Bonus knowledge: There is even another Casino Royale movie from 1954. It remains a bit of obscure James Bond knowledge. Overall this movie is a mess and while it has its moments it is still below average. There were some stories of animosities between the stars. Maybe this is also a reason this movie failed. It is a list of excellent, well acclaimed and successful stars.

It is not short of being a dreamteam with David Niven, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, Orson Welles (Yes that one), Deborah Kerr, William Holden, Jean Paul Belmondo and more. I think it could have worked if done with a better script and one director.

The budget exploded from 6 to 12 million dollar which made it the most expensive James Bond movie back then (If I remember correctly). There were 6 different directors participating in this movie on top of rewrites and conflicts or better said problems on the set. Later I discovered that this was even a correct observation. When I first watch the movie it looked uneven for me like many parts not fitting well together. Sadly while the movie has some really good and clever ideas most jokes did not work well. Like I already mentioned it is a parody of James Bond and all tropes, stereotypes and hallmarks. In the books it is a dangerous Soviet intelligence agency that even James Bond has troubles dealing with and is itself based on a short lived real Soviet agency). Because of a new treat by SMERSH the MI6 tries to get him back into action (SMERSH is not transferred in the movies. The story is set long after the retirement of James Bond. Firstly it has an awesome cast that can be described as some of the best and most acclaimed people in the industry back then and secondly it had countless troubles during production that harmed this movie (Don't know if the term development hell existed back then). Also it is a parody or spoof movie instead of a typical James Bond spy movie. It is the 1967 version staring David Niven as James Bond. For clarification this is not the Daniel Craig James Bond movie from 2006.

JAMES BOND CASINO ROYALE 1967