movie review tuesday - casino royale (1967)

film: casino royale
starring: peter sellers, ursula andress, david niven
synopsis: after m is killed, aged james bond comes out of retiring to take on smersh.
grade: c

i watched this film on friday. words cannot even begin to describe how random this movie is. the synopsis mentioned above is what was listed on imdb.com, that is about all that i got out of the movie, and it all happened within the first 15-20 minutes of the film. there was so much going on, that my head is still spinning. i guess the best way to describe this one is to say it was monty python on a 007 acid trip. the original point of watching this one was to see what i thought was the original to the recent casino royale. i couldn't have been further from the truth. the only similarities were some character names and that there was gambling at one point somewhere in there. not to say i wouldn't pay to see daniel craig play in this version, because that would have been amazing. there were a few memorable moments in this one. there was an amazing set used for a club/school/place in berlin that reminded me straight away of das cabinet des dr. caligari. that was really cool. then there was the taxidermy tiger that had a moving tongue - my skin is still crawling. and then there was the scene at the end in the casino-like setting where two seals where biting each other. not sure what any of this meant, but quite honestly i've moved way beyond making any sense of the film - did i mention woody allen was in it? - and just move on with my life. the major positive out of this movie was that it gave a reason to invite friends over and eat chimichangas again. the major negative was that the last 30 minutes or so of the film was just a major assault on the senses. would i watch it again? perhaps, but i think i need a couple months to recuperate first.