Very Average Bond: The Man With The Golden Gun Is Direct And Pretty Good.

The Good: Decent performances, Straightforward plot
The Bad: Very light on character development, Lack of nuanced performances, Inclusion of J.W. Pepper
The Basics: The Man With The Golden Gun is a much more practical Bond film that has Bond hunting an assassin who appears to be after him!


The Man With The Golden Gun has a special place in my heart. As a young person, there were a number of things that happened in short order. I got sober, finished my James Bond phase and began a longterm love affair with Star Trek. My father used to get out the various James Bond films out from the library and I was grounded when he got out The Man With The Golden Gun. As a result, The Man With The Golden Gun became the final Bond movie I cared about and did not get a chance to watch back in the day.

Now, as part of my determined quest to watch all of the James Bond films, I have finally caught up with The Man With The Golden Gun. After Bond films with absurd and complicated action-adventure plots that often border on science fiction, there is something remarkably refreshing about The Man With The Golden Gun. The Man With The Golden Gun has James Bond largely as an investigator and seeing the spy actually do detective work, tracking clues, makes the character seem surprisingly fresh for the usually formulaic film series.

When a hitman pays a visit to Scaramanga’s private residence, it appears his valet, Nick Nack, has betrayed him. However, the man with the third nipple works his way through the elaborate maze Nick Nack created to recover his golden pistol and kill the hitman. Back at MI-6 headquarters, M is alarmed when a golden bullet with 007’s number is sent to the spy organization and it is obvious that Scaramanga is planning to kill James Bond next. Forced to take sabbatical, James Bond decides that the best way to stop Scaramanga from making good on his threat to kill him is by tracking him down and killing him first.

Bond’s search takes him to a bellydancer who has the bullet that killed another Agent (002) and analysis of the bullet leads Bond to Lazar. Lazar is the man who crafted the infamous golden gun utilized by Scaramanga and when Bond menaces Lazar, he confesses that he has a new shipment of bullets for Scaramanga. Tracking the recipient of the bullets to a hotel in Hong Kong, James Bond ends up at the Bottoms Up club where Scaramanga shoots another man on the street next to him. Evading the police in Hong Kong, Bond realizes that Scaramanga does not have a contract out on him. With the murdered man being identified as Gibson, an alternative energy expert, Bond realizes that Hai Fat could afford to hire Scaramanga. Impersonating Scaramanga, Bond pays Hai Fat a visit, but he quickly falls victim to Scaramanga’s quest for further fortune.

The Man With The Golden Gunis a remarkably straightforward film. There is a hit called in on James Bond and he methodically follows the trail of clues that bring him from the threat to the trained assassin. There are no convoluted plans, a remarkable lack of gadgets and a diminished sense of whimsy in The Man With The Golden Gun. Instead, Bond is the target and he spends the film trying to get the target off his back. Despite how much I usually love complicated characters with intriguing motivations, there is something refreshing about The Man With The Golden Gun. The Man With The Golden Gun features a villain who is undervalued and simply wants money (lots and lots of money).

While there is a brief subplot that makes it appear that Hai Fat will be the villain and there is a an irksome buddy comedy thread whereby James Bond is paired up with the blonde MI-6 Agent Goodnight (and later the Louisiana sheriff J.W. Pepper), The Man With The Golden Gun is largely uncomplicated and straightforward. Rather than get bogged down with larger themes of greed and corruption, The Man With The Golden Gun is fleshed out by a somewhat pointless martial arts demonstration whose only point seems to be to foreshadow the comic scene in Raiders Of The Lost Ark (reviewed here!) where Indiana Jones shoots a master swordsman.

While The Man With The Golden Gun has some pleasant surprises (like the buttkicking girls who rescue Bond from the karate experts), the film is mostly straightforward and predictable. For Roger Moore’s second outing as Bond, Moore is given little to do. This version of Bond requires no real emotional range and while Moore gets the few one-liners out of the way credibly, he manages the physical stunts admirably. Similarly, Christopher Lee plays Scaramanga without any subtlety or depth. Instead, he is monolithic and cold as the title character. There is nothing like the nuance and innuendo he used when playing Saruman in The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy (reviewed here!). Scaramanga has a professional appreciation of Bond, but Christopher Lee plays him as anything but passionate about anything. Instead, he is cold and efficient and constantly professional.

The result is a film that is generally average, but not unpleasant. It was worth the wait to watch it once, but it was nothing lifechanging I’ve been missing for the past twenty-five years.

For other James Bond films, please check out my reviews of:
Dr. No
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
Thunderball
You Only Live Twice
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Diamonds Are Forever
Live And Let Die
Die Another Day
Casino Royale
Quantum Of Solace
Skyfall

5.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Roger Moore Takes Up The Mantle Of James Bond In Live And Let Die!

The Good: Some decent performances, It feels different than other James Bond movies
The Bad: Lousy characters, Blacksploitation feel, Utterly ridiculous plot, Atrocious special effects
The Basics: In Roger Moore’s debut as James Bond, Live And Let Die is an unfortunate trainwreck of a film that feels much more like a 1970s Blacksploitation film than a legitimate James Bond adventure!


There are some unlikely celebrities who I actually feel bad for periodically. For example, Patrick Stewart had a rough go of directing on Star Trek: The Next Generation - not because of anything he did, but because of the terrible scripts he was initially given to direct. In a similar fashion, Sir Roger Moore began his tenure as James Bond in Live And Let Die. Live And Let Die is an early 1970’s James Bond flick that feels more like a Blacksploitation film than it does a James Bond movie. The plot is one of the most absurd for a James Bond film and while the film has a pretty impressive cast – Moore is supported by a young Yaphet Kotto and Jane Seymour (who is anything but Dr. Quinn in the film!) – it unfolds more like a parody of James Bond and black culture than it does a compelling story.

The Blacksploitation feel in Live And Let Die begins in the teaser with a jazz funeral sequence. The clever murder cover-up that is the point of the scene is almost forgotten as director Guy Hamilton lingers far too long on the dancing black people who continue the funeral after the murder. That blacks continually refer to whites as “honkeys” and the indifferent “boy” is thrown out an uncomfortable number of times only aids the feeling that every black person on the screen has a personal fight with white people. That said, Live And Let Die is plagued by a formulaic plot progression and exceptionally dated quality regardless of the cultural setting for the film.

Opening at the United Nations Building, where the UK Ambassador is knocked out, right before a man in New Orleans falls victim to his murder at the hands of the jazz funeral procession, the Carribbean nation of San Monique becomes the setting for a third murder. M arrives at the house of James Bond in the middle of the night to reveal that all three murders were of MI-6 agents and after his latest fling is given one last pass at him, Bond heads to San Monique via New York City, where his coming has been foretold by a tarot card reader. In New York City, his driver is killed and in hunting the shooter, Bond ends up at Fillet Of Soul, where the tarot card reader Solitaire informs him that she knows exactly who he is and why he has come. After an assassination attempt by Mr. Big in Harlem, Bond heads to San Monique.

There, Bond meets the CIA agent, Rosie. While changing aboard a fishing boat they chartered, Rosie discovers a secret room and pulls a gun on the boat driver. The pilot turns out to be Quarrel Jr. and together the trio journeys to where the MI-6 Agent, Baines, was killed. There, Mr. Big orders a reading done on Bond and shortly thereafter, Rosie shows her true colors and is killed by Mr. Big’s voodoo gun talisman. Rescued by Solitaire, who Bond beds – thus risking her connection to the tarot – Bond’s investigation soon puts him in front of Mr. Big again, this time in New Orleans. In true Bond form, Bond goads Mr. Big into revealing his true identity as a heroin baron who is poised to upset the market by flooding two billion dollars worth of heroin onto the streets for free! Dragged out to a crocodile farm to die, Bond must race against gators, speedboats, and gunfire to stop Kananga from destroying the mob’s business and getting America hooked on heroin before he creates a deficit of product!

As a young adult, I went through a James Bond phase and I recall liking Roger Moore as James Bond. Somehow I missed his debut in Live And Let Die until my adulthood (just now, in fact!) and I think it might be fortunate that I did. Moore is just fine as James Bond, though this is not a film where James Bond learns, grows or stretches beyond his usual paradigms. He has sex with three women in the course of the film and uses a lone gadget – a hyper-magnetic watch. But Moore is hampered by bad writing, referring to one of the cars as a “pimpmobile” instead of its color, make and model in true Bondian know-it-all fashion.

A fundamental problem with Live And Let Die is that the villain does not have the magnitude of many of the megalomaniacal villains in the James Bond franchise. Mr. Big is a heroin wholesaler whose plan is to crush his competition before starting a drought of heroin that will force all the junkies he’s made to pay a premium. The thing is, Mr. Big’s plan – which is basically a supply-side drug war – has a decent chance of getting him killed by the mob, so why the British super-spy gets involved instead of letting a little street justice takes its course is a bit of a mystery. Once Bond knows that Mr. Big is behind the murders at the beginning and knows Kananga’s grand plan, it’s silly that he sticks with the case.

At the other end of the spectrum, the acting in Live And Let Die is generally decent. Moore leaps into the role of James Bond with dry-wit deliveries of all of James Bond’s snappy lines that makes the tongue-in-cheek nature of them work even better. Lacking Connery’s knowing smirk to the double entendres, Moore claims the mantle of James Bond as a serious character with a speed that makes his ability to think on his feet seem realistic.

Sadly, it is one of the only things that is realistic. Kotto and Seymour get through their lines fine, but their characters are somewhat monolithic (Seymour’s Solitaire, for example, does not play any sense of realistic trauma to her character losing her tarot connection when that had been her entire life). Far worse than the character issues are the special effects. Live And Let Die employs obvious stunt doubles, poor cuts during fight sequences and the least realistic exploding people ever to grace the screen. And the less said about the sidetrack with the Louisiana hick sheriff, the better.

On DVD, Live And Let Die has multiple commentary tracks and Moore’s commentary track is arguably more entertaining than the source material. There are also the usual featurettes on the making of the film and its place in the James Bond mythos. Still, the bonus features are not enough to forgive the problems with the film; Live And Let Die is more ridiculous than suspenseful and a poor start to showcase the talents of Roger Moore.

For other James Bond films, please check out my reviews of:
Dr. No
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
Thunderball
You Only Live Twice
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Diamonds Are Forever
Die Another Day
Casino Royale
Quantum Of Solace
Skyfall

3/10

For other film reviews, please check out my alphabetical listing of every movie I have reviewed at my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Wildly Erratic, Sean Connery Returns In Diamonds Are Forever!

The Good: Decent pacing, Engaging reversals and plot development.
The Bad: Special effects/fight sequence editing, A particularly lame Bond girl in the form of Plenty O’Toole, Lack of character development, Dumb quips, Mediocre editing.
The Basics: Sean Connery comes back as James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever which pits Bond against Blofeld and a whole diamond smuggling conspiracy.


When I was young, I went through a James Bond phase. At that time, I watched all the Bond movies I could get my hands on via the local library system. It was the age of VHS and I was young and I don’t know how much attention I paid to them because watching them now, I find myself stymied. Was I ever so young that I might love those films?! My James Bond phase was truncated by my personal discovery of Star Trek and I guess I remained there afterward. Now, as a reviewer, I’ve been going through the James Bond library and today I watched Diamonds Are Forever. Diamonds Are Forever was one of the movies I missed when I was in my James Bond phase.

As an adult, I can safely say I wasn’t missing much. Diamonds Are Forever is not (by far) the worst Bond film in the series. However, it is one of the most inconsistent. It has a rocky beginning marred horribly by absolutely cheesy special effects (the blood is terrible) and it develops into one of the worst-performed Bond films (Lana Wood is terrible as Plenty O’Toole). But then, somewhere in the middle, Diamonds Are Forever actually gets good. The reversals are exciting and the movie becomes watchable and tense with a plot that develops and unfolds in a clever-enough way to actually engage the viewer. But then, late in the film, Diamonds Are Forever turns again with the addition of more absurd assassins and sequences and a female sidekick that is shamefully presented for a woman in a movie from 1971. Still, Diamonds Are Forever is a James Bond film that has a pretty typical Bond sense of progression on the plot front and the characteristic lack of character development for the protagonist.

Opening with James Bond hunting the world round for Ernst Stavro Blofeld. He corners and apparently kills him in a volcano lair. Bond is then brought back to headquarters where he is given a background on diamonds and South African diamond mining. The corrupt workers in South Africa smuggle diamonds out, but now two goons Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint are knocking off smugglers and stockpiling the diamonds. Bond is assigned to find out who is stockpiling the diamonds and thus secure the diamond market. Bond assumes the identity of Peter Franks and meets with Tiffany Case, who is smuggling diamonds and wants him to move a large shipment into the United States. When the real Peter Franks breaks out of prison, Bond must dispose of him to maintain his cover.

In exposing the diamond smuggling operation, Bond as Franks must enlist the aid of Felix Leiter to avoid cremation, bad puns and double crosses from a lousy comic who is in on the smuggling, Kidd and Wint. In tracing the diamond smugglers to the Las Vegas recluse Willard Whyte and his hotel/casino, Bond is reunited with Tiffany Case and the real power behind the smuggling ring. With Bond imperiled and the world’s nuclear arsenal being systematically destroyed from space, Felix, Bond and Case work to thwart the plans of an evil genius.

Diamonds Are Forever has Sean Connery returning to the role of James Bond with little fanfare and no acknowledgment of his return. On the character front, this works in that it allows Connery to take the role back from George Lazenby on the assumption (supported in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) that the code name James Bond is used on multiple MI-6 agents, without acknowledging or addressing at all that Bond’s wife (not from a mission) was killed at the climax of the last film. What the film leaves completely unanswered it the idea that even this version of Bond was recently married and there was no on-screen resolution to the relationship (yet). Diamonds Are Forever picks up as if there was no prior story to James Bond, save that he is obsessed with finding Blofeld and that obsession is never explained or elaborated upon.

The women in Diamonds Are Forever are almost universally presented as if they received their lines about five minutes before their scenes were filmed. For Tiffany Case and Plenty O’Toole, there is almost no resonance for the characters; they seem like actresses playing characters they are entirely unsure of. Despite how terrible their characters are, Bambi and Thumper at least seem to know what they are doing as they attack James Bond in Las Vegas. Rather horribly, though, they do not help the status of women in the movie as they are universally violent and one is unpleasantly masculine. Thumper and Bambi also serve to undermine the character of James Bond as he stands at a distance watching and waiting for the women to go through backflips and the like until they get into range to hit him. Given that, early in the movie, he strangles a woman with her own top and smacks around at least one other woman, there is nothing chivalric about him waiting around to be attacked by Thumper and Bambi.

Diamonds Are Forever actually has one of the better plots for a Bond film. While the fundamental villain reversal are entirely passé and the technique of having Blofeld duplicating his appearance is somewhat ridiculous, the film actually progresses well. Bond is given a chance to move forward after his vengeance against Blodfeld is satisfied (though there is no catharsis or reflection for Bond following him putting down his long-fought villain) and the mission in tracking the diamonds allows him to move forward in a substantive way. The simple diamond smuggling turns into a beautifully over-the-top scheme for world domination and that is more development than many of the Bond films (which start with an objective and end with the same thing).

Ultimately, Diamonds Are Forever is far too erratic in form and performance to be worth adding to one’s permanent collection, but it is a fair James Bond movie. On two-disc DVD or Blu-Ray, Diamonds Are Forever comes loaded with a commentary track and multiple featurettes on the movie, none of which improve the editing of the film to make the fight sequences less cheesy or the line deliveries better. Still, it’s a fun film, though objectively it has a lot working against it.

For other James Bond films, please check out my reviews of:
Dr. No
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
Thunderball
You Only Live Twice
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Die Another Day
Casino Royale
Quantum Of Solace
Skyfall

4.5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing.

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Iconic, But Not Incredible, Goldfinger Is Still Fun!

The Good: Decent plot, Cool gadgets, Decent direction
The Bad: No real character development
The Basics: Arguably the most memorable James Bond film, Goldfinger has James Bond working to thwart a villain obsessed with acquiring gold and menacing the world economy!


There are any number of films that I saw when I was a child and now, as an adult, I am finally getting around to rewatch for my own enjoyment and review. Today, my wife and I took in Goldfinger and it has been over two decades since I saw it. For a change, my wife sat through a James Bond film, though I think it had more to do with her love of the song "Goldfinger," which she was familiar with from Frasier. In fact, she kept grimacing as Dame Shirley Bassey performed it at the outset of Goldfinger, saying, "I wish Kelsey was singing this!" I was amused to see her smiling and recalling references from Goldfinger in other things we have seen. In fact, Goldfinger might well be the most-alluded to James Bond film in the franchise.

And it's good . . . but not great.

Goldfinger is an entertaining film and one that is worth watching, but it suffers from many of the issues that came from later James Bond films (and the derivative action films that replicated the Bond films' successful patterns). Truth be told, this is probably the last James Bond film where they are establishing the patterns of the franchise and cannot be expected to defy those patterns yet. Goldfinger manages to use many of what would later become the patterns and conceits of the genre: Bond gets his gadgets, meets a villain who tells him his plans in such a way that allows Bond to ultimately defeat him, and multiple women, some who betray James Bond and at least two he has pretty passionless sex with.

After destroying a heroin shipment, James Bond escapes to Miami Beach where he meets with Felix and hooks up with Jill Masterson. Jill is working for the criminal that Felix sends Bond to disrupt, Auric Goldfinger. After forcing Goldfinger to lose in his crooked card game, Bond beds Jill and is knocked out by Goldfinger's henchman, Odd Job. He awakens to find Jill gruesomely murdered and he is recalled to MI-6 where he is assigned to track and professionally meet Goldfinger. In Europe, Bond meets Goldfinger for a leisurely game of golf, where Goldfinger and Odd Job try to cheat. Bond manages to entice Goldfinger with a brick of Nazi gold and he wins a bet against Goldfinger.

Tracking Goldfinger, Bond is menaced by Jill's sister, who soon ends up a victim of Odd Job herself. Captured by Odd Job and Goldfinger - and his pilot Pussy Galore (who has trained a whole flight team of her own) - James Bond bargains for his life and Goldfinger keeps him alive, against his better judgment. In Goldfinger's prison, Bond learns of Goldfinger's plan to break into Fort Knox. Determined to let the CIA know of Goldfinger's plans, Bond tries to contact Felix to save lives and stop Goldfinger from disrupting the world economy.

Goldfinger has, easily, the very coolest car in the history of cinema. In addition to the Spartacus-like device that takes out Tilly's tires, Bond's car is bulletproof, has machine guns under the lights, deploys a smoke screen, oil slick, and has an ejector seat! What is also cool in Goldfinger is how the villain also has some pretty cool gadgets. Goldfinger meets with his thugs and he uses some pretty (for the time) neat devices.

As well, Goldfinger has a pretty engaging plot. Goldfinger is an interesting villain who has a pretty cool plan. In fact, Gert Frobe plays Goldfinger with such an intelligence and conviction that it seems cheap when Connery's James Bond declares Goldfinger "mad." One of the most-parodied moments in Goldfinger, "I expect you to die!" is actually delivered by Frobe with a simple sincerity that is far more credible and grounded than one might expect.

Connery is good as Bond, though James Bond does not grow or develop at all in the film. Instead, like most James Bond films, Goldfinger suffers some because James Bond is concerned with staying alive and the villain's plot machinations than any sort of personal growth. Bond begins and ends as a resourceful - there's a good moment with a fan and a bathtub in the teaser -, clever, and strangely dispassionate wisecracking super-spy. Connery plays off Honor Blackman's Pussy Galore (who manages to say her character's name without cracking up) very well and Harold Sakata is cold and menacing in every frame as Odd Job.

On DVD and Blu-Ray, Goldfinger comes with two commentary tracks that are very informative and entertaining. There is also an entire disc of bonus featurettes on the making of the film, the gadgets and women of Goldfinger and the way Goldfinger fits into the larger James Bond franchise. Goldfinger is entertaining and well-developed for a film, but it does not make any larger statements on the human condition or develop characters in a way that is truly compelling. Still, it is worth watching and is quite possibly the essential James Bond film.

For other James Bond films, please check out my reviews of:
Dr. No
From Russia With Love
Thunderball
Die Another Day
Casino Royale
Quantum Of Solace
Skyfall

7.5/10

Check out how this movie stocks up against others I have reviewed by visiting my Movie Review Index Page where the reviews are organized from best to worst!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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