JAMES BOND: CASINO ROYALE

Preview Invitation and Photos (8" x 10")
Fine+; Artwork by Robert McGinnis
Columbia, 1967

This is a very curious promotional piece that we've never seen and must be exceptionally scarce, for the James Bond completist. This is a special premiere invitation to the San Francisco Playboy Club for cocktails and a trip to a theater to see a special premiere screening of Casino Royale. In attendance was Woody Allen, "a struggling but dedicated young comic."

One photo has some staining in the bottom left corner, and all photos have a slight curl to the edge. The printed invitation is in great shape.

With the enormous success of the James Bond film franchise, a parody film was inevitable, and it ultimately hit theaters in 1967. Casino Royale, based on the Ian Fleming novel that introduced the character, had been filmed once before, as a part of the TV anthology series Climax! in 1954, starring Barry Nelson as 007 and Peter Lorre as his nemesis, Le Chiffre. The 1967 version, however, abandoned all of Fleming's story, retaining only the title. Starring David Niven as the "original" 007, who is forced out of retirement by an international crisis regarding the deaths of spies worldwide, the movie introduces many "false" Bonds designed to confuse the villain,

This lot will be auctioned on Thursday, April 18th. The auction will begin at 9:30am PST and lots are sold sequentially via live auctioneer; tune in to the live streaming broadcast on auction day to follow the pace. Note other lots in the auction may close on April 19th.