The Man With The Golden Gun

This is a film obsessed with people being very still. Firstly, and most obviously, someone took the decision not to fork out for wax models and to make actors hold their breath instead. I know this because the guy playing the waxwork Al Capone blinks like a frog when he fires his gun. And then we get Roger Moore trembling ever-so-slightly in the background of a scene, pretending to be his own Madame Tussaud's figurine. The indignity! Maud Adams  makes a good go of it when it's her turn: after her character is bumped off she has to sit agonisingly still, just so, for AGES, and in extreme close up too, with only the barest whisper of movement. Then there's the sight gag of Nick Nack and the sumo wrestlers all pretending to be statues in Hai Fat's grisly grotto.. which seems to cheat and use real statues! Poor Mary Goodnight has to hide under the duvet whilst Bond flirts with another woman on top of her and then finally [SPOILERS!], the big reversal: Bond snags Scaramanga by pretending to be the wax model of himself pretending to be a wax model of himself.

It's a good ending, albeit one that only works if Bond is able to creep up to his dummy doppleganger, undress him, swap clothes, then hide the mannequin, and assume its pose/position - all of this within a few seconds and in full view of Scaramanga, who is standing JUST THERE the whole time. (It looks like we're finally seeing the fruits of all that ninja training in YOLT and for further evidence of Bond's accomplishment as a quick change artist see Octopussy.) However this climax also relies on Scaramanga previously having given the waxwork-007 a loaded Walther PPK (Bond having lost his own), which seems to me to be the height of super-villain hubris. Will they never learn?

Never mind for, despite all that, it IS a good ending and if all this waxy lifelessness feels like I'm building up to damn what is, let's face it, rather a relaxed and gentle Bond film, then be assured: the climactic and preposterous duel with Scaramanga is where this dummy, like a young Kim Cattral, comes magically to life.

I love the duel because, for the first time since Red Grant in FRWL, Scaramanga presents us with an 'anti-Bond': an equal and opposite adversary. But unlike Grant, Scaramanga can match Bond in multiple ways - he too is a connoisseur of fine wines and beautiful women, and consumes them both with a Bondian appetite. Christopher Lee brings a purring sophistication to the role. He is a cold, cruel man who takes delight in the chance to measure his talent against the renowned 007. That he's certainly one of the most memorable villains in the series says a lot about the performance, because he's given comparatively little to do and only gets to spend a few minutes with Bond. When they do get together, there's verbal sparring as they show off whilst touring the power plant and they carp at one another over the dining table, the veneer of social decorum just covering their murderous intentions. Yes, it's another cock fight, but at least one offering the remote possibility that Bond might not win through this time.

The 'fun house', the location for the duel, is a terrible, zany idea, like something from a bad episode of the Avengers. It doesn't really seem very Bondian, but neither does it feel like the urbane Scaramanga should be at home here really. Presumably this is how wacko midget henchman Nick Nack gets his kicks.

Despite the revolving mirrors and silly wax works, the tension builds nicely as the assassins try to seek each other out. With hindsight a lot of the frisson comes from knowing that they are unwittingly pre-enacting the 'Golden Gun' multi-player mode from the N64 GoldenEye game: creeping through a labyrinth, knowing that one bullet will mean instant death. Once he's stops mucking about with Nick Nack's leitmotif, '30s jazz and saloon bar pianola, John Barry, pushes it all to the nerve-wracking limit with this before the final cathartic gun-shot rings out.

But before all that there's the rest of the film to get through and it's a little lack-lustre. The twinkle is beginning to glint in Moore's eye, but he's still forced to grim his way through some sub-Connery-schtick, leering at Maud Adams as she showers before slapping her about. You can see his heart's not in it. He also spews the most horrendous amount of technobabble about the Solex, the irrelevant McGuffin. It doesn't add anything to the story and the idea that Bond is an expert in the theory of solar power conversion is even more preposterous than Christmas Jones being a nuclear physicist. There's still an emphasis on comedy, but there isn't the tendency for farce that we saw in LALD; here it's more a slightly grubby knowing sense of humour (the belly dancer's charm, Lezar's 'piece').

John Barry returns with one of his best Bond scores, mixing the film's theme up again and again into pleasingly 007ish variations. He also manages to perk up dull moments - when Bond is being arrested (at great and rather boring length) there's some deliciously suspenseful music sulking in the background.

There's no major action sequence to lift the earlier scenes and the only stunt to speak of is the rather marvellous car jump over a broken bridge. Shame it is utterly ruined by a silly swanee whistle (but see here for how magnificent it looks without it!).

There's a lesson in there somewhere.

* * *

Pre-Credits Sequence: Another Bond-less PCS introduces us - at some length - to Scaramanga, Nick-Nack and their labyrinth. It sets everything up for the final duel nicely enough and this is surely the point.

Theme: It's a punchy little number with some filthy lyrics (the implication being that Scaramanga runs some sort of fertility clinic), but it's never going to win any 'Best Bond Theme' competitions. Maurice Binder continues to pull the same boring rabbit from his hat, this time with south-east Asian models doing the jiggling.   

Deaths: An all time low of 6. Quite remarkable. I'm not counting the boy wounded in the stomach in the knife fight (no way that's fatal unless the school's pastoral care is very poor indeed) but even if I did the tally would still be the lowest so far.    

Memorable Deaths: Hardly any. Scaramanga kills most of them and that means they die the same way: a golden bullet to the chest.    

Licence to Kill: One. I'd never noticed this before but 007 only kills one person in this movie and that is Scaramanga himself, which is not only fitting but also rather wonderful I think. Bond doesn't even fire his gun until the duel starts.

Exploding Helicopters: Again zero, a sure sign that budgets have been squeezed lately. A seaplane is blown up on the beach but this does not count.

Shags: 2. Mo(o)re austerity. 

Crimes Against Women: Moore's Bond is at his nastiest here, twisting Andrea's arm. But the film's treatment of Goodnight is beyond disgraceful. She's presented as a total dim blonde, getting kidnapped, losing car keys, obstructing Bond when he wants to follow someone, handing Scaramanga the Solex and so forth. Worst of all, she hits a button on a console with her pert bikini-clad backside and nearly skewers 007 on a sunbeam as a result. Bond is dismissive of her throughout and it's clear that she's of no operational value to him as a fellow agent. He is happy to shag her though. Brilliantly, startlingly, she turns him down (see Best Lines) but then changes her mind immediately. It's hardly empowering, but even worse is to come. Having offered herself up to him, Bond makes her hide in the wardrobe whilst he beds Scaramanga's girlfriend.

Casual Racism: Nothing casual about the way Sheriff J. W. Pepper abuses the people of south-east Asia. How anyone thought it was acceptable, even as a parody of racism, is beyond me.

Out of Time: Well, everybody is kung-fu fighting- huh! - so it must be 1974. 

Fashion Disasters: Bond has developed a penchant for rather awful safari shirts.

Eh?: So it's Scaramanga's girlfriend that send Bond the bullet. So why does he have a life-size model of Bond in his house? How did she get the bullet engraved? >> Can Scaramanga really just announce that he has taken over Hai-Fat's company like that? If the Queen Mary is such a brilliant hiding place, how do the British smuggle all their top security personal aboard without the Chinese noticing? Is there a tunnel from Whitehall? >> But the most bewildering question is what on earth is J. W. Pepper doing on holiday in Thailand when he obviously hates foreigners? It's amazing he even left Louisiana.   

Worst Line: Bond, trying to suck up to a belly dancer: "You really do have a most magnificent abdomen." And all that Solex stuff, goodness me it's dull.Worst of all though is his patronising reassurance to Goodnight (after he swaps her for Maud Adams mid-hook-up) that "Your turn will come!" Give that man a slap.

Best Line: Mary Goodnight strikes a momentary blow for feminism having been propositioned by 007: "Oh James, I'm tempted. But killing a few hours as one of your passing fancies really isn't my scene." Needless to say, her resolve lasts all of five seconds. Bond wonders aloud who might want to kill him. "Jealous husbands, outraged chefs, humiliated tailors... the list is endless!" snaps back M.

Worst Bond Moment: Bond suffers various indignities here (being squeezed by Sumo wrestlers and kicked about by kung-fu-ists, swallowing a bullet from a belly dancer's midriff, getting kicked in the shins by a midget) but surely the worst thing happens to Roger Moore - forced to stand there in the background of a shot pretending to be his own wax-work double.

Best Bond Moment: The bridge jump is nice as is the 'oh no' when he realises who's car he's just stolen. But the best bit is the final gunfight with Scaramanga. Excellent stuff.   

Overall: The Bond/Scaramanga duel is so pleasing that I tend to leave TMWTGG with an artificially high opinion of it. It's a small-scale Bond film that adds up to more than the sum of it's parts, but those parts are slight indeed. In its defence it was made very quickly and with a limited budget - but it was poorly received. It's not a bad Bond film at all, but once again the series had misplaced its sense of the spectacular. It's clear that the producers knew this needed to be rectified - but that'll have to wait for next time.

James Bond Will Return: ... after some legal wrangling and some franchise-saving head scratching in The Spy Who Loved Me.