Roger Ebert’s review of Casino Royale left no room for doubt: the 1967 entry in James Bond films was, in his words, “Absolutely gaga.” He reviewed 14 official installments and two red-headed stepchildren across his career, but only three of those Bond films earned four stars.
That short list matters because it shows how selective Ebert was with the franchise. Sean Connery’s Goldfinger, Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale, and Skyfall were the only Bond films he rated at four stars, even as he treated the 1967 Casino Royale as a complete outlier.
Goldfinger and Daniel Craig
Three four-star ratings across 14 official installments is a sharp cutoff, not a generous pattern. Ebert’s top tier for the series was narrow, and it spanned Sean Connery and Daniel Craig rather than a single era. Fans of the James Bond franchise got a critic who could admire the series at its best, but only when the movie met a very high bar.
The contrast is strongest with Casino Royale, because Ebert treated one film title as both a peak and a collapse. His praise for one Casino Royale did not carry over to the 1967 release, which he described as a film where everybody working on it went simultaneously berserk.
Casino Royale and Skyfall
Ebert’s language on the 1967 Casino Royale was even harsher than a routine rejection. He called it “At one time or another, Casino Royale undoubtedly had a shooting schedule, a script, and a plot,” then added, “In the meantime, the present version is a definitive example of what can happen when everybody working on a film goes simultaneously berserk.” He also said, “This is possibly the most indulgent film ever made,” followed by, “Anything goes,” and “Consistency and planning must have seemed the merest whimsy.”
The source frames that film as star-studded, chaotic, and altogether bizarre, with David Niven and Orson Welles involved in the behind-the-scenes turmoil during the making of Casino Royale. Ebert’s review lands as more than a thumbs-down; it is a record of how far one James Bond title could drift from the discipline he found in the franchise’s strongest entries.
During the making
Released in 1967, the film sat inside a franchise that now stretches across more than 60 years and 25 movies, yet Ebert still singled it out as uniquely unruly. He also said the title was “possibly the most indulgent film ever made,” which leaves little doubt about where he placed it in the Bond hierarchy. His final description, “Absolutely gaga,” is the line that sticks because it compresses the whole review into two words.
For readers comparing Ebert’s Bond record, the useful takeaway is simple: his four-star approvals were rare, and Casino Royale only made that club in its later Daniel Craig form. The 1967 film did the opposite, becoming the one James Bond title he dismissed with the kind of contempt that turned a review into a verdict.
