Behind the Scenes: Casino Royale (Hughes et al, 1967) with David Niven and Peter Sellers

Charlie Feldman was the first of the agents to go into film production. He produced, of course, many pictures. Some of them he did not put his name on. And one that I recall vividly, or one of the first that I recall, I should say, was Casino Royale. I think Charlie Feldman initially wanted to make a serious James Bond film, but he was presented with two challenges. Number one, he did not have Sean Connery under contract. And number two, he had to make a deal with Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman to make this work as an official James Bond movie, and they could not come to terms. And thus Charlie was forced to come up with a new idea. I think Gregory Rattoff actually owned the rights to Casino Royale. And when we acquired the Bond movies at UA, that was not part of the deal, because Fleming had made a deal with Rattoff on Casino Royale, but we had all the other books. And, of course, the series had started. And we were in business with Harry and Cubby, Saltzman and Broccoli, and Charlie said, we've got Casino Royale. And we said, OK, but we've got James Bond. We obviously couldn't do it. And he went off and made a terrible mistake in trying to turn it into a farce. He tried to make a What's New Pussycat out of Casino Royale. We'd already made What's New Pussycat with Charlie, but there was no reason to do it. He made it for Columbia, of course, which originally had a shot at James Bond and turned it down. So there was an irony there, too. They had a problem with Casino Royale. Casino Royale was the first book that Ian Fleming ever wrote of Bond. What had happened is, in the meantime, when they'd made all the other Bond pictures, they had stolen most of the stuff out of Casino Royale. And the only thing they had left in Casino Royale was the casino. When I met Charlie with Peter, he gave me a copy of the script, which was written by Wolf Mankiewicz. And it was about 230 pages. I was aware that a lot of these older and very great Hollywood writers, like Wilder and Ben Hecht, had had a go at working on the script. Ben Hecht had written the script, and he'd died. And I always say to people, it wasn't because of the script. But he died before he'd quite finished it. By that time, when Wolf worked on the script, there was no credit to Hecht or anybody else. I tried to get out of Charlie which parts they had worked on. But he was difficult to talk to. He didn't listen. They said, oh, well, you'll recognize the style when you read it. But I never did. It was just sprawling all over the place. Very much a first draft. Sellers phoned me and said, have you read it? I said, yes. He said, well, what do you think? So I told him, and he said, well, I absolutely agree. He said, but don't worry. Charlie is aware of this. Once we'd sat down and discussed the script, Charlie agreed to bring Terry Southern in. I think Feldman was completely ill-equipped to make a comedy. He had no sense of humor. And if you started to explain a set-up or explain the reason for shooting this, he would lose interest. He would just say, yeah, that's okay. That's okay. I'll leave it to you guys. You know what you're doing. But then, of course, he would take it out. Charlie wanted Woody to work on Casino because of the work on What's New Pussycat? By that time, he was a real Woody fan. He wasn't at the beginning, but he was at the end. So he wanted Woody to work for him. And Woody had no intention of working for him a second time. He said, Woody, let me give you a part in Casino. And Woody said, okay, I'll do that. I won't write a word of the script. And he did. The only thing he had to do with the script at all was he would rework his own scenes. But he wouldn't write any other part of the script, which drove Charlie nuts. Wolf Mankiewicz wasn't very happy. He thought the script was okay as it was. But in reading it, it bore no relationship to what you saw on the screen all those years later. There wasn't any character like Noah or anything like that in the original script or Matta Bond, nothing like that at all. It was the spring of 1965, and I got a phone call from Peter Sellers. It's Charles K. Feldman, and he wants me to play James Bond. Peter had health issues at the time. In fact, Charlie Feldman had insured him personally for the film because no insurance company would insure him. Peter had asked me if he could appear with Dudley Moore and Peter Cook in a series I was doing called Not Only But Also. As a guest star, he said, which would prove to those Hollywood moguls that I'm A-1 at lawyers. So he came on and played the part of a boxer and ran around the studio doing press ops. But at the end of it, which was very funny, he said, thank you very much. They will know that I am fit. Well, Ursula was very keen to do the film. Originally, there was lots of other people were brought around to meet and to talk, but it ended up being Ursula. She at that time was called the most beautiful woman in the world. Ursula had a habit of drooping her shoulders. And I remember one scene in the casino, I said, Ursula, put your shoulders back, put your boobs out, you know, shoulders back. And she turned to me and she said, you dare to speak like that to the most beautiful woman in the world? That's the sort of person she was. The only problem I had with Ursula, and she was aware of it, was her English. I mean, we had to really get a dialogue coach, you know, to really work on her before we did many takes. Peter suggested Orson Welles would be marvelous as Le Chiffre. And I said, yeah, absolutely. And, of course, Feldman said, no problem, I'll get Orson. You know, he said, this is great. This is Peter Sellers and Orson Welles in the same movie. So he phoned immediately and got Orson to agree over the telephone to do it. And Peter was over the moon, very happy. The first meeting that we had, we met on our own. And he said, tell me what movie of mine you like. And I said, well, I like A Touch of Evil. He said, oh, thank God for that. He said, I thought you were going to say Citizen Kane. He says, everybody says Kane. Orson Welles was quite charming. There was something about him that wasn't terribly easy to cross into. He made an effort to be charming. He obviously liked women. I felt he was very shy. And I felt he was uncomfortable. And I felt he was lonely. Ursula Andress never looked better. And I'll tell you why that is. It's because Jack Hilliard, the cinematographer, took four hours to light a close-up on her. But Jack proved to be my problem. Jack insisted on even using arc lights. Arc lights, you know. So they took about 20 minutes and 30 minutes to warm up. In those days, you know, you had to have a tower, electros and two riggers. So there was big crews. But that's the way they used to photograph things in those days. And then there was so much light on the set that a guy like Orson Welles, he couldn't dress. I mean, we had to rehearse with him in a vest. And then he had to get dressed quickly, come on, and for safety's sake, let's do this take. So you did the take, cut, and Orson was covered in sweat. And so you just had to send him off, shower, new jacket, new shirt, you know, about six or seven changes of clothing. The first week or so when we were at Shepperton in the studio, we were lucky if you got a minute a day. I mean, I was being told by John Dark, who was associate producer on the film, that's all right, it'll speed up, don't worry, you know, it'll be okay. But then, of course, Dark had been the person who had brought Jack Hilliard in, the cameraman. And, of course, then I was getting annoyed at Jack Hilliard because he was so slow. I mean, that's the thing about Sellers. Once he got the voice right, he knew what he was doing, and he could get into character. We were discussing accents, and he was doing what he said was an Oxfordshire accent. And I think I had the gall to disagree with him. He never got the voice. I think he saw himself as David Nevin. He doesn't seem to add up to any character at all in the film. He seems to be lost in it. I wasn't intimidated by working with Peter Sellers before I did it, but he wasn't my favourite when I got to the scene, I must say. I didn't really love working with him. She was contracted to be there for two days on the set as Miss Goodthighs. I hated that name, Giovanna Goodthighs, cos I didn't think my thighs were particularly good. Peter had to shoot a cork out of the bottle, the champagne bottle that Jackie Bissett is holding. He was supposed to turn, with his gun in his hand, and he pulled the trigger. The blank hit Jackie. Peter had lost his temper with her, and we wondered whether it had been an accident or not. Apparently it was. I had little blood spots all over my face. It didn't thrill me. And, of course, I was extremely nervous in doing the take a second time. It was like once bitten, twice shy. Peter Sellers left early and did not stay for his lines off-camera. I would have liked to have had an actor off-screen. In fact, it was a very important lesson for me to always be there for the other actor. Peter Sellers was also having personal problems, which became multiplied the minute he got in the set with Orson Welles. I had set up a master shot which incorporated Orson and Peter in the same shot. I had rehearsed and lit the thing. Peter took me a sign and said, I don't want to be in the same set-up as Orson Welles. I said, you mean you don't want to be in the same set-up as Orson Welles today? He said, no, I don't want to be in the same set-up as Orson Welles any day. And I said, well, we've got to go and talk about this. So I went into a caravan on the set to talk about it, and he hit me. And I hit him back. And the stuntman, Peter's stunt double, Jerry Crampton, came into the caravan. He said, I saw the caravan moving, and he separated Peter and I. And he said, I don't know which one of you they hit. I love you both. And Peter and I started laughing. Peter disappeared, and I said to the first assistant, the AD, we've asked for Peter Sellers. We've asked for Sellers for the last half hour. Where is he? And the AD said, I've just got a note handed to me. I said, what does it say? He read the note. It said, dear Freddie, I simply have to go and change the stylus in my record player. Austin said, where's he gone? I said, I have no idea. Charlie phoned me and said, would you get in touch with Peter and tell him to come back? And I said, no, no. I said, I'm the director. You're the producer. You tell him to come back. He's getting a million dollars for this on a cut of the gross. You tell him. Charlie never did it, of course. There was a lot of bogus publicity to cover Peter's exit. And it turned out later that Peter was having personal problems with Britt Eklund. He was married to Britt at the time. And from what I gathered, he had nipped off to Sweden, hoping that she would be there to try and sort things out. Austin was very annoyed and very pissed about it. But he had a sense of humor. I mean, he kept turning up every day saying to me, hi, Joe. Where's our thin friend? Everybody on that set, including John Dark and including Jerry Bresler, who were the associate producers, blamed Charlie Feldman because of his attitude. They said that he should have taken Peter Sellers aside and said, I'm paying you this money. I'm paying you the percentage of the gross. Behave yourself. Come back on this film, and let's get on with it. He never did. The trouble was that Peter, at that time, was going through one of his manic depressive things. Peter got frightened by Austin and also used that because he was having personal problems. And he would come on the set every day and find someone who he wanted fired because he didn't like this or was doing that. And finally, he got his director fired. Charlie couldn't even face me. I mean, when I was taken off the film, he didn't even take me aside and say, look, this has gone out of control. We're going this other way. Thank you very much for what you've done. And we might call you later on to make some sense of what you shot. He never did. He confessed to us that he now had a three-ring circus idea. I got a feeling a lot of substantial British directors were on. Lots of other directors, lots of guest stars. This is going to be the biggest film since Ben-Hur. I had my agent call me one day at the beginning and said, look, Charles Feldman is in town. He wants to meet you. He would like you to direct a picture. He's going to make a casino royal back-to-back with John Huston. And I said, what the hell does that mean? John Huston came in just to do a sequence to get his gambling debts paid by Charlie. And at that time, he said, I want to make a psychedelic movie. So I'm going to do various sections. I'm going to have several directors. And it's going to be psychedelic. Well, it was chaotic. I don't know about psychedelic. The stuff that you see with Peter Sellers at the gaming table, when you see Orson and hundreds of extras behind him, which I shot, and when you turn around and see Peter at the gaming table, it's him and two or three extras behind him. And that was shot by Bob Parrish. He lasted two weeks. And then Peter said, get rid of Parrish. What happened was that during the picture, one of them got fired. The other one got there. There was problems all through. And I found that I was the man who was put in there to try and do something about it. Valghast was brought in by John Dark. And the only contact I had with Valghast was by telephone. And he phoned me. And he said, I want to congratulate you. And I said, why? He said, you're the only person that did wide shots and mid shots. Everybody else is that close up to get on and off the film as quickly as possible. We had terrible troubles with Orson Welles and Sellers, because Orson couldn't stand him. And all the scenes where they're playing cards, Orson said, they're not going to use my shoulder to do the over shoulder shots. And we have to use another shoulder. Orson said, I'm not doing any scenes with that amateur. That was his actual words. Charlie Feldman said to me afterwards, he said, look, go through everything we've got on Sellers and tell me if we can get rid of him now. And we went through everything. And it seemed that we could. Right. And he fired him. He fired Peter, who was in Spain then and never came back. The Houston section was scheduled, I think, for six weeks. It took about three months. I mean, it was a big chunk, because no one really knew what they were doing. And then we had a major change of location, which everything came to a grinding halt, because John decided he didn't want to go to Scotland. John took me aside and said, we're not going to Scotland. He said, I need to get back to Ireland. So it landed on the lap of the production manager of my unit. And he goes to see Houston and says, John, you can't do this. There's no grouse in Ireland. And John, who didn't like this guy, I mean, John, I don't like you, didn't like you. And he wasn't very keen on this guy. He said to me, he said, his name was John. I said, John, you've got a big brother. And we shot a whole grouse moor scene without any grouse. So second units went all around England trying to shoot shots of grouse. Then we had helicopters flying over. This is true. We sort of grouse on stuff, grouse on wires. It was just hysterically funny. But I mean, that really was, that's what the whole movie was about. I mean, everything was crazy. Niven enjoyed himself very much. Now reading his biography, I realize at the time, he was having problems at home in France. But it certainly didn't, he wouldn't have known it. Part of his contract, he had to get back to France. He had to get an air France flight. I think it was 6 o'clock every Friday to go home. He said to me on the first day of shooting, he said, look, call me every day. Sit me down. 12 hours. I don't care. The only thing is that I have to leave the studio at a certain time. And that was the only stipulation we ever had from him. He used to sit in his chair reading a book. And just look up, and I'd say, action. He'd nod at me. I'd say, cut. He said, well, print one, six, or whatever it was. And he'd go back to his book. But he knew what he was doing. We'd just been in to see our sailors. And John turned to me, and he said, this is going to be a lot of crap, isn't it? And I said, no, it's not, John, because they've hired people like you to see this. And he said, don't you put it all on my shoulders. Anyway, he said, I've had enough of this. I'm off to Ireland to play poker. Joanna Pettit was cast rather late in the production. Filming had begun in January 1966. By May, they had still not cast Mata Bond. I was in Paris doing Night of the Generals. And I had a phone call from my agent who said they are looking for Mata Bond to play this part in Casino Royale. And they're having a terrible time casting. They had tried to get everybody famous in the business to do this part. The last one I heard was Shirley MacLaine, who had been offered a million plus percentage. And they just couldn't seem to get anyone interested in it. I said, please, I'm not right for this part. I don't dance, I'm a dramatic actress. This is just so broad for me. And he said, look, don't worry about a thing. You're absolutely right for it. We'll have beautiful costumes for you. We'll have a dance teacher work with you. And you'll only be on 4 weeks, 5 weeks max. I was on 18 weeks. Ken Hughes was originally brought in to evaluate all the previously shot footage by Charlie Feldman. In so doing, he also volunteered to shoot some extra sequences, and that became the huge Mata Bond sequence. Ken Hughes, my first director, had absolutely no clue. He got more and more frazzled. But he was a sweetheart. We actually had almost no script. And when we did have a script, usually by the time you came in in the morning and you finished your makeup, the script had changed. Anybody that thought he was funny loved working with him. Woody wasn't an ego person. He was very easy to work with. He was very shy also. I didn't know who Woody Allen was, but I'd see this little man come in with pages of papers and he'd always look very frazzled and in a rush. He couldn't take Charlie Feldman. He didn't like Charlie. He called him a butcher because when we used to send our scenes in that we'd written, Charlie would send them back, and he'd left the build-ups and crossed out the gags, you know, the tag. Woody said, he's a murderer, he's a murderer. I said, well, don't worry, we'll put him in when we get on the floor, which we did. Charlie Feldman invited me to dinner one night with William Holden, and he said, I can't tell you, you've done so much on this picture for me, I'm going to give you an extra credit title, Coordinating Director. And I said, well, if you do that, Charlie, I'll sue you. He said, what do you mean? I said, people are going to look at this and say, this was coordinated? So anyway, he gave me some other title on there, I can't remember what it was. And what happened towards the end of the thing, when we'd almost finished the film, Charlie Feldman said, look, somehow or other he said, I feel this needs a storyline to tie them all together. And I thought, yes, of course it does, they should write one. And I understood from John Dart, who I spoke to years later, that Val had shot some sequences in order to try and make some sort of sense of the different episodes. I was given all these four scripts that had been written and told to go through it and see if I could find a common thread. I wrote David and Ursula into this linking story right the way through. President of Columbia was begging Charlie to stop spending money. And he said, how much money? He said, about $11 million so far. And Charlie said to his lawyer, write him a check, give him a check for $11 million and get him out of here. Well, you never saw such an about face in your life. No, Charlie, we're not doing it that way, you're going to continue to make this picture. In fact, on the set, I used to have a blackboard the whole time with all the scenes on it of that particular day or that whole sequence, so the unit would know where everything was going to be and if we couldn't do that, well, let's do this one. I had fun with the so-called guest star, Jean-Paul Belmondo, who was Ursula's boyfriend at that time. And Charlie Feldman said, write him in. Charlie Feldman would call me up in the middle of the night and say, look, William Holden's in town, what set are we on? Write him into it. So I would get all these bits and pieces like George Raft. He suddenly said, I've got George Raft, write him in. And when I met George Raft, George said, for Christ's sake, don't give me any lines. So I just did this coin-tossing thing that he was famous for. There was no big party afterwards. I don't recall it being a great hoopla when the end came, except we were all very relieved to get on the plane and go home. Six or seven months after I had been off the film, Peter Sellers telephoned me and asked me to meet. And we met, of all places, in the Dorchester bar, where it all began. Peter was apologising to me for what had happened and saying, we will work together again, darling. I'm absolutely sure we'll do something together because I was out of control. I am apologising. I said, OK. And in the midst of this, one of the heads of Columbia, one of the Jaffees, was passing and he saw us. And he came across and he said, I just wanted to say something. Excuse me a minute. To Peter. He said, I wanted to say something, Joe. I said, yeah. He said, I just want to apologise for everything that happened in that film. He said, it was just terrible, totally out of control. And I know they're still working on it and all that. We hope to make some sense of it. And it was all that Sellers' fault. And he turned to Peter and he said, I'm so glad you're here, Mr Allen. It's a pleasure to have you in our movie. And he walked away. And Peter said, he thought I was Rudy Allen. He said, I've just had a cheque from him for a million dollars. And he signed it. It's just a very strange movie, in lots of respects. But there are so many funny sequences. You know, I didn't know whether it was going to work or not, to be honest. I think the audience reaction worldwide wasn't bad. I know he got terrible notices, but I don't think the box office was that bad. It made money, I believe, for Columbia. Casino Royale was one of the hits of 1967. Its total worldwide take at that time was a little over $41 million. Interestingly, the movie did better in the States than it did foreign, where I think international audiences didn't quite know what to make of it.