THE BOOK: THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN
The Year: 1965
The Author: Ian Fleming
THE PLOT
M sends Bond to assassinate a killer for hire working in Latin America as a test to see if he is mentally healthy enough to return to service after his brainwashing at the hands of the KGB.
THE COMMENTARY
The end of You Only Live Twice left Bond in Vladivostok as an amnesiac who thought he was a Japanese fisherman. This book picks up a year later, with Bond missing and presumed dead (his obit appeared in You Only Live Twice), but with the reader pretty sure he's been in the hands of the KGB.
That's confirmed at the very beginning, with a brainwashed Bond appearing in London. I don't remember the specifics, but Bond's return from the Soviet Union came up in some discussion here and it was generally thought that Bond's amnesia/brainwashing was glossed over. So that's what I was expecting.
However, the first two chapters involve the robotic, brainwashed Bond returning to Regent's Park to assassinate M. I found that bit particularly nerve-wracking, as it was clear to everyone involved that Bond was out of his head, but they all went through with allowing him to meet M face to face anyway.
It's farcical when you think about it. M allows the meeting because he just happens to have exactly the right defense for exactly the weapon Bond is employing, and that defense works just fast enough and flawlessly enough that M isn't dead on the spot. What a ridiculous chance to take! Especially since it's mentioned that M's predecessor had died in that room at the hands of a rogue agent! But I readily concede that it was gripping.
What was glossed over was Bond's deprogramming. He is sent off to psych expert Sir James Molony (who had appeared in previous books) and returns in Chapter 4 evidently no worse for wear.
Three other things are worth commenting on in those first two chapters:
- Moneypenny is a bit of a weak sister. "Oh, Bill, I'm afraid!" she says to Chief of Staff. Soon after, she assumes the woman-in-emotional-distress pose of holding her cluched fist to her mouth to forestall a scream. I think that was pretty typical for female characters in 1965. It was certainly true of Marvel Comics, where all female superheroes had pose-and-point powers, and no doubt Sue Storm said "Oh, Reed, I'm afraid!" at least once a year in concurrent Fantastic Four. But it doesn't age well, especially with the Daniel Craig movie Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) more of a bodyguard/enforcer, which makes more sense.
- M takes it on the chin in this one. Bill Tanner says of him under his breath, "You coldhearted bastard!" Miss Moneypenny joins in the M-bashing shortly afterward. "She looked down at the bowed, iron-grey head ... and wondered, as she had wondered often over the past ten years, whether she loved or hated this man." Of course, this is followed by, "One thing was certain. She respected him more than any man she had ever known or had read of." But it's the first I remember any character saying or thinking anything negative of M, who has been deserving of some approbation heretofore but never received it. Of course, what these two are complaining about — M sending Bond on another mission immediately after deprogramming, one too dangerous for other agents — shows his ability to make difficult, possibly deadly, decisions, a character trait necessary in a person in his position. In "A View to a Kill" I complained about the reverse, when M was pusillanimous about a decision and basically recuses, urging Bond, a subordinate, to make the decision (and take what consequences may follow). I like the Golden Gun M better, obviously.
- This sequence gives us a tour of the Secret Service's security apparatus as it involves the general public. It's amusingly out of date given today's technology, but I think it's pretty impressive for its time. (Although I wonder if Ian Fleming didn't just make it all up. In 1965, he hadn't been in the service for a couple of decades.)
Chapter 3 gives us the official lowdown on Scaramanga, as Chapter 5 gives us the man himself. He's a bit of a Silver Age comics villain, unfortunately — raised in the circus, worked for the KGB, now freelance assassin. That sounds like the Swordsman who, coincidentally, appeared in Avengers comics in 1965. I'm not suggesting any plagiarism; it's more like Fleming and his colleagues in the comics writing profession were all from earlier generations, with the same influences. Apparently circuses had a big impact on the likes of Fleming, Stan Lee, Ray Bradbury, Bill Finger, Carmine Infantino, etc., when they were boys. Whereas I have never actually seen one.
On the other hand, at least Scaramanga wasn't cut from Pancho Villa cloth, which was certainly possible, given that he operated in Latin America. Because you know Fleming would have written him as the Frito Bandito. Instead, Fleming seems to have been thinking Westerns with this one. (Later on, there's a girl tied to the train tracks. It turns out to be a mannequin, but still.)
I did read with amusement the bit in Scaramanga's file by "C.C." (do we know who this is?) about Scaramanga's gun fetishism, reputation as a ladies' man and inability to whistle, all suggesting he is possibly "sexually abnormal" — i.e., homosexual, in 1965-speak. It is still bruited about in common parlance that men who love guns and/or big trucks might be overcompensating in, ahem, other areas. But the whistling bit made me laugh out loud. Was that really a theory in 1965, or is it more a Fleming flourish?
Scarmanga's "origin story" with the elephant, however, is nothing but Fleming flourish. What a bizarre tale.
I don't want to skip Chapter 4. It's a "travel day," as they say in sports, with Bond flying to Jamaica, discovering Scaramanga is there by coincidence (so he doesn't have to leave for a setting Fleming would have to research) and meeting up with Mary Goodnight for dinner, who also happens to be there by coincidence (so he doesn't have to create a new character). Not much plot-wise happens here, but there are some gems.
For example, Bond reflects in his hotel room on the "twenty-four bashes" at his brain by the "black box" of ECT — electroconvulsive treament. ECT, or as we called it in the States, Electro-Shock Therapy, was mainstream in those days. But nowadays we know all of the negatives attached to the practice, and it's pretty shocking — sorry — to read that 007 might be brain damaged now.
Bond also notes that he's cutting down on cigarettes to 20 a day — or trying to, and generally hitting 25. He's also trying to drink less, although "the champagne doesn't count." As someone who has gotten tipsy on two or three glasses of champagne before, I am here to say it certainly does count. But then, Fleming was a much more, ah, practiced drinker than any of us, so maybe for him champagne didn't count.
Anyway, the upshot being that Fleming might have been trying to drag Bond into the 1960s, where the tide was turning on smoking and the kind of heavy drinking Bond (and Fleming) carried on. Certainly Fleming knew what the current medical opinion was, as everything I read about his declining years focuses on doctors trying to get him to cut down on both smoking and drinking, and Fleming resisting. Where would Fleming have gone with that had he lived, I wonder? Would he and Bond both have embraced the emerging consensus on self-care? Would Bond have eventually been a tee-totaler, and practiced meditation and yoga? The mind boggles.
Fleming is uncustomarily restrained in another matter, too: Bond doesn't have sex with Goodnight after dinner. I think.
Bond flirts, surely, and she flirts back. (Like the bit with the buttons.) But it's noted that she doesn't smoke and rarely drinks, and is quite the prude, even to the point of chastising Bond for saying the word "whorehouse." Not exactly Bond's type.
You could assume it was left unsaid that the dinner ended as Bond's dinners usually do. But when has Fleming ever left anything unsaid? I'm guessing that if Fleming wanted for us to think they slept together, he'd have made it more overt — or, more likely, have taken the opportunity to write some "seductive" Bond dialogue and suggestive scenes. Which, in other books, he seemed to enjoy doing. Since he didn't, I'm guessing the consummation was postponed.
Which means Bond doesn't get laid even once in this book, which is unusual. It is implied Bond and Goodnight will hook up as he convalesces, but that's after the book is over and we are not privy to it. Maybe, had he lived, Fleming would have added the salacious bits at the end (as he did in Dr. No).
After we meet Scaramanga in Chapter 5 (and Tiffy, an unusually well-fleshed-out minor character, with dialogue not as racist as you'd expect), we go to Chapter 6, where the book goes straight downhill. As all Bondians know, Golden Gun was published posthumously, and numerous Bond experts note (you can see who in the Wiki) that Fleming usually added a lot of his color and descriptions in the second draft, which he didn't live to do. I'll take their word for it, because Bond and the story are rather bland from this point on. It's more of a detailed outline than a Fleming story, as often you are told a thing happens, but it is not described in any way.
The book also features heavily a type of dialogue Fleming does poorly: American gangster patois. It always comes off as something learned from movies by a foreigner, which is probably exactly the case. That often seems to apply to Felix's "Texan" homilies as well.
In addition to the lack of description, the plot repeats a lot of elements from previous books.
- Good lord, we're back in Jamaica again.
- Scaramanga offers Bond, a complete stranger, a job as his personal assistant. This mirrors the scenario in Goldfinger, and I find it just as implausible here.
- Scaramanga works for or with a group of rogue intelligence agents and gangsters, much like SPECTRE.
- The Russian plot to undermine the West with drugs and prostitutes is the same as in "Risico."
- Scaramanga is more of a henchman in need of elimination than a Big Bad on his own, much like Herr von Hammerstein in "For Your Eyes Only."
- Scaramanga enters Bond's room through a fake back panel in a wardrobe, as the killer does in The Spy Who Loved Me.
- Felix Leiter shows up as a complete coincidence, as he almost always does, even though he hasn't worked for the CIA since Live and Let Die.
- A train features prominently, as in From Russia, with Love; Diamonds Are Forever; and Live and Let Die.
Given that this is a straight-up assassination, it seems odd to me that Bond would go undercover and become chummy with the target. I guess that makes for a better book, but in "For Your Eyes Only" he behaves more as I assume an assassin would, by setting up a sniper's nest, aiming to take out his target from long range. Maybe we're to assume he meant to do that once he located his target, and his chance discovery of Scaramanga's presence at 3½ Love Lane changed his plans. I can further assume Fleming might have mentioned that in a second draft, had he lived.
Bond passes up two opportunites to kill Scaramanga in cold blood, and has cold feet at the end, too. He finally puts five bullets in him after Scaramanga has put a bullet in Bond. I don't recall Bond being that into fair play before. I may be forgetting. Or maybe Fleming planned for this to be a new character trait, developed after Bond's brainwashing and ECT treatments. We'll never know, I guess.
STRAY BULLETS
- The gas gun is a silly gadget, which may be an influence from the gadget-laden movies.
- Would bullets made of a silver/gold alloy actually work?
- We learn, almost in passing, that the bullet from Scaramanga's derringer was poisoned. Nothing is done with this, so once again we can only imagine that Fleming dropped in that nugget with intent to flesh it out later.
- I believe this is the first book to establish M's name as Sir Miles Messervey. I knew it was from conversations here, but I think this is the first time it's said in a Fleming book.
- I usually see and hear Sean Connery in my mind's eye and ear when I'm reading the Bond books. But in this book I saw Sterling Archer, the cartoon character, and heard H. Jon Benjamin's voice. Don't ask me why (although 14 seasons of Archer certainly helps).
- Bond ruminates that Goodnight is the kind of girl to keep around, but "as what?" he wonders to himself. Surely not marriage! The final passage has him returning to form, indicating no one girl will satisfy him, but the passing idea of a permanent arrangement is an interesting note. It's not something Fleming had to write, but he did. Since Bond sleeping with Goodnight is a really bad idea — she's a "nice" girl who would probably be crushed by a one-night stand, she works with him at MI6, Moneypenny would never forgive him, etc. — and he doesn't sleep with her in all the years they work together or after dinner earlier in the book. Perhaps Fleming was toying with the idea of Bond settling down. He tried once with Tracy, after all.
- It's just another nugget, I should say, one of several ideas that seem suggested by what is, after all, a first draft. One has to wonder what a fleshed-out book would have been like, and if Fleming had carried any of these bits and bobs forward in future novels. "For all sad words of tongue or pen/The saddest are these: 'It might have been!' "
- Bond taking down an assassin's organization from the inside was used in Licence to Kill, with Franz Sanchez substituting for Antonio Scaramanga.
SUMMARY
Fleming's last novel is bland, derivative and implausible. The latter is fairly normal (and taken in stride), but the rest is disappointing.
THE MOVIES: THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN
The Year: 1974
The Director: Guy Hamilton
The Writers: Richard Maibaum, Tom Mankiewicz
The Cast: Roger Moore (James Bond), Christopher Lee (Scaramanga), Britt Ekland (Goodnight), Maud Adams (Andrea Anders), Hervé Villechaize (Nick Nack), Clifton James (J.W. Pepper), Richard Loo (Hai Fat), Soon-Tek Oh (Hip), Marc Lawrence (Rodney), Bernard Lee (M), Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny), Marne Maitland (Lazar), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), James Cossins (Colthorpe), Yao Lin Chen Chula), Carmen Du Sautoy (Saida), Gerald James (Frazier), Michael Osborne (Naval Lieutenant)
The Music: "The Man with the Golden Gun Theme" was written by John Barry and sung by Lulu. It's so bad my wife made me fast-forward through it. Everyone hates it, including John Barry, according to Wikipedia.
THE PLOT
Bond is targeted by a notorious assassin and must respond, while attempting to keep a solar-energy breakthrough from the wrong hands. It turns out both his cases are the same.
THE COMMENTARY
The movie has very little in common with the book. There's the famed assassin Scaramanga, but once you get past name and profession, there's little else in common. The book takes place in Jamaica, while the movie takes place in China, Macau and Thailand. The book involves the KGB, while there's no sign of Russians in the movie.
Bernard Lee's M is always so cranky with Bond in these movies. I think that's a misinterpretation of the English way, which was reflected in the books. There, M is gruff and authoritative — but not insulting. Here, he chides Bond routinely, often descending into personal invective.
Bond: I mean sir, who would pay a million dollars to have me killed?
M: Jealous husbands! Outraged chefs! Humiliated tailors! The list is endless!
Sure, it's funny. But I can't see Fleming writing that kind of dialogue for M. Q often joins in the Bond-bashing as well, although not in this movie. But he often says things like "Do try to pay attention, 007" and "Do try to keep up, 007." Since Q wasn't a regular in the books, I don't know how Fleming would have written him. But I doubt he'd have gone in for condescension to the lead character.
Meanwhile, Bond is always presented in these movies as basically knowing everything, and knowing how to do everything. He recites Scaramanga's CV with no preparation and learns to do a 360-degree spin in a car, in the air, on its horizontal axis, on the fly ("I've never done that before, either") and so forth. You'd think M would value that, even if it's kinda hard to believe.
It also makes one wonder about the other 00 agents. Does M treat them the same? Or is Bond a special case? Frankly, I'd be tempted to take the wind out of the sails of Roger Moore's smug Bond. Whereas I'd be afraid to insult Connery's Bond.
Also, a character named Colthorpe (Bond addresses him as such) is in the scene with M, Bond and Q, but never says a word. He shows up later with Q and does have dialogue. but one wonders why he was in the first scene. Or if he had some dialogue that was cut. Regardless, he just stands there for the entire scene, making this viewer wonder why he's there.
Another thing that's hard to believe is the later revelation that Andrea Anders (Maud Adams) is the one who sent the bullet to MI6, so that Bond would free her from Scaramanga. Because Scaramanga (Christopher Lee) isn't surprised at all when Bond appears. Were we supposed to assume he knew all along? Maybe I missed something.
Doesn't matter — she's the "bad" Bond Girl, so we know her fate. It comes quickly, before the bed she shares with Bond is cold. But don't worry, she'll be back for Octopussy!
P.S. You'd think a girl who was clever enough to engrave a golden bullet and find an address for MI6 without her boyfriend noticing wouldn't need Bond's help to escape. She clearly has money and resourcefulness.
Then there's Goodnight (I don't believe her first name is ever used), who may be the ditziest secret agent on Earth. She almost gets Bond killed with her butt. Which, I might add, is in a bikini at the time. "Exposing" her true purpose in the film, I suppose.
And she stays in the closet while Bond is having sex with another woman (you know, Andrea). All "closet" jokes aside, that's sad.
J.W. Pepper. Not funny the first time, and not funny here. Just annoying. And there's more of him. Was he planed to be a regular, like M and Q and Moneypenny? Glad that didn't happen.
The energy crisis began in 1973, and the film uses it as an excuse for the "solar agitator" MacGuffin. It's sad how the need for solar power was recognized way back then, but it's still not in widespread use today, despite the technology being widely available.
This movie is two years after Enter the Dragon, so there's obligatory martial-arts action. Maybe that was thrilling in 1974, but I didn't think it was very well done, and it seemed a digression from the plot.
When Bond kicks his first opponent during the bowing ceremony, my wife and I both laughed, and we both compared it to the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana Jones unexpectedly shoots the swordsman. It's funny because we expect the "good guys" to follow the rules.
What was the plot again? Oh, yeah, Scaramanga — who apparently has a funhouse built into his island fortress as a playground to go mano-a-mano against hired killers. Of course, it's not entirely fair, since Scaramanga knows the layout, and knows to expect sounds, lights, moving mannequins, etc.
And since we saw it in the first act, it shows up in the third, where Bond wins rather anticlimactically. Especially since we saw a wax statue of Bond in the first act, so we knew the real Bond would take its place in the third. You'd think Scaramanga would have expected that, too. Maybe he hasn't seen as many Bond movies as we have.
The best part of the movie for me? Nick Nack! He had the two best lines ("I may be small, but I never forget!" and "Let me out, you big bully!"). And he was the obligatory post-climax threat, whose defeat was a lot more fun and exciting than Scaramanga's.
STRAY BULLETS
- No mention is made of Scaramanga killing other MI6 agents in the movie, although in the book he's suspected of killing 267, 398, 943, 768 and 742.
- Is this the first Bond movie to substitute the Red Chinese for Russians?
- There are a number of scenes where Bond is lighting or waving around a cigar. It suddenly occurred to me that I'd only seen Moore's Bond smoke cigars, and never cigarettes, like Sean Connery. I looked it up and, lo, Moore (a cigar smoker IRL) deliberately smoked only cigars to differentiate his Bond from Connery's.
- In the opening scene, Scaramanga battles a gangster played by character actor Marc Lawrence, who played a similar role in Diamonds Are Forever. Lawrence was 64 in Man with the Golden Gun, and had been typecast as a gangster since forever.
- Evidently, Christopher Lee was Ian Fleming's cousin.
- My wife noted of Christopher Lee, "He was so handsome when he was young!" Prior to this, she had only seen him as Count Dooku in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
- My wife also noted that Roger Moore was fit, and not as silly as in later movies. I agree. This was his second Bond film, and the franchise hadn't sunk to the lows of Moonraker yet. I dread the next movie, Octopussy, which will be Moore's penultimate Bond film.
- I recognized Soon Tek-Oh (Lieutenant Hip) immediately as being the "go-to" Asian guy for just about every TV show in the '70s.
- Evidently, the corkscrew stunt — where 007 rotates the car 360 in the air — won an Academy Award. It is impressive, but I could have lived without the slide whistle.
- The elephant story in the book is adapted to the movie. Not word for word, but the gist.
- So is the buttons gag, where Bond and Goodnight discuss their placement, and a gadget on Goodnight's person. (In the book, she has a suicide pill in her pearl necklace, but she's forgotten which pearl has it. In the movie, she's got a homing beacon in one of her buttons.)
SUMMARY
This was a pretty good movie. Erase J.W. Pepper, goose up the ending a little (he just shoots him?) and it might have been Moore's best Bond.
Replies
This is the one I've been saying (or implying) is my least favorite of all the novels, even including The Spy Who Loved Me. My memory of it doesn't jibe exactly with your description, but it's been 30 years since I last read it so I'll defer to you if any of my recollections are incorrect. The way I remember it is that 007 lost his "license to kill" after the brainwashing incident, and this rather pedestrian mission was his opportunity to "win back his spurs." It strikes me very much as a transition novel, but with nothing to transition to. (You have already highlighted the other problems due to Fleming's having died after the first draft.) I think, had Fleming lived, the next novel would have completed the classic "rise, fall, redemption" cycle. That's why I prefer to end the series with You Only Live Twice (perhaps stopping short of the very end).
Evidently, the corkscrew stunt — where 007 rotates the car 360 in the air — won an Academy Award.
It was impressive, but it yanked me right out of the movie, even when I first saw it on TV as a kid. One of my books about the "James Bond" movies has a section on all of the engineering and math that was behind the completion of this stunt. It may have looked like a rickety wooden bridge, but it was structurally reinforced and all the angles, car speed, etc. were calculated precisely. IRL, if Bond had tried to drive over a bridge in such dilapadated condition, he more likely would have crashed right through it!
Was [J.W. Pepper] he planed to be a regular, like M and Q and Moneypenny?
More like Sylvia Trench.
I dread the next movie, Octopussy, which will be Moore's penultimate Bond film.
If The Man with the Golden Gun is my least favorite of the novels (and it is), then Octopussy is my least favorite of the films.
Now that you have read all of the novels, allow me to ask you the questions you once asked me: Which one is your favorite? Which one would you recommend to someone who hasn't read any?
I went to the circus once when i was a little kid. I don't remember much about it.
I suspect that circuses were a much bigger deal in the pre-television era (and probably even more so in the pre-movie era),especially in small town America where the circus coming to town might have the major (or even only) entertainment event of the year. To children of the internet era, circuses may well seem hopelessly outdated.
If The Man with the Golden Gun is my least favorite of the novels (and it is), then Octopussy is my least favorite of the films.
Noooooo! You mean it's worse than Moonraker?!??
Now that you have read all of the novels, allow me to ask you the questions you once asked me: Which one is your favorite? Which one would you recommend to someone who hasn't read any?
Hrm. I guess the obvious answer is Goldfinger, since everybody's got a pretty good idea from the movie (and can picture Gert Frobe and Sean Connery while reading). It's got a lot of classic Bond elements.
But maybe On Her Majesty's Secret Service, because it doesn't follow formula. You get a desperate Bond (half-dead after the avalanche), a Bond in love, a Bond coloring outside the lines with criminal allies -- and a helluva ending. It may not be a classic Bond book, but it may be Fleming's best. It may also be the least offensive to modern women, given that Bond only sleeps with one woman, and it's because he loves her.
But those are just the first two I thought of. I may have to review my own reviews to see what I liked!
I suspect that circuses were a much bigger deal in the pre-television era (and probably even more so in the pre-movie era),especially in small town America where the circus coming to town might have the major (or even only) entertainment event of the year. To children of the internet era, circuses may well seem hopelessly outdated.
I suspect you're right. The writers I mentioned all grew up in the '20s or '30s, and circuses abound in their stories. Stan Lee gave us Hulk joining a circus in Avengers #1, The Blob coming from one in X-Men #3 and Thor joining one in Journey into Mystery #145, and of course there's the recurring Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime. Ray Bradbury wrote "Something Wicked This Way Comes," Bill Finger gave us Robin and his aerialist family in Haley's Circus, and Carmine Infantino gave us circus-bred Deadman.
I know what "Hey, Rube!" means, and I've never even seen a poster for a circus.
I'm actually a little surprised that you've never been to a circus. I would've thought that it was something that every kid of our generations got taken to at least once.
So far this is the only James Bond book I have read. Back then (in 2020) I thought it was okay, but good enough to read other books in the series. I wasn't aware how it reapeated other themes in the series. Now seeing that Cap and Jeff think it is the weakest of the bunch, I might go and read some others.
I remember enjoying both Moonraker and Octopussy but I haven't seen either one in well over 30 years. For me a little James Bond goes a long way for me.
I enjoy reading these reviews though, I learn a lot.
Noooooo! You mean it's worse than Moonraker?!??
Allow me to direct your attention to the "Moonraker" discussion in which you said, "This is a terrible movie," and I replied, "Agreed... and yet, it's not my least favorite."
And I have been to the circus three times in my life.
The Man With The Golden Gun is one of the few Fleming books I have never re-read, after reading your synopsis that will not change.
The movie version along with the next film in the series, The Spy Who Loved Me, represent the peak for the Roger Moore run, but I will choose any Sean Connery Bond before watching either of those two.
Getting Christopher Lee as a Bond villain is what really makes the movie for me. The adversaries that appeared in subsequent Moore films were weak sisters in comparison.
It may have looked like a rickety wooden bridge, but it was structurally reinforced and all the angles, car speed, etc. were calculated precisely. IRL, if Bond had tried to drive over a bridge in such dilapadated condition, he more likely would have crashed right through it!
This is precisely the thought I had while watching. Well that, and irritation that they used a slide whistle.
I'm actually a little surprised that you've never been to a circus. I would've thought that it was something that every kid of our generations got taken to at least once.
From the comments here I'm beginning to think that my experience isn't very common. But I bet an unscientific survey of my cohort and younger in Memphis would show a lot more people who have never been to a circus. My wife went to one, but it was in Birmingham, Alabama. As noted, I've never even seen a poster for one IRL. It might be that the Mid-South Fair, which came every September with rides, games and produce/animal competitions, chased circuses away from Memphis. I noticed in a story I read last night in Fantagraphics' Joe Maneely collection (there were back-to-back circus stories, and another elsewhere, and I'm only 1/3 the way through) that the circus in the story went to a variety of big cities, but the closest it came to Memphis was Little Rock, Arkansas.
Now seeing that Cap and Jeff think [Man with the Golden Gun] is the weakest of the bunch, I might go and read some others.
As we've discussed elsewhere, I'd probably recommend From Russia, with Love, Goldfinger and/or the "Blofeld trilogy" of Thunderball, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice (but especially the middle one).
I remember enjoying both Moonraker and Octopussy but I haven't seen either one in well over 30 years. For me a little James Bond goes a long way for me.
You just named the two worst Bond movies, so I can see why.
I enjoy reading these reviews though, I learn a lot.
I learn a lot writing them, and would probably write them even if nobody read them. But I'm glad somebody is!
The movie version along with the next film in the series, The Spy Who Loved Me, represent the peak for the Roger Moore run, but I will choose any Sean Connery Bond before watching either of those two.
Agreed.
Getting Christopher Lee as a Bond villain is what really makes the movie for me. The adversaries that appeared in subsequent Moore films were weak sisters in comparison.
Agreed.
I'd probably recommend From Russia, with Love, Goldfinger and/or the "Blofeld trilogy" of Thunderball, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice (but especially the middle one).
IIRC, that is exactly what I recommended.
You just named the two worst Bond movies, so I can see why.
To be fair I was 6 when Moonraker came out. I also liked Battle Star Galactica, Buck Rogers, and Flash Gordon back then. I also might be underestimating how many years it has been since I saw them
I'd probably recommend From Russia, with Love, Goldfinger and/or the "Blofeld trilogy" of Thunderball, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice (but especially the middle one).
IIRC, that is exactly what I recommended.
Duly noted. Thanks, gents!
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