Casino Royale Sticking with a James Bond theme, Woody Allen was in 1967's Casino Royale in which he was only a costar. Based on an Iam Fleming novel, it parodied the 007 persona and Richard Feldman was the producer. The film was directed by five directors: John Huston, Kenneth Hughes, Val Guest, Robert Parrish and Joseph McGarth which in itself is a recipe for disaster. Woody Allen's part was Little Jimmy Bond, the brains behind the enemy organization and James Bond's cousin. Jimmy Bond plans to "unleash a bacillus that will make all women beautiful and destroy all men taller than four-foot-six." The film also stars a wealth of high caliber actors such as David Nevin, Jean-Paul Belmondo, John Huston, Orson Welles, Peter Sellers and famed Bond girl Ursula Andress. For six months, Woody lived in London on the studio's expense and not once did he get in front of the camera. The film went through several rewrites and Woody only had a few scenes in it. Peter Sellers disappeared from the set for three weeks and eventually dropped out of the production. Going over budget, the film ended up costing over twice its $12 million dollar original budget. Woody Allen later said of the film, "I never bothered to see Casino Royale. I knew it would be a horrible film. The set was a chaotic madhouse." (Fox 39) And a madhouse the film is, often times confusing and hard to follow. From what I got out of it, which wasn't much, each agent in the film is actually James Bond at one point. Woody Allen's scenes in the film are quite good, but really don't matter. You could have had 20 directors, and this film still would not have worked. "Even though the film did fairly well at the box office, partly due to the drawing power of its stars, Newsweek labeled the film, "'the persecution and assassination of James Bond by the inmates of Casino Royale,' as critic Howard Junker described the film as 'burbling like a hyperthyroid idiot.'" (Brode 64) The complaints and critical attack on the film only go to further support Allen's statement he "thought it was a moronic enterprise from start to finish, that everything about it was a complete waste of celluloid and money. It was another dreadful film experience." (Bjorkman 13) I would agree with that. Bjorkman, Stig. Woody Allen on Woody Allen. New York: Grove Press, 1993. Brode, Douglas. The Films of Woody Allen. New York: Citadel Press Book, 1991. Fox, Julian. Woody:Movies From Manhattan. New York: The Overlook Press, 1996. |
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