This is especially true, considering the first book’s sluggish sales in the American market. In that the novel that first introduced Commander Bond to the world had only been released in April of the previous year, a live broadcast on national American television in October 1954 could serve to expose Fleming’s “dreadful oafish opus” (as he called the novel) to a wider audience and to launch its author (himself a retired Naval Intelligence Officer) to stardom. It may be hard to imagine a time that James Bond, agent 007, was not a pop culture icon and a stalwart resident of our collective consciousness, but in 1954 Ian Fleming accepted a mere one thousand dollars from the CBS Television Network for the rights to adapt Casino Royale as the third episode of its anthology series Climax! The first “Non-Bond”, also, in fact, the first James Bond adaptation ever filmed, has its roots in the very first James Bond novel, Casino Royale. More info about this initial Bond production (contains spoilers). Apparently, like The Sadist bd, this blu-ray is only available from the distributor through the Amazon marketplace. This bd doesn't seem to be reflected in the bd.com database that I could find, but maybe it is hidden somewhere. THE original Bond TV production from 1954 has been released on bd, although whether this bd constitutes a 'gray area' release I have no idea.

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