"Speak now or forever hold your piece:" Let's discuss... The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)/ Poll

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  • saunderssaunders Living in a world of avarice and deceit
    edited May 2011 Posts: 987
    In my humble opinion TMWTGG biggest problem is that it was made in 1974, because of this the film has little appreciative style as it followed the dire fashions of the time and therefore almost everything on the sets is either brown, tan or a combination of the two. Roger's suits are universally awfull and cheap looking and even the classic white tuxedo is spoilt by the world's largest bow tie, and as for Moneypenny's blouse, the word hideous barley does it justice.
    Personally though I think this film is better than LALD and Roger gives a better, tougher performance as Bond with some great lines such as 'Speak now or forever hold your piece' and 'That would be pity because they are very, very expensive.'
    The cast just seems very sparse on this film and that magnificent Scaramanga Island is crying out for a big battle between hordes of guards in brightly coloured boiler suits. Instead we get just five actors for the last half hour, it almost would work better as a stage play. Killing Scaramanga 10 minutes before the end is another error as the sense of threat is lifted and the removal of the Solex Aggitator holds little sense of excitement.
    Christopher Lee is great casting and his Scaramanga is a vast improvement on Fleming's gangster hit-man, Herve Villechaize's Nick Nack is a pathetic henchman and carries no real sense of threat or menace, though Maud Adams Andrea Anders makes a interesting character who would of served the film better by being the lead Bond girl. Brit Eckland's Mary Goodnight character is especially irritating when you consider this is one of Fleming's reoccurring characters and should of been treated with more care.
    I hate the way the poor PTS is practically repeated scene for scene for the big final duel, and the cheap sets used for this are terrible when you compare them to say YOLT volcano set.
    The flying car looks stupid and thoroughly deserves to have to share it's scenes with the equally worthless J W Pepper, and the great car roll sequence is totally ruined by that whistle slide sound effect.
    I would rate this film very low, but in my opinion it still has enough good points to place it above LALD, AVTAK and of course DAD.
  • St_GeorgeSt_George Shuttling Drax's lovelies to the space doughnut - happy 40th, MR!
    Posts: 1,699
    Funny you rate Golden Gun above The 'Die, @saunders, I feel there's much more energy, fun and imagination in the latter, but I agree with many of your points on the former. Its cast is indeed on the small side for a Bond flick; not a bad thing on its own, but it does seem to ensure this one's rather under-populated. You mentioned it could be a stage play, interesting point - to me, it almost feels like a rather sub-standard, but expensive feature-length Saint episode. Or something like that, you know?

    And @BAIN123, I found myself agreeing with you almost word-for-word there. You're right about Sir Rog in this one, he doesn't feel right. They were experimenting with his Bond, I guess; mixing the light with the heavy. He hit his stride with Spy, surely, when Lewis Gilbert rightly hit upon the notion of directing him as 007 as if he were a 'Cary Grant-like hero', almost self-knowlingy above the action. Moore would act darker as Bond again in the '80s, of course, but by then he was more settled in the role and probably needed less direction to get the mix right (the editing may've been better too, who knows).

    And, sadly, you're right about the Goodnight character; however, I would reiterate the point I made further up, for me both Adams and Ekland add some truly much needed beauty and glamour to Golden Gun, however good or bad their characters...
  • edited May 2011 Posts: 11,189
    Funny St. George how you commented about ranking DAD above GG. I actually watched a little bit of DAD earlier and they both suffer from essentially the same problem. A decent story executed rather sub-standardly.

    You're right that DAD - overall - has more colour and energy to it and, at one point I probably would have put Die higher in my list.

    Upon thinking about it now however GG edges it as I think Lee and Adams are more memorable (for the right reasons) than Stephens and Berry.

    Brosnan still makes the better 007 though IMHO (though I do like Moore).
  • St_GeorgeSt_George Shuttling Drax's lovelies to the space doughnut - happy 40th, MR!
    Posts: 1,699
    Well, @BAIN123, I actually meant LALD, not DAD above. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

    Mind you, thinking on it, I might rank DAD higher than TMWTGG. Think I have in the past. Just... ;)
  • Posts: 60
    It is a fun movie that can be watched with the whole family, none of that gritty and dark mumbojumbo rubbish.
    And Roger Moore can do little wrong imho.
    Exactly ! I want more TWMTGG, MR, TSWLM !! Enough of CR/QOS ! Bring in the... benign bizarre ! The hilarious fun ! The utterly fun entertainement ! Where are Q, Moneypenny, hilarious one liners. campy secondary characters, the Bond theme full blast in action scenes, M in his/her office, M's wooden office and thick red door ?? Bring them back !! And who can forget the red telephone in M's office? Much more awesome than the bland wireless phone she has now.

    I cannot agree more. Craig's films were no fun at all.

    As far as "TMWTGG" goes, it is a very fun film, but I think it could have been a lot better. For instance, Scaramanga's facilities would have looked a lot better with more people in them like we saw in "YOLT" and "TSWLM". Why not have Lt. Hip lead a raid into Scaramanga's power plant and have a huge kung fu battle with explosions and machine guns?! This could have led to Bond chasing Scaramanga into the fun house instead of having the dissapointing "non-duel" that leads to the fun house.

    I know the film's goal is to lead us to the fun house, and that is fine with me, but I think there are better ways to have taken us there.

    Other problems include Britt Ekland, Roger Moore's "ruthless" scenes (they come off as being contrived), and Bond being ditched by Hip and his nieces as an excuse to move the film into stunt and fight sequences. This film suffers from very choppy segues.

    I can get past all the negatives because the film has spirit. It wants us to have fun, and there certainly is a lot of fun to be had.

    The best parts of the film are Maud Adams, Christoper Lee, Moore when he's allowed to be himself, the sets, and the beautiful islands. Oh, and controversially, J.W. Pepper is one of the film's highlights. Might as well have fun with him if you are going to have a film with so much nonsense!

    6/10

  • Posts: 17
    This film is considered as not one of the best, but I've always had an appreciation for it. Quick, to the point, good mindless entertainment for 2 hours. Those were the days.
  • I love Golden Gun. I think it comes joint second with Spy as my fav Moore movie. Moonraker is my favourite by far!
  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    Posts: 15,712
    I love Golden Gun. I think it comes joint second with Spy as my fav Moore movie. Moonraker is my favourite by far!
    You are named the best member of MI6Community !! :-bd
  • I love Golden Gun. I think it comes joint second with Spy as my fav Moore movie. Moonraker is my favourite by far!
    You are named the best member of MI6Community !! :-bd
    I have noticed a few of your comments already since I joined the page yesterday. I think we could become great friends lol
  • Posts: 4,762
    The first time I watched TMWTGG, I was rather pleased! Now as I've watched it many more times, I begin to see some of the moments where you sigh or wince. Granted, it does have an interseting plot, and one that is easy to follow, but there are several scenes that are pretty hard to erase from your memory! The low points were Mary Goodnight, who is a useless bimbo, Agent Hip's karate nieces, who were simply unnecessary, the boat chase down the river, which was boring and filled with camp, and Nick Nack. Sure, he was a good henchman, but seriously, why was he there? He provided absolutely nothing to the movie. The high points, however, were the fight in Saida's dressing room (pure brutal and one of Moore's best), the scene with Andrea Anders in the hotel room (again, Moore's brutality plays out), the karate school fight with Chula, which was excellent and entertaining, the car chase, which was very thrilling to me, and Scaramanga. He was a fantastic villain portrayed by the amazing Christopher Lee, who I knew first as Count Dooku in Star Wars!
  • St_GeorgeSt_George Shuttling Drax's lovelies to the space doughnut - happy 40th, MR!
    Posts: 1,699
    Agreed, @00Beast, Scaramanga surely has to be Golden Gun's greatest asset, but I'd consider Nick Nack one of its assets too.

    Sure, the whole idea of the character revolves around the, er, high-concept notion of casting a dwarf as a threatening henchman and, although often played for laughs, on the whole it works, as he's a convincingly menacing, cruel little b*gger for me. One of the series' most well recalled 'lighter' characters - and arguably one of its best...
  • Posts: 4,762
    @St_George: I liked Nick Nack, but I guess he was just a little too cheesy for my tastes. I just wish he hadn't been used so poorly, because he really is one of the better henchmen in the series if you think about it.
  • Posts: 1,497
    See I thought Nick Nack played quite well as a sidekick henchman. He had a gentlemanly politenessness to him, yet he has a really sadistic voicing behind the controls in Fun House. He was pesky and menacing too as St. George mentions above

  • Posts: 4,762
    I did like his final attempt to kill Bond aboard Scaramanga's ship. I thought it was well thought out and that it was really fitting as the ending to TMWTGG.
  • Posts: 533
    I don't have a very high opinion of TMWTGG. I think it's Moore's worst Bond movie - plot wise. And I found Moore's performance something of a mixed bag. He had some very good moments - his scenes with the gunsmith Lazar and Scaramanga. Other times, he came off as too macho . . . and it didn't suit him. Moore can be dramatic, as he has proven many times. He can even be very menacing, but in a subtle manner. But macho? Not really his style.
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