The Man With The Golden Gun (1974) Director: Guy Hamilton
“A duel between titans. My golden gun against your Walther PPK.”
★★☆☆☆
Inspired by the Bruce Lee Kung Fu cinematic craze of the 1970s, the second of Roger Moore’s James Bond films, The Man with the Golden Gun, also marks the ninth Eon Bond film, and the fourth and final Bond film directed by Guy Hamilton. In some ways, The Man with the Golden Gun, marked a turning point for the series, as it was the last film to be co-produced by Albert “Cubby” Broccoli and Harry Saltzman because their fraying relationship was simply no longer salvageable. Harry Saltzman departed the Bond series the following year due to financial problems that forced him to sell his 50% share to United Artists (and his departure caused a nearly three-year delay to the production of The Spy Who Loved Me). Today, many fans regard The Man with the Golden Gun as one of the worst in the whole series. By all accounts, The Man with the Golden Gun was a disaster both on and off the screen –even Roger Moore has called it one of the worst films in the Bond series.
Christopher Lee plays an international assassin named Francisco Scaramanga who is located in Asia (Christopher Lee is the few good things about this movie). For some reason, Scaramanga has a superfluous third nipple as a sign of his strength and virility (the third nipple was also briefly mentioned in the original Fleming novel, though the film adaptation has almost nothing in common with the book). We begin on Scaramanga’s private island (filmed on Ko Khao Phing Kan, located in southern Thailand near Phuket) wherein a ruse is devised for Scaramanga to kill an assassin named Rodney (Marc Lawrence, who previously appeared in Diamonds Are Forever) during a staged shootout at Scaramanga’s remote lair filled with mirrors and traps, narrated by his small associate –a parody of Oddjob from Goldfinger— named Nick Nack (played by Hervé Villechaize who was apparently voracious in his appetite for Asian prostitutes during the production of the film, Roger Moore has since claimed he slept with about 35 women). Apparently, Scaramanga’s funhouse lair was based on Guy Hamilton’s idea of having Bond travel to Disneyland. In the next scene, a golden bullet is sent to MI6 outlined with “007” written on it. Apparently, Bill Fairbanks (agent 009), was killed by Scaramanga in Beirut five years prior to Bond’s mission. Bond then travels to Beurut to search for clues, and he meets a belly dancer named Saida, the last person to see Fairbanks alive, and Bond accidentally swallows a golden bullet situated in her belly button as he is attacked by thugs who inexplicably appear in his room. Bond is then sent to track down the golden bullet’s manufacturer in Macau, a Portuguese gunsmith named Lazar (Marne Maitland). This leads Bond to Andrea Anders, the mistress and lover of Scaramanga. This leads to a club called Bottoms Up (and a vague reference by Bond to his Aunt Charmian who was described in M’s obituary for Bond at the end of Ian Fleming’s novel You Only Live Twice). And this quickly leads to the central MacGuffin of the film: Scaramanga is stealing a device called the “Solex Agitator” which is a key component of a solar-powered space station. Bond is re-assigned to capture the Solex device.
In a somewhat ridiculous side-plot, Bond travels to Hong Kong and then to Bangkok to meet the men suspected of ordering a hit on a man named Gibson, or the man Scaramanga killed to retrieve the Solex. Bond is joined by his rather ditzy associate, Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland ) and he poses as Scaramanga (with a fake third nipple) but his ploy is destroyed when Scaramanga himself suddenly appears in the shadows and a group of martial arts students are instructed to kill Bond, but he escapes on a boat. Bond makes contact again with Andrea Anders, Scaramanga’s lover. There is a cringeworthy scene in which Mary Goodnight is hiding underneath the blankets in Bond’s bed as Andrea Anders enters the room and confesses that it was actually she who sent the bullet to Bond and she pledges to deliver him the missing Solex, in exchange for prostituting herself. Bond hides Mary Goodnight in a closet where she falls asleep while Bond and Anders make love –who in the world came up with this highly uncomfortable idea? Anyway, Anders promises to meet Bond at a fighting match the following day with the Solex. But when Bond arrives, he sees that Anders has been shot in the heart by Scaramanga’s golden gun. Scaramanga, himself, then suddenly appears and during the course of their conversation, Bond spots the Solex on the floor and conceals it. Bond smuggles the device to his allies and chases after Scaramanga. He also hilariously encounters the ever-goofy Sheriff J.W. Pepper on vacation in Asia with his wife –he is the clumsy, bungling American sheriff who is every stereotype of a heavy, rural, southern white American (he also appeared in Live and Let Die and quickly began an audience favorite). Pepper’s character was a carryover from Live and Let Die and he was inspired by the crew’s true interactions with racist southern policemen while shooting in Louisiana. There is also an entirely goofy, slapstick Kung Fu training sequence wedged in here at Hai Fat’s estate wherein Bond cheats and kicks a man in the face, before he is forced to face-off against Chula, the lead student, who forces Bond to flee out a window only to be rescued by Lieutenant Hip and his two nieces, who are apparently well-trained fighters. But they all strangely leave Bond behind (even though they were rescuing him). This is all…bizarre to say the least, in keeping with the rest of the tone of this oddball movie.
At any rate, Bond tracks Scaramanga to his remote island where he has captured a bikini-clad Mary Goodnight, and upon arrival, Scaramanga demonstrates the power of his energy beam to destroy Bond’s getaway plane. Apparently, this was all intended to be a toopoical allusion to the ongoing energy crises on the 1970s. Scaramanga then proposes a duel with Bond and the fight leads into Scaramanga’s funhouse lair. In the end, Bond manages to outwit and kill Scaramanga (his only kill in the film) by posing as a mannequin of himself, before escaping from the island, and then comically strapping Nick Nack in a cage to the mast of a ship as Bond and Goodnight sail away.
Unsurprisingly, The Man with the Golden was not a particularly profitable film at the time of its release. The plot and goofy acting placed the future of the Bond saga in great jeopardy as did the deteriorating relationship between many people behind the scenes, not least of which were the producers. Much of this film presents a bland, cheap, brownish hue to its scenes, giving it a boring, stilted aesthetic. While watching The Man with the Golden Gun I kept asking myself, what is going on here? Bond is suddenly in Macau, and then he is in Thailand, and China? What exactly is Scaramanga trying to accomplish here? Why does he reveal his weapon to Bond only to then propose a duel which turns into a shootout? Why not just kill Bond like so many other enemies? So many questions arise from this clumsy, convoluted plot, and so few answers are offered in the James Bond world. United Artists rushed Eon to production with this film and unfortunately it shows. I suppose these movies were never really meant to be seriously analyzed so it’s not really worth trying to do so.
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Book Review: The Man with the Golden Gun (1965) by Ian Fleming
- James Bond actor: Roger Moore
- Director: Guy Hamilton
- Produced by: Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli and Harry Saltzman (this was the left film with Saltzman involved)
- Screenplay by: Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz
- Cinematography: Ted Moore (who fell ill during the film and was replaced by Oswald Morris). Perhaps this is why the cinematography seems bland and inconsistent at times. This was to be Moore’s final film.
- Edited by: Raymond Poulton and John Shirley
- Gun Barrel Sequence: a re-use of the gun barrel sequence from Live and Let Die.
- Villain(s): Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee, Fleming’s step-cousin and frequent golf partner), Andrea Anders, Scaramanga’s mistress (Maud Adams who also appears as “Octopussy” in the film of the same name), Nick Nack, Scaramanga’s short assistant (Hervé Villechaize), Hai Fat, a Thai millionaire industrialist employed Scaramanga to assassinate the inventor of the “Solex agitator” (Richard Loo), Rodney (Marc Lawrence) an American gangster who attempts to outgun Scaramanga in his funhouse at the beginning of the film (Lawrence also appeared in Diamonds Are Forever), Lazar (Marne Maitland), a Portuguese gunsmith based in Macau who manufactures golden bullets for Scaramanga.
- Bond Girl(s): Mary Goodnight, Bond’s assistant (Britt Ekland, Peter Sellers’s ex-wife),
- Allies: Lieutenant Hip, Bond’s local contact in Hong Kong and Bangkok (Soon-Taik Oh, who was partially dubbed), Sheriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James)
- MI6: M (Bernard Lee), Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell), Q (Desmond Llewelyn),Bill Taner, M’s chief of staff and his first appearance in the films (Michael Goodliffe, uncredited) Colthorpe (James Cossins), an MI6 armaments expert who identifies the maker of Scaramanga’s golden bullets. Interestingly enough, the first draft of the script originally called the role “Boothroyd” until Eon was made aware of the fact that Q’s real name was established as Boothroyd in Dr. No.
- Bond Gadgets: Bond’s false third nipple to pose as Scaramanga (this is a low gadget film).
- Score: John Barry
- Theme Song: “The Man with the Golden Gun” by John Barry, lyrics by Don Black, performed by Lulu. With lyrics filled with blatant innuendo and sung by obscure Scottish artist Lulu over Maurice Binder’s fairly forgettable credits sequence, “The Man with the Golden Gun” is often regarded by fans as one of the worst in the whole series. Alice Cooper offered his own version of the song but it was rejected.
- Locales: China, London, Beirut (Lebanon), Macau, Hong Kong, Bangkok (Thailand)
- Production Company: Eon Productions
- Distributed by: United Artists
- Other Notes:
- Roger Moore was displeased with an infamous scene in which he roughs up a woman, Andrea Anders, Scaramanga’s mistress. Guy Hamilton apparently insisted on its inclusion in the film for some reason.
- John Barry later claimed this was his least favorite Bond film score.
- There are a few minor ideas borrowed from the original Fleming –Scaramanga’s superfluous third nipple, his desire to make love before shooting someone, the notion that he was raised in a circus, the fact that he is an expert shot with a gold-plated gun—otherwise it has almost nothing in common with the source material.
- A brief moment of the theme “Live and Let Die” by John Barry can be heard over one of the small cameos of Sheriff J.W. Pepper before he shakes off the idea and is then promptly booted into the river by an animal in typical comic fashion (he is on vacation in Thailand with his wife). In another scene, he can be seen inexplicably car shopping while on vacation (how does this make any sense?)
- The original intention of Eon was to adapt The Man with the Golden Gun much earlier in the series with it being filmed in Cambodia, however the1967 Samlaut Uprising caused the idea to be shelved and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was adapted instead.
- As part of the heightened tensions between Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli, Saltzman apparently insisted on the inclusion of an elephant stampede in this film. By this point, both producers were barely on speaking terms and they had decided to switch off being the leader producer for the films (Saltzman was the main producer in the prior film Live and Let Die).
- Writer Tom Mankiewicz was also fed up with the Eon crew and director Guy Hamilton so Richard Maibaum was brought in to make edits and additions to the script.
- Roger Moore despised smoking cigarettes; thus Bond is only seen smoking cigars in Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun.
- Whereas Live and Let Die was inspired by the blaxploitation genre, The Man with the Golden Gun was inspired by the Bruce Lee Kung Fu films.
- The notorious “slide whistle” occurs over the impressive car flip stunt during the car chase sequence.
- Kra, Scaramanga’s security chief, was played by Sonny Caldinez; Chew Mee, a nude swimmer and mistress of Hai Fat. Whom bond finds in a swimming pool, was played by Francoise Therry (voiced by Nikki van der Zyl).
- By this point, Christopher Lee was famous for his role as Count Dracula in numerous Hammer Horror films. It is quite evident in his early scenes that his chest was hastily shaved to accommodate the third nipple prop. American actor Jack Palance was offered the role of Scaramanga, but he declined the part. Twelve years earlier, Ian Fleming had offered Christopher Lee (his step-cousin) the title role of Dr. No, which he willingly accepted, but Joseph Wiseman was already selected by Eon and thus Lee was never formally cast.
- The moustached “mannequin” of James Bond at the beginning of the film was actually played by Roger Moore’s stunt double, Les Crawford.
- This was the second film in a row in which Bond is absent from the pre-credits sequence.
- Amazingly, Britt Ekland was pregnant during the filming of The Man with the Golden Gun (it is not noticeable as she can be seen prancing around in a bikini for about half of the film). Her performance as the ditzy airhead Mary Goodnight often ranks among the worst of the Bond girls.
- In addition to the gangster Hai Fat, the writers also considered including a sidekick named Lo Fat.
- In another bizarre moment, when Bond rides in the car with his ally Lieutenant Hip, his two nieces are in the car and they are speaking two different languages to one another (one is peaking Chinese the other is speaking Thai).
- If you pause the film while Bond is entering Hai Fat’s estate, surrounded by statues, you can clearly see that Nick Nack’s body is actually statue, until it cuts and his face starts to move.
- Eon apparently made a deal with AMC since every car in the film is of the make.
- Due to chronic health problems throughout his life, actor Hervé Villechaize who played Nick Nack, committed suicide at age 50 in 1993.
- This was the first Bond film to be screened in the Kremlin.
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