The Man With The Golden Gun!

The Man With the Golden Gun brings Bond back for one final bow, and this time he has to try and find and kill a notorious assassin for the other side. It's another jaunt into the Caribbean, clearly Fleming's favorite location for a wild adventure which doesn't make sense all the time, but is a lot of fun. The mission is meant to in many ways rehabilitate Bond after the weird ending of the Shatterhand confrontation in Japan from the previous book have left him a questionable agent. I won't say too much so as not spoil a surprise or two. 

But in this last James Bond novel, published after Fleming's death, our hero is sent to seek out the deadly killer, a cold-blooded maniac who was perhaps driven mad by a tragedy in the circus in which he grew up. Francisco "Pistols" Scaramanga is a contract killer with a tremendous reputation who employs a gold-plated Colt pistol and hand-crafted bullets made of gold inside silver jackets.  

Bond makes contact with Scaramanga rather quickly in the book, pretending himself to be a man named "Mark Hazard", a chap good with guns and looking for a payday. Scaramanga takes him on, though Bond doesn't know if he's being led into a trap or not. Turns out he's put his foot into a mob of gangsters from across the world who have formed a syndicate of sorts and are trying to get a foothold in Jamaica with a hotel which is still only half built. Old allies turn up and the whole thing ends in a bizarre shoot out in the deadly swamps, which are full of twists of all kinds. 

The Man with the Golden Gun is one of my favorite Bond flicks. It's probably my favorite Roger Moore effort. Britt Ekland is both charming and funny as a daffy Bond Girl who brings a bit of slapstick to the project. Herve Villachaize does a dandy job as the secondary villain Nick Nack. The big draw is Christopher Lee as the titular villain. He's fantastic and is probably my all-time favorite Bond baddie. Lee has the stature for such a role and his cold, cruel delivery is compelling. The plot gets a tad goofy when they try to inject a world-beating element to the story. It wasn't needed. The duel between Scaramanga and Bond had sufficient gavitas for my tastes. 

The theme from this one by John Barry gets in my head and tumbles around for days at a time. I'm humming it even now. The attempts to squeeze in some legit martial arts into the movie gets my nod of approval as well. I don't much expect Moore to be adept at it, and neither does the movie. The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu editors had a different idea. All in all, a winner. 

James Bond Returns one final time in Octopussy and The Living Daylights! 

Rip Off