Never Say Never Again/Casino Royale

Never Say Never Again/Casino Royale
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Reviews


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

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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