Many of the world’s biggest movies have a scene set at a card table or against the glamourous backdrop of the interior of a casino. These environments bring about a ready-made sense of tension, and in some cases, the pivotable moment of the entire plot is based on the turn of a card or which number comes up on the roulette wheel.
Many of these scenes have become iconic as a result, and in some cases, important things went on backstage to make them possible, whether it was in production or while the script was still being put together on the scriptwriter’s typewriter or laptop.
Casino Royale – two movies with the same name but very different stories
There are two tales to tell here, firstly about the 1967 version, initially starring Peter Sellers, and the second about the 2006 incarnation starring Daniel Craig in his first outing as James Bond. They are very different stories, one about a make-and-do plot twist and the other about making a key story point more accessible to a modern audience.
Casino Royale 1967
The team behind this version of Casino Royale had tried several times to get the project off the ground in the years before Sean Connery donned the iconic tuxedo, and by the time they finally got the wheels in motion, the name James Bond was so synonymous with Connery, that they decided to make a spoof instead.
To make this work, they needed to involve a great comic actor, and one of the biggest names around at the time was Peter Sellers, who was brought on board. It was not a match made in heaven, and he proved difficult to work with and walked off the set during production. One rumor was that a studio executive had mistaken Sellers for Woody Allen and moaned to him about what a nightmare Sellers was to work with.
This led to the iconic baccarat scene being very different, with Seller’s role as ‘Evelyn Tremble’ now truncated and various other actors all playing ‘James Bond’.
Casino Royale 2006
Of course, the newer version of the movie is very different, not just in the tone or the profile of the main actor involved, but because the iconic baccarat scene with Le Chiffre does not use baccarat at all. It was changed to a different game entirely.
The problem was that in 2006, very few people knew what baccarat was. So, rather than hinge the plot of such a large movie on a game that most people would have to Google, they changed things around so that it was centered around a Texas Hold’ Em tournament, a game that was considerably better known and already played by many people themselves at the best online gambling sites.
Rounders – two stars research their roles and nearly hit the jackpot
Of course, there were many movies with iconic gambling scenes in them, but the scenes in 1998’s Rounders look that bit more authentic for one good reason – some proper ‘real world’ research by two of the film’s stars, Matt Damon and Ed Norton.
They both entered the $10K buy-in Texas Hold’ Em World Series event to get some hands-on experience of what it would be like, and it nearly paid off big too. Matt Damon had pocket kings, which would have carried the day in most situations, but this was beaten by Doyle Brunson, a former world champion who had pocket aces.
