THE MOVIE

James Bond goes up against Scaramanga – the notorious assassin with the golden gun, who demands one million dollars per job. Bond, rather than take leave from Her Majesty’s Secret Service and go into hiding from the elusive assassin that has a bullet with his name on it (literally), is determined to track down Scaramanga instead, hoping to gain the upper hand.

Bond is back and this time he’s a 6 foot 4, thoroughly camp British man. Yes, it could only be Roger Moore. When I was a young lad, I truly believed that Moore was the best Bond portrayed up to that point. I thought that he made Bond a bit more of a cool actionman in a time before we had been exposed to our modern action meatheads, such as Schwarzenneger, Stallone, Van Damme and various other disposable wanna-be’s.

Nowadays, I know Connery is by far the best Bond of course, as does most of the world judging by the results of a “Favourite Bond” poll held last year. But I still don’t write off Moore as a failure. He’s just different, that’s all. Whereas Connery initiated the concept of the slick suave, sophisticated, witty, worldly and womanizing Bond influenced by the first Bond director Terrance Young, Moore seemed more of an update to take the character out of the swinging sixties and into the shitty seventies, while retaining the general character traits of Connery’s portrayal and infusing it-whether deliberately or not-with a distict sense of camp that cast a different light on the characters appeal.

But the important thing to remember when watching any Bond film is that it doesn’t matter who is playing him, if the story and action falls flat then no one can save it. Thankfully, this one fulfills all the Bond requirements. There are thrills and spills, devious villains, beautiful women, stunts ahoy, exotic locations and even a welcome return by the redneck sheriff from Live and Let Die.

What more could you ask for?

THE TRANSFER

Video:

The transfers for this series never ceases to amaze me. Although I keep expecting fairly dodgy looking images riddled with all kinds of distracting artifacts and problems, so far this hasn’t been the case at all. Here we have a nice clean image that is full of detail, presented with great clarity and solidity. Probably the only flaw in the image is the odd occurence of film artifacts which appear from time to time, but never are a cause for concern. This is hardly a negative aspect of the transfer anyhow, as I’ve seen more recent transfer that contain much worse than this, and other problems to compound it, whereas this comes off very well overall. The various locations, from the neon lit streets to the exotic island hideaways are lushly coloured with good saturation and good (but not great) shadow detail. There aren’t that many really dark scenes to generate this problem anyway, so once again it isn’t much of an issue. I must say that I’m generally very pleased with the quality of the transfers for all the Bond films so far, and this one doesn’t give me any reason to change this opinion.

Audio:

Short of having a full blown DD5.1 mix, the audio track is perfectly sufficient. It relays all the dialogue fairly efficiently, with only one or two lines of dialogue slightly incoherent and out of synch with the picture. When the various action scenes or more complex audio sections kick in, the result is clear and easily discernable, without distortion or muddiness to confuse things. Most of the audio, despite the limitations of the source, seem to carry a reasonable amount of body to carry the sensations of the effects and score quite effectively within the bounds and limitations of the DD 2.0 track.

THE EXTRAS

Audio Commentary: Director Guy Hamilton, Cast & Crew
As usual, lots of different stories, anecdotes, reminiscing and musings on the movie, promotion, production etc. from the director and various people involved with it. Makes for some good listening.

Inside “The Man With The Golden Gun” Original Documentary
A good look at the story of the creation of The Man With The Golden Gun. Well made with plenty of interviews with everyone involved and lots of facts and trivia behind the production. As with the previous Bond dvd documentaries, a very good inclusion for the Bond completists.

“Double-O-Stuntmen” Featurette
This is my favourite extra on the disc. A great -if a little brief- look at the stunts and stuntmen of the Bond series. This could easily have been stretched from its 30 minutes running time to at least one hour minimum in order to cover the stunts in more depth. Fascinating viewing.

Original Trailers
Consists of one teaser trailer and one original theatrical trailer. Unlike the teaser trailers of today, the one shown here shows quit a few scenes from the completed picture, rather than just hinting at what’s to come. Television Spots
You have two to select from. The second is probably the best of all the trailers on this disc as it assembled better than the actual theatrical trailers.

Radio Spots
Three original radio spots from the time. I’ve got to say I love how they would throw in an explosion whenever they wanted to highlight the word “action” in these radio spots, as in “…the most incredible Bond action ever…(KABOOOM!). I’m surprised they didn’t throw in a moaning woman sound effect when they say “…the most beautiful Bond women.”

Behind The Scenes Stills Gallery
A good selection of indexed behind the scenes and promotional stills from the makings of the film.

Collectible 8 Page Booklet
This is a collectible 8 page booklet. It comes in the case. It’s made of paper. It has 8 pages. Running time is aprox. 3 minutes. Presented in 1:1.50 and it is not 16:9 enhanced. Special Features: Manual user page selection.

SUMMARY

It’s Bond…James Bond. They haven’t made 19 of these movies just for the hell of it, you know. Good looking picture, nice audio and great extras as usual. If you’re a fan, this is obviously a must buy.