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Dir. Various
Rating: 3.5 | 0 User Reviews | Send to Friend
By Scott Yorko
David Niven brings the doltish role of high-ranking agent calling all the wrong shots -- straight from the trench coat of Inspector Cleauseau into the tuxedo of James Bond -- in this cockeyed 007 spoof. The cast is packed with a laundry list of classic all-stars upstaging one another for the spotlight, making it feel almost as if there were no supporting characters at all. Directors Val Guest, Ken Hughes (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon), Joseph McGrath (The Magic Christian) and Robert Parrish (Mississippi Blues) make up the whole team of discordant directors behind the scenes that allowed the terribly flawed production to override the story into the ground. The film starts out with a bang but spends the remaining two hours frantically trying to patch up a plot that was never quite together in the first place. James Bond (David Niven) is approached in his retirement by a group of spy heads whose agents have been following their libidos to life’s end in brothels on every continent. In order to battle the ruthlessly seductive Russian female agents, British influence coerces a reluctant Bond into position as the new M of the British intelligence agency M16. Flopping from one hopeless plan to the next, Sir Bond schemes up the asinine initiative to designate several equally negligent agents the position and the name of Bond, 007. One of these is Vesper Lynd (Ursula Andress), another rich agent out of retirement who somehow manages to seduce, rescue and then kill Evelyn Tremble (Peter Sellers) by the end of this abysmal crapathon. He wasn’t meant to go out like this, but the five directors made such a joke of the original 007 that a disgusted Peter Sellers walked off the set mid-production, necessitating senseless plot twisting into an absurd ending with stock footage of Sellers from earlier scenes. Woody Allen is Jimmy Bond, Sir James’ wannabe evil nephew and the closest thing the film has to comic relief from bad comedy. It’s fortunate that Allen got out of this dreadful project alive enough to rebound two years later with the truly classic endeavor Take the Money and Run.
Piled atop this heap of star-laden vignettes are bonus features in which much of the cast and directors admit they were just as confused during the shooting of Casino Royale as we are watching it. Director commentary is reminiscent of preschool nannies explaining what went wrong in a failed Christmas pageant with sugar-loaded toddlers.
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