In 1954 CBS paid Ian Fleming a mere $1,000 US dollars to adapt Casino Royale into a one hour television adventure as part of their Climax! series ( see below). Jonathan Cape, the publishers of the first British edition, would publish the first hardcover editions of every Bond novel (with the exception of novelizations) until No Deals, Mr.

It ran from July 7 to December 13, 1958, and was written by Anthony Hern and illustrated by John McLusky the strip was reprinted by Titan Books in the early 1990s a new reprint by Titan is planned for publication in 2005. But Le Chiffre is assassinated by SMERSH, Vesper commits suicide and her body is discovered by Bond, who reports to his superiors, tersely, 'The bitch is dead now.'Ĭasino Royale was the first James Bond novel to be adapted as a daily comic strip which was published in the British Daily Express newspaper, and syndicated worldwide. With her unwilling connivance, Bond is captured and tortured by Le Chiffre. But she is holding a terrible secret - she is actually a Russian double agent and under orders to see that Bond does not escape Le Chiffre. Bond having provided Leiter with a small stake to help him maintain his cover.īond has been provided with an assistant sent out from MI6, the (of course) beautiful but emotionally turbulent Vesper Lynd, who becomes his lover. After several nights intensive play, he manages to beat Le Chiffre, but only with extra money that Felix Leiter in attendance as a covert observer won on the roulette wheel. Monsieur Le Chiffre, 'the cipher', is an agent for the Soviet assassination bureau SMERSH, running a baccarat game at a French casino to raise needed operational funds-namely, to recover SMERSH's money that he (Le Chiffre) lost in a failed attempt to establish a chain of brothels.Įxpert baccarat player James Bond (British secret agent 007), is assigned the job of beating Le Chiffre, in the hope that the agent's gambling debts will provoke SMERSH's killing him. Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

Casino royale 1954 summary