Le Chiffre

And I think straight away, once you get out of this sequence, once you get out of this theme song and this credit sequence, it takes you to a place that's nowhere near the novel.

It takes you to Uganda, where we meet Le Chiffre, And he's meeting with the Ugandan warlord whose money he's going to use as part of this, the plan involving the Sky Fleet plane, as we will later find out, and shorting the stock exchange, etc.

Now, obviously, in the book, it's the same concept that MI6 send Bond in to discredit Le Chiffre, essentially, to get him to come over and spill his secrets.

but the context is very different and it all takes place in a very contained space.

Whereas this straight away introduces the villain, but puts him in a place that is showing that the Casino Royale as a story can actually extend beyond the confines of the casino.

You know, so he is... he's not somebody that you necessarily know what he's going to do.

You might have him with some previous Bond villains in the past, etc.

So he's got that cool Scandinavian urbanity about him, Le Chiffre, which is...

No, not everyone.

Le Chiffre is gaunt thin.

Because, you know, I just don't think we should sort of, you know, we don't need to put anything onto Mads Mikkelsen.

Yeah, I think.

My name is Chris Clemmick, and today my firm but fair cinematic jurisprudence shall determine which one of a pair of thematically linked movies, each represented by a passionate and highly credentialed advocate, shall be preserved in perpetuity like...

Orson Welles' performance as Le Chiffre in the 1967 parody Casino Royale, and which shall be consigned to oblivion like Welles' 131-minute cut of The Magnificent Ambersons.

I have used that simile before, but it works better for this episode because our noir-vember deathmatch is a showdown between two of the shadowiest, most intrigue-packed films noir from the genre's mid-century peak, both featuring indelible heel turns from Mr. Welles.

He also rewrote and directed... one of them

And that is a way of almost making then The difference is that this is a Cold War character instead of somebody who was actually fighting the war.

In Casino Royale, the first James Bond book, he's definitely, Le Chiffre is definitely an agent of the Russians and that's kind of it.

But it's

interesting, isn't it, how the films

pupil area.

Sorry, Le Chiffre, you've got to cover up the bleeding eyes when you're pushing all in.

He comes back to the table, two eye patches.

Can someone tell me what card's that? I've got so much

blood in my

eyes, I can't see my cards.

Okay, I'm all in against Le Chiffre.

I don't think he's got it.

He has got the deadest eye.

He has got, like, it's worse than, like, the bloody tear with Le Chiffre.

His eyes can't even cry blood.

I mean, could any of them not be? I mean, Teal would be amazing.

Mads Milkinson's performance, I just like that guy a lot.

So I might play a couple chapters just so I get to him and be like, oh, yeah, it's Le Chiffre.

Good.

Moving on.