Welcome to Part 4 of In Conclusion: The James Bond Series. Last time out Tomorrow Never Died and we went through the Quantum of Solace. Now let us resume our countdown today with #16 and #15 on the list.
16.
The artwork itself is the “classic” Bond type of deal where you have James front and center with a series of scantily clad women all around him. I actually find the “ladies on the tarot cards” to be a rather nice touch but then they screw everything up with the randomness of “Mini-James” firing a gun underneath the center chicks ass, exploding boats and the strangest road accident I’ve ever seen consisting of a boat escaping out of a gators mouth and crashing into J.W. Pepper’s police car. I guess it is supposed to be “pop art”, I don’t know. At least it shows things that are actually in the movie so it serves that purpose quite well. I often wonder who EON hired to do these posters, they’re all very strange in comparison to other posters from that time period.
Take that for example, why not just do something with Roger Moore in a similar pose. It’s simplistic and gritty. But at this time Bond was very less gritty and moving a lot toward camp which would in a way plague and help the series. I don’t mind camp aspects but there is such a thing as “too much camp” and in this review and the upcoming you’ll see what I mean. So I guess I see why EON has these weird posters for their Bond films.
This marked Roger Moore’s debut in the series and boy is it a bad start. This was also the first Bond film I ever watched. When I saw it at like age 12 I really liked it and thought it was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen. However with each viewing I seem to dislike it moore and moore but I accredit that to my aging as tastes have changed over time. Roger, himself does an ok job as Bond in this movie but he doesn’t quite seem too comfortable in the role yet so it’s almost like a totally different Bond that Moore is playing as compared to his Bond in the latter part of his series..
It’s really odd how young he seems here and by the time The Man with the Golden Gun came out, he seemed ten years older. Yaphet Kotto plays Mr. Big, the antagonist of the story. I won’t give too much away on his character for spoiler reasons but I found the entire “Mr. Big” character to be incredibly inferior to the Novel version, but Kotto makes the character work to some extent despite it poorly written and poorly directed. Jane Seymour plays Solitaire, the Bond girl of the movie. She’s not too bad, quite beautiful and she’s helpful to Bond to some extent.
Although toward the end she turns into a total ditz and is rendered useless in my eyes by the final sequence. The action scenes in this film are just fine. The chase sequence in New Orleans was going well until you throw in Sheriff Pepper and his Good Ole Boy Brigade. He’s not as annoying as he is in The Man with the Golden Gun (Moore on that later), but he’s still just there and didn’t need to be. The final fight scene with Bond and Mr. Big is a nice little fistfight…until the ending of it.
Bond: Well that really blew.
The locations in this movie are rather iffy. It was awesome to see New York City in a Bond film but it goes away too quickly and I felt they should have taken more of an advantage of the scenery because New York City is a really nice location if you’ve seen other films like The French Connection at the time and here it’s just shown for a few shots. I guess it is understandable as the Novel doesn’t stay in New York City. Although this film pisses on the Novel vastly, so maybe they should have done some more and kept it in NYC. Apparently there is a story where Cubby and Saltzman had to pay money to a local Harlem gang in order to film there which I guess explains why they left.
Whether it is true or not is unknown, although I call “b.s.” on that claim. New Orleans is the other setting and most of the film takes place there. I guess like Las Vegas it was considered “exotic” at that time but looks off by today’s standards. San Monique is the final setting of the film, although its obviously Jamaica since “San Monique” doesn’t actually exist. I would’ve preferred if they had just stuck with St. Petersburg and the real Jamaica from the Novel, but I guess I understand why they went fictional (to avoid international incidents) and why they went with a more exotic New Orleans.
At the same time though I really don’t get why they change so much of the Novel. My only theory is that they didn’t want to acknowledge SMERSH (the antagonistic organization from that Novel and from the original Casino Royale Novel) but they could easily just alter it and keep some aspects. This is a rare case where I actually prefer the Novel to the Film as the Novel has a lot of action, great story, and much better characterizations. The theme song is “Live and Let Die” by Paul McCartney and Wings. It really is the only thing I really like about this movie 100 percent and the song itself is vastly more popular than this film.
Most people tend to forget that the song came from this movie and it’s taken a life of it’s own outside of the James Bond Universe. One of the things that hurt this film for me is the “supernatural” element in it. It’s a simple front in the Novel but here its supposed to be believed as real or seen as real (as a scene in the end implies) and that just makes it silly but that is camp at it’s campiest. I also didn’t like the ending of the movie. The ending alone kills the film completely and again has no place in a Bond film.
Overall this Bond film doesn’t have much to it, I thought Moore was OK, Kotto made the character work, and Seymour made a good Bond girl (until about the 3rd act) but outside of that the story is weak, the settings are a bit dull at times (New York scenes come across as very nice though), and there is a lot of unnecessary comedy bits that hinder the film. Some like it, some don’t. I’m one of the people who don’t.
15.
Well I’ll give them props for at least incorporating the villain into the poster even if it is just his golden gun. It’s typical “classic” Bond poster featuring scantily clad women, Bond front and center, and things that really just look off if you’re seeing the movie for the first time. Although I will not give them props for laziness by taking the same picture of Moore from Live and Let Die and pasting it on the poster. I’m assuming the females featured are Maud Adams (yes Octopussy, herself) on the left side of Bond (his left, not ours) and Britt Ekland on the right of Bond (again his, not ours). The artist rendering of Maud is fairly accurate but Ekland looks horrifying and appears to be made of nothing but silicon and plastic.
See what I mean?
It’s actually a shame, she is really gorgeous both in this film and in real life as shown above. It’s almost an insult that she was drawn like that. I do like that they put Nick Nack on the poster even if facially it bares little resemblance to him. I like the art rendering of the scenes on the poster but I still think it looks random and out of place. I assume that they only put the martial artists on the poster in order to say, “Hey! This movie has Kung Fu, see it!” since that was the big thing at the time.
I don’t know how to feel about this one some days. My current feeling is that its an alright film that could’ve been world’s better. Roger Moore plays Bond in this film and I feel he does a good job. He isn’t quite “Roger Moore” Bond yet(as in the one we’d see in the rest of his series except in For Your Eyes Only) so he may seem different at places if you’re used to the Moore in his later outings. Christopher Lee plays Scaramanga, the titular “Man with the Golden Gun”.
I praise him for his performance. Lee comes across as a lethal and yet a charming villain. In a sense he reminds me of Sanchez in Licence to Kill on terms of behavior where he seems like a great guy but in the end is a dangerous criminal. I’d like to think that Robert Davi patterned himself in that film after Lee in this one. Herve Villechaize plays Nick-Nack, the secondary antagonist in this film. While Herve does do a good job in the role, the character is just pointless in this movie.
I understand that Scaramanga should at least have some kind of circus theme with him (as the character is from the circus) but Nick Nack serves no purpose other than being a typical campy Bond villain. Britt Ekland plays Mary Goodnight and I compare her with Kara Milovy from The Living Daylights on terms of being a clueless ditz, but Kara was far superior because she actually benefits Bond and kicks some ass in the final act. I know she was a character in the Novel (where she is actually useful and 3-dimensional) but I really don’t see the point of her in this story. Is MI6 really that incompetent that they hire her to assist Bond? At least try and make her a strong character, come on EON, seriously?
M:Alright 007, for this assignment you’ll be working with Miss Mary Goodnight. Her talents include: falling asleep in closets, being dumb enough to get captured, and getting in the way…oh and she’s good in the bedroom too they say.
Bond:I guess I’m in for several Goodnights.
The action sequences are okay but I’ve seen better. The chase scenes are nice with Bond escaping from the henchmen and the later scene with Bond going after Scaramanga. But both get ruined by stupidity on part of the people behind the scenes with the totally unnecessary appearance of Sheriff Pepper from Live and Let Die and the ridiculous ending of the 2nd chase sequence. As much as I love camp, I find it here to be just really dumb because of stuff like this. I know this was the direction of the series at the time, but can you guys at least try and not ruin the badassery of the story with unnecessary shit like Southern Sheriffs and Scaramanga’s flying car machine (just where the hell did he get that anyways if MI6 doesn’t even have it quite yet?)
Location wise, I didn’t mind Hong Kong and Thailand, I found both to be great settings and the scenes that are their are well-shot but they tend to lack any real atmosphere. The theme song, “The Man with the Golden Gun” by Lulu is widely disliked by many but I actually enjoy it. I think its my admiration for Lulu that clouds my mind but in all seriousness I like the singing, the lyrics aren’t too bad and John Barry’s music always helps. I’ve mentioned some criticisms already, let me give the rest. Firstly, I think the energy plot was really pointless. I think they were better off just having Scaramanga and Bond having a good-ole Western duel with one another.
Save stuff like that for the “evil villain that wants to rule the world”. It just seems weird to me that Scaramanga, an assassin by trade has an interest in a solar power plant. I’d think Scaramanga would try and be more “low-key” since supposedly no one knows who he is. The actual duel itself is pretty cool but I felt their was too much filter thrown in with the rest of the movie. I also found Scaramanga’s third nipple to be somewhat unnecessary.
It just adds nothing to the character at all outside of being campy but I guess back then they may or may not have seen it that way. I still think a facial scar or a tattoo of the like would be more suitable and come off as less silly than a third nipple. Overall this movie could’ve been better and is only saved by Christopher Lee’s performance, Roger Moore’s performance and the intensity displayed in scenes with both. Like I said though…it could’ve been Moore (ok I promise I won’t do that pun again.)
Well that’s all for this week. Stay tuned for Part 5 next week as we take on #14 and #13 on our countdown.