal and many items of food were still rationed, and Bond was "the ideal antidote to Britain's postwar austerity, rationing and the looming premonition of lost power", according to historian and The Times journalist Ben Macintyre
Ben Macintyre
Ben Macintyre is a British author, historian, and columnist writing for The Times newspaper. His columns range from current affairs to historical controversies.- Author :...
. The communist influence of Le Chiffre, with the overtones of a fifth column struck a chord with the largely British readership as Communist influence in the trade unions had been an issue in the press and parliament at the time. Britain had also suffered from defections to the Soviet Union from two MI5 operatives who were part of the Cambridge Five
Cambridge Five
The Cambridge Five was a ring of spies, recruited in part by Russian talent spotter Arnold Deutsch in the United Kingdom, who passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and at least into the early 1950s...
spy ring that betrayed Western
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
secrets to the Soviets, thus Lycett observes that Casino Royale can be seen as Fleming's "attempt to reflect the disturbing moral ambiguity of a post-war world that could produce traitors like Burgess
Guy Burgess
Guy Francis De Moncy Burgess was a British-born intelligence officer and double agent, who worked for the Soviet Union. He was part of the Cambridge Five spy ring that betrayed Western secrets to the Soviets before and during the Cold War...
and Maclean".
The question of Anglo-American relations was also raised within the novel, where Bond and Leiter's warm relationship was not mirrored in the wider US-UK association. Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
has observed that "the central paradox of the classic Bond stories is that, although superficially devoted to the Anglo-American war against communism, they are full of contempt and resentment for America and Americans". Fleming was aware of this tension between the two countries, but he did not focus on it too strongly. Academic and writer Kingsley Amis
Kingsley Amis
Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism...
, in his exploration of Bond in The James Bond Dossier, pointed out that "Leiter, such a nonentity as a piece of characterization...he, the American, takes orders from Bond, the Britisher, and that Bond is constantly doing better than he".
Background
During the course of the warWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Ian Fleming had mentioned to friends that he wanted to write a spy novel. It was not until 1952, however, shortly before his wedding to his pregnant girlfriend, Ann Charteris, that Fleming began to write Casino Royale, to distract himself from his forthcoming nuptials. Fleming started writing on his book at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica on 17 February 1952, typing out 2,000 words in the morning, directly from his own experiences and imagination. He finished work on the script in just over two months, completing it on 18 March 1952. Describing the work as his "dreadful oafish opus", Fleming showed it to an ex-girlfriend, Clare Blanchard, who advised him not to publish it at all, but that if he did so, it should be under another name.
Casino Royale was inspired by certain incidents that took place during Fleming's career at the Naval Intelligence Division of the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
. On a wartime trip to Portugal, en route to the United States, Fleming and the Director of Naval Intelligence, Admiral Godfrey
John Henry Godfrey
Admiral John Henry Godfrey CB was an officer of the Royal Navy and Royal Indian Navy, specializing in navigation....
, went to the Estoril Casino. Due to Portugal's neutral status, a number of spies from warring regimes were present. Fleming claimed that while there he was cleaned out by a "chief German agent" at a table playing Chemin de Fer. Admiral Godfrey told a different story: Fleming only played Portuguese businessmen and that afterwards he fantasised about playing against German agents. The references in the novel to "Red Indians" (four times, twice on last page) came from Fleming's own 30 Assault Unit, which he nicknamed his "Red Indians". The failed attempt to kill Bond while at Royale-Les-Eaux was also inspired by a real event: a miscarried assassination against Franz von Papen
Franz von Papen
Lieutenant-Colonel Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen was a German nobleman, Roman Catholic monarchist politician, General Staff officer, and diplomat, who served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933–1934...
, Vice-Chancellor of Germany
Vice-Chancellor of Germany
The Vice-Chancellor of Germany is, according to protocol, the second highest position in the Cabinet of GermanyIn case of the Chancellor's absence, the vice-chancellor acts in his or her place, for instance by heading cabinet meetings...
and Ambassador under Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. Both Papen and Bond survived their assassination attempts, carried out by Bulgarians
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
, due to a tree that protected them from a bomb blast.
Release and reception
Casino Royale was first released on 13 April 1953 in the UK as a hardcover edition by publishers Jonathan CapeJonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape was a London-based publisher founded in 1919 as "Page & Co" by Herbert Jonathan Cape , formerly a manager at Duckworth who had worked his way up from a position of bookshop errand boy. Cape brought with him the rights to cheap editions of the popular author Elinor Glyn and sales of...
, priced at 10s, 6d each, with a cover devised by Fleming himself. 4,728 copies of Casino Royale were printed, selling out in less than a month; a second print run the same month also sold out, as did a third run of more than 8,000 books published in May 1954. In the US three publishers had turned the book down before Al Hart of Macmillan Publishing Co
Macmillan Publishers
Macmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a privately held international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than thirty others.-History:...
offered Fleming a deal. Casino Royale was published in 23 March 1954 in the US, but sales in the territory were poor, totalling only 4,000 copies across the entire US during the course of the year. When the novel was released as a paperback in 1955, it was re-titled by publisher American Popular Library
Popular Library
Popular Library was a New York paperback book company established in 1942 by Leo Margulies and Ned Pines, who at the time was a major pulp magazine, newspapers and magazine publishers...
; Fleming's suggestions for a new title, The Double-O Agent and The Deadly Gamble, were disregarded in favour of You Asked For It, but this marketing ploy failed to raise the interest. The Popular Library version also changed Bond’s name, calling him "Jimmy Bond".
Reviews
Hugh I'Anson FaussetHugh I'Anson Fausset
Hugh l'Anson Fausset , was an English writer, a literary critic and biographer, and a poet and religious writer.He was educated at Sedbergh School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and then at as a choral scholar at King's College, Cambridge...
, writing in The Manchester Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, thought that Casino Royale was "a first-rate thriller...with a breathtaking plot". Although he considered the plot "schoolboy stuff", he felt the novel was "galvanised into life by the hard brilliance of the telling". Alan Ross, writing in The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
wrote that Casino Royale was "an extremely engaging affair", and that "the especial charm...is the high poetry with which he invests the green baize lagoons of the casino tables". Concluding, Ross thought that "altogether, Mr. Fleming has produced a book that is both exciting and extremely civilized." For The Listener, Simon Raven
Simon Raven
Simon Arthur Noël Raven was an English novelist, essayist, dramatist and raconteur who, in a writing career of forty years, caused controversy, amusement and offence...
believed that Fleming was a "kind of supersonic John Buchan", but he was somewhat dismissive of the plot, observing that it is "a brilliant but improbable notion" that includes "a deal of champagne-drinking, bomb-throwing, relentless pitting of wits etc...with a cretinous love-affair". Raven also dismissed Bond as an "infantile" creation", but did allow that "Fleming tells a good story with strength and distinction...his creation of a scene, both visually and emotionally, is of a very high order indeed."
John Betjeman
John Betjeman
Sir John Betjeman, CBE was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Who's Who as a "poet and hack".He was a founding member of the Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture...
, writing in The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, considered that "Ian Fleming has discovered the secret of the narrative art...which is to work up to a climax unrevealed at the end of each chapter. Thus the reader has to go on reading". Publishers Jonathan Cape included many of the reviews on their advertisements for the book, which appeared in a number of national newspapers; the reviews included those from The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
, which concluded that Fleming was "the best new English thriller-writer since Ambler" and The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, which advised their readers: "don't miss this".
Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine praised Casino Royale, saying that "Fleming keeps his incidents and characters spinning through their paces like juggling balls." In the review, which also critiqued Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...
’s The Long Goodbye, the Time writer went on to say that "As for Bond, he might be Marlowe's younger brother except that he never takes coffee for a bracer, just one large Martini laced with vodka."
Writing for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Anthony Boucher
Anthony Boucher
Anthony Boucher was an American science fiction editor and author of mystery novels and short stories. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle...
wrote that the book belongs "pretty much to the private-eye school" of fiction. He praised the first part, saying that Fleming "manages to make baccarat
Baccarat
Baccarat is a card game, played at casinos and by gamblers. It is believed to have been introduced into France from Italy during the reign of King Charles VIII , and it is similar to Faro and Basset...
clear even to one who's never played it and produced as exciting a gambling sequence as I've ever read. But then he decides to pad out the book to novel length and leads the weary reader through a set of tough clichés to an ending which surprises nobody save Operative 007. You should certainly begin this book; but you might as well stop when the baccarat game is over."
Adaptations
CBS television episode (1954)In 1954 CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
paid Ian Fleming $1,000 ($ in dollars) to adapt Casino Royale into a one-hour television adventure as part of its Climax! series. The episode aired live on 21 October 1954 and starred Barry Nelson
Barry Nelson
Barry Nelson was an American actor, noted as the first actor to portray Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond.-Early life:...
as secret agent "Card Sense" James 'Jimmy' Bond and Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...
as Le Chiffre.
A brief tutorial on Baccarat is given at the beginning of the show by the presenter of the programme, William Lundigan
William Lundigan
William Lundigan was an American film actor. His films include Dodge City , The Fighting 69th , The Sea Hawk , Santa Fe Trail , Dishonored Lady , Pinky , Love Nest with Marilyn Monroe, The House on Telegraph Hill , I'd Climb the Highest Mountain and Inferno...
, to enable viewers to understand a game which was not popular in America at the time. For this Americanised version of the story, Bond is an American agent, described as working for "Combined Intelligence", while the character Felix Leiter from the original novel is British, renamed "Clarence Leiter" and an agent for Station S. René Mathis does not appear as such. His surname is given to the leading lady, named Valérie Mathis, instead of Vesper Lynd.
Comic strip adaptation (1958)
Casino Royale was the first James Bond novel to be adapted as a daily comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
which was published in the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
newspaper and syndicated worldwide. It ran from 7 July 1958 to 13 December 1958, and was written by Anthony Hern and illustrated by John McLusky
John McLusky
John McLusky is a former comics artist best known as the original artist of the comic strip featuring Ian Fleming's James Bond.-Biography:...
.
To aid the Daily Express in illustrating James Bond, Ian Fleming commissioned an artist to create a sketch of what he believed James Bond to look like. The illustrator, John McLusky, however, felt that Fleming's 007 looked too "outdated" and "pre-war" and thus changed Bond to give him a more masculine look.
Howard Hawks film (1962)
According to the biography Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
: The Grey Fox of Hollywood, by Todd McCarthy
Todd McCarthy
Todd McCarthy is an American film critic. He wrote for Variety for 31 years as its chief film critic before being fired in 2010. He is currently a critic for The Hollywood Reporter....
, the director of His Girl Friday
His Girl Friday
His Girl Friday is a 1940 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, an adaptation by Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur of the play The Front Page by Hecht and MacArthur...
considered filming a version of Casino Royale in 1962, possibly starring Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
as James Bond, but, ultimately, chose not to.
Casino Royale (1967)
In March 1958, Ian Fleming sold the film rights of Casino Royale to producer Gregory Ratoff
Gregory Ratoff
Gregory Ratoff was a Russian-born American film director, actor and producer. His most famous role as an actor was as producer Max Fabian who feuds with star Margo Channing in All About Eve ....
for $6,000 ($ in dollars). After Ratoff's death, producer Charles K. Feldman
Charles K. Feldman
Charles K. Feldman was a film producer and talent agent born in New York City. In 1934 he married actress Jean Howard, whom he divorced in 1948...
represented Ratoff's widow and obtained the rights to make the film. Feldman decided the best way to profit from the film rights was to make a satirical version, which was produced and released in 1967 by Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
. The film, which starred David Niven
David Niven
James David Graham Niven , known as David Niven, was a British actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Lytton, a.k.a. "the Phantom", in The Pink Panther...
as Bond, was made with five credited and one uncredited directors and a cast that included Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
, Ursula Andress
Ursula Andress
Ursula Andress is a Swiss actress and a sex symbol of the 1960s. She is known for her roles as Bond girl Honey Ryder in Dr...
, Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
and Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
. The 1967 version has been described as an "an incoherent all-star comedy".
Unproduced stage play (1985)
In 1985, Raymond Benson adapted Fleming's novel into a stage play. Although the play never received a full production, a staged reading was held for an audience off-off-Broadway in New York City in February 1986. The play was submitted to a British agent who recommended that it not be produced. In an interview Benson stated:
- She was very elderly and in my opinion she just didn't get it. She recommended that the play not be produced. After further thought, Glidrose shelved it with the ultimate decision that a James Bond stage play simply wouldn't work. The films had Bond in a monopoly and there was no way a play could compete. I disagreed, but it was their property."
Casino Royale (2006)
In 1999, following legal action between Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. is the television and film production/distribution unit of Japanese multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony...
and MGM/UA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
, Sony traded the rights to Casino Royale for MGM's partial-rights to Spider-Man
Spider-Man (film)
Spider-Man is a 2002 American superhero film, the first in the Spider-Man film series based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Spider-Man. It was directed by Sam Raimi and written by David Koepp...
, which led to Eon Productions making a version of Casino Royale. The film stars Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig
Daniel Wroughton Craig is an English actor. His early film roles include Elizabeth, The Power of One, A Kid in King Arthur's Court and the television episodes Sharpe's Eagle, Zorro and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: Daredevils of the Desert...
as Bond, supported by Eva Green
Eva Green
Eva Gaëlle Green is a French actress and model.Green performed in theatre before making her film debut in The Dreamers , which generated controversy over her numerous nude scenes. She achieved greater fame for her parts in Kingdom of Heaven , and in the 2006 James Bond film Casino Royale, for...
as Vesper Lynd
Vesper Lynd
Vesper Lynd is a fictional character featured in Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Casino Royale. The name is a pun on "West Berlin". It has been claimed that Fleming based Lynd on the real life Special Operations Executive agent Christine Granville. In the 1967 film of Casino Royale, she is played by...
and Mads Mikkelsen
Mads Mikkelsen
' is a Danish actor.-Life and career:Mikkelsen was born in the Østerbro area of Copenhagen, the son of Bente Christiansen and Henning Mikkelsen, a cab driver. He is the brother of actor Lars Mikkelsen. After attending Århus Theatre School, he made his film debut in the movie Pusher...
as Le Chiffre
Le Chiffre
Le Chiffre is a fictional character and the main antagonist in Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Casino Royale. On screen Le Chiffre has been portrayed by Peter Lorre in the 1954 television adaptation of the novel for CBS's Climax! television series, by Orson Welles in the 1967 spoof of the novel and...
; Judi Dench
Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia "Judi" Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English film, stage and television actress.Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo...
returns for her fifth Bond film as Bond's superior, M
M (James Bond)
M is a fictional character in Ian Fleming's James Bond series, as well as the films in the Bond franchise. The head of MI6 and Bond's superior, M has been portrayed by three actors in the official Bond film series: Bernard Lee, Robert Brown and since 1995 by Judi Dench. Background =Ian Fleming...
. Casino Royale is a reboot
Reboot (continuity)
The verb reboot, in media dealing with serial fiction, means to discard much or even all previous continuity in the series and start anew with fresh ideas...
, showing Bond at the beginning of his career as a 00-agent and overall stays true to the original novel. The film had its premiere on 14 November 2006 and on DVD and Blu-ray Disc 13 March 2007.
External links
– original broadcast of the TV versionSee also
- James BondJames BondJames Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
– main article