Figure after recent posts I shall revisit this for the first time in ages. So bear with me.
[in my best William Conrad narration]The year is 1974. Overseas Vietnam drags on. President Richard Nixon becomes the first to resign...
...At home, there are two general elections (one is a Hung Parliament, the first in forty-five years) within a short space of time. Three day weeks owing to an electricity crisis (via strikes), the IRA conduct an extensive bombing campaign in London (including the Tower of London, Westminster Hall and Brooks Club), Enoch Powell makes his Rivers of Blood speech, Britain enters its first recession since the end of WWII, 5 are killed in the Guildford pub bombing, Princess Anne is subject to a kidnap attempt, 21 are killed in the Birmingham Pub bombing, Mrs Thatcher gains momentum within the Tory Party, the final episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus is aired, Tom Baker replaces Jon Pertwee as Dr Who and on the 19th December, Roger Moore returns for his second outing as Agent James Bond 007 in Ian Fleming's...
The Man With The Golden Gun
This is the third film since NTTD and so it in a way lessens the bitter taste NTTD left me.
Barry returns after an one film hiatus.
Seconds in you look at that shot and think, beautiful and then it enters your mind that in 2004 it was devastated in the Tsunami.
Lighter note, it's Maud Adams. I fear Octopussy weighs heavily in my mind, as it were. Still, Guinness is a touch too heavy a drink to have on a day like that. Fancy dragging this DAF deleted character all this way.
The set gives as always this impression it's like a real-life Tracy Island. The way it looks and is set up, the island locale.
From the off Lee commands your attention (well, next to Adams' legs, I say) because it's well Lee. Physically he's a tall chap and maybe that helps but you think by 1974 he had become more well known for his Hammer involvement than anything else so perhaps that too lends itself. Also, he reminds me of my late Grandad.
I've not read the book for ages but I suspect it did not give much for a film-maker to sink their teeth into (this being said it could be reworked as a period piece much as I think TSWLM could work in an early 60s setting).
It's utterly bonkers, the amusement stuff, the jaunty version of the song (a criticism, one of several, levelled at the film in a certain book is that the song is utterly stupid lyrically but the soundtrack is perhaps Barry's most uninspired...We'll see).
Now, Capone's meant to be a waxwork but he BLINKS as he opens fire...(!)
The set here is Prisoneresque, the jagged lines and edges framing the golden gun, the colours and sheer nuttiness of the PTS. It's a vaguely more serious version of when Closeau and Cato went at each other. Credit to Moore standing there all that while.
I don't remember that crazy guitar intro to the song. Maybe Barry had a few shandies and said, alright lads, give me a second or two to get something out of my system.
"Clifton James as JW Pepper"...I wonder what the reaction was in screens. Either "Say, I liked that sheriff!" or "Ugh!"
"Who will he bang? We'lllllllll shalllllll seeee!"
Next to DAF surely the second best song for double entendre. Had he lived, could see Fleming smoking on his cigarette in a private screening and everyone hearing this choking sound: "WHO WILL HE BANG!?"
Like Bond's computer loading moment after he's asked what he knows about Scaramanga. Here's a couple of faces of well known British character types, dear Michael Goodliffe (sadly committed suicide two years later) and James Cossins (well known today for a guest turn in Fawlty Towers). This is Tanner's first on screen appearance, something I always forget. In a way Goodliffe matches some of Fleming's description and perhaps in any other film, earlier at that, you could imagine his Tanner sharing a drink with Connery or Moore's Bond in the latter's office.
At the time the energy crisis of course was winding down but still relevant and maybe the whole thing is relevant now. The suggestion everyone connected to this film was a bit cranky is not helped by dear Bernard Lee simply being pissy. Sure in the books M wasn't a bag of fun (as evidenced in OHMSS by his dismissal of the Christmas crackers) but Lee's M usually had a kind of light edge, at the fringes.
Penny's office boasts the OHMSS-era portrait of the Queen. Geez, even Penny's on one.
Ah, Beirut, when it looked vaguely in one piece.
Barry edges in that 'sleazy' touch that last was heard in DAF ("Airport Source"), I say sleazy. Well, you do have the abdomen line. No other actor would've carried that off. Dalton would say it quickly to get it out of the way. Interesting that the fat bald bloke joins in the fight when previously you get the impression he runs the joint and has others do his dirty work for him.
Yep, she's lost her charm. Ruddy hell that taxi driver had a good eye pulling up and rolling back in time.
Cossins' Colthorpe is a quietly fantastic character. Someone else in Q Branch, besides Q, who is an expert on something, who knows his stuff and who Q actually seems to tolerate. Plus the pair of them don't turn a hair at the explosion in the lab but Bond does.
I've complimented Brozzer as being the last Bond to wear a suit (look stylish etc) but Moore was the pacesetter. Not to knock Connery but it's Roger Moore, you know, a chap. Brett Sinclair.
"Your reputation proceeds you." Yes, well don't go on will you. Now, that family eating their grub I saw replicated in real life when waiting for a friend outside Peckham Rye train station in South London. I was pacing as they were late, the station has these three alleyways leading to it from three directions. I glanced inside an open doorway and saw this Chinese family having their dinner. Right out of GG.
Lazar's not the brightest for someone so prolific and profitable. I mean Bond is standing by the gun whilst Lazar is away...I'd have kept myself by the gun but then I'm not in a Bond film.
Something about the casino with its buckets landing from on high that reminds me of Police Academy 2. Lassard a nervous wreck, as things land near him he almost shoots the chef.
Well, here's something. The good ol' days. A hydrofoil on its way to Hong Kong, the dear Queen Elizabeth languishing in her fate and we're twenty-five years away from the Handover.
Easiest buck that cab driver earned, didn't even go one foot.
Oh, Goodnight. Sure Ekland was a knockout in the day but the character is what she is. In a way close to the book, I seem to recall in OHMSS she was a giggling mess at times. One thing that I first thought of with Paloma when we first meet her but Paloma was something else in the end.
First of two films Adams gets her kit off. Now, in spite of what I've thought in the past, there's something about Barry's score after Moore's "good afternoon". The tinkling of the piano echoing away -it feels/sounds so profound for the scene. This becomes something that neither Moore or Adams cared for much in the years after, Bond's treatment of Anders. Sure Bond is all firm, not in the mood to mess but it's perhaps more for Connery or Lazenby. As much as today the slap Bond gives Tracy is a bit much, it is in line with things. "You're not one to turn the other cheek!" ditto for Connery.
Perhaps because of what we think of Sir Roge then and even now, it isn't right for his Bond.
On this note the Bottoms Up club needed to be in a Connery film. The look as he walks in. "Yesssh well."
If Goodliffe and Cossins were familiar faces here, Soon-Tek Oh was the American equivalent, at least in what I've seen -things as different as The Final Countdown, TJ Hooker, Ironside etc.
If there's one Moore thing he managed to get in, smoking cigars. Broz did because he was in Cuba but Moore manages it in LALD on a glider, standing in a doorway here and beyond. Cigars were his thing. Fleming might have bridled but then liked it.
Good lighting on Scaramanga as he takes aim and some common sense by Moore's Bond, hit the deck, gun straight in hand and straight for cover. Oh Tek-Oh seems alright, watch-it mate you're nicked, alright Midget move on. Second Bond film a Land Rover from HK comes screaming up.
Barry gets all broody and it works, or at least it hints at something to come. A random thought is that shame there wasn't an one-off Persuaders TV movie with Curtis and Moore messing about in Hong Kong ("You know Daniel, you're turning into a frightful bore").
Lumme, Anders knows what's in store. And a measure of Lee, as an actor, is that scowl when she rebuffs him. Lee could've been mute in this film and still convey such menace.
"Kowloon's over there!" bear that in mind James for when you're searching for a ruddy huge stealth boat/
I saw part of this next scene on YouTube other month and someone commented, "Did they film on the Queen Elizabeth for real!?" Jesus wept. But still, as a set it works. Even if Bond's escape isn't giving much legs. I don't expect a 10 minute romp but he leaps onto the QE, you think aye aye, and straight away someone announces to him. What a mindbender of a set though, the angles. There's a Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea episode, early on when it was still a spy thriller thing, where Hedison is captured by the Reds and the set has a similar eye trickery going on.
"Sorry I led you on commander.
-Yes well, wouldn't it have been easier to say who you were early on so I don't look a bloody tit now?"
Crikey, M's cranky again (though Bond's face after the I almost wish he got you line is a picture).
"Why Bangkok?"
Well what stays in Bangkok and all that.
Lee is almost like the literary M with his "I know all that"
Frazier, for a bit character, has his moment ("This is really exciting!") which always reminds me of a Python sketch, election night, where there's the four pundits and some chap whose name I forget keeps saying to camera "May I say this is the first time I've ever been on television!?"
Chew Me? Well chew you...Austin Powers etc
The days when faking a third nipple had such power.
To match Moore, Lee has a cracking wardrobe.
Oh look, it's the nieces. Strikes me that Tek-Oh veers from dub to natural voice and back and forth. The dubbed voice is too sharp really.
I'm not an expert but considering sumos don't move too fast, surely the best way is to just run past them? After all it takes Nic Nac with the trident to clobber Bond.
"Take Mr Bond to school!" too right, he's not too sharp on his maths lately.
if I was Bond I'd be faintly amused, get woken by these women then there's some sort of show. This is where Tiger Tanaka would've come in handy. Rescues Bond with some of his ninjas.
Instead we kind of get the Bee Gee equivalent of karate types (they need a ruddy hair cut either way).
Karate-Barry Gibb should've seen that coming, Bond's lash to the face. Too cocky, bad show.
But hang a tick, this bloke's clad in black for a reason. His name's chanted, he eyes Bond as he bows so he's not entirely dense. Poor Bond, first Bambi and Thumper now this bloke kicking him from north to east.
Bond wisely chooses the right option by diving out of the wall. One chuckle moment still is
"Stand back girls" and they push past him...
Christ, he should've taken the nieces into Hai Fat's place to begin with.
Tek-Oh gets a savage kick to the face in as the bloke lies on the ground.
Something a little badass of the shot of Moore backing up (to follow the others) as the music kicks into life loudly. But idiot Tek-Oh, even the nieces seem to be saying you're leaving him behind!
Bond says screw-off? Yes. It's a stand-off no? I mean I'm British, we don't deal with Mexicans.
Well, Boris has but we don't talk about that without lawyers.
Irritating child. Though Bond could've easily turfed him over the side he entertains for a moment.
"20,000...!"
What do you expect, you showed him up by moving the switch a centimetre.
And here he is, Jay Dubya. And missus.
"Elephants? They're democrats Maybelle!" -not since Bob Hope's line in Road to Morocco has such a joke landed for me
Now I said about Zimmer quoting Arnold's "Vesper" in NTTD but always forget Barry quotes LALD here.
Way things were, I'm surprised we never had a spin off TV series about the Peppers.
Foo-Yuck 74? I'd take the 64 please.
Anders to her credit doesn't notice the Goodnight shaped bump in the duvet nor the slight breathing sounds. Bond though doesn't sling Goodnight out into the corridor where surely she could've taken advantage of some waiter long enough to not make noise in the wardrobe as she falls asleep and starts snoring.
Bollocks she was in there two hours.
Now here's a piece of absolute daring by Scaramanga. Getting Anders' dead body into the arena (I've always assumed he shot her on the junk.) He says difficult shot but it doesn't figure. If he shot her in the arena, she'd have fallen off the seat or something unless Nic Nac is holding her. And bypassers, the golden gun doesn't strike me as having a silencer capacity...
...too much thinking? Yes but after recent films, I can't be arsed to argue.
"I've got the car keys and Solex!" oh bloody hell.
Now here we go. Having been abandoned by Tek-Oh, Bond effectively gets his own back with the utter brass of nicking a car from a dealership. Even if it's a few moments before he twigs that he's pinched a car with Pepper in it.
To his credit, Pepper is up for it. He seems to like Bond even if when we last him he was faintly traumatised by the experience ("ON WHOSE SIDE!?"). Just tell Jay Dubya it's the girl they're trying to rescue. Headquarters my Aunt Fanny.
Starsky & Hutch started in 74 I believe, so it wouldn't have been too farfetched to throw the Striped Tomato into this film. Hell with it.
We could've done with a bit more music even with Clifton James bravely leaning out his window. I say bravely, when you consider some of the accidents on film sets (I'm not referring to the Baldwin incident), over the years, having one of your actors doing that at speed...
I do love how Scaramanga is just cruising along on the other side of the river. Any other film Nic Nac would've given the finger rather than wave.
Now I don't care. This is one of the best stunts in a Bond film, done for real, utter balls and it's fucking blighted by the whistle. I mean, the absolute infamy of the whole thing [/Basil Fawlty rant]
So, JW ends up in the back as he wasn't wearing a seat-belt but Bond...
"Loui-is-ana State Po-lice!" yeah, I'm sorry JW but Louisiana being a few miles away it won't work but nice try.
I assume like a Thunderbirds series craft, the wings and engine are already in the shed...though with this film who knows
"I'm going to get Henry Kissinger!" got his hands full Jay-Dubya.
Oh the dialogue...if half of this appeared in NTTD, someone would've bitched.
"Hey Boss the boot just opened!
-Yes I know, there's a MI6 agent back there."
Back to the Queen Elizabeth. "Oh Q shut up!" oh M...come on.
He's just not in the mood. Did Guy Hamilton insult Lee or something?
Good ol' Navy helping out. Just go in with a bloody frigate, shell the place to blazes and that's it. What? Goodnight? Well...she knew the risks. It's not like the Royal Navy kills MI6 agents is it?
Now, the shot of Bond flying isn't too bad but imagine if Barry brought the 007 theme in here. It's effectively the aerial version of what Bond does in the spyboat in Moonraker.
Awfully nice of the Red Chinese warning Scaramanga isn't it? The days when you could make fun of them and not have to do an apology in Chinese for even possibly insulting them. (I know they're not making fun of them here but the costumes etc...)
Suddenly, Scaramanga is bit jaunty, lively, I assume he's drank enough Guinness to refloat the Titanic.
"She does as she pleases."
Surely she's only been on his island a day or two?
The Tracy Island stuff goes full tilt with the inside of the factory thingy. But wait, there's some other chap, surely he does all this stuff by himself with Nic Nac's help? No, there's this other chap.
I guess we need Scaramanga now. He'll sort our climate out no questions asked.
"This is the part I like"
Bond's face.
Bell sound. "LLLLLUNNNNNNNNNCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHH!"
Classic Bond villain, kidnaps the girl and puts her into a bikini.
"I could stay here forever," alright Goodnight we'll do that again without the stiffness.
Can feel a certain kind of panic as Nic Nac realises he can't track Bond. That Scaramanga's eyes are revolving about, where's the help? the hints?
Stroke of genius really. Has enough time to change into the mannequin's outfit and deliver the single shot.
Oh Goodnight, good effort but you fouled the joint up.
Second Hamilton film the girls arse causes trouble.
As the place starts to explode, Goodnight hits the deck once through the door, strikes me as an outtake. Bond goes with her as if they tripped on their feet amidst all the SFX.
So, you gently sail off and get down to business as it were.
But no, Nic Nac.
That bedroom though must've been painful after all that glass smashing.
What are the odds of M calling Scaramanga's junk?
"She's just coming," you dirty swine
Alright, it wasn't entirely bad but I still am not too swayed by it. It will lift off the bottom of my rankings but I fear it's my least favourite Moore film.
No need to fear, James Bond is here...
Hilly will return with Die Another Day.
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