Val Guest (born Valmond Maurice Grossman, 11 December 1911 – 10 May 2006) was an English film director and screenwriter who co-directed the 1967 non-Eon James Bond spoof Casino Royale.
Beginning as a writer (and later director) of comedy films, he is best known for his work for Hammer, for whom he directed 14 films, and science fiction films. He enjoyed a long career in the film industry from the early 1930s until the early 1980s.
Casino Royale[]
Val Guest was given the responsibility of splicing the various "chapters" of the film together, and was offered the unique title of "Co-ordinating Director" but declined, claiming the chaotic plot would not reflect well on him if he were so credited. His extra credit was labelled as "Additional Sequences" instead.
Val Guest wrote that Orson Welles did not think much of Peter Sellers on Casino Royale, and had refused to work with "that amateur".