Yet the ability to make an authorized 007 movie from an official Ian Fleming book made it easy for Feldman raise money - a LOT of money. But what could Feldman do with them? The public image of James Bond was Sean Connery, and competing directly with Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli's official United Artists series was seen as an unwise move. The film rights to Ian Fleming's first 007 novel Casino Royale had been sold very soon after publication, and several years later they were acquired by the legendary agent-turned-producer Charles K. The absolutely craziest Bond was a bona fide production with a strange pedigree. Even after television got into the act, the market stayed bullish for secret agents.

Dozens of filmic imitators rushed to compete with the four or five official Bond movies: serious espionage stories, cartoonish escapism, silly comedies, and knock-offs from every country with a film industry. The Beatles may have been the number one sensation but from approximately 1964 to 1969, Ian Fleming's James Bond reshaped the film landscape into big letters reading, '007.' As embodied by Sean Connery, a handsome bruiser with a lady-killing smile, Her Majesty's dashing Cold Warrior held the center of international attention. If you think we have movie fads now - Indiana Jones, Batman, Harry Potter - they were nothing like the Bond mania that swept the world in the 1960s. 'Charlie Feldman said, 'You've done so much on this picture for me, I'm going to give you an extra credit title: Coordinating Director.' And I said well if you do that Charlie, I'll sue you! 'What do you mean?' I said, people are going to look at this and say, ' This was coordinated?' Feldman, Jerry Bresler, John Darkĭirected by Val Guest, Ken Hughes, John Huston, Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish Woody Allen, Val Guest, Ben Hecht, Joseph Heller, Terry Southern, Billy Wilder, Peter Sellers Written by Wolf Mankowitz, John Law, Michael Sayers and uncredited, John Huston, Kurt Kasznar, George Raft, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Terence Cooper, Barbara Bouchet,

Joanna Pettet, Daliah Lavi, Woody Allen, Deborah Kerr, William Holden, Charles Boyer, Starring: Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress, David Niven, Orson Welles,

Casino royale 1967 lava lamp