Plot: 007 sets out to recover a solar converter that could revolutionize energy production. That is, if he isn’t killed first by an expert marksman with a golden gun!
Foiled by: Bond accepts the challenge of a duel of sorts in Scarmanga’s ridiculous, carnivalesque death lair/maze and gets the drop on the golden gunner vis a vis pretending to be the life-sized 007 statue the villain keeps on hand for target practice. He then grabs the converter despite Goodnight’s best bikini-clad antics and they escape.
Intriguing Setting(s): Southeast Asia | China | Remote villain island lair
Bond: Roger Moore
Villain(s):
- Scaramanga aka The Man With the Golden Gun
- Nick Nack (Herve Villechaize of Fantasy Island fame, which is fitting because he actually welcomes Bond to the villain island lair)
Bond Girl(s):
- Agent Mary Goodnight (Britt Eklund) – Ditzy and largely helpless without Bond, on whom she dotes an unrequited schoolgirl crush
- Andrea Anders (Maud Adams) – Scaramanga’s girlfriend (prisoner?)
- Even in an often misogynistic series like the Bond films, this is an especially bad look. Bond smacks around multiple women (which Roger Moore reportedly hated doing); he sleeps with Anders (ostensibly on a revenge-sex mission trying to escape Scaramanga’s grasp) while Goodnight is stuffed in the closet; and despite Goodnight being literally and figuratively pushed aside by Bond the whole film, she still sleeps with him at the end!
HL’s Hot Take: Arguably the worst of the lot. Meandering and plotless, misogynistic and plodding, if it weren’t for one of the better villains in the cannon, this would be a complete bomb.
Head Librarian Rank: LAST – 24th
Critical Rank: 22/24
TRIVIA SECTION!
Odds & Ends: Bond receives a golden bullet with his name on it. Turns out Andrea Anders sent it to him as a cry for help rather than Scaramanga sending it as a threat. Which still results in the same outcome; Christopher Lee is Ian Fleming’s cousin and Fleming initially wanted Lee to play Dr. No.
6 Degrees Cameos: Christopher Lee is the obvious one as the main baddie, but don’t overlook Clifton James as Sherriff J.W. Pepper. James also plays a sheriff in Superman II and is in Cool Hand Luke, providing nice generational links to, among others, Paul Newman, Terrance Stamp and Gene Hackman.
Gadgets: No gadgets in this one, unless you count the Golden Gun
Cars: 1974 AMC Hornet
Awards: Ha. No.
Release Order: 9th/25 (1974)