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The 7th movie in – The James Bond films – series, doesn’t show any slogan on its posters apart from the movie title and cast/director names!
| Movie | : |
The Man with the Golden Gun
|
| Producers | : | Harry Saltzman, Albert R. Broccoli |
| Director | : |
Guy Hamilton
|
| Screenplay | : | Richard Maibaum, Tom Mankiewicz |
| Based On | : | The Man with the Golden Gun by Ian Fleming |
| Music By | : | John Barry |
| Studio | : | Eon Productions |
| Distributed by | : | United Artists |
| Cinematography | : | Oswald Morris, Ted Moore, |
| Editors | : | Raymond Poulton, John Shirley |
| Released On | : | 19 December 1974 |
| Starring | : | Roger Moore (James Bond), Christopher Lee (Francisco Scaramanga), Britt Ekland (Mary Goodnight), Maud Adams (Andrea Anders), Hervé Villechaize (Nick Nack), Richard Loo (Hai Fat), Soon-Tek Oh (Lieutenant Hip), Clifton James (Sheriff J.W. Pepper), Bernard Lee (M), Marc Lawrence (Rodney), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Marne Maitland (Lazar), Lois Maxwel (Miss Moneypenny), James Cossins (Colthorpe), Carmen du Sautoy (Saida), and others… |
Directed by Guy Hamilton, this movie brings Roger Moore as James Bond.
M was concerned with a message he received. The message is to be delivered to James Bond. It was a golden bullet with engraved 007 on it!!! There is only one assassin known to the world using such bullets, Francisco Scaramanga. And he could only be the sender of the message. It is obvious that M got worried about Bond’s safety. He called in James Bond, informs him about the stuff and relives him the the mission he is on! By the Bond was observing the work by a scientist name Gibson, whose area of expertise is Solar energy – from which he was relieved. We got to know that Bond is officially now free, but his mission is to find Scaramanga.
An another field agent of MI6 was killed with the similar bullet (and hence Scaramanga) recently! However the bullet was not found!!! The fellow was seen with a belly dancer named Saida from Beirut! So the next destination (or first one in his quest to find Scaramanga) is Beirut. In Beirut, Bond finds the dancer and gets into conversation with her. Here Bond got to know that the bullet fascinated Saida, and she made an ornament from the same and now wears it in her belly-button! Bond was able to collect the bullet and escape from the attackers (obviously).
Now Bond is head towards Macau! As the manufacturer of the bullet is to be found there! After finding and trapping the manufacturer of these golden bullets, Bond got to know that the manufacturer was given a place and a method to deliver the bullet, and he receives the fund. That’s it! He have never seen anyone face-to-face, who order or collect the bullet! This time the delivery had to be made in a Casino!
In the Casino, Bond found Andrea Anders, mistress of Scaramanga, collecting the bullets. Following Andrea will lead James to Hong Kong! Here Bond enters into her hotel room smartly and makes her to reveal Scaramanga’s plans. He was directed to the – Bottoms Up – club!
And then his adventurous journey begins where he clash with Scaramanga and the original case he was working on has some links with Scaramanga and his work!!!
If to talk about acting, Roger Moore is convincing and in full form. Bernard Lee supports him with nice performance as well. The villain’s dwarf servant is played another nice actor, who is convincing. The actress playing Adrea is little above average. Christopher Lee is average. Actually we expect a stunning performance from the actor playing villain, which is not fulfilled here. In rest of the performances, some are good but most are below average. The actor playing a tourist who met Bond several times, is fantastic performer. Carmen du Sautoy is unconvincing as Saida.
The locals are really filmed well. The stunts and locations both are the positive points of the film. The car jumping scene on the broken bridge is one of the most talked about stunt scenes over all James Bond films. Really nice one. The mushroom shaped rock which holds the mirrors and antena which are crucial for collecting Solar power, is definitely one of the best locations director chose. The villa of the villain is a good piece of art as well. His maze with mirrors doesn’t look very effective these days when we are used to see fantastic SFX and technically great stuff, but it is good overall. The cinematography is excellent!
Overall a nice film which thriller lovers like. And for James Bond movie lovers, it is definitely not to miss.
Interesting Information:
- The end title shows the next film name (to be made) in the James Bond film series, for the first time.
- The wreck of the Seawise University, the former RMS Queen Elizabeth, in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong, was shown in the movie.
- The Golden Gun prop – is one of the most important piece of gadgets in the film and there were three of them built for the film.
- Scaramanga has a ‘superfluous areola’, or supernumerary nipple!
- Maud Adams acted in Octopussy as well. She also played cameo in A View To A Kill!
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