Casino Royale (2006)
d. Martin Campbell

Valenka (Ivana Milicevic)

Valenka was the blonde girlfriend of villainous terrorist financier Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen).

In her film entrance, she climbed up a ladder onto Le Chiffre's yacht moored somewhere in the Bahamas, wearing a V-necked blue one-piece suit, and then strolled past his gaming card table.

During the major Casino Royale hold 'em poker tournament in Montenegro, there was a break in the game and Le Chiffre returned to his hotel room. Valenka was on his balcony, forced to summon him there, where he was attacked by Ugandan terrorist Steven Obanno (Isaach De Bankole).

Obanno had learned that Le Chiffre had lost the money entrusted to him ("Where is my money?") Le Chiffre assured him: "Your money is safe. You'll have it tomorrow. All of it." For the betrayal, Obanno threatened to cut off the hand of Le Chiffre but he needed it to play cards. He bluffed cutting off Valenka's arm, without a word of protest from Le Chiffre. Obanno suggested to Valenka: "You should find a new boyfriend."

However, she remained with Le Chiffre and to assist him during the game, she slyly poisoned Bond's drink, forcing Bond to hurriedly leave the table. He unexpectedly returned however, after miraculously surviving cardiac arrest, joking: "That last hand, it nearly killed me."

It appeared that Valenka died when evil mastermind Mr. White's (Jesper Christensen) organization came upon Le Chiffre's gang and executed them (off-screen).

Casino Royale (2006)

Solange Dimitrios (Caterina Murino)

In front of the Dimitrios beach house located on Paradise Island (Bahamas), Bond (Daniel Craig) emerged from the ocean (in the style of Ursula Andress in Dr. No (1962)), watching as green bikini-wearing Solange Dimitrios (Caterina Murino), the wife of criminal "middleman" associate Alex Dimitrios (Simon Abkarian) working for Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), made a stunning entrance riding a white horse on the beach. They exchanged momentary glances.

That evening at the Ocean Club's bar-casino, Bond joined a gambling poker table facing off with Dimitrios. When Solange entered, wearing a sexy low-cut red dress, she was reprimanded by her husband for being two hours late, and sat bored at the bar, while Bond defeated Dimitrios with three Aces (over three Kings) and won the keys to his Aston Martin.

As Solange was about to enter Bond's newly-owned vehicle brought by the valet, she realized, mistakenly that Bond was the driver, and thought outloud: "No wonder he was in such a foul mood." He offered her a lift home, but she politely declined: "I'm afraid I'm not that cruel." However, Bond suavely convinced her to join him: "Well, perhaps you're just out of practice." She laughed: "Perhaps."

He offered her a drink at his place - she was interested that his place was "very" closeby and decided on "one drink." For a few minutes, Bond drove around and then returned to the front of the club (he joked: "Welcome to my home"). Lying on the floor of his villa, they passionately kissed and Bond mentioned how "it keeps things simple" that she was married.

She told him how she was still irresistibly attracted to "bad men" - "I had so many chances to be happy, so many nice guys. Why can't nice guys be more like you?" Bond: "Well, because then they'd be bad...What makes your husband a bad man?" She wasn't aware of the nature of her husband's work (she called it a "mystery") and feared Bond wanted information about Alex: "I'm also afraid you will sleep with me in order to get to him." He asked: "How afraid?" She warmly responded: "Not enough to stop," and kissed Bond down the length of his naked chest.

When he requested permission to ask another "personal question" (about the meaning of the code word Ellipsis), she replied: "Now would seem an appropriate time." They were interrupted by her husband's cellphone call about his leaving on the last flight to Miami that night. She then informed Bond: "You have all night to question me."

He called room service for more champagne, chilled Bollinger, and beluga caviar, as Solange retreated to his bedroom. Although they slept together, Bond was able to trail her husband to Miami that same evening, where he stabbed him to death in the Miami Science Center.

The next day, Bond returned to the Bahamas after foiling a plot at the Miami airport to blow up a Skyfleet prototype jetplane (Solange's husband had hired a terrorist named Carlos to carry out the deed).

Because Le Chiffre surmised that "someone talked," he ordered Solange tortured and killed, and her corpse was found lying in a beach-side hammock.

Casino Royale (2006)

Vesper Lynd (Eva Green)

Intelligent and complex, raven-haired and green-eyed Vesper Lynd was a liaison officer for the HM Treasury Financial Action Task Force - her name was a play on 'West Berlin.'

She was assigned to meet and work with Bond (Craig), and first encountered him on a train traveling to Casino Royale in Montenegro in SE Europe. Her first words were: "I'm the money." He looked her up and down: "Every penny of it."

She would manage the financial funds he would use to play poker (as a professional gambler) against villainous banker Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) at Casino Royale - she had wired $10 million into his Montenegro account, and would use $5 million more as a contingency if deemed "a prudent investment."

The film's plot placed Bond in a suspenseful, high-stakes Texas Hold 'Em poker game against cold and calculating Le Chiffre - a banker who financed world's terrorist organizations and needed to recoup $101 million in lost investments he had made of terrorists' funds.

As Bond and Vesper ate dinner together, they wittily bantered back and forth. Bond critiqued Vesper's personality: "Your beauty's a problem. You worry you won't be taken seriously" and accused her of overcompensating by wearing slightly masculine clothing and being more aggressive than her female colleagues. He said she had "a prickly demeanor" and her insecurities would be interpreted as arrogance by her male superiors, and she would less likely be promoted. She counteracted his psychological observations by sizing up Bond, believing he disdainfully dressed up, and he didn't "come from money." He had a chip on his shoulder because charity afforded him to go to school, and he was orphaned. She thought he was "maladjusted" but refrained from calling him "a cold-hearted bastard" but still imagined that he thought of women "as disposable pleasures rather than meaningful pursuits." Although she regarded him as "charming," she affirmed she would keep a close watch on the government's money and off his "perfectly-formed arse."

In Montenegro, their cover story was that Vesper was to masquerade as Bond's love interest at the Hotel Splendid in a shared two-bedroom suite. He would be Mr. Arlington Beech, a professional gambler, and he joked that she was Miss Stephanie Broadchest. She asked about the sleeping arrangements: "Am I going to have a problem with you, Bond?" He answered that since she was single, she needn't worry: "No, don't worry, you're not my type."

Before the big game, Bond ordered Vesper to wear a purple dress with plunging neckline so that she would distract the other players. She countered by providing him with a dinner jacket fitted to his size: "I sized you up the moment we met." Part-way into the game, Vesper made a grand entrance in her plunging purple gown, but her late entrance backfired and she actually distracted Bond during his betting.

When Bond took a break from the game and kissed her (to create a new "cover"), she said she was "pissed off" that he was losing so quickly. During the first break in the game, Vesper helped Bond to kill one of Le Chiffre's terrorist customers in a vicious hand-to-hand fight in the hotel's stairwell.

Distraught by the killing ("It's like there's blood on my hands, it's not coming off"), she crouched under the shower in their hotel's suite, where he comforted her.

During another round of the game, Bond lost everything when he called Le Chiffre's suspected bluff - he lost a full house to four jacks. When he requested another $5 million to buy back in, Vesper refused, claiming his ego made him lose ("You lost because of your ego and that same ego can't take it...All you're going to do now is lose more"). He called her "a bloody idiot."

However, when he was poisoned by villainous Bond girl Valenka (Ivana Milicevic) (see above), she saved Bond's life when he passed out and reattached one of the disconnected defibrillator electrodes to his heart to revive him.

When Bond finally defeated Le Chiffre, she congratulated Bond on his win of $115 million over dinner. He commented on her necklace, calling it an Algerian love knot - given to her by a "very lucky man." After she questioned his brutal occupation of killing people, she was called away by their ally Rene Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini). Bond suspected foul-play and rushed to the hotel entrance to see Vesper pushed into Le Chiffre's black Jaguar during an abduction.

He pursued - and at the top of a small hill violently swerved his car to the right to avoid hitting Vesper who was bound up and lying in the middle of the road. After a series of flips in the scary car crash, Le Chiffre's right-hand man removed the tracking device from Bond's forearm and the two were taken prisoner. They escaped from being tortured to death by the intervention of Mr. White (Jesper Christensen), who killed Le Chiffre and his gang members.

While Bond was recuperating, Vesper awakened Bond and commented on his look: "It makes me feel reborn." He replied: "If you'd just been born, wouldn't you be naked?" She whispered in his ear: "You have me there. You can have me anywhere...Yeah, here, there, anywhere you like." She affirmed to his question: "Does this mean you're warming to me?" and described her changing feelings: "I'm afraid I'm a complicated woman."

They were interrupted by Swiss banker Mr. Mendel (Ludget Pistor), who asked that they type in the account number and Bond's password in order to facilitate the exchange of Bond's poker winnings -- $120 million. When Mendel left, Vesper confided in Bond about her love for him: "If all that was left of you was your smile and your little finger, you'd still be more of a man than anyone I've ever met." He quipped: "That's because you know what I can do with my little finger." She was afraid he had again put up an emotional barrier: "You've got your armor back on." He claimed: "I have no armor left. You've stripped it from me...Whatever is left of me, whatever I am, I'm yours." They kissed and when it began raining, they entered one of the clinic's rooms and made love after tearing off each other's clothes.

For a couple of days, they spent an idyllic time on the beaches of Italy. There, Bond told Vesper how he had suspected that Mathis was a double agent - Mathis had tipped off Le Chiffre about how Bond had learned of his 'tell' and tracking implant - "That's how he wiped me out. Same goes for the implant." She asked: "Does everyone have a tell?" Bond replied: "Yes, everyone. Everyone except you. I wonder if that's why I love you." She was stunned by his profession of love. He continued: "Enough to quit and float round the world with you until one of us has to find an honest job. But I think that's gonna have to be you. Because I've no idea what an honest job is." He wished to "salvage" what little humanity he had left before it was too late.

As they sailed into Venice's port, Vesper noticed a mysterious individual on the dock with a panama hat and one blacked-out lens, later identified as bad-guy Gettler (Richard Sammel). Bond sent in his resignation (by email) to M. Soon after, Bond received a phone call from M, informing him that the Treasury Department had not received the winning poker funds, and at the same time, Vesper was withdrawing the $120 million in funds at the Venice bank located at St. Mark's Square. Bond trailed her carrying the money in a briefcase as she walked through the streets of Venice.

After she handed the briefcase over to bad guy Gettler, Bond killed a number of henchmen and Gettler but she was taken hostage and locked in an iron-cage elevator. Bond fired on large pontoons to flood the lower part of the building and to escape the gunfire, but inadvertently sent the elevator plunging into the water below the collapsing building. She knew that her betrayal and treachery couldn't be excused, and she kissed Bond's hand to redemptively remove the guilt associated with her inevitable death. He couldn't save her life as she was trapped and drowned in the long, drawn-out and tearjerking scene. Although he eventually freed her from a watery grave and took her to the surface and administered CPR, it was too late.

Mr. White watched the tragic death from afar, and then walked off with the briefcase containing the $120 million.

In the conclusion, M explained (by phone) to Bond what had led to Vesper's 'betrayal' in a debriefing: "She had a boyfriend, a French Algerian. They were very much in love. He was kidnapped by the organization behind Le Chiffre. And they blackmailed her, threatening to kill him unless she cooperated."

Bond bitterly and coldly reflected back about Vesper's manipulative treason, unaware of her real motives, and now knowing that he couldn't trust anyone. He muttered: "The job's done and the bitch is dead" before he discovered that Vesper had actually tried to save him.

M hypothesized that Vesper had made a deal to spare Bond's life in exchange for the money. He learned the identity of her blackmailer in a cellphone text message that she had left for him ("For James, Mr. White") with White's phone number (# 3926222431), and realized that she didn't betray him. She had actually revealed the identity of the treacherous mastermind (behind the plot to fund terrorism).

[Trivia: Dr. No (1962) Bond girl Ursula Andress played Vesper Lynd in the comedic spoof Casino Royale (1967).]