There he meets his British contact, Clarence Leiter, who remembers 'Card Sense Jimmy Bond' from when he played the Maharajah of Deauville. Like many TV dramas of the 1950s, Casino Royale is divided into acts.Īct I 'Combined Intelligence' agent James Bond comes under fire from an assassin: he manages to dodge the bullets and enters Casino Royale. It has also been released by itself on both VHS and DVD and as a bonus feature on some DVD releases of the 1967 film. On December 1st 2020 MGM would officially release the film for free through YouTube Movies.

This would clear the legal pathway to enable them to make an Eon productions version of the same name in 2006. The rights to this adaptation were eventually acquired by Metro Goldwyn Mayer at around the same time that they gained the rights for the 1967 film version of Casino Royale. It was rediscovered in the 1980s by film historian Jim Schoenberger, with the ending and credits found later. The show was low key, an installment in a longer series of TV plays called Climax! and was more or less forgotten about after its initial showing. The programme was originally broadcast live and in colour, however the only two existing versions are both in black and white due to recording methods. Despite these changes, the 1954 Casino Royale is by far the closest to the novel in terms of the time it was set. However, it is worth mentioning that the other two adaptations of Casino Royale also diverge significantly from the novel, albeit in very different ways.

Though Casino Royale is regarded as the first onscreen appearance of the character James Bond, it changes the nationalities of many of the main characters and he becomes an American agent with 'Combined Intelligence'. It is also the first of three screen adaptations of Ian Fleming's novel Casino Royale, with two cinematic versions succeeding it: the psychedelic comedy version of Casino Royale in 1967 and a more serious, updated Eon version in 2006, over fifty years later, marking Daniel Craig's debut. Its main significance to Bond fans is that it represents the first attempt at a screen adaptation of a James Bond novel, around eight years before EON Productions took up the reins with Dr. Casino Royale is a television adaptation, released in 1954, of the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming.

Casino royale original cast