Casino Royale (Climax!, 1954)

Casino Royale (1954) is an un-official made-for-TV James Bond film and the first known produced Bond film. The film was aired as an episode of the CBS TV series Climax!, and was based on Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel. It stars Barry Nelson as fictional secret agent James Bond. The film is the only adaptation of a Bond novel to be an American production rather than a British production, resulting in the James Bond character becoming a CIA agent rather than an MI6 agent, as well as Bond being given the nickname "Card Sense Jimmy Bond". It is also the first film adaptation of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale novel, which would later be adapted as a 1967 pardoy film, and as an entry in EON Productions official James Bond film series in 2006. The is the first of three un-official (non-EON produced) Bond films, the following two being the 1967 comedy film Casino Royale and the 1983 Thunderball remake Never Say Never Again, none of which have any relation to each other.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, producers of the official James Bond series, would later purchase the rights to the film from CBS in the late 1990's, along with the 1967 parody Casino Royale (film, 1967) and Never Say Never Again.

Cast[edit]

• Barry Nelson as Agent James Bond/Jimmy Bond
• Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre
• Linda Christian as Valerie Mathis
• Michael Pate as Clarence Lieter