I didn’t think it would take me another 32 years though. I always vowed that I would go back and read them one day though. Remember you can read my previous post to see the James Bond timeline I created.Ĭasino Royale novel by Ian Fleming – 1953Ī friend of mine at school, when I was about 12, told me that he had read all the James Bond novels and that he loved them, and I think I started reading Diamonds are Forever at that time, but I never got hooked on them. So for this first post, I will be looking at the Casino Royale novel, and then in the next two posts I will look at the TV episode and the 1967 movie of Casino Royale. Besides, although I’m not fussed about reading the books in order I did want to start my James Bond challenge with the very first appearance of Bond, which of course is in the Casino Royale novel. I’m not going to review the Daniel Craig movie yet of course, as it’s a very modern retelling of Bond and I’m watching the movies in release order, but I still wanted to address the rest of the Casino Royale instances in one go, even though the 1967 movie was well into the main James Bond run. So basically Casino Royale has a pretty interesting history. This obviously led to the 2006 Daniel Craig movie. It wasn’t until 1999 that Eon Productions managed to get hold of the Casino Royale rights and finally own the rights to all the original Fleming novels. Feldman cashed in on his Casino Royale rights and made the spoof Bond film starring David Niven. Casino Royale would be the one that got away from Eon productions, and after the success of four Sean Connery films, Charles K. (Cubby) Broccoli and Harry Saltzman who founded Eon productions and ultimately got backing from United Artists to make the main Bond film series. Meanwhile, while Fleming’s books grew in popularity he negotiated a better deal for the rights to all his other books with Albert R. These rights to Casino Royale eventually moved on to Gregory Ratoff and then Charles K. CBS paid Fleming $1,000 for the rights to bring Casino Royale to the screen in the Climax! episode. The second novel, ‘Live and Let Die’ actually came out about a month before the TV episode aired, which just shows how quickly everything happened in those first two years. This episode was aired only a year after Casino Royale, the first Bond novel, had been published, which goes to show how much of an immediate success Fleming had with the books. was the first Eon productions movie and the first ‘proper Bond movie’ in most people’s eyes, there had been an on screen appearance of the James Bond character earlier, in a 1954 TV episode of Climax! entitled ‘Casino Royale’. It will take time but I’m going to thoroughly enjoy the process.Īlthough Dr No. But I then added in reading all the original Ian Fleming novels for the first time too.

I wanted to rewatch all the Bond movies in order, and rank them. At the start of the year, I gave myself a James Bond challenge.

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