Friday, December 16, 2016

Peter Lorre and Barry Nelson in the first CASINO ROYALE (1954)



Here's "Jimmy" Bond, only a year after the book was published.

5 comments:

  1. I'm going to watch this, but not right now. I never saw this or the latest one. Never had a TV in 1954 and I was bored with 007 by the time the latest rolled around.

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  2. If the producers couldn't coax something resembling an English accent out of Barry Nelson, why didn't they spring for an English actor?

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  3. Some things to remember:

    - In 1954, James Bond wasn't JAMES BOND yet.
    Casino Royale was the only book at that point; a sale to a popular American TV anthology was something of a coup for a then-mainly-unknown British author.

    - Changing the Brit hero to a Yank would be part of the deal; it was only a one shot, so who'd really notice (unless they'd read the book, and that would be a fraction of the prime-time audience).

    - You'll note that Felix Leiter, an American in Fleming's book, is turned here into a Brit (and played by Australian Michael Pate); again, par for the course.

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  4. I couldn't watch it for long, I'm afraid.

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  5. I saw this years ago and wasn't exactly bowled over. It's historically important, though.

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