The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Today's James Bond marathon lands on one of my favorite films, The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).

SYNOPSIS:
MI6 receives a gold bullet with "007" branded on its side.  This is the trademark of the mysterious Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee), an infamous assassin who charges $1 million per bullet to kill his prey.  And he's so good, he only needs one bullet.  Considering himself the best assassin in the world, he challenges James Bond (Roger Moore) to a showdown.  Has Bond finally met his match...?

REVIEW:
I enjoy this film because, like its predecessor, it's a departure from the standard save-the-world plot.  Quite the opposite, actually.  Bond is relieved of duty because of the threat on his life.  He was on a mission to track down a missing solar energy scientist, and M (Bernard Lee) didn't want Scaramanga to randomly pop up and kill Bond in the middle of the mission.  No one knows anything about Scaramanga's appearance except that he happens to have a third nipple, so Bond would never know if he ran in to him.

This bullet literally has his name on it!

By the way, the energy crisis of 1973, which happened the year prior to this film's release, was inspiration for Bond's other mission. The scientist he was tracking had developed a device that could single-handedly solve the energy crisis by harnessing the power of the sun.  This was a small sub-plot of this film, as his device popped up in Scaramanga's hands and was going to be used as a weapon.

Refusing to sit around and wait to be shot, Bond asked Q (Desmond Llewelyn) to help him verify the gold bullet and maybe trace its origin.  He discovered it's a 4.2 millimeter bullet, an unusual and custom-built size, and the trace metals it's made from lead him to the Far East.  From there, he tracks some promising leads that bring him closer to Scaramanga.  Oh, and the other "gadget" Bond requests from Q Branch is a prosthetic third nipple, so he can pose undercover as Scaramanga to get more information.  Which he theorizes will work, as no one's supposedly ever seen the guy and lived.

Bond and his false superfluous papilla.

Scaramanga, being a very private individual, keeps extremely limited staff on hand.  His right-hand man is a French dwarf named Nick Nack (Hervé Villechaize) who takes care of pretty much everything for him. Cooks, cleans, and hires assassins to challenge Scaramanga to a duel to the death in his private fun house.  Nick Nack always acts like he's trying to betray his boss, helping the other assassins get the jump on Scaramanga.  But he's fiercely loyal to Scaramanga, playfully teasing him about how he'll find someone good enough to kill him one day.

Intimidating despite his stature

Sheriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James) makes a brief appearance again.  Bond runs into him in Thailand where the redneck sheriff is vacationing with his wife.  Once again providing comedic relief, he's "deputized" when Bond commandeers a showroom car that the sheriff is checking out.  Together, they go on a high-speed chase after Scaramanga across the Thai countryside.

Pepper: "You're that English secret agent... from England!"

Scaramanga is actually a huge fan of James Bond.  He has a wax likeness of Bond in his fun house and speaks very highly of him.  Challenging Bond to a duel is the ultimate test for him, and when Bond visits his home, Scaramanga is positively giddy about spending a few hours chatting with him and showing off all his toys before their inevitable showdown.

"I am, as you can see, unarmed," he claims, while holding 1/4 of his golden gun in his hand

The Golden Gun is familiar to anyone who played the old GoldenEye game on Nintendo 64.  It was the ultimate weapon in multiplayer mode.  Anyone who found it had an unfair advantage over the rest of the players because they could kill everyone else with only one shot.  Which is different from the movie version; Scaramanga only needed one shot because he was that good of an assassin.  It's not the size of the gun, it's how you use it.

The gun itself is easily hidden and transported, as it's assembled from common-looking items. It's a combination of a fountain pen as the barrel, a lighter as the main body of the gun, a cigarette case as the handle and trigger housing, and a pair of cuff links as the trigger itself.

The title of the film comes from Ian Fleming's 13th and last full novel, published after his death.  If you remember my You Only Live Twice (1967) review, in the novel version of that film, Bond suffers amnesia after killing Blofeld and lives as a simple Japanese fisherman for a few years before traveling to Russia to learn about his past.  Well, in The Man with the Golden Gun novel, the Russians brainwash Bond and send him back to England to assassinate M!  Failing to do so, Bond is brought to his senses and has to re-prove his worth to M by doing an impossible task - killing the most deadly assassin of all time, Francisco "Pistols" Scaramanga.  Bond travels to Jamaica to complete his mission and uncovers a bigger plot at play with the Russians.  He not only foils the plot, but also succeeds in killing Scaramanga.  The film version relocated the setting to Asia and focused solely on the assassin vs. assassin plot.

The self-titled theme song is very catchy, giving exposition about the man with the golden gun and his whole assassination process.  The song was composed by John Barry (who helped compose and then performed the main James Bond Theme Song), and also Don Black.  It was performed by the British pop star, Lulu.  By the way, I forgot that most James Bond theme songs are performed by famous singers of the time, so I'll make a conscious effort to credit them in my reviews from here on out.

RECOMMENDATION:
This was a fun film, taking a detour from the regular doomsday plots. It was nice to see Bond go toe-to-toe with a master assassin.  It definitely kept you on the edge of your seat.  Sure, there was a smaller plot shoe-horned in to give a little more story, but overall, the fun is in watching Bond attempt to outsmart and outperform the best assassin in the world.  You have to see this film!