The Casino, the public gardens and the two main hotels were refurbished and Paris jewellers and couturiers were given rent-free sites on which to establish branches. Encouraged by the post-war revival of Brighton and Nice, in 1950 Royale-les-Eaux was identified as a potential source of revenue by a Paris syndicate which invested funds on behalf of exiled Vichyites. Royale's renaissance came after the Second World War. The town thereafter survived on seaside holidaymakers in the summer and its small fishing fleet in the winter, as well as 'the crumbs which fell to its elegantly dilapidated Casino from the table at Le Touquet'. But since then the once popular coastal town had fallen on hard times, losing business to the towns of Le Touquet and Deauville. There had been a casino at Royale (as the town was formerly named) since the 19th century. He has a chance at happiness with Vesper in Venice, but it's not long before this movie goes the tragic romance route of 'On Her Majesty's Service.' Their relationship is visualized as a sinking house of lies.Casino Royale is located in the fictional French seaside resort of Royale-les-Eaux. You've stripped it from me,' he says while recovering - we finally understand how the callousness he develops toward women might be grounded in realistic hurt. He has to literally gird his loins against torture at the hands of Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) and just generally rely on brute force rather than cheesy one-liners.Īfter meeting Vesper and seeing the effect she has on him - 'I have no armor left.

Emotionally stunted in most other respects, this Bond is more of a 'blunt instrument' and a hardened survivor of all kinds of pain.

Vesper is also vulnerable: never more so than during the shower of angst, where Bond comforts her after evading a machete in a stairwell fight for the ages. At one point, when Bond orders a vodka martini, the bartender asks him, 'Shaken or stirred?' Bond knows that we know the answer to that question, so he just says, 'Do I look like I give a damn?'

Casino royale 007