The James Bond Bedside Companion (69 page)

Julius Harris as Tee-Hee makes a good super-henchman. Of course, Tee-Flee is a reincarnation of Oddjob, but with a strong mechanical pincer for an arm. Harris manages to play the character with enough variation to maintain interest. His grin is contagious, and it's particularly effective in the alligator farm sequence. Earl Jolly Brown plays a grossly fat henchman who constantly whispers. This character is too humorous to be menacing. His name is, appropriately, Whisper.

Then there is J. W. Pepper, played by an extremely funny actor, Clifton James. The trouble is that this type of character has no business being in a James Bond film. Sheriff Pepper is simply a caricature of a Southern lawman—a redneck, short on brains. The character produces laughs, but he seems an arbitrary and pointless addition to the cast. The character returns for an even less successful encore in the next film,
The Man with the Golden Gun
. The idea of laughs at the expense of a dumb lawman is trite.

Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell perform with their usual alacrity. (Q is missing from this film.) Lee is given a particularly good line. Bond is explaining that his new wristwatch contains a magnet powerful enough to deflect a bullet M says, "I'm tempted to test that theory right now."

OTHER ASPECTS

S
yd Cain is production designer for his third Bond film. There aren't many interiors in the picture. It is primarily an outdoor film, like Dr. No. Kananga's laboratory at the end of the movie is Ken Adam influenced, and Bond's flat has a certain excessiveness akin to Adam's work. But the outdoor locations are marvelous and extremely colorful. That's one thing about the Bond films that will always be attractive—well-photographed views of a foreign land. In this case, the film captures the flavor of the South and Ted Moore's usual fine work shines in the bayou sequences.

Editors Bert Bates, Raymond Poulton, and John Shirley put together a tight film and their work on the boat chase sequences is amazing. Costumes, by Julie Harris, are exceptionally colorful, and help create the thematic unity of tarot cards and mysticism. Solitaire's clothes have the ceremonial quality of a high priestess' garments.

Derek Meddings joins Eon Productions as special effects man with
Live and Let Die
. Meddings is a fine craftsman, and his work in the series is superb. His contribution to
Live and Let Die
is minimal, however. He built ramps and whatnot for the boat stunts, and created a miniature (his specialty) of the poppy field to blow up. His best work for the Bonds will be seen later.

The stuntwork in the film is one of the few highlights. Coordinated by Bob Simmons, Eddie Smith, Bill Bennot, Ross Kananga, Joey Chitwood, Jerry Comeaux, and Maurice Patchett, the stunts are originals performed by their creators. The most outrageous stunt and a classic in the series occurs when Bond steps over the backs of alligators to escape from a small island surrounded by the reptiles. There's a fascinating story behind this scene. Originally, Mankiewicz had Bond being taken by Tee-Hee to a coffee granulator. While Mankiewicz and Hamilton were scouting locations, they came upon the actual sign which appears in the film reading TRESPASSERS WILL BE EATEN. It was an alligator farm, owned by a man named (believe it or not) Ross Kananga. Kananga was enthusiastic about the pros
pect of a Bond film being shot on his farm and gladly participated in the stuntwork. In fact, it was Kananga who suggested that Bond use the alligators' backs as stepping stones to escape from the island. The filmmakers were dubious about getting someone to do the stunt. Kananga said he would, if the animals' legs were tied down first. That's what they did, and it's a wonderful moment.

Maurice Patchett, a London bus driver, performed the double-decker bus stunt, in which the entire upper deck is knocked off by a low bridge. Actually, the upper deck was previously sawn off and placed on rollers, but still. . . . The action on the airfield smashing up airplanes is amusing but becomes tiresome after a while. There is also one of those out-of-place characters present: a middle-aged woman waiting for her flying lesson who is unwittingly kidnapped by a fleeing Bond.

The film's main highlight is the boat chase, orchestrated by Jerry Comeaux and Joey Chitwood. Boats fly onto land, over roads, into cars, through weddings, and almost anywhere but the water. The sequence is fun but is rife with misplaced humor. Still, the boats themselves, and their captains, are first rate.

Bond's gadget in this film is a fancy wristwatch that contains a powerful magnet strong enough to grab something from across the room. Pretty outlandish. It also has a feature we aren't told about, which, as John Brosnan accuses, "breaks the Bondian rules." It isn't fair that the watch becomes a buzz saw at the end of the film when Bond is tied with Solitaire in a hoist above the shark pool. We didn't know it could do that.

John Barry is absent this time, and the Beatles' producer, George Martin, is in charge of the score for
Live and Let Die.
But his work is entirely overshadowed by Paul and Linda McCartney's main title song. Performed by Wings, "Live and Let Die" is a bizarre song, especially for a Bond film. But it works beautifully, and remains one of the best main titles of the series. (It was nominated for an Academy Award.) It's energetic, loud, and powerful. Martin's score is admirable, with a couple of catchy tunes such as "San Monique." His version of "The James Bond Theme" is overproduced, but on the whole, the score moves with the film.

Live and Let Die,
successful as it was financially, is a mediocre film. There is no real excitement because it's very predictable. It marks a period of unrest at Eon Productions. The James Bond films were in a state of confusion, and it would take three more attempts before Eon Productions would decide to return to the original style of the sixties' pictures.

PRODUCTION

T
he ninth James Bond film marks the end of Harry Saltzman's association with Eon Productions. Relations between Saltzman and Broccoli had become strained, and the producers took turns producing
Live and Let Die
and the new film,
The Man With the Golden Gun.

It was Saltzman who had always wanted to go on location in Hong Kong and Thailand, and these locations are the highlights of
Golden Gun.
Otherwise, the ninth James Bond entry is weak, even lower in quality than
Live and Let Die.
The main problem is that the film stays on one dynamic level throughout and is played entirely too lightly. Guy Hamilton must take the blame for the failure of
Golden Gun,
although its script, by Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz, is none too thrilling. The set-piece formula is again apparent, creating the effect that the plot was built around the film's locations. There are a few good moments in the picture, but as a whole, it lacks unity.

Golden Gun
was shot in Hong Kong; in and around Bangkok, Thailand; and near the resort island of Phuket Production designer Peter Murton found an unusual set of islands near Phuket, and one of these, Kao Ping-Kan, was used as the headquarters of Francisco Scaramanga. The site is otherworldly and exotic.

SCREENPLAY

T
om Mankiewicz wrote the initial draft of
The Man
With the Golden Gun
before resigning from the project due to reported disagreements with Guy Hamilton. As usual, the Fleming original was completely thrown out Granted, Fleming's novel is probably his weakest, but it contains enough good elements to serve as a departure point for a screenplay. Instead, Mankiewicz created a new story involving not a second-rate Cuban assassin like Fleming's Scaramanga, but a super-villain of the stature of Bond himself. Scaramanga is equipped with his own island headquarters which resembles Crab Key in
Dr. No.
Mankiewicz's original idea for the story was to involve a duel between the two best shots in the world—Bond and Scaramanga. Supposedly, Mankiewicz wanted the film to be more serious, opposing Hamilton's wishes.

Richard Maibaum was hired to rewrite the script. Maibaum added a "MacGuffin" (Hitchcock's term for an item that is basically meaningless but serves as the villains' objective in order to motivate the action, such as the Lektor coding machine in
From Russia With
Love). Maibaum's MacGuffin is a solex agitator, a device which will convert radiation from the sun into pure energy. In the film, Scaramanga and the British Secret Service are both searching for the agitator, which is in the possession of a traitorous British agent in Hong Kong. Scaramanga is employed by the Red Chinese through a rich merchant named Hai Fat, who resides in Bangkok. A subplot is inaugurated when Scaramanga sends a golden bullet (his trademark) to Universal Export with the number 007 engraved on it M presumes this means that someone has paid Scaramanga his one million dollar fee to assassinate Bond. Therefore, Bond must somehow find Scaramanga before the killer finds Bond.

Roger Moore with co-star Britt Ekiand (as Mary Goodnight)
in The Man With the Golden Gun
. (UPI Photo)

On paper, the script probably looked pretty good, but on the screen the story is flat. There are too many sections that lack credibility, and Hamilton's direction evokes no excitement. Juvenile humor, such as a scene involving J. W. Pepper (the Louisiana Sheriff from
Live
and Let Die
), adds nothing to the plot.

There is one scene in which the James Bond character is presented in a harsher light. When Bond visits Scaramanga's girlfriend, Andrea Anders, in her hotel room, he treats her roughly. He attempts to find out where Scaramanga is, and slaps Andrea in the process. This is the third time Bond has slapped a woman onscreen. I don't endorse the mistreatment of women, but this is the best scene in the film. There is authentic dramatic conflict here.

The script also makes use of Scaramanga's congenital oddity, a third nipple. Fleming mentions the birthmark in the novel, but nothing is ever made of it. In the film, Bond impersonates Scaramanga at one point, and thanks to Q Branch, a third nipple is added to Bond's chest This is a clever idea that might have been used even more effectively.

The duel at the end of the film is quite unsatisfying. Apparently, some footage was cut between the beach duel and the cat and mouse game in Scaramanga's "fun house." The fun house is Scaramanga's playpen for stalking practice victims. There is no build-up to Scaramanga's death scene, and it basically repeats the limp pre-credits scene, in which Scaramanga stalks a gangster through the fun house as a form of target practice. Once again, James Bond does not appear in the pre-credits sequence except in the form of a wax dummy that Scaramanga has placed in his fun house.

The concept of the fun house doesn't work at all; it seems childish for a man of Scaramanga's stature to be playing around with such carnival trappings.

DIRECTION

G
uy Hamilton, in his fourth Bond effort, creates a film that could be subtitled "James Bond Visits the Jungle Ride at Disneyland." Like its predecessor,
The Man
With
the Golden Gun
is played much too lightly. It's all fun and games, and most of it isn't particularly fun. The film is a predictable amusement park ride.

There is no threat in the film. Christopher Lee, who portrays Scaramanga, has said that Guy Hamilton kept telling him to play the character lightly. During the final scenes on Scaramanga's island, Hamilton ordered Moore and Lee to "enjoy it more—to have fun." As John Brosnan notes, the actors had too much fun, and as a result, there is no tension in the encounter. The characters are simply too polite to each other.

Hamilton's storytelling is often obscure as well. The plot is confusing, and there are several times when things aren't clear. For example, the details concerning the solex agitator are inadequately explained until far too late. The merging of the two plots (the search for the agitator and the duel between Scaramanga and Bond) is not smooth.

Another criticism of the film is that Hamilton does not make sufficient use of Peter Mutton's admirable sets. Again, Brosnan points out that Scaramanga's lab is especially ignored, with only
one
technician overseeing the mess.