The Man with the Golden Gun

From open-encyclopedia.com - the free encyclopedia.

The Man with the Golden Gun is a James Bond novel by Ian Fleming that was first published in 1965.

Fleming died before a final draft of the manuscript was completed (it was never a "lost" manuscript as some sources have suggested), and edited by others, reportedly including Kingsley Amis, before publication. It is also the ninth official James Bond movie and the second to star Roger Moore as Commander James Bond, British Secret Service agent 007. The film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman and made by EON Productions. It was released in 1974.

The novel

Plot summary

1966 Pan Books paperback edition.

It has been nearly a year since James Bond disappeared and was presumed dead. Suddenly, a man claiming to be Bond turns up at headquarters and after much scrutinizing and interrogation, the man is confirmed to be Bond. But the moment 007 is brought into M's office, Bond tries to kill his superior, but fails.

MI6 learns that, after the attack on Blofeld's castle in Japan (as chronicled in You Only Live Twice), Bond suffered a head injury and amnesia. After living in a Japanese fishing village for several months, Bond headed north into the Soviet Union to find out his true identity. While there, he was brainwashed and programmed to kill M once he returned to England.

Now deprogrammed, Bond is eager to prove himself worthy of being a secret service agent again. M assigns him to go to Jamaica and gain the confidence of one "Pistols" Scaramanga, an American assassin known as "The Man with the Golden Gun" because of his peculiar weapon of choice. Bond's assignment is to kill the man because he is responsible for the deaths of a number of agents. In the midst of the assignment, Bond learns that Scaramanga is working on a scheme to destabilize Western interests in the Caribbean's sugar industry.

Comic strip adaptation

Fleming's original novel was adapted as a daily comic strip which was published in the British Daily Express newspaper and syndicated around the world. The adaptation ran from January 10 to September 10, 1966. The adaptation was written by Jim Lawrence and illustrated by Yaroslav Horak, both of whom were starting long tenures with the comic strip. The strip was reprinted by Titan Books in the early 1990s.

The film

Plot summary

The film version's title character is Francisco Scaramanga, a high-priced assassin who charges US$1 million per hit. Not surprisingly, he's known for using a golden gun and only needs one golden bullet per hit. Nothing is really known about Scaramanga in the beginning of the film except that he has a third nipple (information which Bond later uses to get in touch with Scaramanga's financer, Hai Fat); no pictures or physical descriptions of him exist.

The movie begins with a golden bullet, with "007" -- Bond's codename -- etched into its surface, being received by Her Majesty's Secret Service, the Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6). It is believed by Military Intelligence that Scaramanga has been hired to assassinate James Bond and has sent the bullet to intimidate his new target.

Bond's mission at this time revolves around the work of a scientist named Gibson, thought to be in possession of information crucial to solving the energy crisis by creating a virtually unlimited amount of energy using a new technique of harnessing the Sun's power. Because of the perceived threat to the agent's life, M (Bond's 'control' officer in MI-6) removes James from his current mission, and forces 007 to go on leave until the matter is resolved.

Though officially "on leave" from his duties, Bond sets out to find Scaramanga before Scaramanga finds him. By retrieving a golden bullet used to assassinate another 'Double-0 agent' sometime previously, Agent 007 is led to the man responsible for supplying Scaramanga with his unusual golden ammunition. This leads Bond to Andrea Anders, Scaramanga's mistress. She confesses that it was she who sent the golden bullet to MI6 -- to lure Bond to kill Scaramanga for her. Anders informs Bond as to where Scaramanga's plans will require him to be.

Unbeknownst to Bond, that location is that of Scaramanga's next 'hit', the target of which is Gibson, the solar energy scientist from Bond's previous mission. The hit takes place in order to steal the "solex agitator" -- a critical component of Gibson's solar energy device. It is now Bond's mission to retrieve the solex agitator and duel it out with Scaramanga before Scaramanga can sell the device to the highest criminal bidder or use it for his own nefarious plans.

Cast & characters

• James Bond - Roger Moore
• M - Bernard Lee
• Miss Moneypenny - Lois Maxwell
• Q - Desmond Llewelyn
• Francisco Scaramanga - Christopher Lee
• Mary Goodnight - Britt Ekland
• Andrea Anders - Maud Adams
• Nick Nack - Hervé Villechaize
• Sheriff J.W. Pepper - Clifton James
• Hai Fat - Richard Loo
• Lieutenant Hip - Soon-Tek Oh

This is the first of three movies to either star or have a cameo by Maud Adams. In 1983 she plays a different character, Octopussy, in the film of the same name. She would later have a cameo in the Bond movie A View To A Kill. This is also the second movie with Clifton James playing the role of Sheriff J.W. Pepper. He first appeared in Live and Let Die.

Crew

• Directed by: Guy Hamilton
• Written by: Ian Fleming
• Screenplay by: Richard Maibaum, Tom Mankiewicz
• Produced by: Albert R. Broccoli, Harry Saltzman
• Composed by: John Barry
• Cinematography by: Ted Moore, Oswald Morris
• Art Direction by: Peter Lamont

Soundtrack

Original The Man With the Golden Gun soundtrack cover

The theme tune, "The Man with the Golden Gun", was performed by Lulu and the lyrics to the song were written by Don Black. Alice Cooper claims his song The Man With The Golden Gun was to be used by the producers of the film until it was dropped for Lulu's song instead. Cooper's song appears on his album Muscle of Love.

The soundtrack was composed by Bond veteran John Barry. At the time, it was Barry's seventh Bond movie.

Track listing

1. Main Title - The Man With The Golden Gun
2. Scaramanga's Fun House
3. Chew Me In Grisly Land
4. The Man With The Golden Gun
5. Getting The Bullet
6. Goodnight Goodnight
7. Let's Go Get Them
8. Hip's Trip
9. Kung Fu Fight
10. In Search Of Scaramanga's
11. Return To Scaramanga's
12. End Title - The Man With The Golden Gun

Vehicles & gadgets

• AMC Hornet Sportabout 'hatchback' - Bond steals this car in Hong Kong, unknowing that Sheriff J.W. Pepper is in it, planning to test drive it.
• Car Plane - During a car chase, Scaramanga's car disappears in a shed for some time. When it emerges it has wings attached, allowing it to fly away.
• The Golden Gun - Scaramanga's weapon of choice, it could fire a 4.2 caliber golden bullet specially made for the gun. The gun also separated into a gold cigarette lighter, a gold cigarette case, a gold cuff link, and a gold pen so as to avoid detection.

Locations

Film Locations

• Hong Kong
• London, England
• Beirut, Lebanon
• Bangkok, Thailand

One of the more interesting locations is the use of a sunken cruise liner, the RMS Queen Elizabeth, as a top-secret MI6 base in Hong Kong harbor.

Shooting locations

• Pinewood Studios — London, England
• Hong Kong
• Macau
• Thailand

See also

• Hong Kong in films

Trivia

• Christopher Lee is Ian Fleming's cousin and was Fleming's pick to play the role of Dr. Julius No in the film Dr. No. According to some Bond film historians, Lee was also considered for the role of Bond as well.
• In the video game GoldenEye 007 and subsequent James Bond games (including Agent Under Fire, Nightfire, and GoldenEye: Rogue Agent) the Golden Gun would count for an instant kill, which reflected that the villain Scaramanga never missed.
• This was the final film produced by the Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman partnership. A financial disappointment, the movie nearly marked the end of the Bond film series as Broccolli and Saltzman broke up and legal wrangling delayed the start of the next Bond film for quite awhile. The three-year interval between this film and The Spy Who Loved Me was the longest to date.
• This film was criticised that, in addition to the perceived faults of production, it had the most sexist attitude in the series with James Bond's assistant, Mary Goodnight, being a stereotypical blonde buffoon who was useless to Bond. On the other hand, when Bond was fleeing an enemy dojo chased by martial artists, he offered to protect two girls who were being menaced by them, only to have them demonstrate their superior fighting skills by easily thrashing Bond's pursuers (this scene is also generally criticised, but it is generally seen as being silly, unfunny, and highly unrealistic).
• Although her showing in the film is undistinguished, Mary Goodnight was in fact a recurring character in several of Fleming's Bond novels, even appearing in lieu of Miss Moneypenny. In the books, Goodnight was Bond's secretary.
• Broccoli and Saltzman originally intended to make Man with the Golden Gun as the Bond film to follow You Only Live Twice in 1969, but production was put off in part because it was to have been filmed in Cambodia and the outbreak of hostilities in the region made filming impractical. Roger Moore was invited to play Bond in the 1969 version, too.

External links

• The Man With the Golden Gun (1974) at the Internet Movie Database
• MGM Official website
• Ian Fleming bibliography of first editions

de:Der Mann mit dem goldenen Colt sv:Mannen med den gyllene pistolen