The Man With the Golden Gun
Plot
James Bond discovers that a notorious hit-man Francisco Scaramanga has put a hit out on him, and decides to find him first.
He discovers that Scaramanga is also working with a Hong Kong businessman Hai Fat – in an attempt to capture the worlds solar market, and want to sell it to the highest bidder.
Direction
This is Guy Hamilton’s fourth and final outing behind the camera.
Despite it’s critical panning, it has some great cinematography – and some of the best practical car stunts that would rival movies of even today’s standard.
Cast/Characters
Roger Moore returns for his second outing as James Bond. He already feels like a completely different character to Connery’s.
Christopher Lee plays Scaramanga, seemingly completely loving the cold blooded assassin.
Britt Ekland plays ‘Goodnight’ a fellow MI6 agent. Once again we get a rather useless female character, who is there just to appease the male viewers.
Maud Addams (who would go on to play Octopussy in… Octopussy) plays Andrea Anders, the girlfriend of Scaramana.
Hervé Villechaize plays Scaramanga’s right hand man Nick Nack (before his fame in Fantasy Island).
Other Bond regulars such as Bernard Lee, Desmond Llewelyn and Lois Maxwell appear as their respective characters M, Q and Moneypenny.
Breakdown
Roger Moore has seemingly made himself comfortable in the shoes of 007, and his mannerisms and boyish good looks only help to complement him in the role. His being in his late 40’s here (he was 47 at the time of release) hasn’t marred him yet.
If anything he has shown both his agility and resilience in some heavy action packed sequences. His costars Ekland was 32 and Adams was 29. This hasn’t felt too cringy… yet…
Christopher Lee seems to be right into the big bad of the film. he commits 100% to the antagonist of Bond
I actually found this to be one of the easiest narratives to follow, and the ‘too and fro’ between Bond and Scaramanga, as well as Bond’s investigations have an easy flow about it. Even the villains plan (to capture the market for solar power, to sell to the highest bidder – even those who appose solar) was the least convoluted so far. There are also a handful of ‘double crosses’ where characters turn on each other which is a fun.
While it is starting to drift away from the blatant misogyny of Connery’s era, this seemed to be the rudest of the films so far with some ‘barely there’ clothed, and in the case of Goodnight, favouring having her in as little as possible. It is also a shame she is one of the Bond’s more clueless partners so far. (Oh Tracey we miss you!)
This also has one of the best car stunt sequences where Bond jumps a car off one bridge onto another in an “astro spiral corkscrew jump”, a 270 – degree spin. Simply brilliant!
I get that JW Pepper was popular, but was he really popular enough to bring back a second time???
Overall
I found this to be an improvement on the previous installments due to several reasons. I’m quite enjoying Moore in the role, and his iteration of Bond is growing on me.
Some great ups (the practical effects especially), but I can’t fathom to explain why they thought to bring JW Pepper back in.
Despite its critical panning, I really enjoyed this – even with JW’s return.
3.5/5
Please also check out my Podcast on Youtube, where we review a new movie every week! Please subscribe!