MGM will be releasing a new DVD special edition of the 1967 version of Casino Royale in November to commemorate the film’s 40th anniversary reports James Bond fansite 007 Magazine.
The disc will sport a 2.35 anamorphic transfer and Dolby Digital 5.1 and the original mono audio tracks as well as an audio commentary from James Bond historians Steven Jay Reuben and John Cork. There will also be five featurettes examining the making of the film.
Released at the height of the 1960s Bond-mania, Casino Royale was more a satire on the spy movie craze, with a convoluted plot concerning a series of British spies who all operated under the codename of “James Bond”- from David Niven to Peter Sellers to Woody Allen! Saying that the film is based loosely on Bond creator Ian Fleming’s novel of the same name would be doing the film more of a service than it probably deserves. The screenplay, with uncredited work by the likes of Sellers, Allen, Ben Hect, Terry Southern and Billy Wilder, is a hodgepodge of good and bad ideas that not even the five directors credited could make any coherent sense out of and ultimately, the film is probably better remembered for its provocative poster art than for anything that happens in it. Still, there are a few moments that work, a George Raft cameo, future Darth Vader David Prowse’s first screen appearance (as Frankenstein’s monster, which he would play again in 1970’s The Horror Of Frankenstein and 1974’s Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell) and a great score featuring Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass and the Oscar-nominated Burt Bacharach hit “The Look Of Love.”
Via CommanderBond.net
Tipped by Bond fan extrodinaire Tom S.
