1974-1977: Nobody Does It Better?
Imagine what it must take to gain a prominent position in the British secret service. You would have to be incredibly intelligent, able to handle a great responsibility. James Bond is both of those things. However, his female counterpart in The Man with the Golden Gun is neither. Her name is Mary Goodnight, and she must be related to the Prime Minister or something. Throughout the movie she is utterly incompetent, disgustingly immature and never convincing in the slightest, yet she is allegedly one of the best staffers at MI6. She is as stupid as the Bond girls come, and that is saying something.
However, Miss Goodnight is only one part of what makes The Man with the Golden Gun the most intolerable of all the Bond films. Not only does she come off as incapable of being let out of the house, but everyone talks to each other in a strangely mean-spirited way. Witty, deprecating banter has long been a 007 staple, but underneath it all the characters have always seemed to respect each other. Not the case in The Man with the Golden Gun. Everyone behaves like mean girls in a high school cafeteria.
Many of the problems here seem to come out of the filmmakers’ resistance to giving the series over to Roger Moore. Live and Let Die was enjoyable, even though Moore was never given much to do. In Golden Gun they don’t even attempt to play to his strengths, writing Bond as if he were played by Sean Connery at his most unpleasant. Moore goes through the film slapping women and twisting their arms, but that is just not how his James Bond is supposed to work. This makes it all the more baffling when the women suddenly insist on taking their clothes off for him.
If there is one thing saving The Man with the Golden Gun from being entirely worthless it's Christopher Lee’s performance as Francisco Scaramanga, the titular man who possesses a golden firearm. He is meant to be a mirror image of Bond, but instead he comes off as infinitely more charming and likeable than anyone else onscreen. He’s sinister, but endlessly watchable in doing so. His henchman, the miniature Nick Nack, isn’t so awful either, except for all the dumb jokes made at the expense of his height, including the way Bond dispenses of him.
The rest of the film is an endless sequence of stupid, unlikable people doing stupid, unlikable things, made even worse by the return of Sheriff J.W. Pepper, Clifton James’ southern sheriff from Live and Let Die. Now, you may be thinking the following: “Gee, Matt. Are you saying that Sheriff Pepper, a resident of Louisiana, has taken a trip to Bangkok at the exact same time James Bond is there searching for Scaramanga? On top of that, when Bond decides to steal a rental car to chase after the kidnapped Mary Goodnight, Pepper is waiting for him in the exact same car?” Yes. Apparently all of this is the case. These two are meant to be together. It’s fate.
Now, as if the viewer isn’t annoyed enough, the car chase that follows is drained of any and all suspense. It is meant to climax with one of the most impressive car stunts you’ve ever seen. Well, if one mutes the sound it is a truly incredible stunt. In The Man with the Golden Gun, director Guy Hamilton, in his infinite wisdom, decided to put the sound of a slide whistle over what is supposed to be his film’s signature stunt. Are we supposed to be in awe? Or should we be laughing because it’s all a joke? There’s a reason the soundtrack for The Hurt Locker does not include “Yakety Sax.”
Even in the worst Bond films, the high point is usually the music, as John Barry knocks it out of the park nearly every time. The score itself in The Man with the Golden Gun is quite good, but the theme song has some of the worst lyrics ever sung in a James Bond theme. The general thesis of the song is that if you want to get rid of someone, the man with the golden gun will get it done. He’ll shoot anyone. With his golden gun. The singer is a pop artist called Lulu, who apparently was a thing at one point.
The Man with the Golden Gun is an unpleasant experience all around, but if the James Bond series has shown us one thing over the course of its existence it’s that the producers know how to change direction in a hurry. When people (stupidly) complained about On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, they came back with Sean Connery and the overblown Diamonds Are Forever. After the mostly negative reaction to The Man with the Golden Gun, the filmmakers decided to change a great deal about the series, and almost all of it helped.
It took a while for the next Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me, to reach theaters, however. Harry Saltzman, longtime producer of the series with Albert R. Broccoli, was forced to leave the series due to personal/financial problems. This left Broccoli as the sole captain of the ship. Further complicating things, they had no story for the next film. Ian Fleming, author of the Bond novels, insisted that no part of the original novel The Spy Who Loved Me be used (which is understandable, as much of the story isn’t even told from Bond’s point of view).
In a way, this freed the filmmakers to be more creative, and as a result The Spy Who Loved Me is one of the best films of the Roger Moore era. Moore is able to play Bond his way: less aggressive, more charming, but still an efficient agent of Her Majesty’s Secret Service. On top of this, the film feels much larger and more epic, thanks to the ambitious yet thrilling production design of Ken Adam. The interior of the Liparus, the villain Stromberg’s submarine-eating supertanker, remains one of the most impressive sets I’ve ever seen in any movie ever.
But forget all that. What makes The Spy Who Loved Me such an improvement over The Man with the Golden Gun is the fact that the characters aren't all morons you want to punch in the face. In what can only be a direct response to Mary Goodnight, the Bond girl this time is Anya Amasova, who is one of the best characters a woman has ever had in the series, presented as Bond’s equal in the KGB. Their attraction comes out of their respect for each other, not simply because Moore sees that she is female and therefore must have her. Not to mention that she actually has a little emotional arc with a beginning, middle and end! What is this devilry?
While the film's main villain, Stromberg, is essentially a poor man’s Blofeld, it’s the new villain Jaws that steals the show. Played by half-man/half-Sasquatch Richard Kiel, Jaws is a villain that’s able to mix genuine menace and slapstick. He can kill you, but still be funny in the process. Enjoy it, because when he returns in Moonraker he’ll be reduced to a buffoon.
While The Man with the Golden Gun has a good score but terrible theme song, The Spy Who Loved Me has a classic theme song but terribly dated score. From composer Marvin Hamlisch, the score sounds like an orchestra being slaughtered by the Bee Gees. However, “Nobody Does it Better” is likely the most famous theme song the series has ever given us, and rightfully so. It’s sweeping, beautiful and memorable.
It seemed that director Lewis Gilbert and producer Albert R. Broccoli had the series back on the right track, creating a grand piece of blockbuster entertainment that played to all of Moore’s strengths. It was a huge hit, but there was another film that came out in 1977 to sizable grosses: a little space film called Star Wars. Not many would have guessed it would have directly influenced the James Bond series, but they would have a surprise waiting for them in 1979 when Roger Moore would start wielding a laser gun.
Next Week: James Bond is sent into space, then back into the stone age.
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