- Clarence Leiter: "His weak spot is gambling. You're going to play baccarat with him and your job is to clean him out."
- James Bond: "(Handling cards) For what reason?"
- Clarence Leiter: "To destroy him. He's been gambling with Soviet funds and he's lost eighty million francs. Now he's going to try and get it back by gambling high. He's bought the bank for tomorrow night with the last funds of the treasury of his party. He has twenty six million with which to win back the eighty he needs."
- ―Leiter describes the plan to deal with Le Chiffre
Clarence Leiter was a fictional intelligence operative working for British Intelligence. Portrayed by Australian actor Michael Pate, the character appeared in the 1954 Climax! episode, Casino Royale and was a combination of the literary characters Felix Leiter and René Mathis.
Biography[]
Zuroff threatens Felix Leiter
- Zuroff: "That money you have. Would you kindly put it on the table. I believe it to be twenty six million francs. We want it."
- Clarence Leiter: "That makes it very awkward. Because I want it too."
- Zuroff: "You have exactly ten seconds to do as I say."
As with the other characters in this episode, he represents part of the earliest attempt to adapt a James Bond novel to the screen.
Casino Royale[]
The first screen interpretation of the Leiter character was in the 1954 CBS one-hour television adventure Casino Royale, broadcast as part of the dramatic anthology series Climax Mystery Theater, which ran between October 1954 and June 1958. For the American audience the Bond character from Casino Royale was re-cast as an American agent—"Card Sense" Jimmy Bond, played by Barry Nelson—described as working for "Combined Intelligence", supported by the British agent, Clarence Leiter; "thus was the Anglo-American relationship depicted in the book reversed for American consumption", according to Jeremy Black. Leiter, who was an agent for Station S, was a combination of the novel's Felix Leiter and René Mathis and was played by the Australian actor Michael Pate.
Leiter is Bond's saviour in the novel of Casino Royale, providing him with 32 million francs when Bond has been cleaned out by SMERSH paymaster Le Chiffre, calling it "Marshall Aid". In the TV version, Valerie Mathis of the French Deuxième Bureau performs this rôle, which makes the national relationships more complex.
Media historian James Chapman notes that in the books and Eon films, Bond's relationship with Leiter represented the Special Relationship between Britain and America, although the American Leiter is in the subordinate position to the British Bond. Academic Jeremy Black agrees, although points out that the Bond and Leiter relationship suggested "a far smoother working of the Anglo-American alliance than was in fact the case." In the 1954 Casino Royale, those roles are reversed, and Clarence Leiter becomes partly an expository device, somewhat like M in later films, although he does play an active part in the plan.