March 19

Ursula Andress

To celebrate Ursula Andress’ birthday, I watched Casino Royal (1967). I have seen the film many times. It is a long complicated story, which really doesn’t make a lot of sense. It is a good parody. It is great music written by Burt Bacharach with the great Herb Alpert theme song. The who’s who of Hollywood actors (including some English actors) are in the film. John Houston didn’t do many comedies which may have helped the film be more serious than a Mel Brooks film, even though it does have some strange moments.

I will focus on Ursula’s story line. She is a beautiful blonde actress. Where most of the cast seemed to be playful and over the top, she was very serious in her role. She plays Vesper Lynd a successful business woman who buys and/or owns national monuments like Rockefeller Center, Lord Nelson’s statue and the Eiffel Tower. Sir James Bond played by David Niven visits her to make a deal to get her 5 million pound tax in arrears get reduced. She meets Peter Sellers at a casino and the song The Look of Love starts to play. When he goes to her room, the camera is on one side of a large aquarium and they walk on the other side. Dusty Springfield voice fills the screen. It is slow motion and the feathers on Ursula’s dress flutter like angel wings. She flashes her piercing/seductive eyes and they go into the bedroom. The next scene they are in her bedroom, Peter doing push ups and Ursula in a pink negligee circling her bed with feathers or paper pink hearts fluttering around like bubbles. She is once again in slow motion. I always liked that part, she looks like she is in a snow globe. She convinces Peter to play another man at baccarat, Orson Wells under the name James Bond. I don’t really understand the part where she has him dress up as Hitler, Napoleon and Lautrec and takes his picture. When they are at the casino she stands next to Peter, so most of the time you only see her from the shoulders down, which admittedly she is very attractive. Whey they leave the casino she is kidnapped. Peter goes to Orson to get her back. He is in a real life nightmare where he is trapped in a Scottish bagpipe march. Ursula is member of the players. She has a machine gun bag pipe and kills everyone but Peter. She says “never trust a rich spy” and she kills Peter. Much later in the film she goes to the casino to kill David. Everybody is fighting everybody. Woody Allen is a human time bomb. He explodes and everybody dies.