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Never Say Never Again/Casino Royale


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That sexual acrobat who leaves a trail of dead beautiful women like so many blown roses behind him
Review date: 2008-08-30 Rating: 6 out of 10

A good value DVD which offers up the two `unofficial' James Bond movies, that is, the two not made by Eon Productions. Both movies have reputations based on received wisdom, dating from the initial critical reaction when the films were first released; however, in both cases, received wisdom is unfortunately wrong.

Released in 1967, Casino Royale started life as a serious Bond film, designed to rival (and cash-in on) the Eon series. When these plans came to nothing, the film was instead touted as a spy spoof, to star Peter Sellers in the Bond role, but due to Sellers' unprofessionalism (leaving before his scenes were finished) and various other production nightmares, the film gradually mutated into the overblown tribute to 1960s' pop culture that we all know, but don't necessarily love. However, despite its reputation as an unfunny, overblown disaster of a film, the fact is that Casino Royale is actually quite an enjoyable movie. Holding the whole thing together with his customary charm and good humour, David Niven (playing the `original' James Bond) gives perhaps his most impressive performance of the 1960s; when Niven starts saying lines like `be careful, that's my loose kneecap' and `it's depressing that the words `secret agent' have become synonymous with `sex maniac'', you can't help but buy into the film, and laugh with it, rather than at it. Barbara Bouchet, playing Miss Moneypenny, is one of the most attractive women I have ever seen, and the film features a veritable parade of gorgeous sixties' starlets wearing very little indeed. John Huston, William Holden, and Orson Welles do great cameos (I'll take Welles' Le Chiffre over `Nads' Mikkelsen's any day), and Woody Allen, back when he was funny, has some good lines as Niven's nephew Jimmy Bond. The set and art design for the film are absolutely astounding, and you get tons of British comedy actors in minor roles, some funny (Geoffrey Bayldon, Ronnie Corbett), some not (Bernard Cribbins). But the best thing about the film is the music; Burt Bacharach is a genius, and his score for Casino Royale must be one of the most underrated in film history, from the languid `Look of Love' to the insanely catchy, up-tempo main theme. All in all, Casino Royale is a joy to watch.

In 1983, twelve years after he supposedly quit the role for good, Sean Connery returned as James Bond in the `unofficial' Never Say Never Again. A remake of Thunderball, and the result of years of legal action by Kevin McClory against Eon Productions (McClory helped Ian Fleming come up with the original story for Thunderball), this film was a reasonable hit on release, with the critics and public (apparently) grateful to see Connery back in the role (which must have left Roger Moore a little nonplussed, as his Eon Bond movies had been doing very impressive box office business for the previous ten years). However, on viewing the film twenty-five years later, it is plainly apparent that the film owed all its success to Connery and nobody else, because apart from the chance to see him back in the part of Bond, there is absolutely no reason to sit through it; Never Say Never Again is in many ways a chronic film. For a start, Thunderball was never the most exciting Bond film anyway, so lifting the plot wholesale was not a good idea. Many of the standard Bond characters are re-cast with different actors (as of course they had to be), and then played as atrocious caricatures (as they most certainly did not have to be); thus Edward Fox's M is a blustering, upper-class blowhard, Alec McCowen's Q is a creepy, sniffling oddball, and in her one scene as Miss Moneypenny, Pamela Salem comes across as nothing more than a dim-witted love-struck typist. Kim Basinger can't compete with the gorgeous Claudine Auger as Bond girl Domino, in the same way that Barbara Carrera's villainess is about 10% as effective as Luciana Paluzzi, whilst simultaneously being about as sexy as Bernard Bresslaw. Klaus Maria Brandauer is weak as the main villain, whilst Max Von Sydow gets far too little screen time to make anything of his Blofeld (though it's worth noting that Von Sydow's take on the character bears far more of a resemblance to the unseen figure of From Russia With Love and Thunderball than did any of the three actors who took the role proper in the Eon series). Weakly paced, poorly shot, and badly edited, the film has some truly awful set pieces (Bond and Domino going off a 500 foot-high castle wall, on a horse, is especially stupid), contrasted with other sequences that are simply dull (the shark attack, and the dated `computer game' duel in particular). Rowan Atkinson turns up and embarrasses himself as a sort of prototype Johnny English, whilst the entire musical score is absolutely dreadful. And despite the punters flocking to see him, it has to be noted that Connery isn't that great either; he is definitely in Diamonds Are Forever mode here. Aside from a nice turn by Bernie Casey as Felix Leiter (probably the best since Jack Lord in Dr No), and a surprisingly impressive, and funny, cameo by Pat `Bomber' Roach as a SPECTRE hitman, the film has nothing at all to recommend it. That it comes off so badly against even the middling Eon films of the same period (For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy) says it all; Connery's last film as Bond is down there with The Man With The Golden Gun and Die Another Day as one of the very worst.

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The two rogue Bonds
Review date: 2007-12-08 Rating: 6 out of 10

For the Bond completists, this set includes the two non-EON Bond films, though the presentation is rather barebones.

Oh, the pain, the pain of the first 45 minutes and the last 25 of the 1967 epic spoof version of Casino Royale, which try too very hard to be wacky and with it and funny to be anything other than execrable. Two or three jokes sort of work, but probably only because you're desperate for something, anything to work - and then suddenly the Peter Sellers-Joanna Pettet sections kick in and suddenly the film seems almost good. It even starts to look like a real movie instead of an over-decorated Christmas tree, with a particularly stunning bit of slo-mo in the Look of Love scene, and some genuine wit in Q's scene, set in the basement of Harrods. It's a shame that Sellers walked off the picture, because the gaps are often all-too visible and horribly papered over. And then, after an hour of not bad, Sellers is gone and it suddenly goes straight back to overproduced Hell for a painful and redundant finale. Still, at least Burt Bacharach's score is a lot of fun and a joy to listen to: if only it graced a worthier film.

While the PAL UK DVD only includes a trailer and a teaser, the US NTSC disc includes the 1954 live TV version of Casino Royale, with an uncomfortable Barry Nelson as Jimmy Bond of the CIA, Michael Pate a wildly unconvincing Leiter of British Intelligence, don't ya know, and a very good Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre. The plot is boiled down to a 50-minute running time but it's not without interest and while it may spare Bond the carpet beater it doesn't completely cop out on the torture scene. However, it's worth noting that a special edition DVD with a new documentary on the 1967 version will be released in the future.


At once the victim of impossible expectations after years of false starts and rumors about Connery's return to Bondage and also a breath of fresh air as the Roger Moore Bond films increasingly floundered, Never Say Never Again was a welcome riposte to the worst excesses of the EON franchise in 1983, but time hasn't been that kind to it. There are certainly some horrible miscalculations, Carrera's cartoonish villainess Fatima Blush (like Faye Dunaway on steroids), Edward Fox's self-parody as M, Pamela Salem's moronic Moneypenny and an embarrassingly over-the-top Rowan Atkinson's horribly unfunny Nigel Small-Fawcett among them, not to mention that problematic and much-despised easy listening score from Michel Legrand.

A famously troubled production, with Cubby Broccoli frightening studios, investors and co-stars away through years of lawsuits and Connery taking against the film's inexperienced producer Jack Schwartzman so violently that he would reportedly hide whenever the actor came anywhere near his office, most of the scars aren't visible in the finished product. Thankfully the worst excesses of the legendary unfilmed but sadly rather silly and OTT script Connery and Len Deighton penned in the early 70s, Warhead (which climaxed with a hang-glider attack on the Statue of Liberty and boasted a villain with his own underwater lair), were also toned down, albeit largely for budget reasons. With only a watered-down version of their radio-controlled sharks remaining, this version is at least a little more grounded than the rampant silliness that had seen the Bonds stray unrecognisably far from their roots in Ian Fleming's novels. Despite uncredited co-writers Ian La Fresnais and Dick Clements pilfering their earlier movie spinoff of Porridge for some of the jokes, the more streamlined screenplay flows better than Thunderball, which was always the clunkiest of Bond scripts in its desperation to throw everything including the kitchen sink into the mix, but it's also less fun. Odder still is the very American feel to the film, with a clean, spare look that's uncomfortably at odds with Connery's previous outings.

On the plus side, Klaus Maria Brandauer is particularly good as Largo, Bernie Casey brings an easy familiarity to his role that makes him one of the best of the many Felix Leiters in Connery's tenure, and Alec McCowen and Max Von Sydow are fine in undemanding parts while Robert Rietty, who voiced Largo in Thunderball as well as numerous other Bond characters over the years, turns up briefly onscreen for a change. It's also thankfully light on the gadgets that got particularly out of control in the EON series during the 80s and the action scenes are for the most part well-handled, with an excellent fight with Pat Roach the standout despite a particularly lame gag ending.

Enjoyable but no enduring classic. Again, it's worth noting that a special edition of this title will also be released some time in the future.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Ursula Andress
Edward Fox
Kim Basinger
Sean Connery
Peter Sellers

Creators:
Edward Fox (Primary Contributor)
Peter Sellers (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: MGM Entertainment
Manufacturer: MGM Entertainment
EAN: 5039036032780
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 2
Format: PAL, Widescreen,
Release date: 2007-03-19
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Audience rating: Parental Guidance
Region code: 2
Running time: 253 minutes
Language: English (Original Language)

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