While Bond explains the rules of baccarat, Leiter explains Bond's mission: to defeat Le Chiffre at baccarat and force his Soviet spymasters to 'retire' him. There he meets his British contact, Clarence Leiter, who remembers 'Card Sense Jimmy Bond' from when he played the Maharajah at Deauville. He dodges the bullets and enters Casino Royale. 'Combined Intelligence' agent James Bond comes under fire from an assassin. The rights to the program were acquired by MGM at the same time as the rights for the 1967 film version, clearing the legal pathway and enabling it to make the 2006 film of the same name.
Both copies are black and white kinescopes, but the original live broadcast was in colour. Most of the largely forgotten show was uncovered by film historian Jim Schoenberger in 1981, with the ending (including credits) found later.
Though this marks the first onscreen appearance of the secret agent, Nelson's Bond is played as an American spy working for the 'Combined Intelligence Agency'. An episode of the American dramatic anthology series Climax!, the show was the first screen adaptation of a James Bond novel, and stars Barry Nelson, Peter Lorre, and Linda Christian. ' Casino Royale' is a live 1954 television adaptation of the 1953 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming.
