Bond, James Bond: Exploring the Shaken and Stirred History of Ian Fleming’s 007

By Brad Gilmore and Mike Kalinowski

Breaking Down Six Decades of James Bond Movies

#1 New Release in Action & Adventure Movies & Video, and Movie Reference

Hosts Mike Kalinowski and Brad Gilmore team up in this comprehensive examination of the longest running film series in the history of cinema. In Bond, James Bond, they explore the cinematic history of the James Bond collection to celebrate everything it got right and reflect on everything it got wrong.

The complete cinematic biographies of James Bond. Since his initial portrayal by Sean Connery, James Bond has become a timeless icon worldwide. Now, comes the first-ever era-by-era breakdown of the much loved international spy—on and off the silver screen. Following the men who portrayed James Bond—Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton, Roger Moore, and Sean Connery—readers will discover the characteristics that made him resonate, as well as the less glamorous relics that made him evolve.

For fans of the Ian Fleming James Bond novels and movies. Cinephiles and fans can finally unscramble some of the best action movies of all time. Covering everything from cars to court cases, Bond, James Bond looks at the evolution of the 007 movies from all angles.

Featuring bonus chapters on Bond women and musical scores, inside, you’ll also find:

• The origins of 007 in the early James Bond books
• Off-screen politics, drama, and movements that shifted the series trajectory
• The “other” James Bond, comic books, and animated series

If you’re looking for Father’s Day gifts, gifts for men, or James Bond gifts—and enjoyed books like Some Kind of Hero, Nobody Does it Better, or Shaken—then you’ll love Bond, James Bond.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mango
• Release date: Feb 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781642505467

Brad Gilmore

Brad Gilmore is a radio and television host born and raised in Houston, TX. Since 2011, he has been the host of The Brad Gilmore Show which covers the worlds of sports, music, and pop culture. Brad currently hosts "The Hall of Fame" with WWE Hall of Famer, Booker T on ESPN Radio. Brad began his career covering music and worked as a regular contributor to Houston Press and the hip hop blog DayandaDream.com. He hosts a variety of TV shows and podcasts including Reality of Wrestling, Movie Trivia Schmoedown, Schmoedown Rundown, Heated Conversations (featured in the iTunes Top 10 Podcast Chart), and since 2015, Back to the Future: The Podcast. During his career, Brad Gilmore has appeared in print, radio, television and film and always looks to bring his one of a kind view to each of his endeavors and entertain audiences worldwide.

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Praise for Bond, James Bond

Roger Moore was always my favorite Bond. James Bond could handle a weapon, knew how to fight, and always got the girl—he was the ultimate man’s man! Brad and Mike excellently lay out the origins of Bond and how the character has evolved over the years. I, for one, can most certainly dig that!

—Booker T., author of My Rise to Wrestling Royalty

Brad and Mike found the perfect blend of childlike wonder and thoughtful analysis. They have knowledge and an endless array of interesting tidbits but see everything through the eyes of the fans, which is ultimately what makes this so enjoyable.

—Peter Rosenberg, radio personality from Hot97 & ESPN

Eureka! Brad and Mike provide a detailed historical account to one of America’s most enduring entertainment franchises!

—Cedric Duplechain, costar on AMC’s The Son, starring Pierce Brosnan

After reading his first book about Back to the Future, and then this one about Bond, I realized Brad Gilmore is quickly becoming THE pop culture pundit of the 2020s! His immense knowledge of 007 left me shaken…not stirred.

—Chris Jericho, author of The Complete List of Jericho

James Bond is one of the greatest movie characters of all time, and Brad Gilmore and Mike Kalinowski do an incredible job of celebrating why 007 has left such an indelible mark on pop culture, regardless of the actor playing him. From the villains, to the drinks and the gadgets, this will make you love the Bond franchise even more!

—Chris Van Vliet, four-time Emmy-Award-winning TV host

Exploring the Shaken

and Stirred History

of Ian Fleming’s 007

Coral Gables

Copyright © 2022 by Brad Gilmore and Mike Kalinowski.

Published by Mango Publishing, a division of Mango Publishing Group, Inc.

Cover Design: Megan Werner

Art Direction: Elina Diaz

Layout & Design: Megan Werner

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Bond, James Bond: Exploring the Shaken and Stirred History of Ian Flemming’s 007

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication number: 2021947652

ISBN: (p) 978-1-64250-545-0 (e) 978-1-64250-546-7

BISAC category code: PER004040, PERFORMING ARTS / Film / Reference

Printed in the United States of America

To my dad, Burrel, the man that I hope to grow to be. I love you so much.

—Brad

To my grandfather, the man who introduced me to the wonderful world of James Bond. I wish you were still here so we could have watched James Bond’s final bow, together.

To my best friend, Nate. You’ll always be the Sean Connery Bond to my Timothy Dalton.

—Mike

To Sean Connery and Roger Moore: thank you, may God bless you both.

—Mike and Brad

Table of Contents

Introduction:

Initiate Mission

The Man with the Golden Pen:

Fleming, Ian Fleming

Perfectly Satisfactory:

The Sean Connery Era

The Other Fellow:

The George Lazenby Era

Q Branch:

The Gadgets of 007

The Thunderball Trials:

Kevin McClory vs. EON Productions and Ian Fleming

Live and Let Moore:

The Roger Moore Era

Back to Basics:

The Timothy Dalton Era

James Bond Jr.:

Bond Becomes Animated

Bringing Bond to the Twenty-First Century:

The Pierce Brosnan Era

Agent 007:

Bond Takes Over Gaming

The Books Are Not Enough:

Bond in Comics

Shaken Not Stirred:

The Daniel Craig Era

The Dossier:

The Best of Bond

Everything or Nothing:

The Future of Bond

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

References

Introduction:

Initiate Mission

BRAD: You expect me to talk? No, you expect me to write! I find myself in a familiar position, sitting down to write about one of my favorite film franchises of all time. Last time we met, I tried to explain my deep love and passion for the greatest time travel story ever told, Back to the Future. This time, we are entering the world of spies, gadgets, beautiful women, cars, and exotic locations. I can recall going into what we called the computer room in my childhood home. It was essentially a spare bedroom on the second floor of the house that was converted into the designated room that the desktop computer was in, as well as a wall of VHS tapes ranging from the aforementioned Back to the Future tapes to the white-shelled Disney home videos, and then a series of self-taped movies and TV shows from the old VCR. One of the tapes had a white label on it and written with purple ink, in my mother’s handwriting, was a tape that simply read James Bond.

I didn’t know anything, nor had I ever heard, of this James Bond fellow. I knew I had a pair of uncles on either side of my family tree with the name James, but neither had the surname of Bond, so it couldn’t have been a family video. So what was it? I didn’t immediately research who Bond was—I grabbed whatever movie I was looking for and continued about my business. But with each visit to that computer room, I looked at that tape and I had an everlasting thought of curiosity, so I said any story of a cat who met his demise by investigation be damned and I grabbed the video and sprinted toward the VCR. I put the tape in, made sure it was rewound and fixed any tracking issues, and the first thing I see are white circles moving across the screen and a banging guitar riff playing in the background. This was a typical opening for most James Bond films, but this one was 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever, Sean Connery’s first return to the character of Bond.

I watched the film with childhood amazement. The film made little sense to me, but the vibe resonated with me in a way that none of the white-shelled Disney animated films had. This was the story of the ultimate spy who did whatever it took to get the bad guy and the girl. He had the best clothes, the coolest cars, and the best one-line quips. James Bond superseded every fictitious spy, detective, or superhero that came before him. Bond was and remains in a class of his own, and I was able to see that from just this one film that I happened to find. It wasn’t too long after that I asked my dad about this James Bond fellow as I knew he would have the answers. When my dad told me there were eighteen other films of 007 that I could watch at that very moment, I knew that I had some catching up to do. A few months later, Die Another Day was released in theaters, and I was looking forward to seeing my first Bond movie on a big screen; I most looked forward to experiencing it with my dad, a tradition that still remains to this day.

Once I dove deep into Bond, I was all in. It became the most important thing in my life and at a young age I realized it was a gateway to conversation and an immediate chemistry builder amongst ladies and gentlemen of all generations. I, as well as so many others, wanted to be James Bond. I would find myself striking up conversations with men and women well beyond my years because no matter how old or young you are, the debonair ways of MI6’s most daring agent appeal to all ages and sexes. I would often try to emulate the swagger of a Sean Connery, with the charm of a Roger Moore, and match it with the exquisiteness of a Pierce Brosnan. Sometimes I would even borrow my father’s suit jacket and walk past the master bathroom mirror ala the opening title gun barrel scene with a hairbrush in hand (as opposed to a Walter PPK), turning perpendicular to the mirror, and firing off my best shot as the imaginary blood of my foe would slowly drip down. It was because of this that I remained in love with this character and the world that the secret agent inhabited. Years later, I found myself proving my love for James Bond in a movie trivia competition; safe to say, I met someone who had the love and passion for Bond same as I and made quite the formidable opponent. After the trivia match concluded, I had the inspiration for this book, and I knew Mike Kalinowski was the person to team up with to write it.

MIKE: Racist. Sexist. Murderer… not exactly the words you immediately think of when you imagine the debonair James Bond. And yet, that was the way that 007 was brought to life. The character of Bond is one that has evolved almost more than a great majority of characters in popular fiction. There is a reason he has endured for over sixty years.

Ask anyone who is a Bond fan what Bond means to them. I’d bet you’d get vastly different answers from every person you asked. For those of us that love the character, that love has probably come from a different place for each of us. For me, Bond will always be about my grandfather. My introduction to the world of Bond was through Roger Moore. It wasn’t my Dad who took me to my first Bond movie, it was my Grandfather. The movie he took me to? A View to a Kill. I can still remember the theater in Buffalo, New York, that we saw it at, from the very first scene of Bond snowboarding to California Girls. Of course it was not until much later in my life that I realized this film would be viewed as one of the worst in the franchise’s history. Still, for this young fan, it was the greatest. For me, the Moore-led films had it all: gadgets, cool cars, awesome action, and heroes who always ended up saving the day. From that film on, my love would only grow. I have such fond memories associated with these films: looking forward to every Thanksgiving when TNT would run the Bond Marathon all holiday weekend long; getting excited every time a new film would be released on VHS (DVD was not yet a thing); seeing the new cover art that UA had designed to create a unison within all the films released up to that point; feeling the thrill that one November in 1995 when my best friend and I, away at school at Florida State University, sat down in the theater, the lights dimmed and then the gun barrel opening flashed across the screen yet again… signaling Bond’s return with GoldenEye!

I never set out to write a book about James Bond, never even had the idea even pop into my head. Now I could sit here and tell you about how I am one of the biggest Bond fans in the world, but that still wouldn’t change the fact that I had no desire to write a book about him. But I do know the movies, so much so that some friends have called me a walking Bond Encyclopedia. That knowledge (useless knowledge?) came in handy for me when I was asked to join an online trivia show called The Movie Trivia Schmoedown. Think, a trivia competition crossed with the characters and storylines from professional wrestling, and you can get a small idea of what it is. The show takes competitors from all over the world, creates storylines and characters from them, and then has them battle it out in movie trivia. The show has an international audience and one that travels the country putting on live shows, online shows, as well pay-per-view and exhibition matches. In the game, there is a round where twelve slices are put on a wheel and the competitor then spins the wheel. Whichever slice it lands on, the player then gets five questions in that category. There are hundreds of categories, and each player selects two slices, usually something they’re highly knowledgeable in, to add to the eight random ones on the wheel. Well, as you can guess, Bond is my go-to choice. I had gotten a reputation in the league for being a killer with Bond, so much so that a special rule, The Kalinowski Rule, was implemented (which meant that a player could only spin their strength twice). Once spun twice, the player would then not be allowed to use that slice in their next match. Hey, it wasn’t my fault that the other competitors didn’t love Bond as much as me! But little did I know, there was someone whose knowledge and love of Bond rivaled my own.

Enter Brad Gilmore. As you may already know, Brad is the author of the bestselling book, Back From the Future: A Celebration of the Greatest Time Travel Story Ever Told, an amazing, heartfelt love letter to his favorite movie of all time. Brad is also a commentator for the trivia competition that I mentioned. As it turns out (and something I did not know), Brad also happened to love Bond and was something of an expert on the subject as well. So we had Brad, myself, and another competitor, three titans of Bond trivia, facing off in a no-holds-barred, three-round, all-era-encompassing Bond exhibition trivia match! And what a match it was! I can’t tell you how much fun it is to be surrounded by people who love something as much as you do. So who won? Well, I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you.

At this point, I had known Brad for a couple of years and yet I had no idea how much he knew about Bond, much less how much he loved the character. The day after the match, I got a call from Brad. He had finished his book on Back to the Future and it was a huge success. The people at Mango Publishing were anxious to work with him again. They had asked if he had any ideas for another book, and he suggested a book on Bond. They loved the idea, which led Brad to reach out to me and ask if I might be interested in coauthoring the book with him. At the very least, he was wondering if I would consider writing the foreword. I think Brad got about one minute into pitching me the idea before I gave my answer—an unequivocal, Hell yes! I was already a fan of Brad’s writing and now I was being given the chance to join him on an adventure to memorialize one of my favorite characters of all time. It was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make.

So here we are. I am coauthoring a book about one of the greatest fictional characters of all time… f#@k! I now had to actually sit down and write this thing. What did I want to say? How would our book be different from some of the other great books on Bond that were already on the market? And then it hit us both: Why not write from a place of love? What made us and the world fall in love with this character that had endured for over sixty years?

I hope you will go on this journey with Brad and I as we look back, dive in, and discover just what makes the character of James Bond so special and how a character that started off as an alcoholic, womanizing misogynist has evolved into one of the most beloved movie characters of all time.

The Man with the Golden Pen:

Fleming, Ian Fleming

"Never say ‘no’ to adventures. Always say ‘yes,’

otherwise you’ll lead a very dull life."

―Ian Fleming

Bond, James Bond… ornithologist. Not the type of career one thinks of when they hear the name James Bond, but that is exactly where the debonair secret agent got his start, in a manner of speaking. Everyone knows the name, everyone knows his number, but the roots of Her Majesty’s greatest agent are a bit more mysterious. For a character that has lived on for more than 60 years, spanning books, movies, a TV movie, comics, video games, and even a cartoon series, it all started with a book called Casino Royale. Yet, how the character came to be is just as exciting as some of 007’s most outlandish adventures, and it all started with a young man named Ian Lancaster Fleming. Fleming, armed only with his typewriter, years’ worth of stories working as an assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence of the Royal Navy, and a background as a journalist, would craft thirteen Bond novels and nine short stories which would go on to provide source material for films that would entertain generations for decades. Fleming passed away in August of 1964, right as his creation was becoming a global success.

Fleming was born on May 28, 1908, to parents Valentine and Evelyn in London, England. Ian was one of four children that the two had, a middle child with one older and two younger siblings. It was not long in young Fleming’s life that tragedy would strike the family. His father, Valentine, was killed serving during World War I when Germans bombed an encampment at which the elder Fleming was positioned. Winston Churchill, who was a good friend of Valentine Fleming, wrote an obituary which read: He was most earnest and sincere in his desire to make things better for the great body of the people. Even though he was only nine at the time, Ian took the words to heart and kept a copy of the obituary with him throughout his life.

When of age, Ian left home to attend Eton College, where his brother Peter was already attending. While not a particularly good student, Ian did excel as an athlete, the young Fleming was also more interested in his extracurricular activities rather than his studies. His mother took action and pulled him from Eton a term early and enrolled him in Sandhurst Military College. Yet the change did not temper the young man, as his year there proved that the life of a soldier was not a good fit for the free-spirited young man.

Evelyn Fleming eventually sent Ian to study in Europe at Tennerhof in Kitzbühel, Austria, a small private school run by former British spy Ernan Forbes Dennis. This move would prove to be a turning point for the black sheep of the Fleming family. Ian excelled under the tutelage of Dennis and his wife, novelist Phyllis Bottome. They would inspire a passion for fiction in young Fleming, one which would flourish during his time studying in Europe. After a year with the couple, Fleming went on to study at both the Munich and Germany Universities.

With his education complete, Fleming would return home toward the end of the summer of 1931 and submit for the Foreign Office, but he failed the exams and was denied a position. Once again, a seeming disappointment in his life would turn out to be a major boon. Instead of going to work for the Foreign Office, Fleming’s mother was able to secure her son a job at the international news agency Reuters as a subeditor and journalist. Little did he know at the time just how valuable his time at this news agency would prove to be. For several years, Fleming flourished at Reuters and his first big assignment came in 1933 when the young journalist was sent to Moscow to cover the Metropolitan-Vickers trial, a trial that saw six British engineers being charged with (and eventually found guilty of) espionage and sabotage. It was Fleming’s first major assignment, and while in Russia, he took advantage of the opportunity by trying to land an interview with Joseph Stalin. The young writer was unsuccessful in his pursuit, but was awarded a signed letter of refusal from the Soviet premier himself. The coverage of the trial and subsequent letter from Stalin impressed Fleming’s superiors so much so that he was given an invitation to detail his impressions of the current Soviet environment to the Foreign Office.

Though loving his work with Reuters, the work was not paying the salary that would allow Fleming to live the life he wanted to. Connections in the Fleming family allowed him to secure a position at Cull & Co., a merchant bank, which he worked at for a bit before moving on to Row and Pitman. The Fleming name carried a lot of weight in the banking community, and coupled with Ian’s natural charm, the young man did quite well with it. But he also found the daily dealings of the banking industry to be quite boring. More importantly, though, this time in Fleming’s life was not highlighted by his brief stint as a stockbroker, but by his meeting of a young woman named Ann Charteris.

At the time, Ann Charteris was known as Ann O’Neil, as she was married to the third Baron O’Neil, Shane Edward Robert. Though married, the charms of Fleming had drawn her attention—but it wasn’t until 1939 that she would leave O’ Neil and begin a long-lasting love affair with Ian. The romance with Charteris along with WWII, at the time, were two major events that would have a profound effect on Fleming.

Impressed with his work covering Russia in the early part of the decade, the Foreign Office dispatched Fleming back to Russia under the guise of covering Trade business for the Times, but in actuality the journalist was reporting on Russia’s military presence in anticipation of the impending war. Fleming’s work in Russia caught the attention of Director of Naval Intelligence Rear Admiral John Godfrey, who then enlisted the young Fleming to be his personal assistant. As Fleming had no official qualifications for such a position, he was first commissioned as a lieutenant, and then a few months later as a lieutenant-commander in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. During his tenure as Godfrey’s assistant, much of his duties during the war were him acting as a liaison between the Director and the other British Intelligence agencies like the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), the Joint Intelligence Committee, and even the Prime Minister himself. These years during World War II working closely with British Intelligence were instrumental in the creation of James Bond for Fleming, even if he didn’t know it at the time.

In 1941, Fleming traveled to the United States with Godfrey several times in attempts to bolster relations between the two nations. On one such trip, Fleming had worked with Colonel Wild Bill Donovan, who was assigned as a special representative on intelligence in a joint operation between Washington and London. At the time, President Roosevelt had tasked Donovan with establishing the OSS, Operation of Strategic Service. The OSS would be the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency. Fleming provided invaluable ideas to Donovan on how to set up such an organization and what it would take to make it a successful intelligence agency.

On another such trip to the US in 1941, a seemingly innocuous event happened and planted ideas in Fleming’s mind that would one day change his life. While en route to the States, Godfrey and Fleming detoured to neutral Portugal. While staying at the Casino Estoril, the pair had played several games of cards—nothing out of the ordinary, but Fleming’s imaginative mind was firing away. As the pair left the casino that night, Fleming was overcome with thoughts of what might have happened had that same card game been played against German agents instead of Portuguese locals, and had he and the Admiral just wiped them out of all their money. It’s not hard to see the very genesis of Casino Royale in that night. Yet, it would be years before these early seeds would bear any fruit.

During Fleming’s time at war, he was also instrumental in the creation of England’s 30AU (assault unit), a group of British commandos tasked with intelligence gathering. The unit started with minimal success, but as the war raged on, the 30AU had become incredibly effective. Its success led the British government to create a military unit in 1944: the Target Force (T-Force). The purpose of this group was to act as a force that, once an enemy town or port was captured, would move in to secure people, documents, and equipment found in the area by combat and intelligence personnel. Fleming, though not in the field on the T-Force missions, was the one that was responsible for selecting the targets of the unit and coordinating the missions. His work with the T-Force would last throughout his tenure in the service up until his demobilization in 1945, though he would still remain active in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. Fleming’s service would officially come to an end in August of 1952 when he was removed from active service from the RNVR with the rank of lieutenant-commander.

All throughout his wartime service, the ideas of writing a spy story to end all spy stories had been percolating in the back of Fleming’s mind; and now, with the time to pursue it, he did. After the war, Fleming got a job working at the Kemsley News, which was owned by the Sunday Times. Fleming was hired as their Foreign Manager, who would oversee their international correspondents. Knowing that he wanted to finally write the book he had in the back of his mind for so long, Fleming put it into his contract that he would be allowed two months off every year to do so.

Having traveled to Jamaica during his time in WWII, Fleming fell in love with the island and made a promise that he would one day return when the war was over. So, taking advantage of the two-month clause in his contract, Fleming did just that. The aspiring author would spend two months of the year at the home he purchased on the Caribbean island, a home he would name Goldeneye (after a wartime operation), though he would not be alone during his time at Goldeneye.

Throughout the war, Fleming continued his affair with Anne Charteris. Her first husband had died during the war and then she went on to wed Esmond Harmsworth, the second Viscount Rothermere. Yet the passion between Fleming and Charteris remained, and she would travel to Jamaica to see him under the guise that she was visiting her friend, author Noel Coward. The affair between the two led to Charteris becoming pregnant with Fleming’s child, but the baby died upon birth. Rothermere eventually learned of his wife’s infidelity and divorced her in 1951. Though very much in love with Anne, Fleming was also quite fond of his bachelor lifestyle, and it would take her becoming pregnant with his second child for Fleming to commit to marrying her. It was at this time that Fleming sat down to write what would become his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale. Many close to the author felt that the book and character came out of some sort of midlife crisis for Fleming, combined with the fact that his bachelorhood was coming to end with his upcoming marriage, as well as with the birth of his son. All the ideas that Fleming had during his time at war finally found life. The character of M was based loosely upon Rear Admiral John Godfrey, and the concept of a Double O agent came from the Admiralty and top-secret signals in British Intelligence. When it came to the lead character of his novel, he wanted the spy to be anonymous and have the book’s action carry him, very similar to the heroes in a Raymond Chandler novel: believable people, believable heroes. As to giving the character a name that would fit his idea of a simple man, Fleming had to look no further than his own bookshelf. A Field Guide to the Birds of the West Indies, by American ornithologist James Bond. The name, Fleming thought, was perfect. A boring, generic name that would allow the action of the character to catch the reader’s attention. With the name of his lead character set, Fleming strove to record the daily intricacies of Bond—he felt that it made the character more interesting to readers and set him and the book apart from other books in the genre.

Ian and Anne wed on March 24, 1952, in Jamaica, only a few months before their son Caspar was born in August of that year. At the age of forty-three, Fleming also finished his first novel, Casino Royale. Fleming had passed the manuscript off to a friend of his who worked at a major publishing house, Jonathan Cape… and so began the literary journey of Casino Royale on its way to becoming published on April 13, 1953. Much to the surprise of Fleming, who called the book a dreadful oafish opus, it was an instant success, needing three immediate print runs. Yet, despite Fleming thinking not very highly off his own work, the author took advantage of his yearly two months at Goldeneye and continued to write James Bond adventures every year throughout the fifties and into the sixties, and would capture the attention not just of readers, but of other avenues looking to ride the success of James Bond as well. One such being the Daily Express newspaper which felt the Bond novels would make an excellent comic strip. Fleming was against the idea, but also felt that his books being seen as a comic strip in a widely circulated newspaper would bring greater visibility to his writing. So in 1957, James Bond was added to the Daily Express comic strips. It was the first time the character was given a face, based on the book’s description, that Fleming had approval over. The strip lasted for many years and would adapt Fleming’s novels up until the early ’60s.

The printed medium was not the only place that Fleming would try to broaden Bond’s readership. Fleming sold off the rights to Casino Royale for both television and film to two different production companies. In 1954, CBS Television reached out to Fleming to adapt Casino Royale for television as a one-hour movie as part of its Climax series. Fleming, excited at the prospect of James Bond being brought to life in live action, sold the rights to Casino Royale to CBS for $1,000. The TV-movie stayed true to Fleming’s book with one glaring omission: a British agent named James Bond. In the CBS version of Royale, it was American Combined Intelligence agent Jimmy Bond (played by actor Barry Nelson) who battled Le Chiffre in a game of baccarat at the Casino Royale. The character was a far departure from what Fleming had created in his novels, but CBS at least tried to stay true to the book’s plot. The same could not be said for the first attempt at bringing the novel to the silver screen.

The film rights to Casino Royale were sold to film producer Gary Ratoff for $6,000. The project would remain in development limbo until 1967, when producer Charles K. Feldman obtained the rights after Ratoff passed away in 1960 and moved forward with a satirical version of the book. Feldman felt a more comedic film would work and provided a theatrical version of Casino Royale for Columbia Pictures that starred David Niven as James Bond, Orson Welles as Le Chiffre, and would include Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, and original Bond girl Ursula Andress five years after her performance as Honey Rider in Dr. No. The film was an incoherent disaster and did not remotely resemble the original novel. It would be over