CASINO ROYALE, a 1967 spoof of the whole James Bond spy genre, has to be one of the messiest films ever made. A troubled production leads to a very troubled picture in which new meaning is brought to the phrase "scattershot". This is a film filled with extremely broad comedy, touches of surreal humour, and a general lack of both cohesion and coherence so that for most of the running time you're wondering what the hell you're watching.

The storyline only loosely follows that of the Fleming novel, despite the misleading title. Orson Welles has a few scenes as Le Chiffre, for example, but what happens to him is totally out of left field. Meanwhile, we get a storyline involving a past-his-prime David Niven as an elderly Bond who recruits various newcomers to the fold, including a poor Peter Sellers. An appears-in-anything Ursula Andress is the crumpet, while the supporting cast in this bloated production is packed with cameoing stars like Deborah Kerr, John Huston, William Holden, and even one Woody Allen playing 'Jimmy Bond'.

CASINO ROYALE has an episodic structure that is generally hard to watch as most of the supposed funny bits are anything but. The stuff set in Scotland is completely interminable, for example, although things do pick up a little for the more traditional climax. It's still one hell of a mess though, worth watching only so you can wonder how they got it so wrong.

It's amazing that such a stellar cast was assembled and such a rotten and incomprehensible mess resulted! Think about it folks, the movie features an incredible cast of expensive talent and STILL is unwatchable. Imagaine how hard it must have been to have assembled this much talent and still produced such a dud! Other than the memorable music from Herb Alpert, nothing positive can be mentioned about the movie. It is stupid and smarmy but not one bit entertaining. It has all the earmarks of a movie that has been written and re-written and re-written innumerable times until it makes no sense. Either that, or everyone associated with the movie was on LSD or had suffered blows to the head. Whatever the cause, avoid this movie like the plague.

By the way, there is strong circumstantial evidence to prove the film is a turkey even before you watch it. Look at the very, very long list of directors for the film. When it has that many, it an almost sure sign that something is wrong with the production.

Additionally, look at the list of directors and actors--I can't think of another film with more assembled talent than this one, but with practically nothing for any of them to do! Imagine wasting actors such as Peter Sellers (who plays, apparently, a zombie),David Niven, Charles Boyer, Orsen Welles, William Holden, Jean-Paul Belmondo, George Raft, Jacqueline Bisset, Ursula Andress, Woody Allen (back when he was funny in the 60s) and Deborah Kerr!!! Many of these people were given nothing in particular to do except to make an embarrassing walk-on. The rest were given parts that were very incomplete and stupid.

PS--To this day, Ian Fleming's corpse continues to spin like a rotisserie thanks to this film that bears the same title of one of his best books (though the title and name of the main character are the ONLY things the 2 have in common).

It is better not to think of this film as an official Bond film, because even if it was meant to be, it doesn't feel like one. If anything, it feels like a disjointed spy caper and as a spoof it is one with pluses and minuses.

Casino Royale does have its good points. The locations, costumes, photography and Bond girls look wonderful, even if the editing isn't as good. The music is rousing enough with a brilliant song sung by Dusty Springfield, the opening and closing sequences are memorable, the idea is great, there are some funny bits and there is a great cast, although the performances themselves are uneven. David Niven is amusing, Orson Welles is a good find, Ursula Andress is very sexy and beautiful and Woody Allen provides some of the more funnier moments though these moments are almost too brief to savour properly.

The rest of the cast don't give bad performances or anything, but the material they got should have been better. Peter Sellers's talents in my opinion are not put to good use, there are times when he is funny but there are other times where he does little more than ad libs and he does overdo it occasionally, while some of the cameos are wasted and that includes John Huston as M, who coincidentally is one of the directors of Casino Royale.

What hurt Casino Royale though was the length and the pace. It was much too long and there are some parts that move along at a snail's pace. The film also feels bloated, there are too many characters and the film should have had about three less directors than it did. The film does start off well, but then it becomes very silly, overblown and pointless. The script is weak, with the occasional funny moment outweighed by the too silly, unfunny moment sadly, while the plot meanders all over the place and is very hard to follow and the action while not bad is rather overblown.

Overall, I can see why Casino Royale is seen as a love it/hate it movie. As for me, I had very mixed feelings on this film, and while not terrible, it is disjointed and bloated that is saved by the production values, music and some of the cast. 5/10 Bethany Cox