What would you say if I offered to stake you in a game against
the Chief? What?
I put up the money, You play the game and we split 5050.
I think I'll go now if you don't mind.
What's wrong? I enjoyed the earlier part of
this evening very much. I shall always remember the
pleasure of your company. I didn't even mind this dressing
up bit, but I do mind bloody unnecessary jokes about the one
thing I really know well. Listen, Evelyn, I'm serious.
It's because you really know about Baccarus.
I'm not joking. He said you needed £100,000.
It's yours. It's fantastic.
Look here. I mean.
Oh, the sheaf had never agreed to play me.
He's read my book. He'd recognize my name.
No. No, not anymore.
Why? We have chosen a new name for
you, James Bond. Hello and welcome to Goompod.
My name is Tyler Adams, and in the spirit of Peter Sellers, in
this week's film, I absolutely refuse to be in the same room as
my guest, So thankfully we're connected via Zoom, which.
Is probably the best way of doing it.
Really. And that that voice you can hear
is my guest. It is Martin Holmes.
Hello, Martin. Hello, how are you?
Not too bad. Not too bad, despite this film.
Shall we? Despite it, yes, I feel we have
to lay our, as it were, cards on the table.
Quite. Early.
Well, I have, yes. Yes, I have shown my hand quite
early. There are.
My my special glasses on so I can see what your hand is.
Oh. Yes, very good.
Martin Holmes. Famous for vision on sound, of
course. Well, not that famous, but yeah.
Well, famous in my house, yeah. Well, there we go.
That's all it needs to be really, isn't it?
So for for the uninitiated, what is Vision on Sound Martin?
Vision on Sound is a weekly radio show, although it's
basically a podcast really. It's a podcast that gets
broadcast on fab Radio in out of Manchester, where we talk about
old and archived television, although we actually talk about
anything that is prompted by the idea of talking about
television. So we turn up an hour a week
Sundays at 7:00 on Fab Radio International.
I suppose I might as well say that and basically me and a
group of fairly regular people, though we do get sort of more
people in occasionally, but it's it's kind of a group of regulars
And then the occasional new person sort of comes into the
mix. And we basically take a topic
that's loosely related on our experiences of archive
television and waffle on about it for an hour, which we've been
doing now for nearly four years. And it seems seems to work.
People see the people who like it, like it and we, we we turn
up and we we try and make some sort of sense out of issues
arising even. We don't necessarily just sit
there and go well on the the 5th episode of the third say we
don't know that we don't do that, but we could do that.
We could do that if that's what people wanted.
But it's more it's more just enjoying television and we have
an hour to do that every week, which is nice.
It's the sort of show that would appeal to people who remember
programs like the Corridor people or Spindo because you
very much focused on or not necessarily obscure but it's
it's very much it's it's of a certain period it tends to be
more sort of 60s seventies into the yeah last.
Century. Definitely.
Yeah, we do. Occasionally someone does decide
they want to talk about something modern and I sort of
grit my teeth and let them. Yeah, it's, well, that's fine.
And you know the thing about it is, is that it it just, it
allows us to actually sort of take the subject and and spin
it. You know it doesn't have to be
about a particular program. Sometimes we do do that, but I
just we we have a nice time doing it and I I hope people
enjoy listening to it. I was on, I was on listeners,
you were a couple of months ago talking about me, which is my
favorite subject. Well, it was about your
experiences of British television because you were on
the other side of the world at the time.
I believe you mentioned that occasionally.
Well, it was mainly about me. Well, let's face it, aren't all
aren't all our shows mainly about us?
I suppose so is life. Anyway, that's what I'm going to
get philosophical at this point. OK And Martin, you've you've
been on previously. I know that it was going back a
while, actually, but you're not a it's fair to say maybe, maybe
I'm doing you a disservice, but you're not a huge comedy fan
necessarily. You're more of a drama.
I tend. I tend to talk about drama more
because I know it more. I understand it more.
Comedy and me, I I I don't find comedy as rewatchable or as re
listenable to. I mean I have you know various
CDs of radio shows and what have you.
But I I tend towards if I've got a a bored evening I'll probably
go and look for a drama to watch.
I don't sit there and I'll I'll stick 6 episodes of Blackadder
on Tonight. I don't find comedy that
engaging in the same way. It's not that I don't enjoy it
because I have you know shelves with these things on.
It's not that I I I snub them and say no, I will have no
tittering in my house. None of that.
It's I just I I don't engage with it in quite the same way.
I I, I there's a lot of crossover in.
Certainly in Archive Television there's a lot of crossover with
comedy actors who did serious roles.
And I mean, I was talking with Steve Hatcher the only the other
week and we were talking about how Alfie Bass turned up on
Gideon's way, you know, So you got someone who is well known
for the Army game, Bootsy and Snudge and then did Serious
roles. And I I kind of like that, which
is weird because my in interest in in Sellers I think came from
his movies, if you see what I mean.
Yeah, yeah, I I didn't really discover him through the Goon
Show. I I discovered The Goon Show
through Sellers. I've just noticed as well just
thinking about it just sitting here because the game Pod took a
bit of a hiatus for about two or three months and we've been back
for 8:00 this This will be the 9th show of the new the new run.
This is the first specifically sellers topic we've covered
which. There you go.
We've we've barely spoken about
sellers for for weeks and weeks. Snubbed him, snubbed him, I say.
Yes. So we are talking but but but
unfortunately we're not going to be talking about one of his
better films today, but that's some oftentimes that's more
interesting. So we're talking about Casino
Royale, the 1967 version. You hesitate to call it a film.
Yes. Well, it's OK.
So, Martin, why this film? Why this film?
Well, funnily enough, when when I was 10 years old, the first
James Bond film came on ITVI don't think I was allowed to
watch that because I was probably a bit young.
But that's when they started showing them and there were
articles in the TV Times and all that kind of thing.
And so I became, over the course of the next probably three or
four years, the biggest James Bond fan in the world as far as
I understood it. I obviously wasn't, but at that
time I just genuinely thought, oh, I love these films, you
know, 25 years on. And and certain women in my life
who I met dissuaded me of that. And they did tell me that they
weren't necessarily the greatest films as far as they were
concerned. And I don't.
I hardly watch them now, to be fair.
But back then I I, you know, I bought books about it.
I had a scrapbook, everything like that, couple of things out
of the TV Times, everything like that.
And one of the things I bought in my strange collector mania
that quite a lot of people who have interests in things have is
I picked up Jeff Loves James Bond, movie themes, LP.
And you know, I was an expert by now.
I'd read about all these things and everything like that.
And I knew there was Doctor No, from Russia with Love,
Thunderball, all this kind of thing.
And there was this tune on it, which was the theme to Casino
Royale. And I thought, yeah, I made that
one, you know, because I was knowledgeable and 12, you know,
I knew everything about the world and and so I'm thinking,
what's this? And I thought it was quite a
nice tune. I quite like that, you know?
And then of course I picked up a couple of other books and and
they would talk about this film that they didn't really, it's
not really official. It's not really talked about.
It's it's like the illegitimate child that no one talks about.
It's it's a very bizarre piece of 60s somethingness.
I'm not even, you know, it it, it, it exists in a kind of
parallel universe to the James Bond films.
And yet obviously it shares its title with the first book.
And you know, I think I read about Casino Royale, the film,
before I ever saw it. So eventually I probably sat
down and it came on some channel, some ridiculous hour of
the morning or whatever. And I thought I should watch
this. I should set my my video and I
and I would just sat there and you would kind of you would be
kind of flawed by it because one it seems to go on forever now
that could just because they were putting a lot of commercial
brakes in it. It's a very long film and I
think it feels very long because sometimes it feels very labored
as a film. Now I know a lot of people love
this film. I I get that.
And I know when you announced that we were going to talk about
it, you know, some people said, oh great, I'm really looking
forward to that. I really want to.
I really like that film and some people absolutely detest it.
It's Marmite, you know, it's the Marmite movie.
It it it, it's so 1960s, it almost hurts it.
It's almost like if you if you shook up all of the 1960s, put
it in a bottle, you know, shook it up and let it explode, you'd
probably get the Casino Royale movie somehow.
Before, before we start talking about, you know, the nuts and
bolts. The nuts, particularly the nuts.
Yeah, and. Cure bolts, yes.
Yes, let's let's just kick off with a A short history of how
this huge, bloated confection of a film came about, shall we?
Indeed. Firstly, I want to share a maxim
that I carry around with me. It's this.
An average to lousy film is always improved.
If Cribbins or Bluthor turns up, you think about that.
It's true, isn't it? Anyway, let's park that for now,
but we will return to it. So now let's look at the origins
of this film. Ian Fleming published the first
James Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1953.
The following year, a live one hour television adaptation aired
in the US starring Barry Nelson as Jimmy Bond, an American agent
working for the Combined Intelligence Agency, and Peter
Laurie as La Shifra. Much of the action is confined
to the casino itself. A recording does exist and I
have seen it and it's pretty shonky.
A couple of years later, by the way, as everyone knows, Bob
Holness portrayed James Bond on radio in an adaptation of
Moonraker. Never mind AP.
Can I have an MLQ please, Bob? Bob, of course, would later go
on to host blockbusters and play saxophone on Baker Street in
Stuart Mckoney's overactive imagination.
Anyway, in 1955, Fleming sold the film rights of Casino Royale
to Gregory Ratoff, an actor turned producer, who asked the
screenwriter, Lorenzo Semple Junior, to knock up a workable
script. Semple was later instrumental in
getting the Batman TV series to air and Co wrote Papillon, which
is one of my favorite films. Oh, and he would later go on to
write Never Say Never Again, which I only remember for having
Rowan Atkinson in it. Both Ratoff and Semple didn't
care much for Bond and felt it would be better if the character
were a woman, which I suppose is quite progressive for the time.
That said, I can't help thinking that if this had ever managed to
find its way to the screen it would have ended up being bonded
in a bikini. I will never know as no script
survives. And unfortunately, Ratoff died
in 1960 before managing to secure financial backing from
any studio. The story is that soon after,
Albert R Broccoli approached Rattoff's widow and tried to
purchase the casino royal rights independently of Ratoff.
Broccoli had been trying to get a James Bond film project off
the ground for a few years. However, Enter Ratoff's former
agent, Charles K Feldman. Feldman advised Ratoff's widow
against selling the rights to broccoli and secured them for
himself. He knew Broccoli and must have
sniffed something in the air. Realizing that this was a
potentially lucrative property together with director Howard
Hawks, Feldman tried to get a film off the ground with his
choice of Bond being Cary Grant, but it more or less floated
around in development hell for a while, by which time Doctor No
was released in 1962. That film was such a massive
success that Feldman decided to cut his losses and tried to make
a deal with Broccoli for Casino Royale.
However, talks broke down and no deal could be agreed.
So a couple of years later Feldman managed to persuade
Columbia pitches to bankroll a film version, this time with a
screenplay written by Ben Hecht, who'd written such films as
Hitchcock's Notorious and Scarface.
Feldman had decided that there was little to be gained in
trying to ape the Connery films, and so envisaged Casino Royale
as a Bond spoof. By the mid 60s, Bond mania was
such that you couldn't walk past the cinema without seeing
posters outside advertising the latest cheap imitation.
Movie makers wanted to cash in on the demand for sexy spies,
glamorous locations, plenty of violence, and casual misogyny.
Hex wrote several drafts of Casino Royale, which were
largely faithful to the source novel and contain nothing
particularly comedic. He died of a heart attack in
1964, shortly after completing his final script.
Well, it would be, wouldn't it? Pretty much the only idea of Hex
that made its way into the 1967 film was the conceit of multiple
MI 6 agents going under the name of James Bond.
The script was passed to a number of writers to work on,
including Joseph Heller of Catch 22 fame, Billy Wilder and
others, but the eventual screenplay credit went to Wolf
Mangovitz, John Law and Michael Sayers.
Mangovitz had worked on the screenplay for Doctor No, but
had been so horrified by the finished film pre release he had
insisted his name be removed from the credits.
What a putz. John Law had worked with Michael
Bentine on things like It's a Square World, and he wrote the
famous class sketch for The Frost Report.
Others who more or less added their two panath to the
increasingly bloated and unworkable casino royal script
were Woody Allen, Peter Sellers, Terry Southern, and Val Guest.
As for who was to play Bond, Feldman briefly considered
casting Roger Moore. He went so far as to approach
Sean Connery, who asked for $1,000,000 and was rejected.
This is curious, as reportedly Sellers was later to command
such a fee plus percentage points at one point.
Terence Cooper, the rather bland, beefy actor we see in the
film as Coop, was earmarked for a while to be Bond by Feldman.
Cooper was one of those actors you'd see at the time popping up
in endless ITV television drama series, usually playing heavies
or the occasional colorless lead.
Having worked previously with Peter Sellers on What's New
Pussycat, of which more Later, Feldman then offered Sellers the
role of Bond. Sellers was unwilling at first,
thinking Bond 21 dimensional and unsuited to his style, but I
kind of wonder that he wasn't secretly flattered to be asked.
His ego was the size of France at times.
Thelpin then pitched it to him that he'd play a character who
plays Bond that would give Sellers more to get his teeth
into. It was later suggested that
Sellers became distracted by the idea of playing Bond to the
extent he wanted to do it straight, and was irritated that
the film was a comedy. They filmed mostly at Pinewood
and Shepperton, and in County Meath between January and
October 1966, during lulls and filming, David Niven, cast as
Sir James Bond, took cast and crew to watch World Cup matches.
Niven, incidentally, had been Fleming's original choice to
play Bond in Doctor. No.
It was, as they say, a hot mess, a frenetic, plotless shambles,
as Niven's biographer put it, as well as Niven Sellers and Woody
Allen. Other cast members included
Orson Welles as Lashifra, Ursula Andress as Vesper Lind, Deborah
Carr as Agent Mimi, and Joanna Pettitte as Marta Bond.
They all did their best, I suppose.
Oh, and remember my old maxim. There's a marked upswing in the
film's fortunes, albeit briefly, when Bernard Cribbins and John
Bluth will turn up. In total, 5 directors were
attached to the project. John Houston, Ken Hughes, Robert
Parrish, Joe McGrath, and Val Guest, plus stunt coordinator
Richard Talmadge. Everyone worked independently of
the others without consulting each other, and thus chaos
reigned. In the end, as so often
happened, Sellers had tantrums. He refused to be in the same
room as Orson Welles. He threatened fellow actors like
Jacqueline Bessette. He hit director Joe McGrath and
generally made a tit for himself on set.
He would disappear for days or weeks on end and finally
abandoned the project completely.
As a result, the whole film had to be hastily reassembled, with
new scenes being written and already shot footage and
outtakes cobbled together. This is why so many directors
and writers were involved and so many dreadful ideas tossed into
the mix. At one point, the idea of
casting Danny LaRue as Master Bond was toyed with.
The finished film retained only a handful of elements of the
original novel, the baccarat scene, the bit where Bond is
tortured by Leshifra, and there's some character names
recycled but bearing no similarity to the actual
characters in the book. Casino Royale was released on
13th of April 1967, two months before You only lived twice.
It originally had a budget of around 4,000,000.
By the end, this has skyrocketed to 28 million.
Time magazine called it Mini Cleopatra.
Still, it washed its face at the box office, turning a decent
profit and ensuring a steady future income for the estate of
Peter Sellers, who demanded a percentage of the film.
But the movie was monstered by critics who mostly regarded it
as baffling and ridiculous. The only high point, they all
agreed, was the Burt Bacharach music, particularly the theme
tune performed by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass and The
Look of Love, performed by Dusty Springfield.
Eventually, some 30 years later, Casino Royale was remade
starring the then new Bond Daniel Craig, and it was pretty
much returned to the source material.
I watched it again recently, wincing at that scene, and while
it was enjoyable, and while I'm not making any claims for the 67
version to be reevaluated as high art or any such Tommy rot,
I couldn't help feeling the 2006 remake could have benefited from
a cameo by Bernard Cribbins or John Bluthor.
You all know I'm right. So all that being said, let's
talk about Casino Royale. Now I always thought you only
lived twice, came out first, and yet you only lived twice.
It's two months like the one with the volcano and it becomes
again this. I don't know if you ever seen
the photographs of the the cinema where it was the premier
was for you only lived twice, but it's just enormous.
It was the entire block has just been decorated and it's just,
you know, it's a huge, huge film written by Roald Dahl.
Strangely, but, but you get this.
And when you think about what we think of of 60s James Bond, say
through the filter of Austin Powers.
Austin Powers takes a lot of its cues from You Only Live Twice,
but it also takes a hell of a lot of cues from Casino Royale.
Yes. So it it's it's kind of weird.
It's actually strangely influential despite, you know,
not being the greatest film ever made and a fortune was spent
making this. You actually watch this.
I mean I know you say you've you've sat down and watched it
and maybe you would never want to you you never watch it twice
as the as the frame goes. But it's you can see a fortune
has been spent making this and you kind of think if I had £28
million perhaps I might have done something else with it.
Yeah, I don't know what, but something to benefit mankind.
Well, yes. Casino Royale is too much for
one James Bond Join the Casino Royale Fun Movement.
Mr. Bond, I'm Tenant Mathis of the Special Police.
Peter Sellers is James Bond. These are my credentials.
They appear to be in order. Ursula Andres is James Bond.
David Niven is James Bond. Woody Allen is James Bond.
My doctor says I can't have bullet into my body at any time.
What if I said I was pregnant? Joanna Pettis is James Bond.
Rather warm in here, don't you think?
Cool it, Charlie. Casino Royale is too much for
one James Bond. Orson Welles is the heaviest
heavy of smirch. Dalia Lavi is James Bond.
I'm the new secret weapon. James.
We've got us on the run. We've got.
And 9:00. We're fighting more alive.
Casino Royale is too much for one James Bond.
Next. Terence Cooper is James Bond.
Barbara Boucher is James Bond. Casino Royale is indestructibly
wild. Hello, Saylor.
Indescribably funny. Oh, you like that sort of thing?
Join the Casino Royale Fun movement.
So I just to give you my background on this film, I don't
really have a history with this film.
I've I've seen it. I've I've certainly seen it
before. I watched it for this.
I couldn't tell you how many times I've seen it and I
certainly, in fact I would probably say I've probably only
seen it the once all the way through prior to this and and
watched bits subsequently. I think it's the sort of film
that comes on in the afternoon and you catch the end of it and
go, what the hell was that? Yeah, and you sometimes pick it
up a halfway or 3/4 of the way through.
I don't think many people sit down with a view to just, oh,
that's on this afternoon or or they go, oh, that's on this
afternoon. Oh, it's not Daniel Craig, which
is the more modern response to it, I think.
Yeah. Well, I don't even know if I had
this on tape or what because I was obviously I was hoovering up
everything Sellers related back in my teens.
And I think I must have, I think I must have taped it off TV
sometime in the 90s. I guess I sort of had it in my
head. I think that Peter Sellers was
was James Bond or a sort of James, which he is a sort of
James Bond in the sense that he's not James Bond, but he's
he's playing a character called Evelyn Tremble who is then along
with some other characters in this film going under the name
of of James Bond. So I didn't really, because
there's no real coherent plot really, is there?
It's very it's. It's very vague and it's very
well, yeah, yeah, it there is one, but it's very hard to find.
It's really difficult to nail down.
And so I was re watching this last week.
We're not going to go through it in a linear fashion, but you
know, when you get to that point in films where whatever, you're
holding in your hand steady. But you know what I mean?
Whatever. If you've got a pen in your hand
or a book in your hand or or even like an empty coffee cup,
and you're sitting and you're getting increasingly agitated or
not worked up, but you, you, you, you're finding you're
you're becoming more and more depressed by what you're
watching. And then suddenly there's a
scene and you just think, oh, for God's sake, and you just
want to. You just want to toss whatever's
in your hand across the room, you know?
Yeah, and and I had that my moment.
Watching this, I thought I was fling books in much the same
way. Yeah, yeah.
So try and have a guess which which bit of this film caused me
to to to have that reaction? Oh.
Crikey, there's so many I'm not quite sure.
I I depending on how far you got through it, I mean.
Well, all of it. I've watched all of it.
Come on. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm just sure what at what point you.
I would say it was about 2/3 of the way through maybe.
Oh, right. OK, right.
You go because I because there is, you know Sellers as Hitler,
you know, that's a it's a slightly worrying moment.
You know there is when it suddenly becomes an Indian music
movie. You know, it's a yeah, yeah.
I mean is it. No, actually, no.
I can't imagine go. On let me tell right, it's the
bit that I'm going to refer to as the Gerry Anderson moment.
Oh, when it turns into Stingray. Yeah.
Yes, the bit with the. UFO and the weird floaty module
thing. Suddenly it's Stingray.
Good Lord, it was that long, right?
OK, yes, the last half hour of this film.
I know I don't sort of jump to the end, but the last half hour
of this film is just bonkers. It's actually after Sellers has
gone. Yeah.
It's this. I mean, this film was throat.
Well, it's like thrown together, you've got five or six,
depending on your point of view. Directors all doing different
things more or less to the same ends and somebody at the end of
it has to try and tie it all together.
I wanted. To which was which was which was
Val guest. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. And and basically somebody had
to try and turn this into something vaguely coherent.
And the fact that it's actually, it works sort of as a film at
all is probably largely down to Val Guest.
I wanted to there's a story I wanted to mention to you which
is completely irrelevant to this book.
When I was at school we in in our English class we had to put
a show together and various 3 sections of the class had to do
a show one a week. So so once one section did you
know they wrote sketches and everything like that.
And so we had the first week we went in and and one group of
people did 7 or 8 sketches and it was like a comedy you know
show but not very funny. You know the second week another
group of people had to do one, they did 7 or 8 sketches.
And my English teacher, because I ended up being in charge of
the third one and the third one is that no, because I'm I am not
a manager. Never have been, never will be.
But we in the course of our 3/4 of an hour, I think he, he said
you did 34 different and it was just a dozen lads with a stage
being told they've got to do something with no prep
whatsoever. Any old idea that they could
think of was put before the audience.
And for some reason, the last half hour of Casino Royal always
makes me think of that day because it was one of my biggest
school time humiliations. But it just makes me think any
crap you can think of. God, let's have a seal.
Let's have a seal. Clapping Hooray.
You know it's kind of what this Keystone cops.
Let's have them in. Let's do a bit of that.
Oh God, you know And Frankenstein, Franken, we need
Frankenstein to come. Frankenstein.
Monster. Sorry, Dave.
Dave Prouse, of course, in his debut film Indeed.
I just wrote. I just wrote on my pad in huge
block letters, general arsing about.
Yeah, it's basically any shit idea.
Yeah. And and it genuinely looks as if
they were making it up as they went along.
I know isn't how film works, but it does feel like.
That it briefly when the when you see the American cavalry
kind of riding in it, it had it made me think momentarily of
Blazing Saddles. You know the end of Blazing
Saddles. When it all, they all end up.
Absolutely. And you get parachutists coming.
It's just absolutely crazy. It really is.
And this is kind of like we've got to.
It's because by this point Sellers has walked off the plot,
but he's also walked off the film and somebody and they've
got no ending to the film. And I I believe the guy who
directed most of the casino chaos was the 2nd unit director,
wasn't it? Richard Tallmadge, he basically
just filmed a lot of stuff and this happened, but you almost
get the impression, I can't remember which studio it was
filmed in. But it it's like whoever was on
on the site on that day, can you come in and do a couple of
minutes? It's, you know, anybody?
George George Raft, George Raft. Comes in as George Raft.
The the actor Jean Paul Belmondo.
Belmondo I mean, this cast is to die for, and yet somehow they
are less than the sum of the parts, shall we say.
I'm not even saying it's a cure it's egg anymore.
It's it's amazingly mad. And yet somehow, within all
that, there is this iconic stuff.
I mean, within this section you get the escape sequence, which
is where I mean David Niven, David Niven.
God bless him, David Niven is never less than brilliant as an
actor. You know, he always, he's giving
it his all. He plays it perfectly straight,
You know, he knows he's in a Turkey and and they do this
sequence where they go into various different pop art rooms
which each one is on screen for seconds.
Each one must have taken an absolute, you know, days of
people's lives to build and put together and it's and they're
iconic again, 60s. You know, nonsense design, you
know, or pop art design if you prefer.
And yet somehow, somehow, in the middle of all this, you get
nonsense. Brilliantly fabulous.
I mean this, this skits on the Ken Adams set, You know, you
sort of expect the big windows with the fish and all this kind
of thing. And it's totally batshit crazy,
quite frankly. Well yeah, but OK so let's say
because the film look let's just, I just want to mention the
beginning, the right at the beginning of the film, the pre
credits sequence. Oh so so if if you thought if
you didn't know otherwise in 1967 and you thought this was
part of the, this was an Aeon Productions Bond film, you know
proper proper Bond film and you went to watch this in the
cinema. It opens with Peter Sellers
standing in an open air urinal. Lay beetles.
Yes. Why?
What? What?
What's I mean, I know what lay beetles is.
Just graffiti, isn't it? It's just graffiti scrolled on
the side. In this piece.
Soir Yes, Peter Sellers and And there's a French policeman with
a Scottish accent looking at his credentials, right.
So you immediately get the measure of the film, but what
the hell would you have made of that?
You think he could go? And then you've got the the
credit sequence which is which is great, and the great music
and all the rest of it. But then it it goes straight
into the the John Houston directed sequence, where John
Houston himself is one of the is is playing M with with heads of
other international intelligence agencies in a car driving to Sir
James Bond's Scottish home. And again, you might you might
be forgiven for thinking, oh, OK, this this, this could be a
proper Bond film, you know, But then.
Have you seen Skyfall? I have seen Skyfall, yeah.
Do you not feel that there's a slight influence of this film in
Skyfall, but that whole Scottish house where?
Oh, maybe yes. I never thought it.
Just it just feels there are these little tendrils that come
out from this film that sort of get referenced, I mean.
Yeah yeah, but but no but, but, but, but you don't have in in
Skyfall you don't have like a pack of lions or pride of lions
sitting on the roof of the car and and the theme from Born Free
playing. No, although the the musical
cues from other films would feature quite a lot in the Roger
Moore films you see. So again, there are little
influences that crept in when Roger Moore's films were getting
more. Some people say camp, but
certainly the comedic elements were building up and it was the
the team that were making them at that stage you started to
get. I mean he does.
Is it California girls? When he's skiing down a hill in
in his last film, Which of You to a Kill?
He there's a scene where he skis down a a slope.
And. And you get that little hint of
of that tune, you know the the California girl.
So they started doing that and it's kind of interesting to me
that weirdly you get things like the poison pen letter which they
actually make a big in in the queue scene in the middle of
this, which I know is again we're going all over the place
with this, but but well that's seen as one of the better scenes
in the film. But weirdly it resembles the
later cue scenes that they did with Roger Moore very much.
It has the same almost set up. There's more jokes, more
deliberate jokes in this, but generally the the way it's done
is very much like those films later and again they make the
the poison pen letter line, which is also nicked from Carry
On Spying a few years earlier. Oh yeah, and I would argue if
you're going to make it the James Bond spoof, actually Carry
On Spying generally works. Better yes than this.
Oh yeah. Morning cure Good.
Morning, Claudius Newman. If I could bother you for the
signature, Sir. Signature.
Yes. I shouldn't use M Pen.
So the moment that nib touches the paper, it releases a stream
of poisonous gas into the writer's eye.
Heavens, what do I think of next?
Get near that. I suppose it come in quite
useful if you ever wanted to send anyone a poison pain
letter. Yes, all our new men say that, I
usually reply. I don't wish to know that kind
of leave MI five. Yes, yes.
We have a very highly developed sense of humor down here.
It isn't the only thing that's highly developed down here.
I've never been a huge James Bond fan.
I've probably seen most of them over the years at some point or
bits of most of them never really got into them.
Particularly, I much prefer the grittier, you know, the the, the
Lecarre style, yeah. Well, I mean, you actually think
about this, Peter Sellers is wearing Harry Palmer glasses.
That's true. That's true.
Yeah. Harry.
Absolutely. Harry Palmer if Chris Farland
funeral in Berlin. I love them.
You know and and spy came in from the Cold and Deadly Affair
and those those those are my spy films.
OK. Although Harry.
Palmer is Saltzman. That's true, that's true.
But. But I do know.
Yeah, I mean you you can't avoid the fact that the Roger Moore
Bond films got increasingly more comedic I suppose as they went
on. I seem to remember is there a
pre credit sequence in one of the Bond films?
Is it The Spy Who Loved me? Where he he somehow from a from
a helicopter or or a small plane drops a character in a
wheelchair into a. Oh, for your eyes only.
Factory chimney or something ridiculous, yeah.
For your eyes only. Strange enough, an actor who is
in this film is in that film. So in fact, he's the man in the
wheelchair. Oh, who's that?
It's the guy, the bald guy, who is, oh God, I can't remember his
name, but he's also in Empire Strikes By.
He's the famously bald actor. The the book, I'm sure there's
more than one bald actor. Yes, it's Telly Savalas.
No, it's oh, I can't remember. His name?
OK, the Houston directed opening sequence, if you like.
In this film, John Houston plays plays M in this really terrible
rusty syrup that he's got on his head and he wanted.
Apparently he wanted he wants to Robert Morley to play M And I
mean, I'm no fan of Robert Morley, as listeners will know,
but he'd have made a better M than than Buddy Houston that
that accent made Groundskeeper Willie's accent sound like, I
don't know, Alex Ferguson. Like John, Houston has made some
of the greatest films ever made. Oh yes, And yet his section of
this is not a high point. No.
Oh look, don't get me wrong. The, the, the the Man who Would
Be King is a yeah, brilliant film.
Yeah, Treasure of the Sierra Madre and all that, but.
This whole laboured sequence, I genuinely believe, is to feed
that heirloom joke. Yes, that whole purpose of that
first 20 minutes of the film is to feed that joke.
And I think that's part of the problem.
It's it's very, very laboured. I think Casino Royale thinks
it's funnier than it is, and I think that's something that sort
of dams it throughout. It just doesn't quite manage to
be as sharp or as funny as it believes it is.
And sometimes the gags are just visible.
But I think the other thing though, I think it's strange how
things can join. You know the join, the dots
really connect, if you like. Sorry, that's the word I'm
looking for. Thank you.
It's strange how things connect in the sense that you've got
Sellers and Niven from the Pink Panther and you've also got Bert
Kwok later on. You know, you've got the Richard
Williams animations, which are lovely at the beginning, the the
opening credits and everything like that.
So you've got that sort of seam of pink Pantheros coming.
Through and that's Graham stuff as well.
Yeah. And you feel that there's a kind
of oh, well, if if they're in this, that must be good.
And it's like they're automatically going to be good,
you know, and and you get weird things like the.
I don't know if you know much about Doctor Strangelove, of
course, but Doctor Strangelove. But you know how they talk about
the custard pie fight that was decided not to be done.
But there is a, well, this equivalent of a custard pie
fight in here in the you get the fire extinguisher sequence.
And of course, like the chaos at the end almost feels like, oh,
well, you know, Kubrick was going to do it.
Why don't we? And again you sort of wonder.
Although like I say was off the project at this point.
You kind of wonder whether. Any of this comes from Sellers
himself? Yeah.
So Sellers does get is credited as having some input in the
script. I don't know what to what extent
but he was because obviously as I said earlier this is produced
by Charles K Feldman who also was behind What's New Pussycat
the year before and and he that had been a hit.
And there's a lot of echoes of what's new Pussycat in this film
because obviously we've got well we've got sellers but you've
also got Woody Allen who actually and I and Woody Allen
to me he made, he's made a a a handful of good films.
He's made a classic film in Annie Hall, which is one of my
all time favourites, but I've I'm not.
I've never been a particular Woody Allen fan apart from that,
apart from any, but in this he's quite he's quite a good physical
comedian in this actually. Build that last half hour
together quite well. It does.
I mean, he's only in a there's a
scene earlier with the with the the against the wall, he's
actually, which is quite funny. And that's the thing.
There are moments which are quite funny every so often, but
they are very few and far between.
Well, they are, but but yeah, so you got sellers, Woody Allen,
Ursula Andress was also in What's new Pussycat, you've got
Peter O'Toole. Doctor No, of course.
Yes, Doctor, No, Peter O'Toole was in What's New Pussycat.
He's he's briefly, very briefly. You can see the Royal.
Excuse me, are you Richard Burton?
No, I'm Peter O'Toole. Then you're the finest man that
ever breathed. Oh, God bless.
Thank you. Burt Bacharach wrote this, the
title song and and again you've got the Richard Williams title
sequence. What's your Pussycat?
The spirit as well of what's Your Pussycat is, is is sort of
beating here as well. Was Sellers with Rutakland at
the time? Yes.
Right. Because she had.
I know she did Golden Gun later. But I just wondered whether
whether he was sort of trying to sort of get her onto the project
at that point. Again, who knows, Yeah.
It wouldn't surprise me. So there's some, there's there's
some isolated good gags, good jokes.
They are few and far between. One of the the the few that made
me actually laugh out loud. Not heartily, but.
Maybe. You know, it was, it was a
titter because at the beginning when we when we first meet Sir
James Bond, IE David Niven, he's got, he's got a bit of a
stammer, hasn't he? Yes.
And then when M gets blown up and Bond is called back to MI 6
in London, the the stammer is gone and he says to Miss
Moneypenny. Let me know if I stammer.
I haven't got time for that now, which I thought, that's a good
gag. I like that.
But. That's the thing you also get in
the My other favorite is the Berlin Wall gag, I just think.
Oh, with cribbins. Vladic, Vladic, Chabal gets
blown up and then they all come through the wall.
Oh, all these Where the? I just think that's quite sweet.
But I know, I I thought. I thought you were going to say
the the the gag where Bernard Cribbins in London cabbie
Bernard Cribbins drives an Art of Bond to Berlin.
Yes, Well, yes. But again, there's a lot of
connections coming back to my other wearing my other hat, as
it were. There's a lot of connections
with television of the time. It it actually looks a lot like
a lot of 60s television of the time.
So you've got there's a weird scene with the Scalextric set
around some women in a in a kind of secret lair kind of thing.
Now that makes me think of the Prisoner.
The secret lair looks just like The Prisoner.
Does, doesn't it? Also they look like they're
dressed from shadow in UFO, you know and you get there's a whole
sequence in there with the chasing of the milk lorry and
the and the and the girl in the the Jaguar who's chasing and
that just makes me think of the The Prisoner episode the girl
who was death which I don't know if you.
Know. Yeah.
I have seen it, yes. Yeah.
And is that, is that the one with the, the pint glass with.
Yes. We've just been poisoned.
That's right. Yeah, that's.
Right. And it's just to to me that
looks beautiful. There are moments in this look
beautiful, that idea of sort of 60s landscapes where, you know,
with the wide shots and there aren't motorways yet.
And before a lot of these villages, it looked, at times it
looks beautiful. This film, it actually hasn't.
Oh, particularly the the, the house in Berlin, which is a
homage to sort of early German explosionism.
Yeah, absolutely. The cabinet of Doctor Caligari
or something. The the house that Anna Quelle
and Ronnie Corbett seem to be living in.
Yes, that's the sequence in the film that I most enjoy.
Just because it does have all that those links back to to
Silence cinema, you know? And there's even a a John Steed
gag with the bowler hat with John Bluthor.
There we go.
Well, yeah, but it's just it has the ball of hat on with the gun
in it and it goes off and it gives him a headache and it's
bad again. I actually wonder with with him
whether they forgot he'd been in the other bit.
No. Well, John Bluthall, this is a
thing, right? And I've already said that, you
know, a film is much better. Whenever John Bluthall turns up,
he was supposed to be in the film a lot more than he was
because he because obviously the director, Joe McGrath, who who
had worked with Sellers quite a bit in the earlier days and went
on to work with them more. Joe McGrath came on board and
he'd worked a lot. You know, I guess you could say
John Bluther was sort of part of his Rep company, if you like.
And so. So McGrath had John Bluther
playing multiple roles, apparently in this film, and
Sellers being Sellers. Wanted to do.
No I think he he was a little bit he maybe a little bit of
jealousy crept in it because Bluthor's such an accomplished
comedy actor our character actor and and Sellers more or less
fired Bluth from the from the film so so there were there were
other parts that Bluthor played which were cut or removed or not
even put in shall we say and. Considering how short they were
of footage is surprising. Yeah.
Well the same thing happened because I don't know about what
seven years later maybe Sellers and Milligan recorded this LP
about Watergate. Not very good.
OK not very good. It was it was it was just pre
return of the Pink Panther. So Sellers was doing it.
He's. Isn't of Watergate.
He's innocent, I know. That's it.
That's it.
And Blue Thought was in that was on that LP.
But again, Sellers removed a lot of his contribution from the LP
down to I guess professional jealousy.
But of course there there is one of the greatest moments in
comedy cinema history between Bluth 1 Sellers, which is the
minky scene from Return of the Pink Panther.
And that you know, for that we can be thankful.
So basically, as with many things, it depends what mood
Peter Sellers is in that particular day.
Yes, of all of them. It's kind of weird that he
became the film star. Is it or is it not?
Because I know they all had cinema appearance.
I don't suppose the Milligan was ever going to be leading man
material, and neither was Harry. Seeking.
But no, it's just kind of weird that Sellers, I suppose the most
conventional looking went on to have this.
But he was he was a film star. He was a massive film star in in
the 60s, wasn't he? It was never in the script for
him to be a leading man. Oh sorry not a leading man but
yes a leading man in in in films but not a a matinee idol.
But obviously he had these heart attacks in 64 he he then slimmed
down he was taking all sorts of pills and diet pills and God
knows what slim down slim down slim down.
Had a lot of work done here and there I think as well and it's
it's quite difficult to say, but he really looks felt in this
film. But he's doing the he's doing
the leading man, matinee idol thing, isn't he?
But again, he's playing that, I suspect.
He more or less plays it straight.
He does. He takes it very seriously in
the in the sequence just after he's introduced.
I mean the the weird thing about this is he's introduced at 44
minutes into the film, apart from that tiny fragment at the
beginning, which is there basically to say, oh, this is a
bit of service film, just in case, because you're not going
to see him now for about 3/4 of an hour.
Well, that's what they used to do with Colombo occasionally,
you know, because obviously, famously, Colombo would never
turn up at the beginning of Colombo.
He'd turn up 2025 minutes in after the murder had been
committed, you know, But there's the odd, there's the odd episode
of Colombo where for for for whatever reason, the murder
takes longer. And so in those instances,
panicky producers of Colombo would insert a little shot of
Colombo right at the beginning of the episode, taking his dog
for a walk or something like that, which is totally unrelated
to the subsequent story, but it's just to just to just to
keep the audience on board, basically.
Find them what they're watching. Absolutely so.
So you have that Peter in the piswar at the beginning of the
film just to just to keep people in the audience, keep keep them
on the seats. And we and we say that Sellers
plays it pretty straight there are there's a time.
There's a couple of moments where he the, the, the, the
comedy actor shows its head, if you like, the moment when he's
in the shower and it with his particularly hairy back and and
who was it that turns the shower on?
Is it is it Vespa Linda, is it Oceler?
And yes. It's a salon dress.
Yeah, and we have. Yes, he.
Squeals. Yes, but I've given this game a
lot of thought and when I go into that casino tonight, I'm
going to sit down oppositely looking straight in the eye and
say. Again, I was thinking about
this. Basically, if you ignore the
opening fragment it he turns up at 44 minutes and he's gone by
an hour and a half. He's in that middle 3/4 an hour,
but he's not even in all of that because for 17 minutes they go
off and follow Mata Bond. In.
India and and then the Berlin sequence and and so really
there's 215 minute segments. It's it's about the length of a
Goon Show episode, more or less, of Sellers in the entire film.
And what is the bit that you've touched on where Evelyn Tremble
the character adopts, maybe, I don't know, five or six
different voices throughout the film, particularly when he's
doing that dressing up box routine for Ursula Andrews where
he dresses as a military officer.
The the obligatory camp man, hello sailor, Hitler, Napoleon.
To lose the trek as he would do in Revenge of the Ping Pong and
that and that was, I mean that scenes to me that's, you know,
neither here nor there. It was unnecessary.
Doesn't add anything to the film.
Not many things add add to the film.
But but that was that that scene was the only bit of the film
that Spike Milligan liked apparently.
And he phoned Sellers after he'd seen the film, and he asked him
why the rest of the film wasn't like that bit.
So we don't know what's Spike wanted just.
Two or two hours of Peter Sellers trying on different.
Like Peter Sellers in an episode of Copycats, Just doing
different. Mr. Ben, the movie.
You never know, it might have worked.
Yeah, I know. I think this the nicest.
Well, no, I no maybe the not the nicest scene, but the cleverest
scene is possibly the the the spy gadgets one, because it's
definitely putting in the the knife into the main series and
it's played quite straight. But I think the nicest scene
with Sellers for me is that scene where he goes into the
office of the casino and he looks, he looks through the
window and he, I can't remember what does he say?
It's not like Basingstoke, but what was, what was the name of
the the place he normally plays cards.
And it was just it was the innocence on his face.
It it was that was to me was so beautifully played.
It was just when he just looks in wonder at the actual casino.
And he's. I just think that was a a moment
in the film that just sort of stuck out for me as just a
beautiful little moment of proper sellers acting, if you
see what I mean. And of course he ruins it by
doing that strange Indian voice in the, in the, you know, when
he does the Indian and Chinese voices when he's talking to and
you just think, oh God, here we go again, you know when you.
I mean I watch a lot of old television from that era and
occasionally you just have to say, yeah, sorry, this, this is
in it. Yeah, Yeah.
We're talking about things sticking out on that office
sequence. What about that Tiger's tongue?
That stuffed Tiger's tongue? The hell was all that about?
Yeah, somebody probably thought it was funny.
Yeah. And I think that's the problem
with a lot of Casino Royale. A lot of the time you just get
the impression that somebody on the day thought that would be
funny. I think to a certain extent that
happens in the later Bond films as well.
With Roger Moore, it's everybody's having so much fun
that someone says, someone suggests a joke and they Oh
yeah, Or when they're editing even maybe, I don't know.
But it just sometimes you think somebody should have said
really, do you think you know and you know?
Yeah, OK. I mean the the just back to
you're absolutely right about him doing the the Indian and the
Chinese accents to to to quote proverbs the characters being
quite pass AG at at Leshifers tricks as well isn't he?
So he's just and obviously this is the Chief replayed by Orson
Welles and obviously the the majority of the sequence, both
stars were filmed. Separately, they do manage A2
shot. That's the thing that gets me.
I can never decide whether it's a fake two shot and it's whether
it's been, you know, done with inserts.
But there is a two. I always thought there was no
two shot at all, so I was quite. Surprised.
No. I think they did get.
I might be wrong. People might correct me on this.
I think there there's there is a tiny amount of footage that did
capture both of them on screen together until Sellers saw his
backside and decided he didn't want to be in the same room as
Orson Welles. And.
And the rumor is that Sellers felt slighted when Princess
Margaret came on set and ran straight up to to speak to Orson
Welles and pretty much snubbed him.
Which let me look Sellers and and Margaret knew each other
very well, so they say. So admit there may be something
in that. By any chance, this is an aside,
but have you actually watched the new Beatles documentary, The
One That Was That Peter? What's not Peter?
What's his name? Lord of the Rings Champ.
Yeah, Peter Jackson. You mean get back, Peter?
Jackson, get back. Have you have you seen that?
Oh, absolutely. You've seen the two minutes the
sellers is in it. Oh, it's a good.
It's a good. It's a good.
There's a good eight hour program for you.
Oh. Dear That's just makes makes my
socks roll up and down my legs with cringy embarrassment.
I just wondered whether you'd seen it because you just kind of
think, is that what sellers is that on that day?
Because it's like I'm I know The Beatles, you know?
Yeah. Yeah.
He just he looks so awkward and uncomfortable.
These people are slightly more famous than me.
I just wondered if that was part of it.
You know, Orson Welles is slightly more famous.
No, undoubtedly. I'm I'm sure there was a number
of factors at play because I think Sellers was originally
before Orson Welles arrived on set.
Sellers was looking forward to it because he, I think he was a
a fan of a lot of Orson Welles work and and then you know Orson
Welles turns up and is this force of nature of course.
And he's he's, he's, he's performing all these magic
tricks and he's got all these people sort of enthralled to
him. And Sellers is probably
thinking, hey, hang on, yeah, this is my gig and and that was
the beginning of the end really. And he's allowed to do all these
magic tricks as part of the script, As part of the plot.
Yeah, it's like they're indulging him because he's
awesome Wells. Yes, and that would have pissed
sellers off as well, of course. Now let's get the show off the
ground. Keep your hand in place, Madam,
and continue to ascend. Don't take your eyes from her.
Not one of you. Just by your perfect
concentration, the young lady remains floating in thin air.
Excuse me, Madam. Sorry to keep you hanging
around. OK, just a few sort of little
uncredited appearances in this film which you want to touch on.
Now before I forget, OK Ian Hendry's in this film.
Is he? Yeah.
It was. But you wouldn't.
You don't actually. Well, you do see him, but you
don't see him. Right.
Apparently more footage with him was cut from the film, but you
know that bit where we we see Vesper Lind in her?
I guess it's her kitchen in her apartment.
Oh, is he the? Body.
He's the body under the sheet that goes down the sheet, Yeah.
Well, that explains why he left The Avengers then.
Yeah. Wow.
And that's a claim to fame, isn't it?
So because because famously, Ian Henry was resentful of Michael
Caine all, all his life, wasn't he?
In terms of. His career, Well, his career,
yeah. I think that's always the way
though, when somebody that that's your contemporary, they
going off and have this career and you go off and have that
career and you and you feel we started in the same place.
Why isn't it me? I feel, I feel that that must
great with a lot of careers really.
You know, you hear, you hear about in cinema generally, you
hear about people's feuds, you know, the feuds that they had
for donkey's years. And you kind of think a lot of
it comes down to these professional jealousies, really.
Yeah, but you can imagine Henry thinking, OK, I'm going to, I'm
going to make it in the films. Going to be a big star.
I'm going to be bigger than Kane.
And then and then he ends up, he ends up a body under his sheet
in Casino Royale. Oh.
Dear You see Colin Gordon as well, briefly playing the casino
director. So Sellers were reunited with
Colin Gordon. Because Colin Gordon of course,
is someone else from the original Pink Panther film.
He was. He was Tucker, who was Clueso's
assistant, I suppose, in the Pink Panther and.
Famously #2 twice. Of course, again, it's just.
I what I love about that era actually this film but many of
the British films of that era but also the British television
of that era is these regular actors who you just see turning
up. I it's part of the joy of that
watching television for that era is sort of joining those dots
and trying to work out who's going to be in it this week and
who was in that and oh he's got a big part in this but he was in
that. I I love all that.
It's part of the joy of that era.
It feels like, it feels like the 60s was kind of there was this
big sort of theatrical club that they all belonged to really, and
everybody knew everybody. I'm sure it was nothing like
that whatsoever but it just it feels like they all knew each
other and and oh, I've got a couple of days on my film and if
you you do a bit on my film I'll do a bit on your film And it
just just feels beautifully connected like that in a way
that sometimes modern television doesn't you know, it it and
modern cinema sort of doesn't nowadays.
They they seem to build it around an actor.
But I just like those connections and I'm sure, I mean
obviously people still have careers like that, but for some
reason it fuels more intimate, probably because the British
film industry was still quite active then, whereas now it is
just telly really, you know? Yeah, well, people like that are
never going to lead a film like Jeffrey Baildon.
They can probably. They can probably make half a
dozen films a year and it turned up in the same number of
television shows, if not more. It's when you think about people
like Sir James and how many films they turn on with doing
serious doing comedy, you know, obviously does the carry on
films later. But, you know, he's in something
like quite a mass, you know, the quite a mass two film I think
he's in and it's just and and so you see him playing a villain in
in Helldrivers, you know, sort of playing one of the one of the
drivers in hill drivers. Yeah.
Oh, I love Helldrivers.
I think great Alfie Alfie bass as well, strangely.
And and and prisoner connection, of course.
Mcguinn. And and Sean, however briefly.
And Pink Panther. Or at least the the, the, the
the Clouseau Films. Herbert Long.
Yeah. You see, it's just it is.
And for me, that's part of the joy of watching.
I I think that was what I think about.
I mean, this film would have come on an afternoon and I would
have probably watched it then. I just suspect that's when I
first saw it, actually when I think about it now.
But it's just that thing of you would sit down.
And I mean, I love hell drivers because I saw it one wet
afternoon in the summer holiday and it's just all these people
popping up, these William Hartnell's in there.
It's David McCallum, yes. Dave McCallum, of course.
Yes, you know, and it it just all connects.
I mean, Stanley Baker, obviously, but you know, and
then Stanley Baker goes off and made Zulu and there's Michael
Caine, all these dots to be joined.
I just think it's a. Fabulous, fabulous time.
And somehow maybe films like Casino Royale sort of brought
down, totally destroyed the British film industry by their
that sort of indulgence. Because I've been after after
this the British film industry starts moving into the sort of
films you're going to talk about next week the spin offs from the
TV shows. And I I feel that the because
we've had Cleopatra earlier in the 60s as well and it's just it
starts to feel that it's it's losing its way.
It becomes more of a dependent on American money.
I mean it's obviously great films were made in the 70s in
Britain, you know Superman, Star Wars all that kind of thing
Alien. But they sort of don't feel
quite as British somehow. And somehow, again, I know there
were other films after this, but this feels like possibly every
time, an American producer said. So you want to make a British
film? And they'd say, yeah, but Casino
Royale? Really.
Very good point. I would like to play baccarat.
I use the Evelyn Tremble Method. Oh, you read Tremble.
I thought he'd only published a few paperback conditions.
Well, I have an autographed first edition, but dog eared
Now. Mind you, I've been through it a
few times, but it nevertheless has a certain uninformed
quality. Aren't you a?
Little out of your depths, Mr. Vaughan.
In the last 20 minutes I have ruined 2 Greeks and the
Maharajah. You know, Mr. Vaughan, we aren't
playing for marbles. The night is young, the Rose
Garden is already littered with my victims.
After the The Card Game, which which is central to the story of
Casino Royale, even if you know most of it now seems to
basically be based around this mother's help and and what was
it? The the thing for needy young
girl Helpful to needy young girl.
There seems to be a thread that runs through the film as well.
But basically you get the torture sequence, you get the
dream sequence where Ursula undressed, basically machine
guns, everybody that Scots Guards and.
Clearly Peter O'Toole. Including Peter O'Toole.
And of course that's where we get that weird help with
Sellers. And that's pretty much the end
of the film. We do get that strange formula
three he, he, he, or whatever it is seen which.
Which was? Which was dropped in.
It was an outtake or something that was dropped in because they
needed some linking. Yeah, bit.
Yeah, to get from point A to point B in the plot.
So yeah. And that again, that's where you
think, Yep, this is falling apart.
And from that, from that point after the the dreams.
I mean the dream sequence is incredibly nicely done.
It's it's like forget a proper bit of 60s pop up, you know,
with the little bits of frames coming into the shots.
The way it's composed on screen is delightful.
There's some beautiful art direction in there, but then we
just move on to that last half hour which we talked about
earlier, which is chaos on screen with a hint of carry on
spying and Valentine dial. Of course.
And Valentine dial who obviously we don't see.
We hear who is is some Doctor Noah.
Doctor Noah, God's sake. Because I think Doctor Noah is
also in Carry on spying, but I'm not sure about them.
It's. I know it's not Doctor.
Yes. Well, Doctor Noah is is Woody
Allen's character, isn't he? Although Woody Allen is Jimmy
Bond, who is the nephew of Sir James Bond, Sir James.
God, that's confusing. But we also get a weirdly I
mean, if you're talking about, I like connections.
So, you know, you've got the silhouette chair looks just like
Battlestar Galactica 10 years later.
Really. Maybe the same chair, You know
you get the the Walker mock. If we can't run a mock, we'll
walk a mock line which is quite. It's a very.
You get a germ warfare, which feels weirdly slightly
foretells. If you like.
The germ warfare plot of this is a little bit like what happens
in the George Lazenby James Bond film a couple of years later.
The same same kind of plot idea, you know, and I field Also, the
UFO landing in Trafalgar Square makes me think of The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the last book.
So there's all sorts of things that you start to think, well,
maybe Douglas Adams saw this film and and subconsciously sort
of thought, oh, it's an image, you know, there's a lot of
really interesting imagery, if you like, in the entire film
that has fed into other things. But overall, overall like 4 we
should have 400 tiny little time pills running through this
entire. Every time I have a different
thought. In the middle of the sentence.
You'll love that wedding when you come to edit this, but every
time I have a different thought in the middle of a sentence,
there'd be 39. Yes. 38 Because if I mean this
is how my brain works, actually, maybe.
Maybe Casino Royale is basically the the cinematic equivalent of
how I think you know it. Maybe it's it's had more
influence on me than I realized, but it's just it is batshit
crazy. And maybe so am IA.
World free of poverty and pestilence and war.
A world where all men are created equal.
We're a man, no matter how short, Can score with a top
broad where each man, regardless of racecree colour, gets free
dental work and a chance a subscription buying of all the
good things in life. But, Noah, you are for all this.
No. No, I'm.
I'm against all this. Oh, I love politics.
To your future. I'll drink to that.
My very special champagne with your very special pill in it.
What are you talking about? It looks like an aspirin.
It tastes like an aspirin, but it isn't an aspirin and you just
swallowed it. You're lying. 398 more of those
little pills to go off. Have a real bomb of an evening
Alka Seltzer. Oh, by the way, you said so.
The the bald man whose name you've forgotten, who was in the
wheelchair that got dropped down into a factory chimney from For
Your Eyes only, of course, have. You found him.
No I haven't. But but I found someone else.
John Wells played Dennis Thatcher in For Your Eyes Only
and John Wells turns up in this in the best thing in the film,
which is the MI5 Training School or MI6 Training School?
I'm not sure is it MI 6 or MI 5? Am I sex?
Well, I I think. I think it varies.
But it's John Wells giving off very strong vibes of the, you
know, the rude Taylors from The Fast Show.
Oh, yes, yes. Suits you, Sir.
It's funny, actually. One of the things I did write
down was it feels in some ways like a sketch film, if you see
what I mean. It's it's a series of sketches.
It's not a portmanteau film by any means, although obviously
the four or five or six directors does sort of might
make you feel like it's a bit of a portmanteau film.
But actually it's it's a lot more of a a lot of sketches
thrown together and you know it's kind of like Alexandra
Bastido turns up for no very good reason.
So you but you get that scene with the the Scotsman doing the
the the games or the the throwing the ball thing.
Oh. God with them, Yeah.
With David Niven right at the beginning.
And it's it's, it's laboured, it's slow.
It's not particularly funny, you know, But it feels like if it
was a fast show sketch, you'd sort of that's that.
And then you move on. And I feel that in many ways
that's what the film does feel like now.
It feels watching it you feel I will you could actually you know
the chapters on the DVD if you if you actually bothered to buy
the DVD. Yeah.
If if you had the you kind of watch that sketch and then you
watch this sketch and and it doesn't there are attempts and
again this is I'll guess at his very best trying very hard to
bring everything together. John Hollis, By the way.
Sorry. At the middle of a sentence
again. Have I?
John Hollis was the actor I was thinking of.
Sorry, who's also in this? But there we.
Go OK, OK, well, you're saying you're saying about the the
sketchy nature of a lot of these scenes.
You mentioned that the bit with with David Niven and the and the
the the large concrete cannonballs, aren't they
basically that the the there's this ridiculous scene.
I could see something like that in in some shape or form turning
up in Michael Benton's It's a square World, you know?
Again. I mean, I didn't want to be, you
know, I I didn't want to make this connection.
But do you feel that some ways it does sort of feel like there
is somebody who's a fan of the goons working on the script.
It sort of feels slightly mad enough, if you see what I mean
to the workings of Milligan's mind could have come up with
something. That went this, well, crazy Mitt
Sellers has got some involvement somewhere.
So probably Sellers, because Sellers was very influenced by
Milligan, obviously, but in the worst way.
I think a lot of the time, the indulgent, the more indulgent
side of Milligan and Joe McGrath obviously was, you know, he
worked on a show called Fred back in the day.
So Joe McGrath was was involved. But there's, there's no quality
control. No.
Is there? God, no.
There's nobody there with a clipboard saying right, we, you
know, we're getting rid of that bit.
We're taking out that bit. No, we're not having that line.
Just whatever. Let's just throw it all
together. Well, I suppose when you're
spending 28 million of somebody else's money, it's very
difficult to say we need to lose all that, Yes.
And I mean basically someone, you know, poor old Val guest if
you like was bought to in to say, right, make some sense of
this. And the fact that he managed to
make as much sense of it as he did is quite fascinating.
Like I say, there are little bits of plot that drop in.
It's like, you know, the fact is that someone in the early bit
mentions Berlin and then there's another mention of Berlin and
then they go off to India for 10 minutes.
But yeah, but Oh yes, we will eventually go to Berlin because
it's in the plot sort of. There is a, you know, a couple
of the James Bond guidebooks that do attempt to make a sort
of coherent plot out of this. If you actually go on the, the,
the Wikipedia page to sort of just read the plot of this,
somebody somewhere has tried. But actually I when you actually
say when you when you mentioned the 67 Casino Royale films,
people roll their eyes, like I say, genuinely there are people
who love it. They absolutely adore it.
They find it it. It's kind of this this notion of
the 60s that that people have. We our vision of the 60s is
sometimes guided by very small moments in the 60s.
It's The Beatles, it's Carnaby St. it's it's a film like Casino
Royale. Sometimes people think all films
of the 60s looked like this, and I suspect that its reputation, I
mean, the fact that it it did make, like you said in your
intro, it actually it didn't lose money.
A lot of people must have gone and seen it and enjoyed it and I
don't know. Yeah, but was that, was that not
first week or weekend takings in terms of people thinking it was
a proper Canon James Bond film? I suppose they take.
They take the dollars where they can.
Yeah, yeah. But I mean looking back now you
just think I I say I've watched it twice in the last two weeks
for this. And so that's good.
I was, yes. And but it's a long time since
I'd previously watched it. I think it'd been on it had been
on TVA long time ago. It's it's a it's a difficult
film to recommend to anybody it's it.
I mean it's kind of one of those you need to see it to believe it
kind of films and it's a difficult film to like and it's
a difficult film to say this is brilliant, but certainly as an
example of 60s pop up something or even just this sheer
indulgence and chaos. People again getting back to my
other way, my other hat. People talk about the last
episode of The Prisoner as being a bit mad and chaotic but this
feels like the cinematic equivalent really.
It's almost like we got to a point where nobody really knew
how to finish these things. It's just, you know, I mean the
cowboy isn't that. Oh God, that the.
No, no, it it's, I mean it's a film I've watched more than
twice. So it it you know and there are
there are some films I can say. I definitely haven't done that
so I must go back to it occasionally and some of the
imagery has stuck with me. But but overall, it's a hard
film to love. Well, I was watching it last
Friday, Friday afternoon, and my finger was hovering over the
remote all the time, terrified of my children walking in and
catching me, watching this, this.
Assume. The fulfillment, this
abomination, it's not. No, it's all I'm just watching.
I'm just watching some porn. It's all right.
No, I'm not watching. No, no, no.
I'm not watching that. Because they know my kids, who
both are, you know, one's 16, one's 18, so you know they but
they know that I'm into stuff like this.
So they they know that the old man's living in the past I
suppose shall we say. But I I just, I don't know how I
would have explained to my son. You know why there's that
There's that silly slapstick fight with the fire
extinguisher. It's interesting because Anna
Quayle and Ronnie Corbett in Berlin and Anna Quayle to me has
the has the stand out scene in Hard Day's Night the the the
little bit where she's talking to John Lennon.
Yes. So I always love her for that
but she she's brilliant in this and of course Ronnie Corbett's
in this and and you think people now just think of Ronnie Corbett
as a star of the 70s and the 80s really don't they?
Two ronnies. Sorry.
Always wearing you know a Pringle jumper and all the rest
of it. But you know, he was obviously
he was, he was big in the in the in the 60s and his career was
developing. You know his his star was in the
ascendancy, and the same time that he was presumably filming
Casino Royale, he was starring in his first sitcom, which was,
which was called No, That's Me Over Here.
Is it slightly later than the Frost report as?
Well, yes, it was slightly later, yeah.
It was written by Barry Crier, Graham Chapman and Eric Idle.
And then after that he would go on to it'd be in a few other
sitcoms and he was also in. He was one of the regulars on
Frost on Sunday couple years later.
So you know, his his career was growing, but it is weird to see
him in in this film. Lashif is trying to raise money
by selling his unique art collection.
Why does he need money? He's a compulsive gambler,
that's why. Owned he is using organization
funds for his gambling. You mean smush Smush.
If he does not pay off his debts, he will be liquidated.
Liquidated. Who?
Buy. Buy them.
You mean? You're so like your mother.
You're driving me mad. Well, you haven't got far to go.
Come to me. Come to me, my little master.
Come to me. Come.
That time you were back in your box.
In it. You must forgive me.
I lose control of myself. I'm a mad fool.
Mad. You want an argument?
Remember, forget everything I tell you.
My lips are sealed lips. Don't say that.
Run along, son. I mean, I like the German
expressionist scene. That's the scene I look forward
to when I'm sitting through this film.
I always think, ah, yes, but the Berlin bit, you'll like that.
Yeah. And if you do like your Doctor
Caligari, you know, it's, it's a beautiful nod to that.
I know it. That section was only directed.
That was the only section that. What's his name?
Where's he gone? Where's his name gone?
The Ken Hughes It's the Only section.
Yes. Who?
Did. But it's it's a it's a beautiful
thing, really. I mean, it has a terrible the
terrible. That's the only time I've gone
around with a John line, which is possibly the most awful one
in the film. The bad, the bad.
Toilet gag if you like, but you know, as you say, lifted by
cribbins and. Oh, yes.
And that that modern girl matter bond is is is holding her own in
that although. She's all right.
What's her name? Joanna Pettit.
She's all right in this. I thought, God, is it only two
hours. Yeah.
Considering a lot of the films at that time were 90 minutes and
didn't you know they didn't outstay the welcome but but a 2
hour movie in the 60s, you know, it's OK.
It's not water world length, you know, but it's not it's not The
Lord of the Rings, you know it's it's it's two hours, which is
standard running time for a film.
But it does seem at times very slow and I think it is that that
problem is that the the jokes take a while to pay off and
they're very languidly and very slowly delivered and they're not
really worth it. Like I say, the hair loom really
isn't worth. It's incredibly baggy, isn't it?
Yeah, I just want to mention Angela Schooler, who's got a
small role in This, is Buttercup.
She's in the bathtub, testing the temperature of the water,
just like she did for her daddy. Gorgeous.
I was trying to skim over the the slightly worrying 16 to 19
year olds. Yeah.
Daughters or whatever it was. And that one in the bath
testing, Yeah, that is that is almost so 60.
Sexist. It's frighteningly bad.
And yeah. But Angela Sculler and and
singled her out because we we covered Doctor in trouble a
couple of weeks ago and of course she's a central character
in that later went on to marry Leslie Phillips and she was also
in On Her Majesty's Water. Yes, I'm sure she was and she
was later in On Her Majesty's Secret Service as well.
It got Derek Nimmo, the lovable and one-dimensional Derek Nemo.
Oh, the the music. We've we've really talked.
I mean the music, the the, the theme tune is wonderful,
although the theme tune. Is well, you have to save the
You do have to save the best of all us the the IT.
It is a high point for people. Yeah, but it's not.
It's not a James Bond theme, is it?
The the the Cedar Royal theme is not a Bond theme, is it?
It doesn't sound like it's not. Got that Bond sound to it?
No. No.
Well, of course at that stage it would have all been John Barry,
wouldn't it? And yes, true.
And and big horns, Mr. Horn. Big horns.
As it were. But nevertheless.
So it doesn't sound like the other Bond films of the time,
but it is actually. It's a very enjoyable
soundtrack. I mean, I actually like the the
lyric version at the end of the film.
I do like it. That's very good.
That it's a, it's a it's actually sort of says more about
the James Bond thing in some ways you know, than than a lot
of the actual film does, you know, does it?
Said James. One is terribly hot.
It gets stuck in your head. That one, I must admit, if you.
But the The look of love is beautiful song.
Love that song. Dusty Springfield.
There's a There's a strangely peculiar thing of late 60s Bond
films, even if they're not official, having an absolutely
timeless love song in them. Because Louis Armstrong's all
the time in the world is the closing music on Her Majesty's,
and I actually feel that there are hints of Casino Royale in On
Her Majesty's Secret Service as well.
It's almost like, you know, maybe it's the same crew, I
don't know. But you do feel connections and
it's even like the the whole scene with this kilt where
someone writes on his leg in On Her Majesty's is very much like
the kilt scenes in this. You know it.
I feel connections somehow. There's the there's because
there's a pan under the table where someone's rubbing James's
leg with the kilt and things like that.
There are weird connections with the other films in here, which
which considering you know they were dismissing it and
everything, like I think they all must have seen it.
And I suspect a lot of the crew probably thought the jokes were
quite funny. Yeah, well, that's Cruise for
you. It's the 60s, man.
What were they smoking? Hey, so Martin, have you got any
any parting words? To share, don't really.
I, I I You didn't ask me why I picked it.
I suppose it's possibly because it was the Sellers film I was
possibly most familiar with and then I realized how unfamiliar I
was with it. But I think it's an experience.
It's a really hard film to love and but it is, as I said right
at the top. It's it feels like the 60s in in
in bottled form, it feels like concentrated 1960s, and if your
idea of the 1960s comes from things like the Austin Powers
films, you can see where they got it from you.
You want to know what the 60s, sort of in its most excessive
form looked like. Casino Royale's probably a good
place to start looking. And I would agree.
A good double bill would be Casino Royale and what's that
film? Modesty Blaze which I think was
the year before. Yes.
But there's again the 60 that was so full of of spies and spy
spoofs and everything like that. And I can say it just it's it's
riding on a wave of that and these these things were
incredibly popular. And again, it's all the fault of
that their Scotsman. No.
Well, Martin, it's been, it's been real.
It's. Been a James Bond film?
Thank you so much mate and we will talk again.
Always a pleasure. You take care.
He's got a redhead in his arm. He's a lover.
When you are in trouble, have to feel, oh, they've got us on the
run with guns and 9:00. We're fighting for our life.
Heavenly feel bound as hell. He's going to save the world at
Casino Royale.