Sir James comes up with a foolproof plan: all of the remaining agents will be renamed James Bond 007 in order to confuse SMERSH and cause them to make a mistake that reveals themselves. Even his loser nephew Jimmy Bond (Woody Allen) seems to be captured or killed. His namesake James Bond (in theory the movie one) had dropped off the map. Now Sir James takes on the role of leader of MI6, and realizes just how dire things are. When Bond still doesn’t agree, M orders an air strike to destroy Bond’s house to force him to reconsider, killing M in the process. M pleads understanding, saying that the British needed to keep the legend of James Bond alive. Bond is initially reluctant, tired of this new world they have created of crazy gadgets and sexed up sociopaths being given his namesake. It seems that the evil organization SMERSH has been elimiting secret agents the world over, and the leaders of the world have nobody else to turn to. He’s visited by representatives from MI6, the CIA, KGB, and French Deuxième Bureau, who need him to come out of retirement.

Retired from spywork for years, he’s settled far away from civilization. Sir James Bond 007 (David Niven) is a legend. Typically a producer of madcap comedies, such as the Peter Sellers and Peter O’Toole success What’s New, Pussycat? (notable also as Woody Allen’s film debut and first produced script), Feldman decided to make Casino Royale in the same vein. Eon, who had already had a bunch of problems with the rights to Thunderball (we’ll get to that in our next installment), turned him down, leaving him a script he didn’t really want to make. Feldman, who tried to sell them back to Eon. Those rights were then sold off to producer Charles K. You see, Fleming’s first novel Casino Royale, was purchased years ago for a CBS television episode. But unfortunately, some people beat them to the punch. They went and bought all the rights to the Bond novels, and had a pretty great career adapting them into the various movies we’ve covered all year.

You see, we went and did all the movies by Eon Productions, established by producers Albert R. It was great fun, but we eventually ran out of Bond movies to talk about. Wait, what? How did we find ourselves here again? If you’ve been following my nearly year-long biweekly series thus far, you know that we spend a good amount of time every other Friday taking a look at the Bond movies in chronological order, mostly complaining about a lot of missed potential and how we wish Roger Moore would jump off a cliff.

Casino royale poison scene