So, the first film about the famous British spy James Bond was not the "Dr. No". The first actor who played the 007 was not Sean Connery. First studio picture starring pro elegant mi6 agent is not Eon Productions. In 1954, CBS director Gregory Ratoff Ian Fleming buys the film rights to the first novel of the famous series, in 1000 dollars, and the money at the time were not low. After watching this television plays, 50 minutes long, I still have mixed feelings. Watch the first movie about the 007 was my old dream, but I will not say that I am very pleased seen. After all the action games that show recently, hardly somebody to watch the drama began 50 years ago, even the most about James Bond, except that loyal fans Bond as I am. The role of the main character in this film takes Barry Nelson. On it remains ambiguous impression. Outwardly, he is not like any one of the actors performing the role of an agent later with two zeros in the official films. "His face was a rustic" said my friend, who like me is a fan of James Bond. Since it is hard to disagree - in appearance he is not like Bond, but as most of acting, then there is another matter. 007 appeared before us in such a way and it described Fleming - glamorous spy ironically cracking down with any task, always knows how to defuse his subtle humor, people coming out of the water dry in the most seemingly difficult situations. Watch or not watch your work. I would recommend this movie for those who enjoys watching a film about the legendary spy. And if you look James Bond films only when nothing else to watch on TV, then you should refrain from watching this movie, and then you just go bad impression about the 007!

A lot has to be forgiven here. First, this is a recording of a live performance - when something went wrong, they were stuck with it; and since this is cheaply made, they had little rehearsal time, so a quite a number of things go wrong. Secondly, the surviving recording is incomplete and not very good. Third, the producers of the show were trying to make the British Ian Fleming's break-out novel accessible to American audiences only familiar with American espionage B-movies, a '50s genre that has not gotten preserved, so most people now will not be familiar with the drab back-alley feel of this show drawn from that genre. And that the producers felt the need to go this route shows that they themselves really had little understanding of where Fleming was coming from - which was really Somerset Maugham's "Ashenden, or the British Agent," filmed in the early '30s by Alfred Hitchcock. And really, prime Hitchcock is the director Fleming would have had in mind while writing this book. But despite his popularity, Hitchcock himself remained an anomaly in Hollywood throughout the '50s. His ability to shock audiences was well known, but his capacity for sophisticated wit and subtle irony were not easy for most Americans to grasp at the time.So too Fleming's subversive sense of what at last became known as the "anti-hero" - a man as ruthless as his enemies, able to seduce and destroy women with a glance, then quietly order breakfast in a luxury hotel as if nothing happened. For Fleming, this was a means of preserving the "hard-boiled" detective tradition while at the same time raising uncomfortable questions about what it meant to live comfortably middle-class in cold-war England. Never pointed enough to threaten middle-class readers, but enough to raise their anxiety level to the point of continued interest in the James Bond series.There's none of that here - the romance is played straight, and the only sophistication comes in the gambling scene. The rest bulls through or stumbles along as one might expect from an American genre thriller of the time.The major plus factors here are the performances. Most of the cast is miscast, but performs energetically despite that; Peter Lorre performs very weakly, but he happens to be perfectly cast - he is the definitive Le Chiffre! That surprising discovery is reason enough to find this show and give it a view, at least for Bond aficionados.

This is not your typical James Bond movie as we know James Bond today. I purchased it on video cassette and started watching it and was surprised to find a black and white movie in which James Bond is a CIA Agent and his counter part Felix Leiter is a British Secret Service agent. As far as action goes in this movie, it is a 1950's style of fights and action, do not expect it to be what you are used to. For something filmed years ago and seen today it is not the best, but for something of its time period it is a good film. The casino sequences are the majority of the movie. There are very few scenes set or shot outside the casino in this film. The actors did a good job of portraying the characters and setting the tone for the action to come. If you are a true James Bond fan then this is a must see movie for you, if not then don't waste your time.

This film is a bit of an oddity. It was a live TV play, made a decade before Sean Connery appeared in Dr No. It's nothing like the Bond films we all know and love - anyone expecting action set-pieces will be disappointed as the whole play/film takes place on 2 sets.THE GOOD POINTS: 1. A rare little gem, bringing James Bond to the screen for the first time. 2. One of the closest adaptations of Ian Fleming's works. 3. Peter Lorre - very good villain.THE BAD POINTS: 1. Renaming James Bond as "Card-Sense Jimmy Bond". Oh. My. God. 2. Making Bond a Yank. Americans seem to have this need to take credit away from the Brits for everything (Don't even get me started on U-571). 3. They made Felix Leiter a Brit and renamed him Clarence. Sigh...Anyway, gripes aside it IS worth seeking out if you're a fan. It's available in 2 versions as far as I am aware. The version I have is about an hour long, but there are rumours of a longer version which continues from where the other left off in which the villain returns from the dead to carry on the fight a bit more.