1967
A great car, and a silly movie
That year saw two Bond films released. You Only Live Twice, released by Eon Productions, with Sean Connery in the title role. However, before You Only Live Twice came out, Casino Royal made its debut . CR is an out of wedlock film, with two Bonds: one played by David Niven, the other by Peter Sellars.
You Only Live Twice was published in 1964. Ian Fleming died five months afterwards. The story line of the novel is quite different from that of the film. And why not? There was no Fleming to object to such a drastic change.
The plot centers on that multi-national corporation, SPECTRE. Blofeld is introduced in the person of Donald Pleasance, along with his white, long haired cat. That cat probably made a million by the time he had finished with the role a decade later.
What’s good about You ….Twice?
Item one is the car. The Toyota 2000, a sweet little roadster. They were right hand drive. So the UK got them, and we didn’t. Personally, I would love to see them re-issued! Toyota, are you listening?
The second item on my like list is the theme song. Love the melody, with its lovely string intro, and Nancy Sinatra’s interpretation. Truly 60’s hipster smooth.
The third item is the Bond quote: “Oh the things I do for England.” And you know very well what it is he had done for England.
Fourth item is the design of the SPECTRE control room. It is quintessentially, mid-century modern. No surprise there since this is 1967. In 2022, young people look for houses that are mid century, along with furniture, and clothing. It’s a clean design. Sans clutter.
It is in this film that the Western audiences are introduced to ninjas. Watching the ninja army workout reminds us that Japan is all about precision in everything. Even in violence. From the way the ninja walk, to the way they kill, it all must be done with deliberate motions. Such self-discipline!
This was the year my mother met her future business partner, who just happened to be Japanese. They created a business called Cal-Asia, a customs brokerage. In two years time, they would sign on the dotted line of a contract with Honda. And car buying/driving in the United States would change. Yes, my mom was a part of that event in the USA. Of course, the Japanese would begin producing left hand drive cars.
Trade with Japan would be a two way street. The Japanese liked many American things, including our cars. Later on, they would go on a binge of buying our vintage cars, clothes and furnishings.
Life is always a two way street. An exchange, if you will, of ideas, lifestyles, and cultures. I reiterate, the Bond movies, with storylines based all over this world, stirred me on to visit as many places as I could. These world wide adventure movies motivated the Boomers to take to the road. Not just Americans, but young people from everywhere. I played tennis with a young man from Japan, marveled at the English of a couple from Germany, danced with a guy from Italy, gave directions to people from France, and Denmark, also very articulate in English. In this post WW2 era, the world was coalescing into the “planet,” with people crisscrossing for business and touring. The global economy was a growing enterprise. Ian Fleming was prescient in his creation of those, big, too rich, too many fingers in too many governments, corporations known as SMERSH and SPECTRE.
Speaking of SMERSH, let’s look at the mess of a movie, Casino Royal. Not the one produced in 2006, but the one released in 1967.
Oi! Be wary, I mean it is a mess. It had 5 directors. Gee, do you think that had anything to do with it?
This first version of Casino Royal was produced by an independent company. Since this is Fleming’s first book, released back in 1953, its rights were sold elsewhere. When the Broccoli-Saltzman team came along, it was not in the canon of stories available to them. Too bad!
CR is a clutter of characters and plots. I did love David Niven as a suave, retired JB, who is forced back into the fold by a group of, well, shall I say it, neocons, which includes M, and his counterparts in the USA, France, and Russia. This is not a part of the original story….anyway, with its all-star cast and multiple directors, it was destined to be, well, lackluster and pointless. Two other actors do their parts well; Deborah Kerr, who is brilliant in her role a SMERSH agent, and, of course, Peter Sellars, who pretends to be Bond. Other huge stars are Orson Wells, as the bad guy, Le Chiffre, Woody Allen, as Bond’s nephew, Jimmy Bond, who is the head of SMERSH, and Ursula Andress, as another wicked individual, making an appearance in a second Bond film.
Casino Real is meant to be a spoof of the James Bond genre. It fails, miserably.
Many of the scenes are pointless, when it comes to the plot, however, there are a few funny scenes. For example, the part where Deborah Kerr plays a SMERSH agent. Hysterical! Kerr needed to play more comedic roles in her career. She plays off Niven’s Bond with gusto, with a Scots brogue that is about as good as I have ever heard. John Huston directed this part of the movie. Here, he did a coherent job. The absurdity makes sense as it does spoof the Bond personality. If only the rest of the film was this good.
The musical note is that Dusty Springfield singing, The Look of Love, is a highlight. The Burt Bacharach score, played by the Tijuana Brass, gets irritating.
If you skip this film, it’s okay. However, if you’re going to be a purist about seeing every Bond film produced, well, pour yourself a tall one, and have a laugh at what is funny, and, what is stupid. After all, this is the swinging 60’s, with people experimenting with drugs, sex, rock n’roll, and dumb films.
What a waste of a high profile cast of actors this was. Well, it parallels life. I did a few dumb things when I was young.
And so ends the Bond experience of 1967. I would not see another Bond film until I was a university student. In the meantime, I dropped out of the swinging 60s to study Tolstoi and Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky is an excellent teacher about people. He was, after all, a wannabe revolutionary who ended up in Siberia. And then came out of prison to write 16 novels, five of which are classics. Dostoevsky changed the way I look at the world. Bond pushed me to travel the world.