Let's be honest; nobody views Casino Royale (1967) as a searing feminist masterpiece. This is, after all, a film that literally uses women as set dressing. Scene after scene there are random girls loitering in the background, propping up the scenery, washing cars in skintight leather, pressing against Orson Welles' back. They're all over the place and they very rarely have much to do.
The women with speaking parts don't fare much better. It's been more than fifty years, so I think it's safe to say that Ursula Andress is terrible in this film. She doesn't posses a single comic instinct, and it really makes you appreciate the work of Nikki van der Zyl in Dr No because she managed to give Honey emotions that I don't think would be there in Ursula's native voice. Deborah Kerr has the air of a maiden aunt playing with children at a family party. She's not entirely sure what's going on, but she's willing to join in and do what the young ones tell her to do. Angela Scoular would turn in a much better performance as a teenage temptress with a regional accent two years later. Barbara Bouchet is beautiful but bland as Moneypenny, and while I think Daliah Lavi is underrated - she manages to more than hold her own against a Woody Allen at the height of his scene-stealing powers - she's barely in the film.
Also they make Daliah wear this outfit, which is hands down the worst costume any Bond woman has ever worn, and yes I'm including everything Tiffany Case wears.
Joanna Pettet as Mata Bond, on the other hand? Incredible. This is the kind of performance that could've made
Casino Royale a success - a sly, tongue in cheek, naughtily sexy performance that in any just universe would've made her a star.
Casino Royale was only her third film, after a string of guest appearances on American telly, and they threw her up against the likes of David Niven, Anna Quayle, Ronnie Corbett and Bernard Cribbins. I'd argue that she actually outclasses all of them. You can't take your eyes off her.
Yes, she's gorgeous, and rocking a a metal bikini sixteen years before Carrie Fisher. Her dance sequence introduction is the kind of entrance that should've had Hollywood beating at her door, like Cameron Diaz in The Mask. The camera and director absolutely love her. Joanna's face seems to glow out of the screen.
It's more than that, though: Joanna/Mata is funny. Bond Girls are very rarely allowed to be funny. Generally 007 gets all the best lines and when they try to make a girl amusing, they tend to do things to her rather than let her be an active comic partner - think of Tiffany falling off the oil rig, or Goodnight getting locked in a boot, or Stacey thrashing around with a vase while Bond does the actual fighting. Mata gets proper comic lines and scenes and Joanna carries them easily - Eon could've learned a lot from her. I love that moment when Sir James asks her if she learned that language at her fancy finishing school; "no, I taught them," she mutters, subtly, but no less hysterically. She's in comedy scenes with Cribbins and Corbett and very much not being burnt to a crisp. (I'm obsessed with the way she shouts "well I don't 'ave any change!" at Cribbins like she's auditioning for Nancy in Oliver!).
She's also having a ball. The Berlin sequence descends - as with much of
Casino Royale - into frenetic slapstick, with Mata spraying a collection of military personnel with a fire extinguisher. There is a shot of Joanna on the steps, laughing, and I bet if you've seen this film you can absolutely remember that moment because it's pure joy.
Adorable. Unfortunately, as with so much in this amazing mess of a film, she promptly vanishes from the film save for a couple of brief appearances towards the end. I'm guessing these were a late reshoot because by now Mata's had a haircut.
Mia Farrow left gagging. She gets kidnapped in Horseguards Parade by a guardsman (I really wanted them to repeat this sequence with Madeline in
No Time To Die) and then carried away in a flying saucer. She's reduced to being rescued and worse, sidelined, taken out the back entrance by Cooper and not getting to take part in the general insanity of the final fight. She does still get blown up though, which implies Coop stuck her out by the bins rather than taking her and Moneypenny to safety.
Her last line is "Good heavens, Daddy, I couldn't have enjoyed it more!" and you have to agree with her. Casino Royale gets a lot of things wrong, but everything to do with Mata is very, very right. (Except maybe when she says she might've fancied Sir James if he wasn't her dad. That's a bit weird).
