Casino Royale (1954), a reappraisal

Barry Nelson in 1954’s Casino Royale

If there’s a red-headed stepchild in the world of James Bond, the 1954 CBS production of Casino Royale would be it.

The television Bond is mostly ignored. When it does come up in fan conversation, it’s the subject of derision.

An American as James Bond? Outrageous — although Eon Productions, which makes James Bond movies, seriously considered the notion twice, for Diamonds Are Forever (John Gavin was signed before Sean Connery was enticed back) and again for Octopussy (James Brolin was screen tested before Roger Moore was enticed back).

And he’s called Jimmy Bond! Outrageous — although Bond never calls himself Jimmy, other characters do. The only time he refers to his own name, he is making a telephone call and says, “This is James Bond.” Actor Barry Nelson also is clearly billed as playing James Bond in the end titles.

The television production, part of CBS’s Climax! anthology series and airing live on Oct. 21, 1954, is more like a televised play. While Ian Fleming’s first novel was short, it still covered too much ground to be covered in a 60-minute time slot. Excluding commercials and titles, only about 50 minutes was available to tell the story.

Antony Ellis and Charles Bennett, who adapted the novel for television, certainly took plenty of liberties with the source material.

Two Fleming characters, Vesper Lynd and French agent Rene Mathis, are merged into one character, Valerie Mathis (Linda Christian), a woman from Bond’s past who is working for French intelligence. Meanwhile, Bond is changed from being a British agent to an American one. Felix Leiter is changed to a British agent and his name is now Clarence Leiter (Michael Pate).

Presumably, the idea of an American Bond stemmed from how this was airing on U.S. television. At this point, Fleming and Bond weren’t huge names among the American public.

Anyway, to get things going, Act I opens with Bond being shot at outside a casino. It’s not terribly convincing, mostly because of the limited resources of the production, which was broadcast live. Bond ducks behind a column and the audience can see squibs going off to simulate gun fire.

Shortly thereafter, Bond makes contact with Leiter, who explains to Bond (and the audience) how the agent’s mission to bankrupt Le Chiffre (Peter Lorre) in a high stakes game of baccarat. No M, no briefing from M.

At one point, Leiter says Bond’s nickname is “card sense Jimmy Bond,” while Valerie calls Bond “Jimmy.” However, she also calls him “James Bond” when introducing the agent to Le Chiffre ahead of the big baccarat game.

Peter Lorre is the first actor to play a Bond villain referring to the agent constantly as “Mr. Bond,” something that would be repeated throughout the Eon films.

There are some bits from Fleming’s novel, particularly during Bond’s card game with Le Chiffre. Even here, Ellis and Bennett do some tinkering. After Bond is cleaned out, he gets additional funds not from Leiter, as in the novel, but from Valerie. What’s more, Bond’s torture is considerable milder than the novel or 2006 feature film. The ending from Fleming’s novel isn’t used and things end happily.

This version of Casino Royale’s main value is that of a time capsule, a reminder of when television was mostly done live. Lorre is suitably villainous. If you find him fun to watch on movies and other television shows, nothing here will change your mind.

Barry Nelson’s Bond won’t make anyone forget the screen 007s. Still, Nelson was a pro who had a long career. He does the best he can with the material and production limitations. He even gets to deliver the occasional witticism. (“Are you the fellow who was shot?” Leiter asks. Bond replies, “No I was the fellow who was missed.”)

UPDATE: Casino Royale was the third broadcast of the Climax! series. The first was an adaptation of The Long Goodbye, with Dick Powell reprising the role of Philip Marlowe. So in two of the first three broadcasts, Climax! tackled novels by Raymond Chandler and Ian Fleming.

Wilson and Broccoli’s plans for a non-007 horror project

Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, co-bosses of Eon Productions, want to do a non-007 horror project. In fact, this project has kicked around for a few years and would be based on a story that generated a 1957 movie and multiple radio adaptations.

The 1957 movie based on an M.R. James story

Background: The official Web site of the Broadway musical Once, based on a 2006 movie,which picked up a number of Tony awards, had THIS REFERENCE about creative personnel responsible for the show.

John Carney (Writer and Director of the Film, Once)

John Carney is a Dublin-based writer director who came to the world’s attention following the box office hit and critically acclaimed musical feature film Once, which garnered multiple Independent Spirit, Sundance and Raindance awards. Previously, John was a bassist in the Irish rock band the Frames, where he met Glen Hansard. These musical roots continue to be evident in John’s work with his latest production, Can a Song Save Your Life?, heading into production in NYC in 2012. Other upcoming projects include Dogs of Babel for David Heyman and Nathan Kahane starring Steve Carell and a feature adaptation of M.R. James’s Casting the Runes for Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. (emphasis added)

Wilson and Broccoli (not to mention Frederick Zollo, Broccoli’s husband) are among a group of producers for Once, the Broadway show. So this isn’t something that came from a U.K. tabloid newspaper. Anyway, Casting the Runes is a story by M.R. James (1862-1936), a writer of ghost stories. It was adapted in 1947, 1974 and 1981 for radio. It also was the basis of a 1957 movie titled Night of the Demon in the U.K. and Curse of the Demon in the U.S.

The movie starred Dana Andrews and involved a demonic cult. You can read a detailed summary BY CLICKING HERE. By coincidence, the crew includes two people who’d have an impact on 007: writer Charles Bennett (co-scripter of the 1954 CBS version of Casino Royale) and production designer Ken Adam, who’d design the sets of seven Bond films.

The Once Web site isn’t the first time Broccoli and Wilson signaled their interest in the project. In 2009, there was a program at the University of Southern California about James Bond in the 21st Century that included a number of panelists involved with 007 movies. Speakers included Wilson, Broccoli and 007 screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. The PROGRAM DESCRIPTION included this reference to Purvis and Wade:

After delivering their screenplay for Quantum of Solace, they wrote Barbarella for director Robert Rodriguez, to be produced in 2009 by Dino DeLaurentiis, and have adapted John Le Carre’s latest novel, The Mission Song, for producers Simon Channing-Williams and Gail Egan. Their most recent collaboration is with director John Carney, on an adaptation of an M.R. James horror story, Casting the Runes.

Is Casting the Runes still an active project? Hard to say. Potential movies can kick around for years (just ask fans of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. who’ve waited for decades to see if a movie version would develop). But it would appear it’s still of interest to the co-chiefs of Eon.

An obscure 007-Hitchcock connection: Charles Bennett

This week, there was a dialogue among proprietors of 007 Web sites among connections between James Bond and director Alfred Hitchcock. Perhaps one of the most direct ties (behind the camera) is also the most obscure.

Writer Charles Bennett worked on 1940’s Foreign Correspondent starring Joel McCrea

One of the most cited examples was how North by Northwest’s crop-duster plane sequence inspired a scene in From Russia With Love where a helicopter dive bombs 007. The U.K. Daily Mail wrote up how Ian Fleming hoped Hitchcock would direct a Bond film before the Eon Productions series began production.

However, the most direct connection is the 1954 adaptation of Casino Royale that aired on CBS, starring American actor Barry Nelson. It was co-scripted by Charles Bennett (1899-1995). Bennett was a screenwriter on a number of Hitchock films, including The 39 Steps (1935), Sabotage (1936), Secret Agent (1936) and Foreign Correspondent (1940). Bennett also co-authored the story that was the basis of the 1934 and 1956 versions of The Man Who Knew Too Much.

By the 1950s and ’60s, a period that included the first Casino Royale adaptation, Bennett was mostly writing for television. His work also included one episode of The Wild, Wild West, “The Night of the Eccentrics,” that introduced Count Manzeppi, intended to be a recurring villain. Manzeppi, played by Victor Buono, would only return for one additional episode (which Bennett would not write). Still, the episode is rather quirky, and includes Richard Pryor as one of Manzeppi’s henchmen.

Salute to Charles Bennett

Not many writers can claim to have collaborated with Alfred Hitcock, did the first adaptation of an Ian Fleming novel or created the (arguably) second-most popular villain on The Wild, Wild West.

Then again, few writers had the longevity or talent of Charles Bennett (1899-1995).

Bennett was a screenwriter on Hitchcock’s <a.1934 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps.

Decades later, Bennett, along with writer Antony Ellis, adapted Ian Fleming’s first novel, Casino Royale, for television. It was a tricky affair. Even though CR was Fleming’s shortest novel, it would be used as part of CBS’s Climax! anthology program in 1954. That meant squeezing the short novel (or novella, depending on your personal definition) to a 60-minute time slot. Even though there were fewer commercials then compared to today, it still meant 50 to 52 minutes of airtime.

Bennett and Ellis ended up making James Bond into an American operative (Barry Nelson) and transforming Felix Leiter into a European agent. Also, the writers melded two characters, Vesper Lynd and French agent Rene Mathis, into “Valerie Mathis.”

Here’s the ending of the 1954 production, including the end titles, which haven’t been included in all home video releases:

About a decade later, Bennett penned an episode of The Wild, Wild West. It featured a villain named Count Manzeppi, intended to be a recurring foe similar to the popular Dr. Loveless. Manzeppi, played by Victor Buono (007 screenwriter Richard Maibuam’s choice to play Goldinger), would only appear in two WWW episodes. Still, Manzeppi was memorable. Here, in the Bennett-scripted debut, he confronts a U.S. Secret Service agent (whose life expectency can be measured in minutes) along with a henchman played by Richard Pryor: