It's not very funny even at its zaniest (and one has to wonder if the climax served as an inspiration for the ending of Mel Brooks's 'Blazing Saddles.') And it definitely does not serve as a satisfying James Bond adventure. The Mata Hari intro dance was cool, and the set design of the school was wild.īut most of this movie was a mess. I even enjoyed Ursula Andress and Woody Allen in supporting roles.

It's surprising to see Sellers in a semi-serious leading man role and doing pretty well. I was pleasantly reminded about how much I love Welles's mellifluous enunciation.

There's certainly a lot of talent here, as it would be hard to argue that David Niven, Peter Sellers, and Orson Welles couldn't act or that John Huston couldn't direct. This was clearly a very big budget movie for the era, shot and edited fairly well. On the plus side, I enjoyed the production design a lot.

It's a movie that gets some points just for being so weird. The original 'Casino Royale' is by no means essential, but it wasn't a total waste of time. After all these years I've finally seen every James Bond film.

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