Hits 21 - Scores On the Doors (2): David Arnold's Casino Royale

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

A new bonus episode of Scores On the Doors. Andy from Hits 21 takes a deep dive into some of Hollywood's most famous soundtracks and scores.

["Pomp and Circumstance"] Hello there, and welcome to the second edition of Scores on the Doors. I'm Andy and I'll be your host, and yes it seems that the first instalment of this little project was successful enough that we're returning for Scores on the Doors 2 Electric Boogaloo or perhaps 2 Scores 2 Furious or perhaps even Scores on the Doors The Squeak Wool. In case you missed the first episode of this spin-off from Pits21, this is a solo show for me where I'm talking through a selection of film soundtracks that I find particularly interesting or rich or clever or all three and I'm analysing them for your pleasure one at a time. You can find that first episode that I did in the Hits21

feed do give it a listen if you fancy a more full introduction. Last time we covered Pixar Classic Up a film that's full of the warm fuzzies and gentle melancholy. It's quite a shift then for this instalment because we're heading back to 2006 to discuss the James Bond classic Casino Royale. Directed by Martin Campbell and starring Daniel Craig, Eva Green and Mads Mikkelsen, this film has a score composed by Bond veteran David Arnold and of course being a Bond film it also has an original song from Chris Cornell which we'll also be discussing. At this point we're nearly five decades into the cinematic Bond mythos, but this instalment represented the first and to this date only full reboot of the series, which went right back to the very start and adapted the very first Bond novel by Ian Fleming, looking at

Bond's origins and how he became the hardened, slick, ultra-cool super-spy that we all know so well. I think this is a brilliant film by any metric and probably, in fact very probably, the best Bond film full stop. But for me, the secret ingredient of Casino Royale is its score. Bursting with energy, emotion, and a clear narrative through line, it's a fully assembled piece of work in its own right. Before we start unpacking the score, let's listen to a few highlights.

Take it away, David Arnold. ["The Last Post-Chorus"] So The The The End I'm sorry. So that's a quick sample of the Casino Royale soundtrack from David Arnold. You just heard clips of Miami International, African Rundown, Vespa and Aston Montenegro in that order. All of those tracks, along with almost everything else we'll be hearing in this episode, are available in all of your usual streaming spots as part of the Casino Royale original soundtrack. So the question that I'm always going to try and answer first, with this one being no exception, is why this? Why, of all the Bond films, let alone of all other films, have I chosen Casino Royale?

And there are a few reasons. Firstly, this holds a special place in my heart. Me and my best friend really connected over this film when we were younger, and particularly the score. During high school we each became so obsessed with this that we could perform entire six minute or so segments of it between us a cappella, knowing who does each part and having a whole routine worked out for it. Some of you have your sports teams or your big parties. We had performing long segments of the Casino Royale soundtrack just for ourselves. There's a place for everyone in the world. But I think it struck a chord so much because of the other reason that I'm picking this, which is that this score is a story. Not a story that really needs the film to accompany

it to work, in fact. It's a full and complete story that has clear, distinct characters, clear musical plot points and moments of tension, and most importantly of all, the neat trick it does to tie the whole thing together. To fully explain how the soundtrack does that trick and creates the story of this Daniel Craig dude, whoever he is, becoming the James Bond that we know, it's necessary to get familiar with the song from the start of the film, You Know My Name by Chris Cornell. Here's a brief snippet of that song just to remind you. You can't deny the prize, it may never fulfill you It longs to kill you, are you willing to die? The coldest blood runs through my veins, you know my name If you come inside, things will not be the same

When you return tonight If you think you won, you never saw me change The game that we have been playing I've seen this diamond cut through heart of men Then you yourself, only feel much reason You made me to run So this song, aside from it being an absolute belter in my opinion, deliberately sounds similar to the Bond theme itself, but with some distinct melodic differences. Harmonically though, it is very, very similar

to the James Bond theme. The chords running in the background are extremely evocative of those famous Bond chords. You can most clearly hear this during the final moments of the song. Listen here for those famous Bond chords. You know my name is established right from the start as not just the obligatory song for the film, but as the central musical theme of Casino Royale, which is actually surprisingly rare for a Bond film, believe it or not. Usually the songs they sort of show up in the

score for a few cursory appearances just to kind of embed them into the story a bit more just to remind us that we're still in this film. Usually you see them with establishing shots or things like that and a few films particularly in the Connery era use them more heavily but Casino Royale breaks new ground here by actually centering it thematically, by centering the whole score very heavily around You Know My Name, with developments, rearrangements and evolutions. You Know My Name represents the Bond that we see in this film. He's energetic, raw, unpolished and young and youthful. It's important to note from a plot perspective that the whole

opening sequence before the titles kick in and before that song starts is building up to Bond's first kill and with it the iconic gun barrel sequence that's appeared in every James Bond movie up to this point, which seeing that for the first time canonically sort of thematically fires the starting gun on this character's journey. And so the seeds of the full James Bond character are there, but he has a lot of learning to do throughout this film, which is pretty much what the film's about. And so the score's primary purpose, the sort of primary objective of it all the way through, is gradually developing You Know My Name into the classic James Bond theme, going from one to the other. They're similar enough to tease at it a lot throughout the film, and by never quite reaching

the full Bond theme until the very end. By doing that it creates a suitably clear moment of climax and a story having been well and fully and satisfyingly told. It's a very simple objective, move from one theme to another, but they have to do it over nearly two and a half hours and it means that the score itself is telling a story, doing it incrementally step by step, as one musical character gradually turns into a different musical character in a fluid and gradual way. What really helps that along the way is that it's so easy to make You Know My Name sound like the Bond theme before pulling the rug on us as they do so many times throughout the film. The next clip I'm going to play

from is a very good example of that which is a track titled Blunt Instrument. It's pretty early in the film and it's where Bond arrives at his first exotic locale for some spy work, I believe he's in the Bahamas or somewhere like that. The opening chords play on their own for a moment which makes us think this is the Bond theme but it isn't. You Know My Name starts playing instead as the melody kicks in reminding us that although this is a Bond film and we have those vibes he is not fully here yet.'s very clever have a listen Ah, you see, it really does sound like it's about to do the full Bond theme there, but he's not here yet.

He's on his way, but he's not here yet. He's on his way but he's not here yet. Other pieces lean even further into this utilizing the melody of You Know My Name to just kind of tweak it at the edges and start pushing it further towards the Bond theme really kind of talking to the audience and making us realize yes we know he's nearly here. This segment that I'm about to play from a track titled I'm the Money comes about a third of the way through the film and it accentuates the following three notes in the song's melody. Arm yourself because no one else here will save you. Excuse my singing there but I hope you get the point and if I take out those three notes it's... It's the Bond chords again. Have a listen. So that song, I'm the Money, it's performed in the sweeping, lush style of the Connery

and More era films really, and when you combine that sound with the storytelling that we've been talking about, there's quite a hint happening there. As the film progresses, the nods to the Bond theme become more and more obvious, and if we think of those two themes as sitting on a scale together, you know my name on one side and the James Bond theme on the other, for the first half of the film at least, you know my name is tipping the scales, and it's winning the battle there, it's the more obvious of the two. But once we arrive

at the titular Casino Royale and familiar Bond tropes start being thrown at us in regularity, it's arguable that the scales tip the other way and the James Bond theme starts becoming the more obvious theme of the two, even though it's still emerging from the shadows and it's never really going beyond the edges of the theme, it's only ever a hint, but it's a very obvious hint once we get to a certain point. Here's a good example of that, in a track called Dinner Jackets. Here Bond puts on a high class tuxedo for the first time and he looks at himself in the mirror. It's noted as a key moment of Bond becoming Bond. He's wearing the tuxedo, he looks like James Bond. So we do hear You Know My Name but this time with heavily emphasized chords in the background. A slow tempo which allows those first notes

of the melody to sound just like the Bond theme rather than You Know My Name. And at the end and a little bit in the middle as well some slick little trumpet notes that sound very reminiscent of the end, and a little bit in the middle as well, some slick little trumpet notes that sound very reminiscent of the Bond theme and that classic Bond sound. It's still a gradual step, but this is a fairly noticeable step that he's edging ever closer to the sound we're familiar with. Let's listen to Dinner Jackets and notice how the Bond theme is more obvious here than you know my name is. I'm not going to dwell on every single step along this journey for one theme turning into the other, because frankly there are about a hundred of them and we haven't gone all

day and I'm sure you're getting the point here. It's a pretty clever thing that David Arnold is doing and it's so pleasant to hear this happening over a long form as well. When you actually sit and listen to this while watching the film I just find that so satisfying to listen to. But I will stop and make one more visit though to a scene where Mads Mikkelsen's LaShifra has Bond poisoned, causing him to attempt to somehow save his own life from poisoning using nothing other than a snazzy first aid kit at his car and a mobile phone. He gets there, in the end, with quite a bit of help from Eva Green's Vespa, and we'll be talking about hair a lot more, just you wait. And in this moment, this is such a ridiculous and frankly cool bit of Bond heroics

that we're treated to a brief airing of those Bond chords with for the first time no support from You Know My Name because in this moment he's pure Bond and the scales are truly tipping. This is Dirty Martini, listen out to that ending. Now, of course, by this point, if you're watching and or listening for the first time, you probably know where this is heading. I'm going to follow the film's example and save that until the very end, sorry. But this whole dynamic that we've been watching unfold is a good way to demonstrate how David Arnold and Chris Cornell approach this film musically and ideologically. We've started with a theme that has its own identity and sound, but on paper is similar enough to the Bond theme to be strongly suggesting at it.

Throughout the film, that theme is changing, morphing into a theme that we already know from years gone by. And so for the story of this score to work fully, it assumes that everyone engaging with this film will be familiar with the James Bond theme. And to be fair, that's probably true, I mean how many people watched this and didn't at least recognise the theme. But this essentially means that we are, all of us, in on the joke. Bond isn't, none of the characters are. They don't know this is an origin story, of course they don't, but we do, and so we are given a musical story that has a real world significance, not just an in-universe one. This is an example of the audience being treated as what film music

theory describes as viewer listeners. That's both things at once with a hyphen, viewer listeners. We're not just viewers of the film and we're certainly not sat there ignoring the film and purely indulging in the music. We are doing both, somewhat consciously and somewhat unconsciously. We're aware of multiple levels of the text and therefore that created a room for the composer to make some points that the film itself might not be making and to cast a wry eye out at the audience. Chris Cornell notably didn't write a song called Casino Royale for this film, despite

almost every other Bond film up to this point having a title track that shares its title and the main lyric with the film. Some of them wise, like Goldfinger, some of them not so wise like making a song called The Man With The Golden Gun. Go listen to that one in your spare time, you won't regret it. Cornell commented at the time that a song called Casino Royale sounded like some Tony Bennett jazz number to click your fingers to and there's enough of that already in Bond, so why not do something different and make this version of Bond feel truly fresh and new? David Arnold also noted that by simply doing what composers always do and dining out on the Bond theme, it wouldn't be getting the best out of this film or posing any challenge to the viewer listener.

If Bond is walking around in his theme, as it were, for the whole film, then what do we gain from this score? What story are we being told? What's the challenge? Instead, we and Bond have to earn that theme. That's the conflict of the score. We have to earn that theme, just like Bond has to earn his stripes.

I find stuff like that extremely interesting, that when you learn to speak this language you'll often find composers interacting with you in ways that a film can't do. Just one of the many lovely rewards of film music. But I've talked for ages. Here, let's have some action music! The I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this, but I'm going to try. I'm going to try to get the The The So that is a relatively short part actually of an over 12 minute piece called Miami International, which scores the full sequence where Bond learns of, intervenes in, and then thwarts, a Bond threat at Miami International Airport. Oh and along the way he finds time to kill a terrorist in the Body Works museum, take a luxurious taxi ride through the city streets, and bypass Richard Branson at airport security,

such is the life of Bond, I guess. And this piece is just relentless all the way through. What you just heard there, that tension, that momentum all the way, it is just like that, all through those 12 minutes and I can't really think of many other films that have continuous action music running for that long. And I don't really have anything intelligent to say about it other than it's bloody good and bloody thrilling all the way through. Action music is an essential requirement for any Bond composer and it's one of David Arnold's special skills. There is so much fantastic action music in this film which manages to enthrall while still containing thematic content and adding

to the musical story of the film. I'm gonna take a close look now at the opening track of the soundtrack which comes right after the opening titles in the film and it's called African Rundown. This is the six minute plus piece that I was talking about at the start that my best friends and I could and probably still can perform off my heart and it's simply some of the best action music that I've ever heard. Listen to the opening segment of it here, building intention throughout and all doing so while working frantically to establish Craig's bond as a character with You Know My Name taking centre

stage in the action and showcasing the youthful, reckless energy of this bond. Hold on to your hats while we go through African Rundown. The End The So this piece plays while Bond chases a bomb maker through a town, through a construction site, and through the streets before ending with what M, played by Judy Dench, will memorably describe as shooting up an embassy. At this stage in his career Bond is desperate to prove himself and so he runs in all guns blazing into this relentless chase sequence, never slowing down, never giving up or performing a tactical retreat for any reason, he just fires through and as such this piece of music has to demonstrate two things. First, Bond's character by playing You Know My Name at the forefront of this piece and secondly

by focusing on the element that is African Rundown's greatest strength, the sheer momentum of it. Listen to this segment from later in the piece as Bond faces several different environments, all of which nearly slow him down but they fail to do so. The tension in the music signals that he might be forced to stop but that rhythm and that energy carries us through from section to section, assuring us that he is not going to stop. In fact it seems to increase the momentum like he's being powered by these obstacles. Let's have another listen. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this, but I'm going to try.

I'm going to try to get the Isn't that brilliant? You may have noticed a change of instrumentation there as well. That as we first start we're going through a construction site into a building so there's a slight change of dynamic there and we get out onto a platform where Bon needs to take a quick elevator down to the bottom to be able to keep up and that's when that staring melodic line in the background comes in and as he gets to the bottom and conquers that elevator it suddenly turns into the African Ternish percussion again because he's out on the streets heading towards that embassy that he's about to shoot up.

The less said about that the better. But it's just simple tricks. Rhythm, differences in melody to indicate different environments and differences in harmony with that as well and differences in instrumentation but all anchored by that constant rhythm it's a fantastic piece of music it's really just a textbook for me as far as I'm concerned in how to do action music and there's so much great action music littered throughout this film. One of the very best pieces comes from the end of the film. Now I'm shooting ahead a little bit here because there's a core element that I haven't discussed yet but while we're on the theme of

action music I have to reference this. This is a really great example of storytelling in Casino Royale not just in a musical sense or in a narrative sense but actually creating a metaphor, managing to create a bigger picture here that this film means something and this story means something in the Bond mythos beyond what we are just watching. I'm talking about the scene at the end where Bond has been betrayed by seemingly the love of his life, Vesper, and he finds himself battling a bunch of different hitmen and snipers in a house in Venice. They do damage to the house and it starts to fall and sink into the river underneath them. This is, as you may have possibly

guessed, this is titled Fall of a House in Venice and what this piece does is it gives us a wider scope for what is happening here because this is at the end of the film and yes it's a moment of climax so you want the sense of tension to be at its highest you want the drama to be at its highest but this is also a big moment in the development of the character this is Bond having seemingly achieved a happy life, having achieved it the way that he wanted to. That he has defeated all the bad guys and yes he got bruised along the way but he's recovered. He's managed to leave the surreptitious, the sinister spy life behind and he's found the love of his life who he's moved away to the

seas of Europe with and is now living a nomadic life with loads of money and a heart full of love for Vesper. Who could ask for more? It's the happy ending, right? But it's not the happy ending. We will look more into the character of Vesper before we finish this episode but just to say, no, it's not a happy ending at all and as Bond grapples with the fact here that Vesper has betrayed him and that all the happy ending that he thought he had achieved was in fact a lie that it was all purposely made that way and that he can't trust anyone the fall of this house into the water represents Bon's whole world falling apart. Now this is something that we've seen in quite a few films over the years, this idea of a

place or of an event being a metaphor for life itself. I'm always reminded of Titanic, which I'm sure I'll do an episode about at some point, but a quote about that film that really stuck with me as in the whole approach to that film was that if the Titanic, the ship, is the world of that story then the sinking of the Titanic is the end of the world. That those two things are the same, that if the metaphor for life is that boat because that's what the whole story is then the sinking of that boat is the end of everything. You can use physical instances like that to indicate emotional and character development and here we have the fall of a house representing the fall of Bond, that his whole life is physically literally

crumbling around him and sinking into the ocean. It's a really dramatic scene and I think David Arnold's score really emphasises that. That this is not the most awe-inspiring set piece that we've ever had in this film, this is not the most technically complex or the most gripping action sequence that we have in terms of what's actually happening, but this is definitely the one where David Arnold really goes to town with his drama in the music the most because this is not just the emotional climax of the film, this is a metaphor for Bond's whole life being shaken apart and being turned into something completely new.

Listen to these big, declamatory notes, these big chords that we're landing on as the house starts to sink into the water and think of that as the destruction of the bond, the innocent bond that we've been with throughout this story falling apart as a character in Fall of a House in Venice. The Music dramatic stuff and you may have noticed a few familiar notes creeping in there at the end as well again I'm not gonna labor this point too much because I've done it quite a lot already but you didn't hear you know my name in there at all but you did hear a few very familiar notes. Hmm, getting towards the end of the film there. But how did we get to this point? So I'm sure, you know, anyone who's seen the film

will remember this, but just to kind of recap the broader thrust of this, we've got to talk about Vesper, who is Eva Green's character, who is essentially at first, she just appears to be the love interest of this story. She's adding a female interest of this story, she's adding a female presence to the story, but she's far far more than just the love interest. She is a critical element of the development of Craig's bond and what's implied to be bond in general, that she is someone who he connects with so much that he really takes her into his heart, that she is a match for him intellectually,

a match for him physically and a match for him emotionally, that they've both come from the same kind of background, they've both ended up serving our Her Majesty's pleasure and they've both ended up unfulfilled by the roles that they have and wanting to just get away from it all and have a happy life together. She is the secret ingredient to Bond reaching his peak as a character and she is just as central to this story as Bond is. It's a fantastic performance by Eva Green and some really great scenes and some really great dialogue is given to her. But this is built up in such a natural way that this is more of a genuine love story than we've ever seen in Bond before and Vesper is more centred as a character than we've ever seen in a

Bond film before from a female character. With the arguable exception of maybe Elektra King from The World Is Not Enough, just giving that one a shout out, this is probably the biggest female character that we've ever seen in Casino Royale and what's established even before the twist at the end is that she is a big part of the way Bond looks at the world after this film, that she enters his DNA, that she sticks around in his heart and reminds him of the lessons that he learnt in this film and that Vesper is the one who taught him those lessons. He's sort of powered by his grief, he's powered by his sadness and he's powered by the love that he will always harbour for Vesper. And how do we know that? Well, first let's take a listen to Vesper's theme. I'm sorry. So I've sandwiched together a clip from the start and the end of a piece called Vesper,

that's her theme, and I've done that to kind of give you the broad thrust of what that theme is, what that shape is. It's really beautiful, it's really lyrical. And I'm hoping that like myself, the thing that really strikes you when listening to that in context of all the other clips from the score that we've heard so far is that it sounds so different

to everything else we've covered. In terms of instrumentation for starters, we've had a lot of brass, we've had a lot of strings, we've had a lot of loudness coming from the bassier elements of the orchestra and also the more high pitch, the more resonant screeching kind of sides of the orchestra. Again trumpets, trombones, French horns and then strings and woodwinds. What we haven't really had in almost any track up to now is piano and we've certainly not been led by the piano at any point.

Now first of all there is just a simple kind of film rule which is that brass and certain types of strings but certainly brass are considered to be masculine instruments that you use to represent either male characters or masculine events like big action scenes. That's why that pretty much entirely makes up the Bond theme itself, it's led by brass. And then you look at a piano which is generally considered to be a feminine instrument. Now I don't necessarily agree with that but it is generally used to indicate softer moments which means that you lean into feminine archetypes and love themes and themes for women in

films are often scored on piano or perhaps on flutes or perhaps on other kind of lighter more melancholy instruments and so there's that to start with but here you get possibly the male archetype of all of cinema, James Bond. Like he is the man for better or for worse and certainly there is a lot of worse in that you know he is often even in this film painted as not a great example of masculinity and he's met his match here. He's got Vesper Lind here who is a very strong woman she's a intelligent, articulate, completely put together personality, which frankly you can't say for a lot of Bond girls that we've had in the past.

And none of that is to kind of patronise, you know, any character or to, you know, to kind of dumb the story down at all. But that's the beat that we're getting at here, which is that Bond has met his match. And so we've got the musical Bond character, which again is all big storming brass, against a softer, more lyrical, and more emotional theme played on piano. But it's not just about opposites. We've got something to play with here,

which is the equal and opposite. I think a lot of the great partnerships, whether romantic, whether romantic, whether friendship or whether in fact hero and villain, some of the great partnerships that you see in cinema and in storytelling in general are about equals and opposites. You know, people who are a match for each other but they are also sort of like fire and ice. You know, again looking at a villainous example, something like the Batman and Joker where that's played with a lot in the film The Dark Knight where it's like those two are in many ways

functionally the same but they are so different to each other that in that film their music sounds incredibly different to each other and it can work in romance as well. You know a lot of the old um you know golden age stuff with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and stuff like that, played with the idea of equal and opposite. And here we have that now. We have Bond and Vesper who are always verbally sparring with each other but it's always coming from a place of understanding, of connecting with each other. They just do that by facing off with each other all the time. And that means that there has to be a representation in this music as well of something that is similar to Bond and something that can stick with Bond after this film.

I'm going to play the theme again for you in a moment because I want to point out there's a certain element of the James Bond theme itself which is the doo doo doo doo doo doo doo Now imagine if you changed everything about that little segment to its complete reverse. You changed the instrumentation of it from brass and strings to a simple piano. Imagine that you changed the harmony of it so that it's in a minor key. Imagine that you did the rhythm the other way around, that you did that the opposite. So instead of the doo doo doo doo, you start with the doo doo and then go into something more sort of plodding

and more on the beat. And imagine that the melody is also played in reverse. You may see what I'm getting at here is that it is that segment essentially done completely through the looking glass, completely in the mirror, in an entirely reversed fashion. The Vespa theme is that... turned completely around in every possible way. Have another listen to it and look for that. So yeah, hopefully you could hear what I was getting at there and what this essentially means is not only that within this film Vesper is an equal and opposite side of Bond's personality but also that Bond will carry this theme with him in a distorted mashed-up way through the rest of his life and through all of the films that we've seen previously and all the ones beyond this. But Vesper's theme is tucked away in there. It's buried, it's very hard to decipher, it's hard to

notice that it's there. Just like Vesper is hard to notice in Bon's personality that he doesn't talk about her, he doesn't like to be drawn on her, but she is there. She is hidden within his soul and she is hidden within his theme, but she is there. I'm gonna have a look now at a track called City of Lovers which comes from that segment just before the fall of the house in Venice, not to be too doom-laden about that, but this is where they're living that life in Venice. And this is just a nice example of a love theme that at first sight is extremely placid, extremely tension-free and it's just about two lovers really enjoying their lives and really being happy with sweeping lush strings and really obvious things I don't have to point out about consistent major keys and lovely melodies but then listen out for a bit towards the end where the chords start to turn some tension is introduced in a quite a strange way for a love theme just to indicate that all is not well and that this is not quite the happy ending that we've been sold so far. The The The The As it turns out, the awful twist that's been hiding in the background is something that

Vesper is already aware of which explains that's been hiding in the background is something that Vesper is already aware of which explains those sinister little moments in the background where it seems like there's something worrying our characters and that's that Vesper has been caught up in a scheme of her own that although she does love Bond she's in this situation in the first place of going to the casino and helping him win loads of money from terrorists for the British government the first place of going to the casino and helping him win loads of money from terrorists for the British government so that she can embezzle it to other terrorists to free an ex-lover of hers who has been captured. All of it has been a ruse and like I say she has genuinely fallen in love with Bond along the way

but all of it was a deception and because she's fallen so in love with him, Vesper is suicidal by the end and allows herself to pass away as that house falls in Venice. And I'm gonna play that piece called, so memorably, Death of Vesper. Bit of a spoiler for those who haven't seen the film right? Calling it Death of Vesper, but anyway. And as I play this piece, yes it is Vesper's death and I don't want to take away from that at all, but this is a again a defining moment in Bond's character where he's been betrayed, he realizes he can't trust anyone, even the people he loves the most, and even people who do genuinely love him. Life gets in the way and he cannot let his guard down around them. This is the young,

innocent, relentless, fresh-faced Bond that we've had in this film so far waving goodbye so that the James Bond that we know who doesn't trust people, who always holds himself back and is at an arm's length from us so that he can fully emerge. And so what we're hearing here is not just the end of Vesper's theme, this is the last instance at the very start, this is the last instance of the You Know My Name theme as well, because spiritually that side of Bond is dying with Vesper. The two of them are going out together, so it's a very maudlin piece done obviously with a lot of strings and with a lot of mournful piano, but the key thing here is those two themes, Vespers theme and the You Know My Name theme, going out, sadly, together. The I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a So a pretty downbeat ending to Casino Royale, but it's all been for something. It's all been to accomplish that wider character arc that we've been talking about throughout this whole episode. I've held it off for 50 minutes and the film itself held this off for nearly two and a half hours, but it's time and I will let you have that moment of catharsis just as the film does. We've watched Bond develop from a fresh-faced callow youth into the hardened stylized arm's length super spy that we know and love. There's just one more thing left for him to say. He says those immortal words, the name's Bond, James Bond. And with that, it's time. The End The And that's it, mission accomplished. James Bond has arrived, ready for duty and ready to take us into the future and who knows what that holds, minus the four films that we have

already seen. Who knows what the rest of that holds for James Bond. This has been an immensely satisfying film for me to talk about for all this time, not just because it means a lot to me and because it was a big film for me growing up, but just because I think as a score and as a film in general, but particularly as a score, this is something really special. This is something really quite beautiful as we turn one theme into another to develop a character. We also have the fantastic meta-textual, the real world side of this which almost no film I can think of has ever done before, which takes advantage of the fact that we are dealing with a really beloved, well established theme that you can hear playing

under my voice right now. And this film, from a musical sense, is about the origin of that theme. We are seeing the seeds of a theme come to life. This is a prequel to a musical theme. How often do we get that? There's an example in The Phantom Menace where we see the Imperial March in the Star Wars saga get brought to life, but other than that, there's almost no examples of this ever occurring. It's a really special, unique event. So that's the reward that we've been given for this heartache that Bond has been through. We get the Bond theme and here he is. James Bond has arrived, ready for the future. And that's it. I'm not going to say any more about this film now because I've gone on for long enough and as I

say there's a hell of a lot to unpack here and I could go on for hours if I wanted to. But yes this has been a wonderful film to unpack here and I could go on for hours if I wanted to but yes this has been a wonderful film to talk about and the last thing I want to kind of touch on is the legacy of this because it doesn't quite end here you know a lot of what this film sets up is really influential for the future. First of all David Arnold himself returned for the next film Quantum of Solace which of course isn't very highly regarded as anyone who knows anything about Bond will know that's a

very controversial installment in the series, but David Arnold does a good job with that and actually at a few moments when he visits characters from Casino Royale for cameos or for return appearances, little themes from Casino Royale, including the You Know My Name theme, do appear just for a moment, just to wave hello to us. In both that film and even as recently as No Time to Die just a few years ago, Vespers theme continues to pop up, that we do hear that whenever Bond is in a particularly angsty place. It's not just in this film but it's in Quantum of Solace and No Time to Die, so Vespers theme really does linger with us all the way through the Bond era. And I also want to just

kind of touch on this point that I've been going into all the way through this which is that those Bond chords, now if you look back to the early days of James Bond if you watch a film like Dr. No or From Russia With Love or Goldfinger one of those early ones there's no sense of having to earn the theme, there's no sense of having to earn the stripes in the way that we've talked about in this film. Bond can do something as simple as walking through a room checking for bugs or driving down a road at a fairly normal speed and get the full James Bond theme to accompany it. It's kind of vaguely hilarious when you look at those scenes now and this is the film that really set the stall out of no this is actually something that

has to be done in small doses this is something that you tease at that we love this theme so much as viewer listeners that you should just sort of touch at it and give it to us in the right places and Skyfall quite memorably does this with the theme itself by Adele. Have a listen to the end of the chorus in Skyfall as it just teases us at those chords in a way that's really reminiscent of what David Arnold did here. Let the sky fall, when it crumbles We will stand tall, I'll face it all together Let the sky fall, when it crumbles We will stand tall, facing all together at Skyfall At Skyfall Skyfall is where we start

Now that's not something that ever used to really happen before Casino Royale where it embedded the Bond chords into You Know My Name and teased at them throughout the film. I really think that this score has been influential for the future of James Bond as using the musical knowledge that we as audiences already have to tease out emotions and to get us ready for the big moments of catharsis that will come in the film. It's very meta, it's very interactive with the viewer listener and I think stuff like that is great and David Arnold can take a huge amount of credit for bringing that to the fore of

how music is approached in the Bond films. It's left a great legacy this film and I've been absolutely delighted to discuss it. With that I will sign off and I'll just quickly remind you of everything that we've listened to. There's quite a lot of it just in case you want to revisit them. So the following tracks are all from the Casino Royale original soundtrack. We've had African Rundown, Blunt Instrument, Miami International, I'm the Money, Aston Montenegro, Vespa, Dinner Jackets, Dirty Martini, Fall of a House in Venice, City of Lovers, Death of Vespa and The Name's Bond, James Bond. We've also had You Know My Name, which oddly enough, I think

uniquely is not included in the original soundtrack. You have to go and listen to that separately for some reason. Not quite sure why that is, that's very strange. And we did also hear Skyfall, of course, which comes from the Skyfall original soundtrack, as far as I'm aware. You'll have no trouble finding that. So all that leaves me to say is I will be back to do more of these. These two have been a pleasure so far and I'm going to tackle something a little bit more big and challenging next time. Not that these two, Up and Casino Royale, haven't been challenging enough, but I'm going

to do two films at once. It will possibly take the form of a two-part episode or maybe one really long episode, but whenever I'm back next what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna look at two films that are the best part of a century apart but are twins with each other and look at what they have in common musically how one inspires the other what DNA carries across the two and what differences they have. I'm striking while the iron is relatively hot yes that's right I'm gonna be looking at The Wizard of Oz and Wicked both of them together. I think

the thoughts I will have on those two will be unlimited until then. Well I don't know when it will be because I'll just sort of upload it when it's done. I'm not on a strict timetable for these but yes you will hear from me then if you want to contact the Hits21 main feed which this is a spin-off from any feedback would be more than welcome you can contact me at hits21podcast at gmail.com or just leave a little comment on Spotify or your preferred streaming provider and I'll get to it thanks so much for listening I've had a great time talking about this film and I hope you've had just as good a time listening to it. Thanks so much for listening I've had a great time talking about this film and I hope you've had just as good a time listening to it.

Thank you very much everyone see you soon.