Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 15, Week 12

The original Casino Royale, that beautiful mess of a film from 1967 is one of my first cinematic loves. We had a 16mm print of it at home that I watched more times than I care to admit over the course of about a decade. During those "difficult" years, it was the charms of Barbara Bouchet (pictured in last week's quiz with Terence Cooper) that was the prime draw, but there's little about this film I don't love. From Burt Bacharach's unforgettable score (including Dusty's rendition of The Look of Love), the dream cast (Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, Orson Welles, David Niven, Deborah Kerr, etc.) and the fact that it had not one but five directors (including co-star John Huston), this bastardized version of one of Flemming's Bond novels is simply downright funny. Peter O'Toole's brief cameo might very well be one of the greatest cinematic moments of all time. No question, this is on my desert island list. Well, we're at the end of another round, and at this time next week I'll announce the winners who, as always, can choose any DVD used in the round as their prize. Special thanks to all the newcomers -- I hope you all stay for future rounds. This week -- a sunny film that knows a thing or two about rain. You know this one. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Comments

[Glenn Kenny]

As its putative obligations to coherence and its zeitgeist fade further and further into the distance, "Casino Royale" becomes greater and greater; it's a truly unclassifiable film, a cinematic Frankenstein's monster that with every viewing edges closer to declaring a life of it own. Its independence is, as it happens, dependent on its being completely torn away from its (admittedly fascinating) show-business roots; but once that happens we'll all be able to perceive it as a cinematic near-equivalent of Duchamp's "The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even." No, I'm not even kidding...

[Liz]

I actually own a copy of the original Casino Royale on DVD, but I haven't been able to stomach watching it yet. Maybe it's because I'm a Fleming purist (one M, by the way) or maybe it's just that I haven't as much tolerance for kitsch as I did in childhood. One of these days I'll have to get drunk and watch it. I probably won't regret it.

[The Evenstar]

The Image in Form says

good show!