Ill-tempered characters in TMWTGG

sambwoy

One or two of the Bond regulars in Golden Gun, even Bond himself at some points, seem so ill-tempered. This is odd considering that this was the film with the greatest emphasis on slapstick. But I don’t understand why some of these lines were written into the script.

Why does the film shift from hot one minute to cold the next?
What was the thinking of the filmmakers to have the characters so mean-spirited? Were these attempts to make the film gritty, or attempts at humour that simply misfired?

R. Sterling

Maybe it was just a matter of too many cooks spoiling the broth.

I also always felt the movie came across like a good cocktail mixed by bad bartenders- or too many.

There was this tendency to make the franchise darker and grittier but at the same time the "humour" of the next installments is already there.

Pulled hard in two directions, good thing it didn't tear completely.

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PPK 7.65mm

Defiantly a matter of too many cooks in kitchen if you ask me. I feel like Diamonds are Forever and Live and Let Die are the same way.

For the few serious moments, they are lost among the multitude of corny jokes and sight gags which shift the film towards campy comedy. This was mostly Tom Mankiewicz's influence, as Richard Maibaum writing followed the novels more closely, and had jokes that movie goers found funny.

Hardyboy

A few years ago I wrote a topic on this very subject under the title of "Cranky, Oh So Cranky." I was searching around for it, but it appears to have gone the way of many old topics. Ah, well. . .

R. Sterling

Hard copy?

Anywhere?

Perhaps?

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Loeffelholz

Never really noticed this myself...other than M bitching to Q: "Oh, shut up, Q" )

I remain one of a select few on AJB who like TMWTGG---from the Lulu tune to the film itself. It's my second-ranking Moore film overall (just behind LALD), and it probably gets rewatched more than nearly any other Bond film, because it's Loeff Jr.'s favourite :007)

stjimmy456

R. Sterling wrote:

There was this tendency to make the franchise darker and grittier but at the same time the "humour" of the next installments is already there.


-{

For example, having Scaramanga, possibly the coldest villain since Dr. No -- but having him drive a flying car with a short man in a tuxedo.

thesecretagent

There was another post like this a while back, other than HardyBoy's, and the fact that it's turned up again obviously means it's a fairly notable trait throughout the film. I find them all a bit tetchy - M, Q, Moneypenny - the other chap in Q's ballistic lab. Quite an unusual situation, it almost shows Bond up asan incompetant irritation, rather than an unorthedox rule breaker.

youknowmyname

stjimmy456 wrote:

R. Sterling wrote:

There was this tendency to make the franchise darker and grittier but at the same time the "humour" of the next installments is already there.


-{

For example, having Scaramanga, possibly the coldest villain since Dr. No -- but having him drive a flying car with a short man in a tuxedo.

|)

True.

sambwoy

I also just remembered a particularly bad moment where the British captain in the Queen Elizabeth wreck enters the room where M is furious over the loss of Scaramanga, and replies to the captain 'what do you want?!!'.

'Phew! It's getting hot in here!' the captain replies, and quickly leaves.

Napoleon Plural

I think it's a way of racheting up tension in an otherwise tension-free film.

Alex

Anyone drinking Phu-yuck 74' is bound to be ill-tempered.

Ricardo C.

M was acting like a dick in this film. Blowing up on poor Q. Other than that, Golden Gun is still my fave Moore-Bond.

mrbain007

Golden Gun is a strange film in the series. On the one hand Bond is a short tempered arse and faces one of his most dangerous adversaries. On the other...he fights a midget and gets saved by 2 teenage girls.

sambwoy

mrbain007 wrote:

Golden Gun is a strange film in the series. On the one hand Bond is a short tempered arse and faces one of his most dangerous adversaries. On the other...he fights a midget and gets saved by 2 teenage girls.

The book 'Martini, Girls and Guns' suggested that Mary Goodnight's ineptness was introduced for comic effect which might explain why Bond is irritated with her. (Bond: 'Just press any damn button will you!') That could partly suggest Bond's crabbiness, because Goodnight is incompetant as an 'MI6 agent'.

I wasn't going to put this but Britt Ekland does look great, if on an entirely superficial appearance level.

Moneypenny is a bit blunt with Bond too at the beginning where she goes into M's office. There appears to be virtually no affection displayed between any of the 'good guys' in this film.

The relationship between Scaramanga and Nick Nack is probably the only feeling felt between characters in this film.

Predator

Hong Kong isn't the coolest place on earth ... I suspect most would be fairly irritable having been flown across the world and made to sit in a giant rusting ship half-submerged in a humid Hong Kong harbour.

Flippancy aside, it is one of the strangest films in the series because of its mix of light and dark, professionalism and ineptitude, humour and drama. They certainly don't get it right all the time, but I've always felt there are larger issues with the film than a few tetchy lines.

I can see M's problem with his operatives. The Solex stolen under his men's noses by a single man (without an army of boiler suited minions). But this streak of anger and - later - cruelty grows throughout the film. It's just a shame that the overall tone of the film isn't improved by it. I imagine the initial Mankiewicz screenplay was a humdinger, but too brutal/not light enough for the Eon/MGM to get to the screen or perhaps would have incurred the wrath of the BBFC given its darker themes. After all, they wanted this to be a general film for a general audience and not one with an A certificate.

The above is all supposition on my part ... perhaps it was the other way around. Nevertheless, TMWTGG could have been much stronger film without the confusing direction.

Ricardo C.

sambwoy wrote:

The relationship between Scaramanga and Nick Nack is probably the only feeling felt between characters in this film.

True but even then their relationship was sort of uneasy. Nick Nack expressed an eagerness to get a hold Scarmanga's fortune when he was killed.

Loeffelholz

TMWTGG is just one of those films...features my least favourite Bond actor, but I'm still a big fan of the picture---uneven and flawed though it admittedly is. Can't really articulate it, but it takes me back to a happy time in my childhood. From DAF* on, I was watching the films on the big screen...great fun. I have a difficult time bringing any serious criticism to bear.

*_{Yet another example.}

Ricardo C.

Loeffelholz wrote:

TMWTGG is just one of those films...features my least favourite Bond actor, but I'm still a big fan of the picture---uneven and flawed though it admittedly is. Can't really articulate it, but it takes me back to a happy time in my childhood. From DAF* on, I was watching the films on the big screen...great fun. I have a difficult time bringing any serious criticism to bear.

*_{Yet another example.}

I feel the same way about both pictures. There are just about the only two I have trouble ranking because even though they don't function well as thrillers, they are still a lot of fun. However I definetly put DAF ahead in my book.

Loeffelholz

Ricardo C. wrote:

Loeffelholz wrote:

TMWTGG is just one of those films...features my least favourite Bond actor, but I'm still a big fan of the picture---uneven and flawed though it admittedly is. Can't really articulate it, but it takes me back to a happy time in my childhood. From DAF* on, I was watching the films on the big screen...great fun. I have a difficult time bringing any serious criticism to bear.

*_{Yet another example.}

I feel the same way about both pictures. There are just about the only two I have trouble ranking because even though they don't function well as thrillers, they are still a lot of fun. However I definetly put DAF ahead in my book.

Same here. DAF is still always a blast for me, even in my jaded middle age )

blueman

I think all three Hamilton 70s Bonds reflect pretty well a shifting dynamic in society, what to do with those (least of all, sexually) liberated women (and it wasn't just Bond having issues). What's really odd is the incredible shift just within the Bond canon: 60s Bond gals were independent firecrackers for the most part living their own lives of significant danger quite separate from any involvement with Bond. But contrast Jill St John (great example as she starts out flinty and strong and ends up a marshmallow!) with Honor Blackman or Diana Rigg, Jane Seymour with Ursula Andress, Britt Ekland with Akiko Wakabayashi or Luciana Paluzzi... the occasional 60s eye-candy Bond girl (they're there but more background than foreground) has become the front-and-center standard in the first half of the 70s, and to the detriment of Bond IMO. But nobody but exploitation filmmakers were really tackling this paradigm shift (and even when Hollywood did try they'd get something like Klute, compelling but also clunky in spots, a character like Bree Daniels was still too alien to get right).

Perhaps it's in the 60s an adventurous female was a male fantasy, and therefore greenlit to fully realize, whereas in the 70s such a creature was anti-male and to be hidden? If there's one thing I appreciate about recent female characters in Bond films the past 15 years, it's that 60s sense of embracing the adventure and strength of such (relatively) fully-realized independent women. Very appropriately Fleming IMO, hope to see more of that in 23 (like a female head of Quantum...?).

Loeffelholz

blueman wrote:

I think all three Hamilton 70s Bonds reflect pretty well a shifting dynamic in society, what to do with those (least of all, sexually) liberated women (and it wasn't just Bond having issues). What's really odd is the incredible shift just within the Bond canon: 60s Bond gals were independent firecrackers for the most part living their own lives of significant danger quite separate from any involvement with Bond. But contrast Jill St John (great example as she starts out flinty and strong and ends up a marshmallow!) with Honor Blackman or Diana Rigg, Jane Seymour with Ursula Andress, Britt Ekland with Akiko Wakabayashi or Luciana Paluzzi... the occasional 60s eye-candy Bond girl (they're there but more background than foreground) has become the standard in the first half of the 70s, and to the detriment of Bond IMO. But nobody but exploitation filmmakers were really tackling this paradigm shift (and even when Hollywood did try they'd get something like Klute, compelling but also clunky in spots, a character like Bree Daniels was still too alien to get right).

Perhaps it's in the 60s an adventurous female was a male fantasy, and therefore greenlit to fully realize, whereas in the 70s such a creature was anti-male and to be hidden? If there's one thing I appreciate about recent female characters in Bond films the past 15 years, it's that 60s sense of embracing the adventure and strength of such (relatively) fully-realized independent women. Very appropriately Fleming IMO, hope to see more of that in 23 (like a female head of Quantum...?).

Solid analysis, there, blue {[]

Ricardo C.

blueman wrote:

I think all three Hamilton 70s Bonds reflect pretty well a shifting dynamic in society, what to do with those (least of all, sexually) liberated women (and it wasn't just Bond having issues). What's really odd is the incredible shift just within the Bond canon: 60s Bond gals were independent firecrackers for the most part living their own lives of significant danger quite separate from any involvement with Bond. But contrast Jill St John (great example as she starts out flinty and strong and ends up a marshmallow!) with Honor Blackman or Diana Rigg, Jane Seymour with Ursula Andress, Britt Ekland with Akiko Wakabayashi or Luciana Paluzzi... the occasional 60s eye-candy Bond girl (they're there but more background than foreground) has become the front-and-center standard in the first half of the 70s, and to the detriment of Bond IMO. But nobody but exploitation filmmakers were really tackling this paradigm shift (and even when Hollywood did try they'd get something like Klute, compelling but also clunky in spots, a character like Bree Daniels was still too alien to get right).

Perhaps it's in the 60s an adventurous female was a male fantasy, and therefore greenlit to fully realize, whereas in the 70s such a creature was anti-male and to be hidden? If there's one thing I appreciate about recent female characters in Bond films the past 15 years, it's that 60s sense of embracing the adventure and strength of such (relatively) fully-realized independent women. Very appropriately Fleming IMO, hope to see more of that in 23 (like a female head of Quantum...?).

That's an interesting POV. Also notice that after The Man With The Golden Gun, Bond definetly became softer in nature which I think had a lot to do with Harry Saltzman departure.

zaphod

sambwoy wrote:

One or two of the Bond regulars in Golden Gun, even Bond himself at some points, seem so ill-tempered. This is odd considering that this was the film with the greatest emphasis on slapstick. But I don’t understand why some of these lines were written into the script.

Why does the film shift from hot one minute to cold the next?
What was the thinking of the filmmakers to have the characters so mean-spirited? Were these attempts to make the film gritty, or attempts at humour that simply misfired?

Never really noticed it myself. However cant blame anyone for being mean if in a film that Dire, and coming after the return to form of LALD it was even more apparent that it's an underachiever.