This medium-length film, made as an episode of CBS TV show "Climax!", is the first adaptation ever of a James Bond story by Ian Fleming, released just one year after the novel was published. While this version changed a canon trait of the character, making him USA-born instead of British, at least in one other feature he is truer to the original 007 than the following movies' portrayals: Fleming stated that he thought about James Bond as someone much less interesting than we consider today when we think about him. Since Sean Connery starred in "Dr. No", James Bond is expected to be charming and always in the spotlight. However, something different was in Fleming's mind when he wrote his first stories: "Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure, an anonymous, blunt instrument wielded by a government department." Well, uncharismatic Barry Nelson is far from charming and indeed much closer to the definition of "neutral" than Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan or Daniel Craig. On the other hand, the first Bond girl ever, Mexican actress Linda Christian, was beautiful as would be usual, and the actor they called for portraying the villain Le Chiffre was an iconic one: Peter Lorre. The pace of 1954 "Casino Royale" is slower than desirable, there is no exciting action, and the protagonist gambler could be something else instead of a spy with no impact to the presented story. To resume, this medium-length film is not a disaster but is worth watching only for curiousity.
Review of Casino Royale
