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The Lost Script of Casino Royale


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#1 Revelator

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Posted 26 September 2013 - 06:45 PM

As many of you might know, a serious film version of Casino Royale was planned in the mid-60s, and the screenwriter assigned to adapt Fleming's novel was none other than Ben Hecht, perhaps the greatest screenwriter of Hollywood's golden age. Hecht produced several drafts, but died before he could finalize his work. The producer Charles Feldman, unable to hire Sean Connery or reach a deal with the Broccoli and Saltzman, decided to film a spoof instead, and the memory of that cinematic misfire helped bury the memory of Hecht's drafts, which remained unread and unexamined for over 40 years.

 

That neglect ceased when spy novelist Jeremy Duns unearthed the scripts and reviewed them. He published a short version of his findings in an article for The Telegraph and now has released a "director's cut" version of his research in the form of an ebook titled Rogue Royale.

I read it recently, and I can say without doubt that the ebook is required reading for Bond fans. Based on Duns' description, Hecht's script for Casino Royale was superb--darker than any 60s or 70s Bond film, yet graced with the style and wit of one of Hollywood's greatest screenwriters. It would have made an incredible movie, perhaps an even better one than the Craig version. The discovery of Hecht's drafts is the most exciting Bond-related find in decades--and Duns has written an indispensable, engrossing and informative essay on their genesis and content. Let's hope these scripts are eventually published, with Duns' essay as an introduction. As his makes clear, the lost version of Casino Royale is plainly the greatest Bond film that never was.


Edited by Revelator, 26 September 2013 - 06:46 PM.


#2 Major Tallon

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Posted 26 September 2013 - 07:07 PM

I'm getting this book.  I made a trip to the Newberry Lirbary in Chicago last year and made a digital potocopy of the script.  There were, however, pretty severe copyright limitations on my doing so, and I don't feel comfortable posting it on line. 



#3 Grard Bond

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Posted 28 September 2013 - 12:57 PM

...but can you say anything more about it, like how is it compared to the Fleming book for example?



#4 Major Tallon

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Posted 28 September 2013 - 03:28 PM

Actually, I couldn't do better than Duns himself did in the article he wrote in the Telegraph, linked in Revelator's original post.  I read the e-book last night, and I recommend it highly.  Easily worth the three dollar purchase price.



#5 Dustin

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Posted 28 September 2013 - 03:30 PM

I've not yet had time to read it but from what I gather the script was supposedly quite close to the novel, which is itself one of the most violent and at the same time also tragic ones. Having that story on the screen so early would have no doubt influenced the entire series, provided it had been a success. After all we mustn't forget how at the time Fleming's other great Bond-tragedy OHMSS finally DID get its faithful-as-can-be adaptation - after a series of outlandish spoof script versions to rival Eon's YOLT - and how this story didn't connect to an audience used to see their Bond as superhero in hollowed-out volcanoes. Could well have been the Hecht version of CASINO ROYALE would have not fared that much better than the one with Niven and OHMSS with Lazenby.

#6 marktmurphy

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Posted 28 September 2013 - 05:02 PM

Robert Banks-Stewart also wrote a Casino Royale script- for the Ratoff project.



#7 Dustin

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Posted 28 September 2013 - 06:02 PM

It seems Fleming himself also tried to write a script for this project. But as often with Fleming the film people were chiefly interested in his story, not so much in his actual writing. I believe MOONRAKER came into being as another project that Fleming had tried as a screen vehicle, likewise not successfully at first.

From early on Fleming had an eye on a film career for 007, for long years unsuccessfully though. Perhaps he himself should have hired a professional script writer and then present the result to studios and producers. To me it always looked as if the various efforts to adapt the books to screen or TV format were at least partially responsible for the enterprises losing steam at crucial stages.

#8 Revelator

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Posted 28 September 2013 - 08:03 PM

Though Jeremy thinks otherwise, I believe the Fleming writing a CR script might have been an invention by Ratoff, one designed to emphasize that he would instead hire a "noted scenarist." There seems to be more evidence for the existence of Fleming's Moonraker script, though it seems to be permanently lost. 

As for how Hecht's book compares to Fleming's original, let's just say it's a faithful adaptation--perhaps more faithful than the 2006 film. Hecht's invented first act seems like a more elegant solution to expanding the book, and he also retains the baccarat. There is a very interesting new character as well. But if you want to know more, I can only echo Major Tallon and recommend reading the Telegraph article and buying the (very inexpensive) ebook. 

 

Jeremy presents an incredibly tantalizing what-if scenario of Hecht's script being filmed with Connery after Charles Feldman strikes a deal with Broccoli and Saltzman, thereby saving the world from the comedy CR and preventing the Bond series from slipping into decadence. My own feeling is that if Broccoli and Saltzman made the deal, it would have been in order to bury the script, which would have been too dark, non-family-friendly, and too light on gadgets and explosions. By 1964/65, the course of the Bond series had been set by Goldfinger--not until Connery's departure and reaching the limits of the budget and reality on YOLT would the producers decide on a more realistic direction. So, if the property was available, Casino Royale might have been Lazenby's first Bond film, rather than OHMSS.

 

Feldman mishandled a terrific property. He had completeable set of scenarios by Hecht that skillfully adapted the novel. Rather than seeking to get Connery or make a deal with EON, he should have simply hired a writer to piece together Hecht's drafts and then filmed the result on a limited budget with an unknown lead actor. He could have then marketed it as a more intelligent, sophisticated, and sexier alternative to the EON Bond films--since the film would hardly have required the budget of YOLT, he could gamble with the possibility of such an approach failing to succeed. If the film did succeed, then EON might have taken notice--imagine Casino Royale being released in a year after Thunderball. The financial success of the comedy CR suggests that audiences would have seen anything with Bond's name on it during this period. Feldman could have earned himself and his movie critical respect, had he not felt motivated to spoof Bond to death after getting rejected by his former employee Broccoli.


Edited by Revelator, 28 September 2013 - 08:06 PM.


#9 Revelator

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Posted 14 November 2013 - 11:46 PM

A quick update: Jeremy has updated his ebook with more excerpts from Hecht's script, including Bond's final scenes with Vesper. If you haven't downloaded it already, do so!
I've also contributed a review to the amazon page, which I've titled "The Greatest James Bond Never Made." I don't think that's an overstatement.



#10 Major Tallon

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Posted 15 January 2014 - 04:28 PM

Shortly after I read Jeremy Duns' article in The Telegraph, disclosing the existence of a previously unknown "Casino Royale" script by famed screenwriter Ben Hecht, I visited Chicago's Newberry Library and was permitted to make digital photographs of the entire screenplay, dated April 10, 1964, with additions dated April 14.  This material was provided to me on the understanding that I would not disseminate it further, and I must regretfully decline any requests for copies of the text.

 

Duns recently published Rogue Royale, an e-book on Hecht's script, and, after reading it, I went back over Hecht's script, in greater detail.  My thoughts regarding this material are somewhat different than Duns', and in offering them I appreciate that he is not a poster here and that very few, if any, CBn'ers will have access to Hecht's work.  Some may therefore wonder at the purpose of writing this review, but the screenplay is a major piece of Bond history, written by a major author, and I think it appropriate to set down a few of my thoughts.  First, however, I encourage Bond enthusiasts who have not read Rogue Royale to do so, as it sets out an excellent, comprehensive discussion, not only of Hecht's screenplay, but of a major slice of the early struggles to bring James Bond to the screen.

 

I think of Hecht's screenplay of having three parts, not of equal length.  The first part is the "set-up," consisting notably of the M scene and Bond's first meeting with Vesper.  The M scene contains a precursor to what has become known as the "code name theory," the notion that "James Bond 007" is an identity bestowed by the Secret Service on a succession of agents (in this case, an American) to keep alive the mystique that had come to be attached to the original agent of that name.  Had I first encountered this notion as part of a fairly straightforward Bond film adventure, I'd have hated the whole idea, and, truth be told, I'm not very fond of it now.  Because, however, I first encountered this thought decades ago in CR 67's madcap mish-mash of a film, I never took it seriously as anything more than another example of that movie's string of excesses, and my reaction to seeing it in Hecht's screenplay wasn't as negative as it otherwise would have been.

 

This first section of the film also introduces Bond to Vesper, when she visits his flat, and I'm not terribly happy with this scene.  It strikes me as overly jokey, with Bond demanding to verify her identity by requiring her to display the strawberry birthmark on her right thigh.  Vesper also identifies herself as a non-drinker, but she no sooner pronounces the words than we're positive that Bond will eventually get her tipsy, and that in fact occurs later in the script.  To me, the comedy seems forced, and the set-up for the later scene is too obvious.

 

My most significant reservations involve the screenplay's long middle section, with scenes in Hamburg and France.  In Hamburg, Bond finds himself pursued by Colonel Chiffre's men to a nightspot called the CafĂ© Sofa, where there's a distasteful hint of child sexual exploitation.  Beyond that, there's a strange and unconvincing scene where Bond seeks to evade his pursuers by jumping into a mud pit with two female wrestlers and becoming involved in their combat, even being lifted out of the mud by one of them and then body-slammed down into the mire.  In the course of this contest, Bond is able to undress himself and is essentially naked when he escapes through a service door.  He emerges from the club with his nakedness covered by a long military overcoat, having apparently inexplicably rid himself of most of the mud apart from that in his hair.  He knocks out a taxi driver and eventually follows another car to where a rubbish truck has halted on its rounds.  There, he observes Colonel Chiffre's wife and a group of henchmen preparing to dispose of Vesper and another British agent.  Bond shoots one of the henchmen, named Fleurot, and, unseen by the others, bundles Fleurot's body into the truck's cab.  He tears off Fleurot's eyepatch and, still seated in the cab's front seat, manages what I regard as the unlikely feat of removing Fleurot's tight-fitting leather suit and donning it himself.  He also twice successfully imitates Fleurot's voice, although he had not had a significant prior opportunity to hear Fleurot speak.

 

Later in the middle section, Bond (still believed to be Fleurot) is at the wheel of a truck carrying Chiffre's collection of pornographic blackmail films across the French Alps.  Several members of Chiffre's entourage are riding in the back of the truck, including a woman who becomes highly unsettled by Bond's high-speed driving and cornering on the treacherous mountain road.  In a reaction that seems to me to defy all logic, she opens the communicating window to the cab and fires a pistol shot at Bond's legs, a move I would have thought more likely to cause a crash than to promote safe driving.

 

In Royale itself, Colonel Chiffre's men plant a bomb in Vesper's room.  It explodes while Bond is with her, collapsing the ceiling, but Vesper asks the hotel manager to be allowed to remain in the debris-filled room, and he, improbably in my view, acquiesces.

 

This brings me to what I regard as the final section of the film, consisting of the baccarat game, Bond's capture and torture, and Vesper's suicide.  Jeremy Duns has remarked that his section contains "a virtuoso piece of writing," and I fully concur.  I recall that when, in an early reveal about CR 06, it was disclosed that Bond and Le Chiffre would be playing poker, some writers observed that hands of baccarat are played so quickly that the gambling scenes at the heart of the story would resultantly be too brief to generate the drama and suspense that the film would require of its central set-piece.  Hecht's screenplay succeeds in this regard, effectively layering suspense into the gambling scenes.

 

Yes, there was a bit where a mind-reading henchman of Colonel Chiffre's used his powers to inform Chiffre telepathically of the cards in Bond's hand, and Bond fools the mind-reader and Chiffre by visualizing a different hand.  I'm not overly troubled by this little bit of business, as it affects the outcome of only a single hand and isn't the primary factor in Bond's ultimate victory.

 

The torture scene is unsettling, as it should be, made more so by Hecht's having Chiffre's facially deformed wife administer the beating of Bond's testicles, while Chiffre's dogs are driven into a wild frenzy by witnessing the torture.  It's a gripping scene, but I'm forced to wonder whether it could have been filmed and released in the 1960's, when a major American magazine, commenting on CR 67, observed that the sequence as Fleming wrote it "defies filming or description in a family magazine."

 

The final sequence , Vesper's suicide, requires that we believe that Bond had truly fallen in love, so that we are moved by the loss he feels at her death.  For my part, I find the romance credible and the suicide deeply moving.

 

To sum up, despite what I regard as some striking flaws in its early and middle sections Hecht's screenplay succeeds in bringing Fleming's novel to life.  I've doubts  as to whether it could ever have been filmed as written, but I'd have loved to see the filmmakers try.  The discovery of this screenplay is a major contribution to Bond scholarship, and I deeply appreciate Jeremy Duns' work in bringing it to light.



#11 Revelator

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Posted 17 January 2014 - 11:32 PM

Some may therefore wonder at the purpose of writing this review, but the screenplay is a major piece of Bond history, written by a major author, and I think it appropriate to set down a few of my thoughts.

 

Very appropriate indeed. Ben Hecht was perhaps the greatest screenwriter to have worked during Hollywood's golden age--that automatically makes his Bond script important. And judging from what you and Jeremy have written about this project, it is represents what is probably the greatest Bond movie never made, one that could have given the 2006 version of Casino Royale a run for its money. And it goes without saying that any thoughts from Major Tallon are worth reading!

 

 

First, however, I encourage Bond enthusiasts who have not read Rogue Royale to do so, as it sets out an excellent, comprehensive discussion, not only of Hecht's screenplay, but of a major slice of the early struggles to bring James Bond to the screen.

 

Amen. By far the most important Bond-related reading material of the past year, not excluding Solo.

 

 

The M scene contains a precursor to what has become known as the "code name theory" ... Because, however, I first encountered this thought decades ago in CR 67's madcap mish-mash of a film, I never took it seriously as anything more than another example of that movie's string of excesses, and my reaction to seeing it in Hecht's screenplay wasn't as negative as it otherwise would have been.

 

It's not surprising that this was the only major concept in Hecht's script retained by the '67 comedy version. In both versions the filmmakers were clearly worried about having audiences accept a Bond not played by Sean Connery. Five Bonds later such fears seem groundless, but no one at the time would have believed that. The scene also has practical use, since it would have allowed Bond to be played by a major American movie star, a factor that could have had a make-or-break effect on the film's chances of being made.

 

 

This first section of the film also introduces Bond to Vesper, when she visits his flat, and I'm not terribly happy with this scene.  It strikes me as overly jokey, with Bond demanding to verify her identity by requiring her to display the strawberry birthmark on her right thigh.

...Beyond that, there's a strange and unconvincing scene where Bond seeks to evade his pursuers by jumping into a mud pit with two female wrestlers and becoming involved in their combat,

 

 

These do seem like tonal mistakes, of the sort found in the lesser Roger Moore Bond films.

 

 

In Royale itself, Colonel Chiffre's men plant a bomb in Vesper's room.  It explodes while Bond is with her, collapsing the ceiling, but Vesper asks the hotel manager to be allowed to remain in the debris-filled room, and he, improbably in my view, acquiesces.

 

Does this scene substitute for the bombing attempt with two briefcases?

 

 

I recall that when, in an early reveal about CR 06, it was disclosed that Bond and Le Chiffre would be playing poker, some writers observed that hands of baccarat are played so quickly that the gambling scenes at the heart of the story would resultantly be too brief to generate the drama and suspense that the film would require of its central set-piece.  Hecht's screenplay succeeds in this regard, effectively layering suspense into the gambling scenes.

 

I'm glad to hear that, because I regard the use of poker as a big mistake. That was a clear case of the Bond films imitating a trend when they should really be starting them. Had the film played its cards right, it could have kicked off a baccarat craze.

 

 

The torture scene is unsettling, as it should be, made more so by Hecht's having Chiffre's facially deformed wife administer the beating of Bond's testicles, while Chiffre's dogs are driven into a wild frenzy by witnessing the torture.  It's a gripping scene, but I'm forced to wonder whether it could have been filmed and released in the 1960's

 

Maybe the late 60s, but probably with an X-rating, which the producers presumably wouldn't have wanted.

 

 

To sum up, despite what I regard as some striking flaws in its early and middle sections Hecht's screenplay succeeds in bringing Fleming's novel to life.  I've doubts  as to whether it could ever have been filmed as written, but I'd have loved to see the filmmakers try. 

 

Agreed. Had Charlie Feldman decided to do a serious Bond film and reached an arrangement with Broccoli and Saltzman, they would have likely made CR into the sort of spectacle-heavy, lightly adapted film YOLT was, since the formula had proved so lucrative. Feldman ultimately chose to work alone and try for a gargantuan spoof, under the assumption that it would make good money...which it did. To make a dark, not-family-friendly thriller with an unhappy romance would have taken more courage, and Hollywood has never been full of that.

 

 

The discovery of this screenplay is a major contribution to Bond scholarship, and I deeply appreciate Jeremy Duns' work in bringing it to light.

 

Absolutely. I can't think of a bigger literary Bond event since the publication of Octopussy. The only thing that would top this would be the discovery of Fleming's Moonraker script, his original teleplays for what became For Your Eyes Only, or the Casino Royale adaptation supposedly written by Fleming, according to that old New York Times article.


Edited by Revelator, 17 January 2014 - 11:51 PM.


#12 Major Tallon

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Posted 18 January 2014 - 01:28 AM

Thanks for the kind words, Revelator. 

 

I think you're right regarding the reasons why Hecht created the "code name theory."  I'd point out that Feldman's film also retained another element of Hecht's screenplay:  Chiffre's collection of pornographic films.

 

As for the bomb, it's one of a couple of attempts by Chiffre to eliminate Bond before he can attempt to frustrate Chiffre's attempt to win at baccarat the money he needs to cover his embezzlement.  The bomb is hidden in a radio set in Vesper's suite and explodes while it's playing "La Vie En Rose."  The scene combines the pre-gambling bomb, the radio set, and the song from Fleming's CR, with the notion of the hotel room bomb from LALD.