'Casino Royale,' An Original Soundtrack Recording, Music Composed and Conducted by Burt Bacharach, 'Casino Royale Theme' played by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana. Learn about Casino Royale: discover its cast ranked by popularity, see when it released, view trivia, and more. Casino Royale (1967) Released: Apr 28, 1967.

The movie is about a veteran con man who journeys through the small towns of the South, performing the classic repertory of the confidence game: card tricks, fake identities, the lost billfold gambit, the bargain to be had on a shady deal. A young Army dropout (Michael Sarrazin) signs on as his straight man and they fleece the suckers until love appears for Sarrazin in the person of Sue Lyon.

The movie was shot on location, largely in Kentucky, and it gains a real feeling of authenticity. These are real crossroads stores and real wide-eyed rednecks, watching the city slicker shuffle the cards. And a lot of the episodes are hilarious. I announced some time ago, in connection with 'Casino Royale' (1967) I think, that chase scenes had just about had it as laugh-getters in the movies. Wrong again. There is a chase scene in this one that's a classic. The flim-flam man, dressed, as a minister, and his pupil, dressed as an accident victim, steal a car and lead the sheriff on a brilliantly photographed chase down the sidewalks and through the watermelon wagons of the South.

There are also some nicely directed scenes in which Scott gradually overcomes the suspicions of his victims, wins their confidence, allows his straight man to win a few bucks and then, oh, so innocently asks a tobacco farmer if he'd care to speculate as to which card was the queen.

But, in the end, Scott doesn't quite come off as the flim-flam man. I think the mistake was to make him so old (past 60) and flamboyant, instead of letting him play the role as a smooth and oily character (as he was in 'The Hustler').

But you know who might have made a good flim-flam man? Harry Morgan, who plays the sheriff, and who is Sergeant Friday's sidekick on 'Dragnet.' With a cigar stuck in his mouth, he looks like about the shiftiest guy I can imagine. Except for W. C. Fields, come to think of it.

This is possibly the most indulgent film ever made. Anything goes. Consistency and planning must have seemed the merest whimsy. One imagines the directors (there were five, all working independently) waking in the morning and wondering what they'd shoot today. How could they lose? They had bundles of money, because this film was blessed with the magic name of James Bond.

Perhaps that was the problem. When Charles Feldman bought the screen rights for 'Casino Royale' from Ian Fleming back in 1953, nobody had heard of James Bond, or Sean Connery for that matter. But by the time Feldman got around to making the movie, Connery was firmly fixed in the public imagination as the redoubtable 007. What to do?

Feldman apparently decided to throw all sanity overboard instead of one Bond, he determined to have five or six. The senior Bond is Sir James Bond (David Niven). He is called out of retirement to meet a terrible threat by SMERSH.

Unfortunately, the threat is never explained. Other Bonds are created on the spot. Peter Sellers is the baccarat-playing Bond. He meets Le Chiffre (Orson Welles) in a baccarat game. Why? The movie doesn't say.

The five directors were given instructions given only for their own segments, according to the publicity, and none knew what the other four were doing. This is painfully apparent.

There are some nice touches, of course. Woody Allen rarely fails to be funny, and the massive presence of Welles makes one wish Le Chiffre had been handled seriously.

But the good things are lost, too often, in the frantic scurrying back and forth before the cameras. The steady hand of Terence Young, who made the original Bond films credible despite their gimmicks, is notably lacking here.

I suppose a film this chaotic was inevitable. There has been a blight of these unorganized comedies, usually featuring Sellers, Allen, and-or Jonathan Winters, in which the idea is to prove how zany and clever everyone is when he throws away the script and goes nuts in front of the camera.

In comedy, however, understatement is almost always better than excess.

Casino Royale 1967 Castellano

Sellers was the funniest comedian in the movies when he was making those lightly directed low-budget pictures like 'I'm All Right, Jack.' Now he is simply self-infatuated and wearisome. And so are the movies he graces.

Full Cast Of Casino Royale

One wishes Charlie Feldman had sat down one bright morning, early in the history of this film, and announced that everyone simply had top get organized.