Casino Royale (1967 Film) - Music

Music

The original music is by Burt Bacharach. Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass performed some of the songs with Mike Redway singing the lyrics to the title song as the end credits rolled. (A version of the song was also sung by Peter Sellers.) The title theme was Alpert's second number one on the Easy Listening chart where it spent two weeks at the top in June 1967 and peaked at number twenty-seven on the Billboard Hot 100.

The 4th chapter of the film features the song "The Look of Love" performed by Dusty Springfield. It is played in the scene of Vesper Lynd recruiting Evelyn Tremble, seen through a man-size aquarium in a seductive walk. "The Look of Love" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song. The song was a Top 10 radio hit at the KGB and KHJ radio stations. A year later a version by Sérgio Mendes and Brasil '66 reached #4 of Billboard Hot 100. Springfield's version was heard again in the first Austin Powers film, which was to a degree inspired by Casino Royale. The German version of the film, however, features a German adaptation of "The Look of Love" sung by Mireille Mathieu. To make room for her credit in the film titles, the credit for Jean-Paul Belmondo was removed in the German language version.

John Barry's song "Born Free" was also used in the film. At the time, Barry was the main composer for the Eon Bond series.

The original album cover art was done by Robert McGinnis, based on the film poster and the original stereo vinyl release of the soundtrack (Colgems #COSO-5005) is still highly sought after by audiophiles. It has been regarded by some music critics as the finest-sounding LP of all time. The original LP was later issued by Varèse Sarabande in the same track order as shown below:

Soundtrack listing

1. "Casino Royale Theme" - Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
2. "The Look of Love" - Dusty Springfield
3. "Money Penny Goes for Broke"
4. "Le Chiffre's Torture of the Mind"
5. "Home James, Don't Spare the Horses"
6. "Sir James' Trip to Find Mata"
7. "The Look of Love" (Instrumental)
8. "Hi There Miss Goodthighs"
9. "Little French Boy"
10. "Flying Saucer" - First Stop Berlin
11. "The Venerable Sir James Bond"
12. "Dream On James, You're Winning"
13. "The Big Cowboys and Indians Fight at Casino Royale" / "Casino Royale Theme" (reprise)

Track 5, "Home James...", heard in the film during the brawl at the military auction and Carlton Towers's and Mata Bond's subsequent escape, was re-arranged as "Bond Street", appearing on Bacharach's album Reach Out and on a 45. "Bond Street" itself has since appeared on the early-1990s easy listening compilation CD, This Is...Easy.

One cut conspicuously absent from the earlier film soundtrack issues is the vocal version of the title song, heard over the film's end credits and sung by Mike Redway. The album merely replays the instrumental opening theme in the last track.

However, in 2010, Kritzerland Records issued a remastered version of the soundtrack. This limited edition of 1,000 units presented the original album tracks in two parts. The first part used what survived of the original album masters (as they had suffered wear over the intervening decades, and the remainder of the score was unavailable for use on the reissue), was digitally and sonically restored using current technology, and was re-edited so as the music is presented in the order they appeared in the film. Some previously unreleased brief cues were added to this mix, including the aforementioned vocal version of the end title music. The second part was presented in the original LP order, and to address the issue of the sound quality of vinyl, part two was remastered directly from pristine vinyl copies of the LP.