The show opens with James Bond ( Barry Nelson) coming under fire while arriving at the world-famous gaming establishment Casino Royale and as the show unfolds we quickly learn that Bond has been brought in to bankrupt a notorious Russian operative named Le Chiffre ( Peter Lorre) at baccarat, the reason for this is that Le Chiffre has gambled away money belonging to the Soviet Union and unless he wins big his masters will have him killed. What’s even stranger is the fact that Nelson wasn’t an American playing a Brit as this particular adaptation makes Bond an American agent working for the “Combined Intelligence Agency.”Īired as an entry in the CBS dramatic anthology series Climax! this adaptation of Casino Royale does follow the source material fairly closely, well, as close as you can be for an hour-long show that changes the nationality of James Bond from Brit to American. If you are out for a pub trivia night and the question arises “Who was the first person to play James Bond?” do not be so quick to yell out Sean Connery because back in 1954 CBS televised a live broadcast of an adaptation of Ian Fleming’s novel Casino Royale which starred American actor Barry Nelson, the only American to date to play Britain’s greatest spy.

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