Bond IX (finally) - The Man with the Golden Gun

Let's try to pick up the pace again, shall we?

Ah, The Man With the Golden Gun.


-Can I start by saying how cool Christopher Lee is? Not only is he Ian Fleming's cousin, a WWII special forces officer and a great Dracula, he played major bad dudes in a 007 movie AND Lord of the Rings AND Star Wars. Yeah, that's a cool dude. (Even if he is forced to where a superfluous 3rd nipple in this flick.)
-I hate to say it but whenever I see Herve Villechez I think of the "little breather" joke in Airplane! I hope it isn't shit like that that drove him to kill himself. He's most amusing here.


-The opening of this flick is a bit much in that the funhouse seems a little over the top. So does the lifesize Bond dummy that dude shoots to get his rocks off.

-Is the theme song (by Lulu!) the worst Bond theme song ever? Maybe.

-You can tell they didn't break the bank on the sets for "Beirut" which is just Bond in a club dressing room. On the other hand, they have a hydrofoil and that's cool. Do people still drive hydrofoils and hovercrafts?

-Bond isn't shy about slapping a chick around if he needs to but a mere glass of champagne can turn any situation into loooove, apparently.

-The base hidden in the sunken Queen Elizabeth is a pretty damned clever gag. Still, I don't understand the elaborate ruse to get Bond there. I guess it creates "suspense" or something.


-"Chew Me" walks the fine line between stupid and clever. The PG nudity is nice, though. It's a shame that Bond goes to the trouble of getting a fake 3rd nipple and it's all for naught.

-The whole Karate School sequence, including the tough school girls is a bit hokey, methinks. On the other hand, it leads directly to the boat chase in which we rencounter one JW Pepper (see comments in Live and Let Die below). I wonder how huge he was at the time that they needed to bring him back...?

-Kickboxing, of course, is the sport of the future. So it's nice to see it here and it's a damned shame Maud Adams misses the show. It's not that I can't believe Scaramanga would kill her - I just don't know how she could be dead and be sitting with her eyes wide open so no one even notices.

-The single most unintentionally funny bit in this (or any?) Bond movie is when Scaramanga says, "When I was a boy I grew up in the circus. My only real friend was an African bull elephant."

-The Pepper car chase in the AMC muscle cars might be the most improbable chase scene in a Bond movie and that's going one. It's a shame they ruined one of the most impressive car stunts ever with a pennywhistle sound effect.

-Now we've got a flying plane AND the Red Chinese! This can't end well, can it?

-How come Bond flies to a remote beach island and not only wears a suit but a rather horrible plaid jacket?

-Scarmanga might think it's cool to shoot the cork off a bottle of Dom Perignon but now there's nothing to frickin drink!

-Oh, here we are. The bit where explains a lot. I like the whole idea that he's going to corner the market on solar power. We're not at Moonraker yet but we're getting close to sci fi...

-Everyone was having a really nice lunch together until Bond had to ruin it by saying Scaramanga was full of shit. Not cool, man.

-Kra is THE worst Bond Henchman ever. I mean all he does is run the solar power plant, leer at Goodnight a couple of times and get killed. What a useless tit. (He is redeemed slightly by the newly-acquired knowledge that the same actor played the Mongolian who almost kills Indy in Marion's bar in Raiders...)

-The funroom is neither a fair nor mature way of disposing of other people. Most puzzling is how Bond impersonated his own wax dummy by somehow finding the time to put on a jacket, do up his collar and put on a tie AND hide the dummy. And, as soon as he's done, he changes back. What's up with that?

-007 knows a lot more about phsyics, solar power and electricity generation than I previously gave him credit for. I mean, "There must be a scanner interlock button!"?? The guy actually KNOWS that once a human being falls into a pool of liquid helium you only have five minutes until it becomes unstable?
Come on!

-Leaving the phone off the hook so M can here him sexify his partner is kinda kinky.

Next up is the Spy Who Loved Me, rumoured to be the best Moore Bond movie. I remember the submarine car and not much else so we shall see....