The Man With The Golden Gun

hehadlotsofguts

I was watching this just now and i can honestly say that this is one good Bond film. It has all the ingredients: A cool villain, great locations some good humour such as Bond shutting Nick Nack in that suitcase and Nick Nack ranting and raving as Bond is doing this,Good Bond girls such as Mary Goodnight and Anders(Goodnight's ditzyness adds the the humour) ,

The return of Sheriff JW Pepper who is on holiday with his wife. Pepper has great banter with Bond but he seems to be really racist in this.

The Producers of the film seem to be cashing in on the martial arts craze which was at the time with a scene at a martial arts school which I like.

I also have a feeling that the gangster Scaramanga duels with in the PTS is the same guy in DAF ("I didn't know there was a pool down there!"). He doesn't have a name in DAF he is listed as Slumber Inc Attendant , but he is named Rodney in TMWTGG. What are everyone's thoughts on this?


However I do have one issue with the film. I think the theme song is terrible, really horrible to listen to, If only they used that other version from Alice Cooper, I think that version sounds cooler.


What does everyone else think of TMWTGG?

Barbel

hehadlotsofguts wrote:

I also have a feeling that the gangster Scaramanga duels with in the PTS is the same guy in DAF ("I didn't know there was a pool down there!"). He doesn't have a name in DAF he is listed as Slumber Inc Attendant , but he is named Rodney in TMWTGG. What are everyone's thoughts on this?

I've always thought that Marc Lawrence was playing the same guy in both films.

hehadlotsofguts

wonder why he was credited as Slumber Inc Attendant in DAF and not Rodney like in TMWTGG. I wonder if it was left to the viewers to decide who the man is in TMWTGG. I also think it's the same character

ZorinIndustries

Love the film! A nice solid entry for Roger Moore!

MooseWithFleas

TMWTGG is a bit of a missed opportunity for me. Phenomenal plot idea of putting Bond against the World's Greatest Assassin. Whenever I watch it I feel like the film has a bit of an identity crisis. Some moments want to be very serious, such as Bond manhandling Andrea and discovering that she is trapped and called out to him for help all along.

Then we immediately go from her tragic death to Mary Goodnight being an absolute goof and Sheriff Pepper being Sheriff Pepper. I was fine with him in LALD, but he is so out of place in Thailand and it takes you out of the serious mood that the scene before had just set.

The film has good moments. I still like Moore in it, Maud Adams is solid, Christopher Lee is amazing, and I love the scenery of it all. I just feel like it could have been better.

hehadlotsofguts

My favourite scene is where Bond's interrogating Lazaar. "I'm now aiming precisely at your groin. So speak now or forever hold your peace." Moore was ruthless in that scene

MooseWithFleas

That is a great scene and a classic Roger Moore Bond moment. The look on his face and delivery when he says "You're right, an inch too low." is fantastic.

UltimateTruth

For me the Martial Arts "School" ruins it.......Why couldn't they have Bond battle it out w Muay Thai guys since they were in Thailand ? They had Bond at a Muay Thai stadium watching a fight.....At least they had a Krabi Kabong knife fight at the "school" (another confusing thing....A fight to the death using live knives for the entertainment of students and a hostage ?) As an earlier poster pointed out, this movie was made at the zenith of the martial arts craze, so I guess they had to play it safe and use Karate Gi"s and moves so the geneal movie going audience could relate......However, this was a missed chance to add some really authentic Thai fighting to an action movie set in Thailand. (for what it's worth, there's some Muay Thai in the 1965 Peter OToole film "Lord Jim")

Higgins

To me, TMWTGG is the last "vintage" Bond movie.

From there on, Bond went modern - with fancier cars, computers,cruise missiles, satellites, electronic watches (I know in LALD he wore Pulsar) and stuff.
I can easily forgive it some camp moments - many of them have been mentioned.

I love the locations in Asia, you can feel the hot and humid climate, the girls (and Britt is a feast for my eyes :x ) the villain - the music minus the annoying title tune.

There is a lot to love in that movie

Charmed & Dangerous

I found TMWTGG to be Sir Rog''s most disappointing Bond film and its still probably my least watched. It has some good points - the dual with Scaramanga, Christopher Lee's performance, the fantastic design of the golden gun itself, the cast, and the general plot, among them. But then again:

1. The script just can't decide whether it wants Roger to be Sean or Roger to be Roger. It's vey uneven. And Goodnight is the most vapidly-written Bond woman - a real climb down given how independent and capable the Bond women of the 1960s were.

2. The ending is just kinda lame. And one guard minding the store and ogling Goodnight while he's at it? What happened to all those minions like Blofed used to have in the good old days?

3. The slide whistle.

4. The fight at the Kung Fu school. Two schoolgirls pushing Bond out of the way and taking on all those Kung Fu fighters? That's just not Bond to me, he should be in the thick of it.

On the plus side though, I think the music is great, and Sir Rog is always a joy to watch. And it's a Bond film! :007)

Peppermill

TMWTGG feels like a mixed bag to me. It has some great moments but most of them are offset by disappointing parts. It has one of the greatest stunts ever performed but I really hate that slide whistle. I surprised that it wasn’t cut out in one of the many remastered versions of the movie on VHS, DVD or blu-ray. I think it would really help the scene. Roger Moore looks a bit uncomfortable in the role while he looked really relaxed and in his element in LALD. Lee is of course a highlight of the movie, but his demise doesn’t do justice to this great villain. The plot is also not one of the strongest of the series. But still, I do enjoy it, but not as much as most Roger Moore movies. I can understand that it was a bit of a disappointment after the very good LALD.

Sherbrook

The movie suffered from a misguided attempt to incorporate elements of the Asian martial arts genre popular at the time in the wake of Enter The Dragon

I too found the death of Scaramanga to be a little unspectacular

Peppermill

Having read the novel a few times I was surprised that the writers decided to essentially drop the entire plot from the novel and write a completely new story for the film. Not that the novel is one of Fleming´s stronger entries, but there are some very interesting parts in it all the same. The interaction between Roger Moore and Lee is one of the highlights of the movie IMHO

hehadlotsofguts

Didn't get a chance to read the novel. What was the plot of the novel?

Blackleiter

Peppermill wrote:

TMWTGG feels like a mixed bag to me. It has some great moments but most of them are offset by disappointing parts. It has one of the greatest stunts ever performed but I really hate that slide whistle. I surprised that it wasn’t cut out in one of the many remastered versions of the movie on VHS, DVD or blu-ray. I think it would really help the scene. Roger Moore looks a bit uncomfortable in the role while he looked really relaxed and in his element in LALD. Lee is of course a highlight of the movie, but his demise doesn’t do justice to this great villain. The plot is also not one of the strongest of the series. But still, I do enjoy it, but not as much as most Roger Moore movies. I can understand that it was a bit of a disappointment after the very good LALD.

I agree with your reasons as to why TMWTGG is such a disappointment. It definitely had promise, and I concur that Lee is a real highlight, although I think he could have been used better. AVTAK is my least favorite Roger Moore Bond film, and TMWTGG is next.

davidelliott101

To me it has always had a "TV Movie of the Week" feel to it... The editing and direction was off... the acting seemed off... even John Barry seemed tired of scoring the films by this point.

Napoleon Plural

hehadlotsofguts wrote:

Didn't get a chance to read the novel. What was the plot of the novel?

Bond is sent out to redeem himself by taking on the top pistolshot, under what pretext I can't recall. It's a bit like the Spang brothers in the novel DAF, in that Scaramanga - not a suave Englishman like Lee but a hard-bitten American if I recall, or Cuban, is built up to be this big deal, but not much is made of it. It's mostly set around Jamaica, with Bond pretending to be a similar bad guy to ingratiate himself with Scaramanga, much like the plot of the film LTK in that respect. Leiter shows up a couple of times.

hehadlotsofguts

Interesting. I'll have to have a look for the book

PPK 7.65mm

Following on the end of the novel You Only Live Twice, Bond suffering from amnesia traveled to Russia where the KGB brainwashed him to assassinate M, which was foiled. Rather than have him charged with murder, M sends him to redeem himself by taking out Scramanga who was responsible for the deaths of several MI6 agents in the past and most recently Cmdr. Ross the head of their station in Jamaica.

In the novel Scramanga was Cuban rather British and was a top assassin for Cuban Intelligence after working as a free lance killer in the US. The plot was a joint effort by Cuba/The Soviet Union and several American mobsters to mess with sugar crops bound for the US, and cause sugar from Cuba to go up in price resulting more money for the economy of the Communist world.

As for the film version, the change of the villains plot was likely due the fact that the energy crisis was a more relatable topic for people of the 1970's rather than the sugar crop plot of the novel. Scarmanga was also changed slightly to create a bigger threat to Bond than he was in the novel, director Guy Hamilton says in the BTS feature on the DVD than Scramanga in the novel was just another low rent thug when compared to Goldfinger or Blofeld hence why he was changed in the film.

chrisisall

Peppermill wrote:

TMWTGG feels like a mixed bag to me. It has some great moments but most of them are offset by disappointing parts.

Butterhook!

Peppermill

chrisisall wrote:

Peppermill wrote:

TMWTGG feels like a mixed bag to me. It has some great moments but most of them are offset by disappointing parts.

Butterhook!

Might be because it's early, but I don't understand -{

Mr_Osato

Like most Moore movies, it is indeed a mixed back with high's and low's.

The high's
- First and foremost it is Christopher Lee, who is more 'Bond' in his manners than Moore ever was. Great character and actor.
- Locations. I love asia (hardly surprising) and the locations are great. I will visit Hong Kong next month and hope to visit the Bottom up club. Or at least Hay Phat's residence (which is in HK, not Bangkok)
- I liked Ms Anders a lot, also a nice characyer that was underused.
- Great car stunt, ruined by looney toons tune, but still well done. No CGI!

Low's
- Miss Goodnight was quite rubbish. Unbelievable as a secret agent.
- Never liked Nick nack. Made the movie more cartoonish
- Never liked Sherrif Pepper much either. And he was worse here than in LALD.
- Moore's fighting scenes were ludricous

all in all, sort of a guilty pleasure. But certainly not a favourite.

Higgins

Mr_Osato wrote:

I will visit Hong Kong next month and hope to visit the Bottom up club.

Unfortunately, the Bottoms Up has moved some years ago.
The entire little street does not exist anymore, it made place for a huge shopping centre (iSquare).

You can find the Bottoms Up now in Wanchai (HK island), 1st floor, parts of the old interior have survived.

There is an elderly "lady" who can tell you about her time when George Lazenby visited them on a daily basis.

And just for the record: My wife was with me when I went to there

Peppermill

Hi Mr Osato. Ill be in Hong Kong next month also! I'm planning on visiting some of the Bond sites from TMWTGG (like the dragon garden), DAD (I have a very nice room in one of the hotels near the harbour) and SF (will be spending 2 nights in Macau).

Higgins

To all HK visitors:

In the basement of the IFC (the building which can seen prominently in The Dark Knight), there is a famous Dim Sum restaurant (Tim-Ho-Wan). You can't miss it - people are lining up in front.



Take a number, line up (can take an hour - but well worth it!) and enjoy a Michelin-awarded DimSum for extremely cheap!
Careful, they only accept cash!
Enjoy!

Peppermill

Thanks for the tip Bondtoys!

Thunderpussy

In my opinion it's a weak Bond film, the only highlights are the fantastic car jump and Christopher Lee.

ACACIA_AVENUE

I can remember seeing this film in December 74 at the Odeon, Leicester Square. I came away with mixed feelings about the film, it seemed as if they had rushed it out on the back of the kung fu craze as others have mentioned.

Its odd to think that this film is not popular among some bond fans.......yet it has the the most coveted of all collectables the golden gun.

PS. Bondtoys if you are reading this, I clicked on the link to your website and it appears there is a problem (I have used Safari and Firefox on a mac, but still get the same problem.)

Higgins

thanks for the info, A A

We are working on it -{

chrisisall

Peppermill wrote:

chrisisall wrote:

Peppermill wrote:

TMWTGG feels like a mixed bag to me. It has some great moments but most of them are offset by disappointing parts.

Butterhook!

Might be because it's early, but I don't understand -{

A comment from Bond in LALD- it means I think you slipped with that comment. )

raptors_887

I liked the idea of the story but the movie was kind of boring and poorly done. Maybe a remake would be a good idea.