This was mine: an unimaginably thrilling experience at the time, though less so from a distance of more than 35 years. Like albums by the Fall, the first Bond film you see is the one that leaves its residue upon you. Bond is empty: Moore’s treatment of him as a bored playboy, for whom the sex and violence are beads of sensation in a mundane world, is the only filmic reading of the character as written in the screenplays that makes any sense. How do you turn a character with no hinterland, no interests beyond bedding women and killing villains – and sometimes killing women – into a caricature? He already is a caricature. Received wisdom says that Roger Moore was the worst 007, the one who turned James Bond into a caricature. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, with Saltzman selling his 50% stake in Danjaq, LLC, the parent company of Eon Productions, after the release of the film. It was also the last film to be co-produced by Albert R. Although the film was profitable, it is the fourth lowest grossing film in the series. Christopher Lee’s portrayal of Scaramanga as a villain of similar skill and ability to Bond was generally praised, but reviewers criticized the film as a whole, particularly its comedic approach and the performances of Moore and Britt Ekland. The film was met with mixed reviews, and some critics described it as the lowest point in the canon up to that time. Part of the film is also set in Beirut, Lebanon, but it was not shot there.

The film also reflects the then popular martial arts film craze, with several kung fu scenes and a predominantly Asian location, being set and shot in Thailand, Hong Kong, and Macau. Britain had still not yet fully overcome the crisis when the film was released in December 1974. The film was set in the face of the 1973 energy crisis, a dominant theme in the script. The script was written by Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz. The Man with the Golden Gun was the fourth and final film in the series directed by Guy Hamilton. The action culminates in a duel between them that settles the fate of the Solex. A loose adaptation of Ian Fleming’s novel of the same name, the film has Bond sent after the Solex Agitator, a device that can harness the power of the sun, while facing the assassin Francisco Scaramanga, the “Man with the Golden Gun”. The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) is the ninth spy film in the James Bond series to be produced by Eon Productions, and the second to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond.

The man with the golden gun book