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Comments
And who the heck is Jimmy Bond?
Nope I'm sorry, it's a no from me. This is not James Bond.
The part that really shocked me was when I realized Barry Nelson was the guy from 'The Shining'- a movie that I had see dozens of times- I never knew that was the first James Bond right there
in terms of his portrayal of James - oops, i mean Jimmy Bond... i thought it was "okay" considering that they altered the character's nationality from English to American... it was a 1950's Live Television production, I really liked it just based on that alone - thats really hard to accomplish, imagine if one of them had screwed up?... on a show like SNL, you can just laugh it off - with serious material it's a little different...
top marks to Peter Lorre though.. it's a shame he was never an official Bond villain..
As mentioned by others on this thread to his status as Bond, I do not consider Barry Nelson to be the first James Bond anyway. Not becuase he was an american actor but becuase his character was a variation of Bond. Jimmy 'Card sense' Bond, american CIA agent is not James Bond!
Bond's authentic screen debut came in 1962.
But yes, I think he made a fantastic Bond. He wasn't "Jimmy Bond", he was JAMES Bond, and I despise people who insist on using the Americanized-name. :-P He introduces himself as James Bond, and is credited as such, even in the original televised credits.
However, CR is no 'James Bond movie', at least not in the traditional sense. The TV film is mostly agreeable though I'd far from recommend it (it's something only die-hard Bond fans will ever possess a curiosity to watch). Nonetheless, from a film historian perspective there is a lot to get your teeth into with the 1954 film.
The film possess the typical blend of high-culture, glamorous settings and danger that is inherent to the Bond brand but not much else. Interestingly, despite dropping the entire Vesper Lynd story (not to mention the character herself) the film adheres pretty closely to the book. In that sense the film makes for an interesting companion piece to Fleming's novel and even to some extents the later Daniel Craig film. one of my favourite parts of Fleming's story was how Bond hid the money behind the sign on his hotel door and it's nice to see that dramatically realised in some manner as it would likely have been slightly out of place in the 2006 adaption of the book.
The main attraction here is Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre; Lorre is brilliant and has such an odd screen-presence. He's a macabre creepy looking little-man and he has such a delicate and menacing voice. I find it interesting that all three 'unofficial' Bond film (both CRs and NSNA) all nailed the villain roles and produced first-class baddies for Bond to do battle against; in this way these films most definitely exceed the 'official' series. All the other performers are pretty disposal aside from Lorre (I'm looking at you Linda Christian).
Despite being a pretty dry telling of the CR story it's an interesting curate's egg for those more committed Bond fans.