Moore ... could have been a good villan in "The Jackal", something I didn't see until tonight.
I believe he wanted the part, as did Michael Caine, but both were turned down in favour of someone more anonymous.
That's fascinating stuff. Caine would definitely have been better (bringing some of that Get Carter steel) but I can't deny I would have liked to have seen Roger do it. It would have been well within his range.
I think I might have preferred Caine to Fox, actually; good though Fox is.
Thunderbird 2East of Cardiff, Wales.Posts: 2,816MI6 Agent
@Thunderbird 2. Regarding your comments on not liking having Pepper back. He has an overtly casual racism here which he didn't have explicitly in LALD. I think that makes him a problem character looking at it today. He has a lot of vitality, though, and his presence has the effect of displacing Hip, an ineffective character, who basically disappears from the movie after a series of bungles.
That’s the irony Shady Tree. I was born a year later, so I’d be the first to agree it’s part of the times. There are lots of films and tv shows of that era - In Sickness and In Health, Fawlty Towers and Rising Damp all spring to mind.
I have seen Clifton James in one or two other things too, he is a good actor.
No, I just find Pepper a loudmouthed irritating pain in the arse! Always have. Screen time given him could definitely have been better spent in other ways. I agree though, Yip is a likeable but useless characters, as are all the “waffle-waffle emote-emote” boffins, except of course for Q.
This is Thunderbird 2, how can I be of assistance?
I think the best way to describe this film is a transition between times. I say that because LALD had all the spooky surreal voodoo stuff before, and TSWLM has an army or perhaps I should say Navy or willing troops, the Liparus and Atlantis. TMWTGG is the middle ground between the two, and this is highlighted best by the way the characters interact and the huge McGuffin in the Solex Agitation device.
In the early seventies the energy crisis was going on (as brilliantly re-enacted recently in The Crown) on Netflix. The same frustration and irritation radiates in this film. Apart from Scaramanga played with cruel and commanding glee by Sir Christopher Lee, all the other characters are various shades of pissed off. M, Moneypenny, Hi Fat, Nick Nack and Bond who comes across as too thuggish when he attacks Andrea. The fact Moore hated doing that scene,and would be friends wil Maud Adams for the the rest of his life speaks volumes as to how good he was.
I feel Britt Ekland gets a raw deal as Goodnight. A character written for light relief can be a narrow line between funny and dippy depending on the script and here the script takes advantage of making her look silly for some ‘cheeky’ fun.
Certain aspects of the film work brilliantly the locations, esp Hong Kong and James Bond Island are stunningly beautiful, the latter a lost paradise now due to the films that put it on the map.
Yip, Hi Fat and the other local characters are a bit stereotypical, but this was 1974.
Unfortunately the film repeats two horrendous errors left over from LALD.
The first is Pepper. He was bad enough in his own territory. Dragging him back here on holiday is in itself criminal. The fact he is in two separate sequences is unforgivable. This is where a Mrs Bell, or Mr Bleaker repeat would have worked, or even bring in Felix L or another old friend of Bond’s might have worked.
The second is the duel scene between Bond and Scaramanga is lacking. At the dinner table Scaramanga talks up how the two of them are the best of the best. But once matters get underway, Bond is running around the fun palace, while Scaramanga is skulking in the shadows. There is no real one on one aspect. This repeats the demise of Dr Kananga in being very anti climatic.
TMWTGG does have the foreshadowing of Moore’s best. Locations, a few gadgetsbiting pieces of humour and prep towards industrial scale world domination plans. It’s just a pity the subject matter of the Solex is such a dated idea, like much of the decor.....
And I only got one proper machine that goes ping!
As someone once said, What’s next?
Personally I think it's slightly baffling that they had a film where the villain is the greatest assassin on the planet, and the climax is all about some little silver box- why wouldn't you have had Bond racing to stop an assassination?! Trying to stop WW3 being started by Scaramanga killing someone? I mean, that's what all films about assassins are about isn't it? Like the Jackal mentioned above.
Also, another odd note is that Bond is very much the aggressor here and it can be argued that Scaramanga didn't really deserve his attention. He never threatened to kill Bond, and the Solex is something that Gibson builds while he's in the employ of Scaramanga and Hai Fat: the British have no claim on it whatsoever. Bond is just told to go and kill Scaramanga and take it.
Bond even suggests that Scaramanga will take the money from the oil companies to suppress the Solex technology, and when MI6 recover it at the end, do we ever hear about it again? I wonder what they could possibly have done with it...
It's Andrea who intentionally puts Scaramanga and Bond on a colission course. I like that. It makes her more than a passive victim by betting Bond will kill Scaramanga before Scaramnaga kills her.
I think the best way to describe this film is a transition between times. I say that because LALD had all the spooky surreal voodoo stuff before, and TSWLM has an army or perhaps I should say Navy or willing troops, the Liparus and Atlantis. TMWTGG is the middle ground between the two, and this is highlighted best by the way the characters interact and the huge McGuffin in the Solex Agitation device.
In the early seventies the energy crisis was going on (as brilliantly re-enacted recently in The Crown) on Netflix. The same frustration and irritation radiates in this film. Apart from Scaramanga played with cruel and commanding glee by Sir Christopher Lee, all the other characters are various shades of pissed off. M, Moneypenny, Hi Fat, Nick Nack and Bond who comes across as too thuggish when he attacks Andrea. The fact Moore hated doing that scene,and would be friends wil Maud Adams for the the rest of his life speaks volumes as to how good he was.
I feel Britt Ekland gets a raw deal as Goodnight. A character written for light relief can be a narrow line between funny and dippy depending on the script and here the script takes advantage of making her look silly for some ‘cheeky’ fun.
Certain aspects of the film work brilliantly the locations, esp Hong Kong and James Bond Island are stunningly beautiful, the latter a lost paradise now due to the films that put it on the map.
Yip, Hi Fat and the other local characters are a bit stereotypical, but this was 1974.
Unfortunately the film repeats two horrendous errors left over from LALD.
The first is Pepper. He was bad enough in his own territory. Dragging him back here on holiday is in itself criminal. The fact he is in two separate sequences is unforgivable. This is where a Mrs Bell, or Mr Bleaker repeat would have worked, or even bring in Felix L or another old friend of Bond’s might have worked.
The second is the duel scene between Bond and Scaramanga is lacking. At the dinner table Scaramanga talks up how the two of them are the best of the best. But once matters get underway, Bond is running around the fun palace, while Scaramanga is skulking in the shadows. There is no real one on one aspect. This repeats the demise of Dr Kananga in being very anti climatic.
TMWTGG does have the foreshadowing of Moore’s best. Locations, a few gadgetsbiting pieces of humour and prep towards industrial scale world domination plans. It’s just a pity the subject matter of the Solex is such a dated idea, like much of the decor.....
And I only got one proper machine that goes ping!
As someone once said, What’s next?
Personally I think it's slightly baffling that they had a film where the villain is the greatest assassin on the planet, and the climax is all about some little silver box- why wouldn't you have had Bond racing to stop an assassination?! Trying to stop WW3 being started by Scaramanga killing someone? I mean, that's what all films about assassins are about isn't it? Like the Jackal mentioned above.
Also, another odd note is that Bond is very much the aggressor here and it can be argued that Scaramanga didn't really deserve his attention. He never threatened to kill Bond, and the Solex is something that Gibson builds while he's in the employ of Scaramanga and Hai Fat: the British have no claim on it whatsoever. Bond is just told to go and kill Scaramanga and take it.
Bond even suggests that Scaramanga will take the money from the oil companies to suppress the Solex technology, and when MI6 recover it at the end, do we ever hear about it again? I wonder what they could possibly have done with it...
It's Andrea who intentionally puts Scaramanga and Bond on a colission course. I like that. It makes her more than a passive victim by betting Bond will kill Scaramanga before Scaramnaga kills her.
That is good, and the plot of the film is pretty decent before all of the Solex nonsense crops up (if you ignore that Bond goes to Beirut to retrieve a bullet... despite already being sent one in the post!). If she'd sent the bullet to put him on Scaramanga's trail because he was about to make an enormous hit on the Russian President or whatever...
Bond/Scaramanga as two halves of the same coin heading for a duel - Mankiewicz
Solex + energy crisis - Maibaum
Maibaum replaced Mankiewicz (it had been the other way round on DAF) whose relationship with Hamilton had deteriorated after 3 movies together.
And then Mankiewicz came back in to do another layer of work on Maibaum's re-drafting! Lee seemed dramatically more committed to the mano-o-mano duelling side of things. Topical though the energy crisis was in the 70s, one sympathises with Lee as he performs Mankiewicz's casually disinterested dialogue about the technical aspects of the solar power stuff, along the lines of "You really know far more about it than I do, Mister Bond", and "Science was never my strong suit!" Scaramanga is the charismatic figure, there; Bond, the techno-bore.
Critics and material I don't need. I haven't changed my act in 53 years.
Comments
That's fascinating stuff. Caine would definitely have been better (bringing some of that Get Carter steel) but I can't deny I would have liked to have seen Roger do it. It would have been well within his range.
I think I might have preferred Caine to Fox, actually; good though Fox is.
That’s the irony Shady Tree. I was born a year later, so I’d be the first to agree it’s part of the times. There are lots of films and tv shows of that era - In Sickness and In Health, Fawlty Towers and Rising Damp all spring to mind.
I have seen Clifton James in one or two other things too, he is a good actor.
No, I just find Pepper a loudmouthed irritating pain in the arse! Always have. Screen time given him could definitely have been better spent in other ways. I agree though, Yip is a likeable but useless characters, as are all the “waffle-waffle emote-emote” boffins, except of course for Q.
There's a good reason you might think that: it was based on the AVE Mizar which... fell out of the sky.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVE_Mizar
It's Andrea who intentionally puts Scaramanga and Bond on a colission course. I like that. It makes her more than a passive victim by betting Bond will kill Scaramanga before Scaramnaga kills her.
That is good, and the plot of the film is pretty decent before all of the Solex nonsense crops up (if you ignore that Bond goes to Beirut to retrieve a bullet... despite already being sent one in the post!). If she'd sent the bullet to put him on Scaramanga's trail because he was about to make an enormous hit on the Russian President or whatever...
Solex + energy crisis - Maibaum
Maibaum replaced Mankiewicz (it had been the other way round on DAF) whose relationship with Hamilton had deteriorated after 3 movies together.
And then Mankiewicz came back in to do another layer of work on Maibaum's re-drafting! Lee seemed dramatically more committed to the mano-o-mano duelling side of things. Topical though the energy crisis was in the 70s, one sympathises with Lee as he performs Mankiewicz's casually disinterested dialogue about the technical aspects of the solar power stuff, along the lines of "You really know far more about it than I do, Mister Bond", and "Science was never my strong suit!" Scaramanga is the charismatic figure, there; Bond, the techno-bore.