Something I noticed in TMWTGG

chrisno1

I'm going to sound so ignorant here, but I only just got the significance of that dreadful Fun House on Scaramanga's island.

I caught the beginning of TMWTGG on T.V. the other week. I only watched the PTS. While I always got the wierd "gangster alley" and "ghost noises" as imitations of Fun Fair rides, I'd never paid much attention to Scaramanga's gymnasium. I suddenly saw the circus memorabilia dotted around the set. Additionally it's a circlular, like a Big Top, with a few trappings of the circus acrobat peppered in the centre.
As I recall, and I think 007 explains at one point, the circus background was explained in the movie (Fleming goes into more detail in the novel). I don't think the appearance of a few keepsakes necessarily justifies Scaramanga's elaborate training technique, but it does show the producers were attempting to instill some of Fleming's novel into the film.
The final shoot out is definately all about the baddie vs the goodie, it's about as "wild west" as Eon could get without actually having a miniature train on the island. Like so much of TMWTGG, It looks like another angle the producers decided to use but were afraid to turn on.

Napoleon Plural

Interesting. Do we see it in the finale as well?

I suppose in a way it's a bit like the climax of the novel DAF, the Spang Brothers' mock Wild West town. Rejected with good reason from the film, though it could be done properly, with that crazy GoodFellas actor also in Lethal Weapon 2 can't think of his name as the villain. Sort of so scary you don't dare laugh.

thesecretagent

Nicely noticed.

Personally I never really got why Bond's manaquin was there in the begining. Scaramanga shoots off the fingers, and we're led to believe that Bond is the target for theplot of the film. Only this wasn't the case - Maude Adams sends Bond the bullet with his name on it - triggering Bond to come and hunt down Scaramanga, and at the kick boxing match Scaramanga tells Bond he had no intention of killing him and lets him go, nic nac has a gun on him, but slips away without Bond knowing. So why did Scaramanga have Bond's dummy in his gym/killing house?

chrisno1

to be fair, thesecretagent, I wasn't focussing on the 007 mannequin - that is still lost to me as well!
Just what was that all about???
Even if Scaramanga genuinely believes Bond is the best shot in the business (although how does he know? not a very secret service obviously!) why does he revere him with a plastic dummy and shoot off the fingers? And you'd think he'd notice the fingers grow back when Bond finally shoots him....
In response to Napoleon, I'd have to watch the end sequence again to check, but I assume the props are the same at the finale as they are in the PTS. I think it's worth a look, if only to clarify why we have to suffer that ridiculous Fun House in the first (and second) place. Perhaps Scaramanga is living out his childhood everytime he kills someone???

Napoleon Plural

I guess it's just a way of inserting Bond into the pts, rather like the mask of Bond in the pts of FRWL, it's to introduce him early on. We're not to know that it's not Scaramanga who sends the bullet until way down the line.