January 12, 2024: AmericanStudying Columbia Pictures: Matt Helm and Casino Royale

[January10th marks the 100th anniversary of the renaming,rebranding, and relaunchof Columbia Pictures, one of the foundational and most iconicAmerican film studios. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful ofColumbia’s many film innovations over its first few decades, leading up to aspecial weekend tribute to one of our preeminent 21st centuryFilmStudiers!]

On twoways Columbia tried to capitalize on the popularity of the spy series that gotaway.

Mosthugely successful film series probably have at least a studio or two who canlook back regretfully at having passed on the chance to produce them—the Lord of the Rings films have ahandful, for example—and in the case of Columbia Pictures, I can’t imagine abigger “one that got away” in the studio’s century of history than the JamesBond films. Columbia apparently had the chance to partner with s EonProductions to produce the Bond films when they first began to be adapted fromIan Fleming’s bestselling novels in the early 1960s, but the studio passed, and theresult is only one of the longest-running and most successful filmfranchises of all time. (To be fair, Columbia did eventuallybecome attached to the series in its 21st century incarnation starringDaniel Craig as the superspy, as part of the studio’s partnership with SonyPictures; but still, that’s nearly 50 years of prior James Bond films that thestudio could have been part of.)

It didn’ttake long for Columbia to realize that they had missed out, and in 1965, withthe fourth Bond film in four years about to be released, they decided to jumpinto the spy film game, working with a former producing partner of Broccoli’s () just incase the Bond associations weren’t clear enough. But they did so in aninteresting way: purchasing the rights to a serious and clearlyFleming-inspired spy series, DonaldHamilton’s Matt Helm novels (the first 9 of which had been publishedbetween 1960 and 1965, with another 18 to come before the seriesconcluded in the 1990s); but deciding to make the film adaptations of thosenovels into silly spoofs, starring Dean Martin as awisecracking, light-hearted revision of Hamilton’s tough-as-nails character.Four of a planned five such films were eventually produced, beginning with1966’s The Silencers and Murderers’ Row and continuing with The Ambushers (1967) and The Wrecking Crew (1969); the films wererelatively unsuccessful, however, and Martin abandoned the character before thefifth and final film could be made.

Well, ifyou can’t parody them obliquely, parody them directly, as the saying mostdefinitely does not go. ProducerCharles Feldman had acquired the film rights to Fleming’s first Bond novel,Casino Royale (1953), in 1960, andhad tried unsuccessfully to make it for Eon Productions with Broccoli. SoFeldman decided to make the film into a satire instead, and with the Matt Helmfilms not really taking off Columbia came on board as the studio. The resulting 1967 film wasquite the sprawling affair, with five credited directors (including John Huston!),three credited writers, and a truly stunning list of actors on board, includingformer Bond girl UrsulaAndress playing one of six “James Bonds” and none other than Orson Welles playing Bond’schief adversary Le Chiffre. Casino Royalewas significantly more successful than the Helm films (it grossed over $40million worldwide, compared to the $7 million of the most successful Helm film),and, even more importantly I’m sure for the studio that had passed on Bond,became and remains a part of the James Bond cinematic legacy as well as thelong story of Columbia Pictures.

Specialpost this weekend,

Ben