" The Name's Bond - Jimmy Bond..."

I’ve just spent a very enjoyable hour watching Casino Royale – not, as you might suspect, Daniel Craig’s debut as James Bond, but in fact the very first screen adaptation of one of Ian Fleming’s novels, produced for the CBS television series Climax! in 1954. It’s a curious experience, produced when there was really no such thing as the ‘Bond formula’ that we all know so well from both books and films – Live and Let Die, Fleming’s second novel, had not long been published in hardback, and although reasonably popular, there was little evidence that Bond was to become such a phenomenally successful franchise and a bona fide cultural icon.

  And so, this TV version takes liberties with the character that would be unthinkable today. James ‘Jimmy’ Bond is American, working for the CIA, whilst his contact from the book, CIA agent Felix Leiter, is renamed Clarence and takes Bond’s usual place with the British secret service. Barry Nelson makes for an engaging lead, though of course he’s a long way from the James Bond we know and love – and as such, can’t help but feel like an unremarkable footnote in the annals of Bond history. Rather more memorable is Peter Lorre as the villainous Le Chiffre. Lorre, renowned for playing a multitude of villains in TV shows and films, was experiencing something of a career downturn at the point when this was made, but here he’s terrific, with more presence than the rest of the cast put together.

  The novel lends itself to a relatively lean adaptation such as this – it clocks in at just under an hour – and although there are various changes made, the essence of the novel remains intact. A few supporting characters are missing, as well as some of the more incidental plot elements (in fact, many of the same ones that were removed in the Daniel Craig version), and the infamous torture scene is considerably more tame, but otherwise it holds the basic plot together rather well. It also makes good use of its production limitations – shot on relatively few sets, but never really feeling restricted by them.

  All in all, it was a pleasant surprise to find that what I expected to be a rather creaky, vaguely embarrassing piece of television was very enjoyable, and an intriguing glance at an alternative path for the character of James Bond. Now to see if I can struggle through the 1967 spoof version – the one Bond film (official or otherwise) that I’ve never been able to watch in its entirety…