Little Cleopatra

London last week, Director John Huston gave the go-ahead. The clapstick snapped: The David Niven Story. The cameras began rolling, and there, logically enough, was Niven, clad in an Edwardian velvet dinner jacket, lolling around the banqueting hall of a Scottish castle. Yet, illogically enough, at numerous other sound stages and locations around Great Britain, the same picture is also in the works under four other directors, and starring, variously, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen and a mesomorphic unknown called Terence Cooper. Even more implausible, the name Niven is never mentioned in any of the scripts. What's even nuttier is that David him self is addressed as Sir James Bond, and Sellers, Allen and Cooper are referred to as either James or Jimmy Bond.

The Niven Story title, it turns out, is just a cover. What is really shooting is Ian Fleming's first 007 book, Casino Royale. And from the looks of what's happening, shooting may be too good for it. This is the one Fleming property that got away from United Artists and into the hands of Producer Charles Feldman. But because he was unable to land Sean Connery for the lead, Feldman decided to make Casino Royale the Bond movie to end all Bond movies. That is, if it doesn't end Charlie Feldman first. The film is already four weeks behind schedule and one-third over its $6,000,000 budget. To the unamusement of Feldman's bankroller, Columbia Pictures, Casino Royale has become known as Little Cleopatra.

Script du Jour. What exactly is going on is a stage secret. The sets are generally closed; the stars are forbidden to discuss their roles and are trusted only with the pages of script in which they appear. Feldman explains that this security is necessary to protect his uproarious ideas from TV or film-by-night pirates. Another explanation is that no one is talking because no one knows what to say: the scenario changes by the second.

The screenplay started twelve years and countless versions ago as a literal adaptation of the novel. The late Ben Hecht had three bashes at it. It was then completely rejiggered by Billy Wilder, who in turn got rewritten by Joe (Catch-22) Heller. To no avail. By last week the script du jour was the product of Terry Southern, Wolf Mankowitz and John Law. Except that Peter Sellers has winged most of his scenes, John Huston is redoing his, and Woody Allen is working up an altogether new concept.

And all of that is subject to retailoring to fit in any guest star that Feldman can conscript. The picture already has more cameos than Cartier's--Peter O'Toole popped in as a bagpiper (his fee: a case of champagne), Race Driver Stirling Moss plays a chauffeur, William Holden is chief of the CIA, Charles Boyer is head of the French Surete, and Huston will be Bond's boss, M.

Charlie's Circus. Ursula Andress, who is cast as the world's wealthiest spy, reports that the script changes have left her "in a daze." Woody Allen, who may be characterized in the film as the illegitimate offspring of a brief encounter between Sir James and Mata Hari, was originally a heavy who was assigned to destroy everyone in the world over 4 ft. 9 in. Sellers has shot a scene in which an Aqua-Lunged SMERSH girl lurks in his bathtub only to get kissed to death. He likes that part (though now it is edited out), but he is protesting the scene that calls for him to be flushed down the toilet.

The film may meet a similar commodious end. Columbia executives are already concerned about all the high-priced visiting stars. "They keep saying 'Stop it--no more people,' " chuckles Charlie Feldman. "But I tell them, 'It's a circus. I can't stop it now.' "

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