CASINO ROYALE was the first book and Bond was his most human in it.
Fans of Ian Fleming usually twitch with disgust at even hearing the title of this god-awful film-thank goodness someone FINALLY wanted to do the Fleming novel some justice! In the books, Bond was a bourbon drinking, chain-smoking assassin. It was purported to be a comedy, though practically none of the film was funny and like YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, the plot was impossible to follow and bore no similarity to the book. While some of the characters were retained, the movie was an abysmal mess-a very high budget and confusing mess. Sadly, in a few cases (such as YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE), about the only similarity between the books and the movies were the titles! In fact, the original CASINO ROYALE was a horrid film in practically every way except for the music. While some of the Bond films have been a lot of fun, most have practically nothing to do with the great Ian Fleming novels.
For many years, I have longed to see a James Bond series actually based on the books.
