Casino Royale on DVD

With five separate directors credited, it may not come as a surprise that this “anti-James Bond” flick turns out to be a bit of a mishmash. And it does, but only about the last quarter hour or so is completely incoherent.

The all-star movie’s a spoof of the James Bond outings, though not as good a spoof as Our Man Flint, but on the whole it’s pretty entertaining - and MGM Home Video has done a very nice job of the DVD.

The story sees David Niven as the aging Sir James Bond, retired spy who’s brought back into the fold to go after the evil organization SMERSH, while passing on the secret-agent mantle to his idiot son (Woody Allen) - who actually turns out later in the film to be a lot more than most people had thought. In the process everyone and his dog becomes secret agent James Bond 007.

The wonderful cast also includes Peter Sellers, Orson Welles, Deborah Kerr, William Holden and many others. It’s almost enough to keep you interested just trying to pick out the next star to come onscreen.

The story is almost secondary to the jokes, and though there are plenty of them most of them aren’t as funny as they should be (though some generate legitimate guffaws). The movie is basically just a lighthearted romp and if you treat it as such Casino Royale can be a hoot in a guilty pleasure kind of way.

Possibly the best thing about the movie other than the cast is Burt Bacharach’s score, with a wonderful theme performed by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass and the Oscar-nominated song “The Look of Love.”

It’s a fine DVD, too, and one of the extras is a real blast from the past: a 1954 live TV version of Casino Royale starring Barry Sullivan as an American James Bond and Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre. The picture and sound quality aren’t great (it’s a crude TV recording from nearly fifty years ago, after all), but it’s a pretty good version of the story - better in many ways than the spoof.

The movie is presented in anamorphic widescreen, 16x9 TV compatible, and the picture quality is very good, with excellent color reproduction and nice sharpness. Audio has been remixed into Dolby Digital 5.1 surround and though there isn’t a lot of surround, the new digital remastering really pays off with the musical score.

Other extras include a “Making of” featurette hosted by Val Guest, one of the five directors, and it’s pretty good. You also get the theatrical trailer.

We’ll still take the real James Bond (especially Connery), but Casino Royale’s lighthearted tone is rather infectious and this leads to a mostly entertaining two hours and a bit in the home theater.

Casino Royale, from MGM Home Video
137 min. anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1), 16x9 TV compatible, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Starring David Niven, Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress, Joanna Pettet, Orson Welles, Woody Allen
Produced by Charles K. Feldman
Written by Wolf Mankowitz, John Law, Michael Sayers, Directed by John Huston, Ken Hughes, Val Guest, Robert Parrish, Joe McGrath

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