Fan Reviews (The Man With The Golden Gun)
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"The Man With The Golden Gun" by Overkill
During the Broccoli/Saltzman years, one thing you could never
accuse them of was missing an opportunity. Until 1974.
Following the great success of Live and Let Die in 1973 it was
decided to cash in on the debut of Roger Moore as quickly as possible.
As a result, for the fist time since 1965, the public would get
two Bond movies in consecutive years.
Initial story ideas (by this point, the novel plotlines were
effectively ignored) suggested by Tom Mankiewicz included a ‘Shane-style’
face off between Bond and the evil Scaramanga, and suggested Jack
Palance take the villain’s role.
The idea was rejected, and Ian Fleming’s cousin, and one
of Roger Moore’s best friends, Christopher Lee was cast
as the triple-nippled hit man. Some elements of Mankiewicz’s
idea were retained (the concept of Bond and Scaramanga being the
good/evil sides of the same coin) but were blurred and muddled
into a contemporary story of the Energy Crisis, and Bond chasing
down a missing ‘Solex Agitator’. How we get to here
from Bond receiving a golden bullet in the post is never fully
explained and far from satisfactory. The plot just doesn’t
hang together , and relies too much on coincidence, people behaving
in stupid and out-of-character ways for the plot to advance (rather
like all those Friday 13th movies). This is just one of the movies
failings.
Following LALD’s success at aping Blaxploitation movies,
TMWTGG would follow suit with Kung Fu movies. Bruce Lee was, at
the time, the biggest star in the world, so TMWTGG is crammed
with pointless kung-fu moments and an Asian location, for no reason
other than to copy a successful format.
This is quite sad. Throughout the sixties, it was Bond who was
the trendsetter. There are countless Bond copies and spoofs, but
it seemed when that market dried up, Broccoli/Saltzman seemed
to think that if no one wants to copy them, they’ll copy
everyone else (this has continued to be the case ever since with
MR, LTK, GE, TND and DAD all, to some extent, taking their lead
from other genres).
The cast are fairly good. Moore is still finding his feet, but
does his best with the poor material he has. Hervé Villechaize
does a fair job as NicNac without being anything special and Maud
Adams is great as Scaramanga’s mistress (again with little
to do). The same cannot be said for Britt Ekland. How this woman
ever was as famous as she was is beyond me. But in 1974 she was
Britain’s favourite glamorous actress (a bit like Liz Hurley).
She had tried, and failed, to show her range in Get carter and
The Wicker Man (two of my all time favourite movies), but in both
cases she was a peripheral character. Here there is much more
emphasis on her and she seems to be there just to make up the
numbers. I feel the film could have been improved enormously by
doing away with Goodnight and just having Andrea Anders (Adams)
as a sole love interest. And the least said about the return of
Sheriff J W Pepper (of the Louisiana State Po-lice) the better.
The highpoint though, is Lee. One the finest, and underrated
actors Britain has ever produced, he was here given a chance to
shine in a role that was perfect for him… and the writers
give him nothing to do. All he does is skulk in shadows pointing
his gun at people.
OK, to be fair he is given a couple of scenes. His final meeting
with Hai Fat, where he constructs his gun whilst holding a conversation
is superb (and his delivery of the pay off is fantastic).
And his face to face with Bond over dinner is a highpoint of the
series. But those two scenes amount to about seven minutes of
screen time. Scandalous.
The other scandal is the lack of action. There’s the famous,
and superbly dangerous, barrel jump over the broken bridge, but
this is compromised by the bizarre addition of a comedy sound
effect.
Scaramanga is given a huge (and expensive looking) lair that appears
only to be blown up with little or no fanfare. His funhouse looks
great though.
It’s hard to know who to blame though. Tom Mankiewicz received
a co-writing credit with the normally reliable Richard Maibaum,
and the combination of Tom Mankiewicz and director Guy Hamilton
had worked so well for LALD.
My thoughts are that the project was simply too rushed. Releasing
Bond in consecutive years was a gamble that didn’t really
pay off. The final product seems too disjointed and hurried. More
time to hone the story and develop some decent action could have
really turned this around.
As it stands, TMWTGG is a missed opportunity. And whilst that
may be common in the Bond-iverse now, in those days it was unthinkable.
Despite the promise of the end credits, the world would have to
wait 3 years before finding out if Scaramanga really was the villain
that finally killed Bond…
Rating
"The Man With The Golden Gun" by NicNac
If ever Harry and Cubby could be accused of taking their audience
for granted, this was the moment.
Poorly thought out and weakly executed, TMWTGG stands up as the
weakest (although not the worst) Bond movie in its 40 year history.
And we can assume the worsening relations between the two producers
was one of the reasons for this happening.
After LALD was splattered with endless chase sequences in an
attempt to draw attention away from the fact there was no real
plot, TMWTGG came along with just the one (not counting the water
pursuit with Sheriff Pepper): a car chase of dubious merit. Otherwise,
the action consisted of a couple of so-so punch ups and a pretty
limp conclusion on Scaramanga's island.
The film had it's moments. Sparkling dialogue for Christopher
Lee (as villain Scaramanga), and Roger Moore to get their teeth
into. At times as witty and wise as any dialogue in the heralded
early Connery movies. But not consistently brilliant enough to
carry the film through to a satisfactory conclusion.
Visually, it had some witty moments, especially Lee's silent,
scary assembling of the golden gun. And poor Hai Fat was too busy
sounding off to notice his fate! Brilliant. Britt Ekland, the
sexy Swedish star managed some how to be completely devoid of
sex appeal in this film. Better was Maud Adams as Lee's doomed
mistress.
Watching TMWTGG is frustrating because you sit through endless
void scenes, waiting for the great one-liners, and wishing for
something, anything to spark it into life. And oddly enough, it
happens.
We've suffered Sheriff pepper, and his wife, we've grimaced at
Mary Goodnight's total incompetence, we've flinched at Roger Moore
slapping Maud Adams, which is so against character, and we've
put up silently with 2 school girls saving Bond's behind. Now
we need a true, great Bond moment.
And it came with the 360 degree car spin on the broken bridge.
A once only stunt that made Bond even more famous. A moment to
savour, and a moment that modern Bond films could never emulate
with or without CGI. And if John Barry should be rebuked for the
theme song performed by LuLu, he should be slapped soundly across
the face for adding the loop-di-loop sound effect that spoiled
the stunt completely.
Typical TMWTGG. Give us one terrific moment, then dump it more
soundly than the elephant dumped Pepper in the river!
Rating
"The Man With The Golden Gun" by Tubes
The Man With The Golden Gun is a steaming pile of mediocrity.
What could cause such poor quality? Well, for one, Mary Goodnight
is far and away the worst Bond girl to ever grace the screen.
Most have at least some redeeming value. She stretches any credibility
that MI6 had to begin with. She is worthless in the field and
inept off it. She tries to act tough, but that is completely ridiculous.
To top it off, she isn't all that attractive.
Andrea Anders does a slightly better job, but still is lacking.
She is more believable, yet is more of a side character than the
main plot device we are meant to think. She is almost invisible
when on screen, a character hardly worth mentioning. One must
wonder, though, how she got Scaramanga's prints on her letter...
You would think that Roger would be more conformable in his role
as Bond, but he falls to the sophomore jinx. Most of his screen
time is spent either chasing after Goodnight or trying to act
tough. Roger looks uncomfortable and not all that interested.
Both the production design and musical score are big letdowns.
The sets are bland and uninteresting. Even the Queen Elizabeth,
which should be amazing, is vastly under whelming. Not only that,
but John Barry seemed to score the picture on an off day with
the deadline the next day. Nothing creative is put in the music
and most of the themes are chipper rehashes of the title song.
The action here is non existent. There is nothing interesting
here, as opposed to the grand boat chase of the previous and the
big shootout of the next one. All that's here is some mediocre
kung-fu, a lame car chase, and a very predictable end duel.
If there is a bright spot, it the performance of Christopher
Lee and the return of Sheriff J.W. Pepper. Lee turns his character
into a true menace, dominating the screen whenever he is on. Pepper
brings in some well needed laughs in a films that lacks them.
His presence alone makes the car chase watchable.
A nice, lighthearted Bond movie can be a good thing, but The
Man With The Golden Gun is not funny at all. It's boring and very
painful to watch. The darker story that Tom Mankiewicz wrote gets
mixed up in Richard Maibaum's story and it all goes down the toilet.
In Conclusion: Two hours of sheer torture. Watch only when wanting
to complete the series or wanting to drive unwanted guests out
of the house.
Rating
