Instead, Gregory Ratoff is a footnote. A brilliant, blustering, forgotten fixer who held 007’s golden gun for a moment—and then watched it slip through his fingers.
Because Ratoff was a director, not a mogul. He had no studio backing. He shopped Casino Royale around Hollywood like a used car salesman pitching a prototype. Studios were baffled. gregory ratoff james bond film rights
Suddenly, Feldman was sitting on a goldmine. But he couldn’t make a "real" Bond film (Eon Productions owned the rest of Fleming’s library). So he made the insane, glorious, star-studded 1967 spoof Casino Royale —a movie so chaotic it features five directors, David Niven as an aging Bond, and a closing credits song by Herb Alpert. Instead, Gregory Ratoff is a footnote
In the mid-1950s, Ian Fleming was not a brand. He was a former naval intelligence officer and a Sunday Times columnist writing thrillers for a niche audience. His first Bond novel, Casino Royale (1953), sold respectably, not spectacularly. He had no studio backing
But the true origin story of Bond in cinema begins a decade earlier, with a flamboyant, Russian-born Hollywood director named Gregory Ratoff.
In 1954, Ratoff optioned the film rights to Casino Royale from Fleming for a paltry (plus $6,000 for a full purchase later). Think about that. For less than the cost of a used car today, Ratoff briefly owned the future of pop culture.