The film makes Francisco Scaramanga into an international assassin, and shifts the action to Lebanon, Hong Kong, and China, as Scaramanga works with an evil Chinese corporation to exploit the energy crisis by monopolizing the ability to use solar power.
It doesn't hang together entirely. At the beginning, it seems as though we're watching a personal conflict between Bond and Scaramanga; Scaramanga has seemingly dared Bond to come and get him, and M pulls Bond off the the energy crisis because he doesn't want the increased liability of someone coming after Bond when he's on his missions. So Bond goes after Scaramanga on his own, without authorization. This is the kind of move a lot of later Bond films would make, but I think this is its first use. Roger Moore doesn't really pull it off here; he doesn't seem like he's off the books, pursuing his own agenda, he's just Roger Moore-ing it up like usual. He does have the range to do it because he does it in For Your Eyes Only, but maybe he didn't know how to stretch the character yet on what was only his second outing.
Then, halfway through the film, we learn Scaramanga does have a connection to the whole energy crisis thing, but because we only heard about the energy crisis thing in one tossed-off line over an hour ago, it's like, "wait, what?" and suddenly we're watching a different movie and having to absorb a lot of exposition. It's not a very effective transition.
I think this film's problem is that it's frequently dull; the serious stuff isn't serious enough to care about, the goofy stuff (often the strength of the Moore films) isn't goofy enough to be truly enjoyable. The climax especially is not very interesting. The duel between Bond and Scaramanga isn't very intense, and the threat of the giant solar beam and the energy complex being in danger of exploding is blatantly tacked on.
Still, when it leans into the ridiculousness it gets it right. The best part of the film is probably the chase sequence where Bond contrivedly bumps into the yokel sheriff from Live and Let Die, who accompanies him on an extended chase sequence that culminates in Bond's car doing a corkscrew jump across a river and Scaramanga converting his car into an airplane in a secret hangar. Why is the sheriff guy in the movie? I don't know but I came to love it.
Really, its biggest fault is the waste of its villain and its title character. Scaramanga is played by Christopher Lee, and Christopher Lee ought to play a delectable Bond villain... but why cast someone with such an amazing voice and then have him barely speak? Scaramanga is a silent thug for most of the film, and when he finally does get some good dialogue sequences, it's too little, too late.
- This film introduces an MI6 agent named Mary Goodnight. (This is the name of Bond's secretary in the books, but she's never appeared before in the films, what she does usually being merged into Moneypenny.) The film never seems to be able to decide if she's a competent agent or, you know, a woman. She gets trapped in a car trunk trying to bug it; she accidentally triggers the self-destruct of the solar energy facility; she almost kills Bond by bumping a switch with her butt. The Roger Moore films would do somewhat better with women agents in The Spy Who Loved Me and (especially) For Your Eyes Only.
- Other genius moments:
- Bond tries to get a golden bullet turned into a piece of jewelry out of a woman's navel with his teeth, and inadvertently swallows it, meaning the scene ends with him rushing off to the pharmacy. Can't believe they never got Daniel Craig to do something like that!
- Bond is about to sleep with Mary Goodnight when Scaramanga's girlfriend turns up, and Bond needs to sleep with her to get information. So first Goodnight has to pretend to be pillows under the sheets, and then Goodnight must hide in a cupboard for hours while Bond and the woman have sex!
- MI6 turns the wreck of the Queen Elizabeth liner in Hong Kong harbor into a base, so a bunch of scenes take place on an askew ship.
- For reasons that aren't clear, Bond is at one point dropped into a martial arts school by the villains. What does work is a sequence where two schoolgirls beat up all the martial artists while Bond mostly just stands there.
- There is a lot of delightful technical nonsense about the solar energy facility that we got a big kick out of.
- Apparently Lee was suggested by Ian Fleming as a candidate to play the villain in Dr. No. How good would that have been!
- Casino Royale
- Dr. No
- From Russia with Love
- For Your Eyes Only
- On Her Majesty's Secret Service
- Thunderball
- The Living Daylights
- Spectre
- You Only Live Twice
- Goldfinger
- The Spy Who Loved Me
- Moonraker
- The Man with the Golden Gun
- Octopussy
- Never Say Never Again
- A View to a Kill
- Live and Let Die
- Diamonds Are Forever
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