The Man WIth The Golden Gun
Cast & Credits
Actor Character
Roger Moore James Bond
Christopher Lee Francisco Scaramanga
Britt Ekland Mary Goodnight
Maud Adams Andrea Anders
Directed by Guy Hamilton
Original Running Time: 2 hours and 5 minutes
After the gunbarrel sequence, we are witnesses to a bizarre scene on a secluded island. A beautiful woman in a bathing suit is toweling off a tall and dark man with three nipples named Francisco Scaramanga (played by the legendary Christopher Lee). He doen't seem very enthused by her affection. Instead he orders his champagne carrying butler named Nick Nack (Herve "De plane Boss!" Villechaize) to get his some tobasco sauce. I wouldn't be painting the entire picture if I didn't mention that Nick Nack is extremely diminutive. A dwarf, in fact. As he walks off from Monsieur Scaramanga, we see him sneak a gangster from a row boat into a massive estate. Nick Nack gives the man a stack of money and tells him that he will give him the rest later. The gangster pulls out his pistol as Scaramanga walks in. Nick Nack, who has rushed off to a control console, changes the lights to the color of blood red and Scaramanga uses his wits to escape danger for the time being. As the gangster surveys the area for his target, he finds out that the entire place has transformed into a funhouse / house of horrors. Nick Nack irritates both men over an intercom in his high-pitched French accent. It turns out to be a game of hide and seek in which Scaramanga's golden gun is hidden. Eventually, he retrieves it and disposes of the gangster using ingenuity, gadgetry, and his golden colt. Next we find out that this a game that Scaramanga and Nick Nack play together where the butler will get all of Scaramanga's belongings including his weird bug collection if he can find someone that is his match. Next we see Scaramanga blow all four fingers off of a wax dummy in rapid succession. The wax dummy looks like James Bond. What an intro. What a set up. Could this be one of the best Bond movies ever? Could it be?
The title sequence is very slick. We see the images of the golden gun and several sexy nude models in rippling water. The models privates are covered up by strategically placed golden bullets. Unfortunately, the theme song by Lulu pales in comparison to Paul McCartney's Live And Let Die and several of the other Bond theme songs for that matter. John Barry returns, but this is not one of his better Bond scores. He himself has said that it is the one that he enjoyed the least. Word has it that he only had three weeks to score the entire film for whatever reason. Now to the movie.
James Bond is brought into M's office and asked what he knows about Francisco Scaramanga. He gives M an long and detailed response that includes just about every known fact about him except the last time that he ate Rice Krispies. The most important things that Bond states are that Scaramanga is the world's leading assassin that gets paid $ 1 million a hit and that he's called the man with the golden gun because all of his victims are found with golden bullets in them. Next M shows James a golden bullet with the number 007 on it. It came with a letter signed S that had Scaramanga's fingerprints on it. M orders Bond to take a temporary leave of absence. As he is leaving the office, James asks Miss Moneypenny about 003 who was rumored to have been killed by the man with the golden gun. She said that he was found dead with a belly dancer but that the bullet never was found. This sets up a sequence where James tracks down the dancer, gets into fist fight with a couple of goons, and retrieves the bullet in an unorthodox manner. He returns to MI6 with the bullet and has Q and another expert look at it. They come up with the conclusion that a man named Lazar in Macau made the bullet.
Bond finds Lazar and interrogates him about Scaramanga. After a bit of persuasion, he explains to Bond that he has never actualy met him but that a delivery of golden bullets is being made to a nearby casino. There Bond witnesses a young woman picking the bullets up and while tracking her runs into secret agent Mary Goodnight (played by Britt "Mrs. Peter Sellers" Ekland). The less said about her the better. Unfortunately, I will have to talk about her more because her stupidity is actually used as a device to move the plot. Anyhow, James tracks the woman that he was following to a nearby hotel and convinces her to talk to him about Scaramanga. She explains tells him that her name is Andrea Anders (Maud Adams) and that she is his mistress. She also states that he will be at the Bottoms Up Club. Just outside of the club, a man named Gibson is shot between the eyes with a golden bullet and soon afterwards Nick Nack is standing over him. A man takes Bond in for questioning. It turns out that he is a secret agent named Hip and he takes Bond to meet with M. Gibson was meeting Hip with a device called the Solex Agitator which could stop the energy crisis (we're still working on that one, aren't we?). After both agents are chewed out for failing their respective misisons, M tells them that it is believed that the owner of an energy company named Hai Fat was suspected of wanting Gibson dead and could definitely afford to hire Scaramanga.
Bond poses as Scaramanga by putting on a third nipple and meets Hai Fat. Little does Bond know that Hai Fat actually has seen the man with the golden gun face to face and orders him to kill our favorite secret agent. Before you know it, James is fighting Sumo wrestlers and then is knocked out cold by Nick Nack. Oh brother... 007 wakes up in a karate school and forced to get into a fight with martial artists for no reason except that martial arts movies were popular when this movie came. I guess that Bond's going to be killed with karate this time instead of someone just shooting him. Bond fights dirty and runs from the school. Hip and his two nieces just happen to be outside with a car running because Hip had a hunch that this is where Bond would be since he owns the place. Next thing you know, Hip and his nieces beat up about twenty karate students in ten seconds. They then drive off without James just so he can get in boat BOAT CHASE PART 2. Thankfully, it doesn't last nearly as long as the one in the previous movie.
Next, we witness a meeting between Scaramanga and Hai Fat. This is extremely cool stuff since we get to see that the golden gun is actually made up of different items. Scaramanga takes a fountain pen, lighter, cigarette case, and one of his cuff links and assembles them into his golden gun and kills Hai Fat. This leads into a scene where Bond is to meet Andrea who now has the Solex Agitator at a local martial arts match. She is already dead and Bond finds Scaramanga next to him. He goes into a long story about how as a boy that he thought that he liked animals, but learned that he enjoyed killing people more. Shortly after he gets the Solex he leaves. Mary Goodnight puts a homer in Scaramanga's trunk and gets promptly shoved into it. As Francisco drives off, Bond runs into a car dealership and hops inot a car that apparently he can hot wire in .007 seconds, or maybe they leave the keys in the ignition at car dealers in Thailand? As unlikely as this is, even more unlikely is that J.W. Pepper, the sheriff from Live And Let Die is seated next to him asking for a test drive. Yep, gold old J.W. is on vacation there because his character was that popular (the dialogue between him and Bond is actually rather funny). An exciting car chase ensues which is highlighted by a magnificently orchestrated 360 corkscrew jump. I can forgive that an elaborate set piece was needed for this stunt to happen, but I can't forgive the horrible slide whistle effect that was used during it. Way to crap all over a brilliant stunt! Anyhow, Bond and J.W. drive up to a barn that Scaramanga entered. It turns out to be a hangar and the car now has wings and flies off. Soon Mary Goodnight pries open the trunk twith a crowbar and realizes that they are about 30,000 feet in the air because I guess that she is so dumb that she couldn't hear the car take off.
Needless to say, Bond follows the tracking device to Scaramanaga's remote island. Francisco shows him around his pad, unveils a giant laser beam (powered by the Solex) which he uses to blow up the seaplane that Bond came in on, invites him to lunch, they have a friendly conversation that turns not so friendly, and he challenges Bond to a duel to the death. This leads to another showdown in the funhouse. It ends extremely appropriately. Bond outsmarts Scaramanga because he probably would not be able to defeat the gunslinger at gunplay. Soon Mary blows up the place without knowing it and nearly gets Bond killed because of her stupidity. It a good thing that she's really pretty...
This movie was all over the place. Christopher Lee is undoubtedly a screen legend (he has been Dracula, Fu Manchu, Sherlock Holmes, Sith Lord Count Dooku, and Saruman in Lord of the Rings) and his performance in this movie is one of the best of any villain that has ever been in a Bond film. He comes across as cool, calculating, sinister, odd, and creepy all at once. The heavy character driven scenes show how talented of an actor he really is. I just think that this would be much better with one of the "serious" Bonds (Connery, Dalton, or Craig). I also enjoyed his sidekick Nick Nack. A huge problem is that these guys aren't in the movie nearly enough and it suffers when they aren't. Also, director Guy Hamilton unwisely listened to some of the criticisms of Roger Moore's performance in Live And Let Die and had him attempting to do things that are against type for him. For example, when he roughs up Andrea he just comes across as a real douche. Yes, I can see why people might not like Roger's lighthearted approach but that's his strength as an actor. Fortunately this problem is taken care of in the next movie.
2 out of 5 - Below average for a Bond movie. Christopher Lee is excellent, but overall the movie is not very good. It doesn't know whether it wants to be serious or not and isn't very good at either.
Cool thing to know: There was a theme song written by Alice Cooper that the filmmakers decided not to use at the last second. Here it is: www.youtube.com/watch?v=R500VKA9-Zo
James Bond will return next Monday in The Spy Who Loved Me.
Proud member of the SONIC SUPPORT SQUAD
Tag "Sorry man. Someone pissed in my Wheaties."
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