39 replies to this topic

[ray t]

Originally posted by DLibrasnow
I still think Grant would have made a more (immediately) financially successful "Casino Royale" than Connery's "Dr. No"...
Wasn't "Dr. No" also released late in 1962, if there had been a Cary Grant "CR" released first, would this have affected DN's take

but didnt much of the 'exitement' caused by Dr. No result out of things like:

The James Bond Theme

The Ken Adam Sets

The idea of the hero having sex with THREE women

The ideas of cold brutal violence meted out by the 'hero'

The science-fantasy plotline of disorienting the US Space Program

Truly, these would have made a huge difference. A Casino Royale would have been an utter bore:

a singular location

a singular girl

a medeocre plot about busting a red at the gaming tables

Grant would never had participated in the types of sex and violence in the type of movie that Dr No became anyway

and whose to say that Terrence Young and Peter Hunt would have been part of the Casino Royale team

they would not have because they were Cubby's and Saltzman's men and C and S didnt have the rights to CR.

thank goodness we had connery, young, hunt, barry, adams et.al. on the Eon team

[Triton]

Originally posted by Xenobia
But it's Cary Grant...he had no type!  He was an original, never duplicated.  

I wouldn't have said no to him, but then again I tend to have a self-punishing taste in men.

-- Xenobia

It seems like Dana was, and is, very much in love with Cubby. It's a pity that one spouse dies before the other, and the surviving spouse has to deal with the loss. I don't think that she had eyes for any other man the way she describes him.

[Xenobia]

Triton...I was being funny about Dana going off with Cary Grant.

As for you Ray...I suppose for the Cinema they may have doctored up the CR locations (as in added a few) and Ken Adams would have had a ball with the office, the casino, Bond's hotel room, the seaside hotel, etc.

True, it would have only been one girl that Bond bedded, but I am sure they could have added a few girls for him to flirt with along the way....

-- Xenobia

[Triton]

Originally posted by ray t


but didnt much of the 'exitement' caused by Dr. No result out of things like:

The James Bond Theme

The Ken Adam Sets

The idea of the hero having sex with THREE women

The ideas of cold brutal violence meted out by the 'hero'

The science-fantasy plotline of disorienting the US Space Program

Truly, these would have made a huge difference. A Casino Royale would have been an utter bore:

a singular location

a singular girl

a medeocre plot about busting a red at the gaming tables

Grant would never had participated in the types of sex and violence in the type of movie that Dr No became anyway

and whose to say that Terrence Young and Peter Hunt would have been part of the Casino Royale team

they would not have because they were Cubby's and Saltzman's men and C and S didnt have the rights to CR.

thank goodness we had connery, young, hunt, barry, adams et.al. on the Eon team

Wasn't the first film going to be Thunderball? I seem to remember reading that the first script that was completed by Richard Maibaum was for Thunderball, but Saltzman and Broccoli decided not to start the series with this story because of the expense to do it right and the lawsuit brought forth by Kevin McClory against Ian Fleming over ownership of some of the story material in the novel. I certainly cannot picture Cary Grant as a SCUBA diver.

I agree with ray t, Casino Royale would not have been an Eon Productions film in the 1960s because Broccoli and Saltzman could not buy the rights to it. It is my understanding that the rights to Casino Royale were still owned by CBS for their live 1954 telefilm starring Barry Nelson and Peter Lorre. In 1965, the rights were acquired by Charles K. Feldman who created a comedy titled Casino Royale released in 1967.

MGM/UA only acquired rights to the property in 1999 with the film of the same name from Sony Pictures (Columbia). About this time too MGM/UA also acquired Never Say Never Again, but I don't know how it got from Orion Pictures, distributed by Warner Bros., to MGM/UA.

[Triton]

Originally posted by Xenobia
Triton...I was being funny about Dana going off with Cary Grant.  

I know you were being humorous. Cary Grant is such an icon of masculinity and dapper sophistication. Fourteen years after his death and thirty-seven years after he retired from motion pictures, he is still regarded as a sex symbol. Most women that I know would have jumped at the chance to run off with Cary in 1959.

I was touched by Dana's love and reverence for Cubby, so I thought that I would comment about it.

[ChandlerBing]

Actually, did anyone know that Roger Moore was being tipped to play James Bond back in 1964 when Casino Royale was bought by Feldman? The 2nd time he was mentioned for Bond!

[Triton]

Originally posted by ChandlerBing
Actually, did anyone know that Roger Moore was being tipped to play James Bond back in 1964 when Casino Royale was bought by Feldman?  The 2nd time he was mentioned for Bond!

No, I didn't know that. Which book did you get that information from Chandler? Did Roger Moore decline his offer because of a prior commitment to The Saint? Didn't Charles K. Feldman also try to hire Sean Connery as well for Casino Royale when his plan was to make a serious film?

[DLibrasnow]

She had willpower...

[Blox]

Xenobia, I agree with your observations about Grant in Notorious. He played Devlin quite straight in that picture, without lapsing into moments of light comedy as he did in Charade or NBNW. Fleming reviewed NBNW & didn't approve of the comedy -- thought it spoiled the tone of the film. So the Grant we probably would have seen in CR would probably have been more like Devlin than Roger Thornhill.

Blox

[Xenobia]

THANK YOU BLOX!

I knew someone would see it my way.

And who knows...maybe Grant would have had so much fun playing Bond, he would have kept doing it.

And it's a pity he wasn't alive when RS was on TV. Even though Effrim Zimbalist did such an excellent job as Daniel Chambers, having Cary Grant ply Remington Steele's father would have been perfect.

-- Xenobia