Fleming used the theatricality of the card game as an enticing way of presenting Le Chiffre, but there's a humanity to him that the likes of Blofeld never quite found. Gulshan Grover was the LEAD VILLAIN of James Bond movie Casino Royale Veteran actor Gulshan Grover says. When those attempts fail, he tries to torture Bond out of his winnings.
Desperate to pay back the money he took from the trade union, he goes to great lengths to ensure Bond wont walk away from the baccarat table alive. He's as trapped in his own way as any of SMERSH's victims: forced into desperate (and lethal) circumstances because his masters in Russia will murder him if he does anything otherwise. Cold, calculating, and boasting a brutal temper, Le Chiffre is James Bonds target in Casino Royale. That sends him to the titular casino to win back the money at cards, only to find Bond waiting for him at the table.Ĭolorful name aside, the character's position reflects the gritty reality of commerce and information that constitute real-world intelligence efforts. He invests heavily in a string of French brothels - creating easy blackmail opportunities for SMERSH - that go bust when the French government outlaws prostitution. In the book, Le Chiffre (whose name means 'The Cypher') launders money for SMERSH, the Soviet counterintelligence organization that serves as Bond's principal foe in many of the original novels. Casino Royale was first published in 1953, with the Cold War raging and the Western powers engaged in extended intelligence machinations against the Russians.
