Casino Royale was the debut of Daniel Craig as the legendary British secret agent James Bond, and it gave the long-running film series a much-needed jolt of adrenaline. Bond had grown increasingly out of touch with the modern world, so making the new movie a flashback set in his early years allowed the character to show levels of inexperience and vulnerability that he hadn’t been able to in some time. That vulnerability also sparked one of the flick’s most notorious scenes, where Bond gets captured by terror financier Le Chiffre.

The plot has Bond on an assignment to bankrupt terrorist financierLe Chiffrein a high-stakes pokergame at the Casino Royale in Montenegro; Bond falls in love with Vesper Lynd, a treasury employee assigned to provide the money he needs for the game. The film begins a story arcthat continues in the 2008 film, Quantum of Solace. Additionally, Casino Royale is the first film since The Living Daylights nearly 20 years prior to be based on a James Bond publication by Ian Fleming. Advertisement: Under absolutely no circumstances should you confuse this with the 1967 film of the same title, a zany parody with only a few scenes in common with the source material.

Strapped to a chair, Bond can do nothing but suffer as Le Chiffre just goes to town on his gonads with a technique known as Dutch Scratching – tearing and beating his gonads with a length of rope. Without showing anything explicit, it manages to communicate pain and danger through excellent acting.

Watch the scene for yourself and cringe along.

One of the most interesting fan theories coming out in the wake of Casino Royale is that this experience permanently warped Bond’s relationship with women by making him unable to have children. That would explain how the legendary secret agent manages to sleep around in every movie without accidentally making a baby Bond.

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10 Jan

How difficult can it be to make a good poker scene in a movie? According to James Bond director Martin Campbell the ‘Casino Royale’ remake poker showdown was as elaborate as any stunt 007 was involved in!

The 2006 movie grossed a monster $606million at the box office, with Daniel Craig’s ‘Bond’ and Mads Mikkelsen’s blood-eyed villain ‘Le Chiffre’ involved in the highest stake poker game of all time.

For poker fans, of course, seeing their beloved game depicted on the big screen is almost always more ‘miss’ than ‘hit’, so how did director Campbell manage to produce such an intense facsimile of a real highstakes game?

“What you realize is, it’s not just the card games — it’s the stakes. It’s also two guys eye-fucking one another, basically. That was the secret,” explained to Polygon.com.

With No Limit Hold’em replacing the Baccarat Chemin de Fer of the Ian Fleming book version, and the 1967 movie version…

…the cast and crew had to be taught the game basically from scratch to ensure everything from continuity to poker tells would come across as realistically as possible.

Not an easy task for poker consultant Tom Sambrook, the 2002 winner of the European Championships explaining:

“I’d just basically tell them what the absolute bare minimum was that they needed to know to look like they had been playing this game.”

Sambrook also admits to making a bit of money on the side, taking the actors for their ‘per diem’ in hastily-arranged games in the studios.

The Englishman, who finished ahead of Hendon Mobster Barny Boatman and EPT legend John Duthie to win his title, explained:

“We’d be playing games constantly between takes,” adding cheekily, “I saw it as their privilege to learn by paying me this money.”

Director Campbell somehow pulled together all the elements of the game in an almost believable series of poker scenes, mixed in with the usual action-packed adventures of a typical Bond movie.

He believes the 30 minutes of gameplay that made the final cut, showing three massive hands, was critical to the success of the film, admitting:

Casino Royale Scene Where Mathis Is Arrested

“It was the thing I sweated on more than anything else.”

Casino Royale Scenes Love Beach

After discovering Le Chiffre’s ‘tell’, Bond has to survive two assassination attempts in his bid to end the villain’s hopes of winning the $130million poker game.

“From a dramatic point of view, each of the card games has a good climax,” says Campbell, and if the final scene still grates with some poker fans, there is a reason.

Casino Royale Scene Names Martini Vesper

The four-way all-in sees Le Chiffre’s full house lose to Bond’s straight flush, with most fans expecting a Royal Flush to win the day for the movie hero.

“He wins with an inconspicuous straight flush, rather than the royal flush,” Sambrook says, adding to Director Campbell’s vision of a “new Bond” , a less flashy, more believable hero.

Check out the finale yourself!

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