Sometimes.) and French agent of the Deuxieme Bureau Valerie Mathis - a composite of Fleming's Vesper Lynd and Rene Mathis characters - played by the gorgeous Mexican actress (and wife of Hollywood star Tyrone Power) Linda Christian. Nelson's flat-topped Combined Intelligence Agent 'Card Sense' Jimmy Bond is paired with Clarence Leiter - changed from the Felix Leiter of the novel and now a British agent, possibly as part of some kind of foreign exchange programme with Bond - played by Australian thespian Michael Pate (best known to me through my penchant for the slightly less dignified areas of cinema as the undead gunslinger Drake Robey aka Don Drago Robles in the extraordinary vampire Western Curse of the Undead, and his turns as the President in two Philippe Mora directed spectaculars: The Return of Captain Invincible and Howling III: The Marsupials.

Made and aired as part of CBS' Climax! mystery theatre anthology series (which also went on to feature an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - starring Michael Rennie of Robert Wise's seminal 1951 SF classic The Day the Earth Stood Still) and broadcast live as was the televisual practice of the time, the episode is introduced by host William Lundigan who explains to the audience about the game of baccarat (which i honestly could have done with Martin Campbell 2006 film version doing with the rules of Texas Hold 'Em poker). it wasn't well known', he admitted in an interview), the source novel - the first of Ian Fleming's soon to be world famous series - having only been published two years earlier. Cast as James Bond, 007 - referred to throughout the American adaptation as 'Jimmy' - Nelson was unfamiliar with the character or the material with which he was working ('I was scratching my head wondering how to play it.

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