Casino Royale (1967)

Sometimes, when I watch movies, there will be a sequence that makes me stop the picture, rewind and play it again.  This is done out disbelief, which can be either good or bad.  A sweet line of dialogue or an absolutely ridiculous stunt gets good disbelief.  Absolutely random or stupid things get the bad disbelief.  The entire running time for Casino Royale gets the bad kind.

While Casino Royale is based on Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel of the same name, don't confuse it with the 2006 version.  This is not an official Bond movie, but a British spoof of Bond and a bunch of other spy movies.  The film has five (!) directors, with each making their own vignette that is tied together at the very end.  John Huston, Val Guest, Ken Hughes, Joseph McGrath, and Robert Parrish all acted as director.  Each vignette has its own style and feel, and spoofs different things.  Likewise, the story is very segmented and disjointed.  It should be no surprise that the story is not the main focus for the film.  Instead, the emphasis seems to be on several small moments that, when they work, are extremely funny.

The story begins with an attempt to coax Sir James Bond (David Niven) out of retirement by his old boss, M (John Huston), a CIA guy (William Holden), someone from the KGB, and a French guy.  Predicting Bond's refusal, M arranged for the British government to bomb Bond's home and have it blamed on the evil international organization SMERSH.  The house crumbles,convincing Bond to come out of retirement, but sadly, M dies in the bombing.  Way to plan ahead, genius.  Bond's first act is to return M's body to his family in Scotland.  Sir James is a very prim and proper man who despises the seductive film versions that have had success in recent years; SMERSH seeks to discredit him by ruining his chaste image.  To do so, they replaced all of M's family with sexy SMERSH female agents, all intent on seducing Sir James.  Despite their best efforts, he resists their charms and wins over the operations leader (Deborah Kerr).  From there, Bond returns to England as the head of MI6.  He has his secretary, Miss Moneypenny (Barbara Bouchet) assign the code name "James Bond 007" to all remaining secret agents, in an attempt to confuse both SMERSH and the audience. 

I could go on in detail, but that's as clear as the plot ever gets, so it's probably not worth it.  There are only two other important story lines, in my opinion.  The first involves the recruitment of Evelyn Tremble (Peter Sellers) into a "James Bond 007" identity by fellow "James Bond," Vesper Lynd (Ursula Andress).  Tremble-Bond's mission, like in the 2006 version, is to defeat the villainous Le Chiffe (Orson Welles) at cards.  The other story line involves Sir James Bond facing off against the head of SMERSH, who also happens to be his clumsy nephew, Jimmy Bond (Woody Allen).  Jimmy is very intimidated by his uncle, so he has trouble speaking in his presence, but if his evil plan succeeds, he won't have to.  All men over 4'6" will die, leaving Jimmy as the big man in the world for all women to adore.  The rest of the film has a smorgasbord of movie stars in bit parts and plot sequences that make little to no sense, leading up to a finale that involves cowboys, Indians, and Woody Allen hiccuping illustrated clouds of smoke and eventually exploding.

The supporting cast is very good, even if they only are given a few lines.  Aside from those already mentioned (who give the best performances), George Raft, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jacqueline Bisset, Anna Quale, Tracy Reed, Peter O'Toole, and Jack Gwillim all have bit parts.  The main acting, though, is not as good.  I realize that David Niven is as British as they come, so his humor is probably going to be very British (read: dry and peculiar, with a weakness for men wearing dresses).  This movie has a ton of slapstick in it, though, which doesn't match his style at all.  He seems uncomfortable throughout.  Peter Sellers is better, but at least half of his screen time is painfully awkward; the other half is pretty funny, though, which makes up for quite a bit.  It's Woody Allen that gets the most laughs with a great show of physical comedy near the end of the film.

The frustrating thing about this movie is that it should be far better than it is.  Seriously, who would have thought that a Peter Sellers/Woody Allen movie wouldn't be very funny?  The problems are myriad, but they boil down to a lack of vision.  Just because the movie is split into several sub-stories doesn't mean that the film as a whole has to suffer; Creepshow, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Grindhouse, and Kentucky Fried Movie are all choppy and mashed together, but their segments share a similar tone.  Casino Royale can't decide what type of comedy it is.  There's an entire sequence that appears to be a satire of contemporary German films, but then finishes with a Benny Hill-type ending.  Huh?  That's okay, Mr. Random Ending, Peter Sellers outdoes you by being physically missing from the final third of his scenes (he either quit or was fired, depending on who you ask).  David Niven's scenes work better as a whole, but they feel like they came out of a British sitcom.  They're cheap, cheeky, and pretty lame.  Basically, there are too many styles at work, and none compliment each other.  I will give director Val Guest credit for trying to tie these disparate strands of story together, but he never truly succeeds; he apparently realized this and turned down a "Supervising Director" credit after he saw the final cut of the film.  Disappointing movies don't come easily or quickly, it seems, and this mess takes over two hours to wind down.

Despite all the bad (two hours!), this movie is not without its charms.  As a James Bond aficionado, it's fun to see the series lampooned.  Personally, I thought David Niven's turn as a celibate Bond was clever, even if it wasn't very funny.  As I mentioned before, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen are entertaining, although Allen was criminally underused.  Many of the other scenes would have worked better if they were shorter, or if the vignettes were edited together as a united film.  But, for what it is, Casino Royale isn't terrible.  It's a product of its time, filled with clean-cut men, sexy women, surreal randomness, and painfully British humor.

The Guns of Navarone

Imagine you are a casting director, in charge of casting a war movie that will be released in 1961.  Your task is to find a leading actor that can fit the description implied by this line of dialogue: "You speak German like a German."  Who do you choose?  It's not an easy choice.  When I think of available lead actors in the early 60s, I can only think of actors with very unique voices that would sound extremely funny speaking German.  Think about it...John Wayne, Charlton Heston, Cary Grant, James Stewart --- none of them would sound right saying "Ich liebe Deutschland."  Clearly, the best choice was...Gregory Peck?  Really?  Don't get me wrong, Gregory Peck was a man among men, the type of guy that cut razors when he shaved, but...a convincing German?  I have a hard time imagining that.  Of course, this was a time when authenticity in casting often meant British actors putting on dark makeup, so maybe I'm just being picky.

The Guns of Navarone is a Mission: Impossible-type operation, set in World War II and based on Alistair MacLean's novel of the same name. 2000 British soldiers have been marooned on a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, with limited food and weapons.  Intelligence reports indicate that the German forces are planning to make an assault within a week on this island, massacring the mostly defenseless soldiers.  All attempts to save these men have failed because the nearby island of Navarone has two enormous anti-aircraft-style guns covering the stranded troops and their island.  Since attacks by air and sea have failed, a more subtle approach is needed; a motley crew is assembled to sail to the island, sneak into the military complex and blow up the guns.  It's a simple plan.  All they have to do is sail to the island without attracting attention, climb a nearly climb-proof cliff, cross the island unnoticed, infiltrate the military base, sneak into the complex that contains the guns, and blow it to hell.  Viewers learn all this within the first ten minutes of the film.  Does it work?  It's a WWII movie, made in 1961.  What do you think?  Actually, history buffs will recognize this fictional plot as mirroring the Dodecanese Campaign, where British forces tried to capture the Greek and Italian islands to use as airbases against the Germans; it was a costly failure for the British.  I guess the ending isn't so obvious, after all.

This is one of those movies where a bunch of hardy strangers are brought together to kill some Germans.  They do just that.  Gregory Peck is the supposedly fluent German-speaker that is only on the mission because of his rock climbing abilities.  His partner (who openly vowed to kill Peck after the war) is Anthony Quinn, an officer in the defeated Greek army.  They are assigned help, consisting of an extremely British explosives expert (David Niven), a hand-to-hand combat expert with a specialty with knives (Stanley Baker), the leader (Anthony Quayle), and a hot-headed shooter (James Darren).  The group has nothing but bad luck the entire time; their ship sinks on the way to Navarone, their leader breaks his leg on the initial climb, and Germans dog them throughout the film...almost as if they knew where the group would be.  It gets a little predictable at times: one guy will stand up to the authority figure, another will lose his taste for battle, others will form bonds of brotherhood, etc.  The movie throws in some romance and betrayal to spice things up, but this is a pretty standard, mission-oriented, 1960s war movie.

Not that '60s war movies are bad, by any means.  This movie is unique within its genre with both the setting (WWII Greece) and the activities (rock climbing, sabotage), which help keep the movie lively.  It is also pretty brutal for its time.  A few men in the group die unmourned and a woman gets executed, both very atypical of war films in 1961.  The action is fairly commonplace, but director J. Lee Thompson does a pretty good job getting his varied (in talent and experience) cast to react appropriately. 

Movies like this can only get so far on spectacle and plot, though.  It is the cast's performance that determines the longevity of the film.  Here, we have Gregory Peck, who tends to play the same character over and over again; I mean that in a good way, because his stern persona is perfect for war movies.  Anthony Quinn does a decent job of playing Greek, despite the fact that he is Mexican.  The stormy relationship between Peck and Quinn is supposed to form the core of the film, but David Niven's performance opposite Peck is more memorable.  Niven's character is the least military-like in the group and he spends much of the first half of the movie attempting to be sarcastic (I say "attempting" only because the script isn't great).  However, when things get tough, he is the one that stands up for his fellow soldiers and acts as the group's conscience against the tactical mind of Peck.  The dynamic between these two men sums up the film quite nicely.  They address the issues of the value of life on impossible missions, the tactics of torture, honor among officers, and more.  The movie feels dated when you watch it, but it has the decency to function as a movie about soldiers and not as a propaganda piece.