The Man with the Golden Gun
Dir: Guy Hamilton
1974
*****
Ask many Bond fans what their favorite Bond film is and you'll find The Man with the Golden Gun comes quite high on people's lists. Roger Moore's second outing as 007 is an adaption of Ian Flemming's 13th James Bond novel, the last full 007 story, published eight months after the author's death. Released in 1974, it was the ninth James bond film to be released in twelve years and by this point the franchise, or should I say the audience, was suffering 007 fatigue. Roger Moore was still splitting opinion and although the film made a profit, it was significantly less than Live and Let Die released the year before. Again, Guy Hamilton's humour hindered the World's favorite spy. Bond script-writer Tom Mankiewicz also suffered from Bond fatigue and Richard Maibaum returned to the franchise to finish off the original script which is vastly different to the original novel. The previous year's Live and Let Die had tapped into the popular Blaxploitation scene to appeal to wider audiences, in The Man with the Golden Gun a large slice of the film is dedicated to the then popular martial arts genre; Chambara. It's a great scene but it doesn't really fit well within the film. This and many other disjointed decisions were the first cracks of what would be a troubling time for the franchise. The big reason the film is now so highly regarded is down to the villain. Francisco Scaramanga, an assassin and Bond's deadliest rival yet, played by the brilliant Christopher Lee, who is now a firm favorite among the fans. Jack Palance was initially offered the role but turned it down, it was then remembered that Ian Flemming had suggested his cousin Christopher Lee to play Dr. No.. When asked, Lee said that Flemming would often say he'd put his name forward for villains but always forgot, so it was nice to be finally asked, albeit ironically after Flemming's death. Britt Ekland and Maud Adams were both offered parts and both are among the favorite Bond girls of the series, with Adams returning to the franchise in Octopussy. Another notable Bond villain of sorts was Nick Nack, played by midget Herve Villechaize. Nick Nack was Francisco Scaramanga's man servant on his secret Island. This secret Island off the coast of Thailand is easily the coolest of the Bond Villain bases and no doubt the inspiration of popular TV show Fantasy Island , that saw Herve Villechaize play a similar role. The critics slammed The Man with the Golden Gun on it's release, Harry Saltzman ended his partnership with Cubby Broccoli and sold his 50% to United Artists and legal issues would see Bond on hold for a further three years. The film is memorable for many things, the Golden gun itself, a flying car, the greatest car stunt of the entire franchise, the return of Sheriff J.W. Pepper, the shipwreck of the RMS Queen Elizabeth doubling as a MI6 base, Kung-Fu, A deadly midget, Lulu's suggestive theme song, Carry On humour, a giant laser gun, Mary Goodnight ("Goodnight Sir"), German Expressionism (Scaramanga's funhouse) and a rubber nipple. For all intents and purposes it is a flop, and one of the greatest ever made at that.