casino royale peter sellers opening scene

But when they showed the scene at the end where the Indians are riding horses in a casino, everyone in the studio said: ‘What are the horses about?’ ” Royale, which cost $12 million to make, was an unlikely hit: It earned $41.7 million worldwide ($300 million today) and was 1967’s 13th highest grossing domestic film. “The movie didn’t make sense, but they didn’t want it to make sense,” says co-star Daliah Lavi, now 73. Noah, the evil head of Soviet counterintelligence agency SMERSH), Orson Welles and John Huston, who also is credited as a director.

Blazing a trail for 007 adventures to come, the project succeeded at laying down. The Hollywood Reporter‘s review called the two-hour, 17-minute Royale “over-long, undisciplined, formless, confusing, misfiring and a threat to the coccyx.” The film had five credited directors one star (Peter Sellers) who believed the film shouldn’t be done as a spoof and acted accordingly a slew of celebrity cameos (Jean-Paul Belmondo and Peter O’Toole among them), plus a cast that included Woody Allen (who played both Jimmy Bond - James Bond’s nephew - and Dr. Without question, the 1954 TV adaptation of Casino Royale is the best non-EON Productions variant of James Bond.

Casino royale peter sellers opening scene