“CASINO ROYALE” | “LIVE AND LET DIE”
JULY 7TH, 1958 - March 29th, 1959
Written by Anthony Hern & Henry Gammidge | Illustrated by John McLusky
JULY 7TH, 1958 - March 29th, 1959
Written by Anthony Hern & Henry Gammidge | Illustrated by John McLusky
The comic strip adventures of James Bond begin, as they did in novel format, with "Casino Royale", a tale that sees British agent Bond dispatched to the French town of Royale-les-Eaux with a mission to gamble in high-stakes baccarat against Le Chiffre, a Frenchman in the employ of Soviet spy organization SMERSH. It seems Le Chiffre lost the Russians some money, which he now intends to win back on penalty of death -- and Bond's job is to see to it that he fails in this last-ditch gamble to save his own life.
It's kind of impressive how closely to the original novel the Daniel Craig CASINO ROYAL film hewed. As noted on Sunday, I did read the first three Bond novels a few years ago, and with them reasonably fresh in memory, I can say that this adaptation is quite faithful -- and that, aside from the entire first act, which fills in a lot of background for Bond's mission, such as how the secret service learns of Le Chiffre and his intentions, the movie follows the plot of the book very closely as well.
And that plot is relatively simple: Bond arrives in Royale-les-Eaux, is joined in his mission by assistant Vesper Lynd, French operative Rene Mathis, and CIA agent Felix Leiter, survives a handful of assassination attempts, defeats Le Chiffre, is kidnapped and tortured for his trouble, sees Le Chiffre assassinated by SMERSH, recuperates in the hospital, vacations with Vesper, falls in love with her, and then finds her dead of suicide, having left a note explaining she's actually a double-agent for the Russians.
