Just kidding Blackleiter…I can easily see why TMWTGG bothers some people.
Ahhhhh......perceptive fellow! ) -{
"Felix Leiter, a brother from Langley."
BIG TAMWrexham, North Wales, UK.Posts: 773MI6 Agent
First half pretty good, second half so-so. It tries to please everybody with its serious & comic elements but ends up satisfying nobody. The Solex plot feels tacked on as an excuse to give the villain a big set to blow up at the end. A pity as Moore & Lee are terrific. Still, it fills a couple of hours comfortably enough.
For Your Eyes Only is, in my view, the best of the Roger Moore films, by quite some margin. Along with Live and Let Die, it is the closest any Roger Moore Bond film has been to the novels of the same name.
-{ -{ Thanks you! people forget how good the film. Perfecting the balance of Fleming and Bond of the movies. Humour excellent level and the plot is intriguing.
“The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. "
-Casino Royale, Ian Fleming
I really enjoy The Man With The Golden Gun and it ranks somewhere in the middle of my favourite Bond films. I think the main issues lie in the fact that it opted to be too silly at times, and usually immediately after something serious had just happened. If you eliminate the third nipple business, J. W Pepper, and the Kazoo sound during the awesome car stunt, then I think the movie would be taken more seriously. Especially considering how awesome of a villain Christopher Lee played and how cool the concept of Bond meeting his equal is. The final confrontation between Bond and Scaramanga is awesome and one of my favourite moments in the franchise.
I've heard every Bond film, NSNA included as someone's favorite before. Truly amazing the diverse viewpoints amongst the fanbase. I rank TMWTGG toward the middle-back. I love the Greatest Spy vs Greatest Assassin storyline, but the Solex only medium works for me. The action seems toned down from LALD. The supporting cast is one of the less memorable for me with the exception of Anders and Nick Nack. That's not to say they are bad, but there is just others I prefer more.
I think the first half of this film is great. Moore is gritty and quite mean. It is quite dark. Unfortunately the film is killed off by the return of sheriff pepper, the school girls beating the crap out of an entire karate school and the bland ending. Btw, I enjoy Pepper in LALD. But in this outing he's plain awful.
I enjoyed it. Not bad at all. I prefer it over LALD. It's more a product of a tumultuous time in Eon's history than a bad movie it self.
MWGG is probably around #15-16 on my ranking list. If it cut the kung fu scenes and expanded the Scaramanga/duel-maze scenes instead it would be top 10 material in a heartbeat.
I had a bit of a Green Eggs and Ham moment watching TMWTGG at the weekend on telly. I quite enjoyed it.
Roger Moore surely looks his best in the role. It is his last youthful looking Bond, but he looks more rafish than in his debut, where he did look a bit square and smarty pants sometimes. I liked his green safari shirt in this. In his later films he looked good often, but no escaping he's in his late 40s, so he looked his age, just good on it.
Britt looks great too, either in her Baby Doll blue nightie or her bikini. She has that doll like look that Libran girls can have. Really, tbf, she is trying to be a character ie a bit of a klutz and they could have played up the comedy angle a bit more, that she is trying to lay Bond but events get in the way, a bit like Sylvia Trench sort of.
Lovely looking print on the Sanyo TV.
I enjoyed JW Pepper, I don't care, at least it's not pretentious. Like running into an old friend at the bar. The ensuing car chase is great really, better directed than the similar one in DAF, it really moves. There's a kind of azure glamour about Scaramanga's flying car.
It probably helped that I missed the first hour, I know others disagree but there are no real action scenes and Bond's trip to Beirut clearly doesn't go beyond Pinewood. Really the leisurely, unthrilling pretext could have done with a more intentionally amiable and humorous approach as Bond goes off on his own to investigate the hitman, only for the tension to rachet up a bit, as it is the humour is naff and Pink Panther-like instead. In some ways this film is not so different to GF, except if you took out Connery's latent menace, the shocking scene with the gold paint that turns the film nasty, the brooding soundtrack, the cool Aston, the laser. Take those out of GF and you have Bond on a similar leisurely spree as here, with no real threat.
The whole Goodnight bedroom farce is horrible of course, and as for Bond's three pillow trick, well, if his meeting with Professor Dent is anything to go by, it's like he's hoping Goodnight would take a bullet on the basis the assassin would think it's him. That would be very unlike Bond, I mean he'd allow that after sleeping with her, but certainly not before...
In fact possibly the most demeaning scene is the ending. Goodnight is so desperate to nail Bond at last, she goes ahead with it even though he appears to mention chucking Nik Nak over the side of the boat, imprisoned in a suitcase. While she enjoys conjugal bliss, she would choose to ignore her belief that the short man is slowly drowning, drowning a poor and most wretched death, that would put most gals (Myra Hindley excepted) off their erotic pleasures.
Both LALD and its successor are good tea time Bond movies.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
BIG TAMWrexham, North Wales, UK.Posts: 773MI6 Agent
Quick question - is the Moore still shown in this collage from TMWTGG, or LALD?
I like the halo above Moore's head. An unintentional nod to THE SAINT?
I watched ITV's showing of TMWTGG again. They cut the bit where Bond smacks the thug's head against a wall in Saida's dressing room & some of the dialogue with Chew Me. I really can't fathom ITV's handling of Bond in afternoon showings.
I think it could just be a case of the producers getting complacent, putting to much faith in the DAF/LALD formula that had born fruit before but was bare by the time they got to TMWTGG. The one liners aren't anything special, the story has potential but is sparse and for me the cinematography seems not very appealing. For an action film the action scenes are few and far between and uninspiring even then (bar the flip) with some very tepid scenes inbetween such as the Anders/Goodnight hotel room scene. The fun house aspect I do enjoy but I think having it in the (great) PTS lessens the impact of the conclusion plus the set seems a tad small and cheap at times. The Bond/Scaramanga rivalry is built up well but having him know next to nothing about his own scheme and being beaten in such a cheap way really doesn't make him look like such a danger, I think the rivalry type story was better done in GE. Moore is good but seems a bit lacking direction at times, I wasn't wholly against the return of Sheriff Pepper but he gets too much screen time and just comes across as loud and racist.
It was certainly the right decision for Mankiewicz and Hamilton to leave after this point IMO.
Goodnight is so desperate to nail Bond at last, she goes ahead with it even though he appears to mention chucking Nik Nak over the side of the boat, imprisoned in a suitcase. While she enjoys conjugal bliss, she would choose to ignore her belief that the short man is slowly drowning, drowning a poor and most wretched death, that would put most gals off their erotic pleasures.
Thanks for mentioning. This scene is something that has always slightly bothered me. Why did Bond imply that he threw him overboard instead of telling the truth? Why wasn't Goodnight horrified by this?
TMWTGG would be a much stronger film if the ending wasn't so clumsy. It all kind of fell apart in the last 5 minutes.
BTW, I really like the first hour of the film. Never slow or boring for me.
My current 10 favorite:
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
Bond also knew Goodnight would find out he strung him up when they arrived at port, he was just being silly. And lets face it, Bond is a killer, for her to be attracted to him, she knows the score.
I absolutely love this film for many reasons, but I am one of those fans that kind of wave their hand at the screen during the campy moments in an attempt to speed them by ) yet the odd thing is I love them the same. If someone told me they could edit out the most campy moments of each film forever, I would of course decline. "20,000 BAHT" will never be counted among my favorite Bond moments, but it still makes me smile. It makes absolutely no sense. How can I hate and love the same moments? Better put this in the middle of my list. )
Moore's films tend to have more of those silly, love due to sentimentality, hate as a film fan, type of situations which are harder to reconcile. I think it just is what it is.
Recently re-visited TMWTGG on BD and enjoyed it. Moore was excellent. Lee is probably one of the coolest Bond villains. I loved it when he makes the gun out of lighter, pen, etc., and then takes up the leadership role by resigning the incumbent. The locations are spectacular. Liked the end sequence from when Bond flies the sea plane to the photogenic island to Nick's capture. The Scaramanga-Bond face off was nicely done too and is a little different from regular face-offs. And let not forget the excellent background score. Bridge jump, Car-plane, ....
As for the negatives - well, I don't look for logic in 007 films but the concept of 3 nipples was too much to digest. Ms. Goodnight was irritating at times.
This film has the potential to be remade. License to Kill has shades of this film too.
As for the negatives - well, I don't look for logic in 007 films but the concept of 3 nipples was too much to digest.
Why is that hard to digest? It's not an odd concept at all. Third nipples are actually fairly common. According to Wikipedia, they are present on 1 in 18 males.
Comments
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
Ahhhhh......perceptive fellow!
-Casino Royale, Ian Fleming
Cause the framing around the lightbulb on the ceiling looks like a halo.
-Casino Royale, Ian Fleming
Yes, TP is right. If the pic were not clipped, Maud Adams would be visible.
At first I was a little confused and did a double take.
Interestingly, it is missing in the still from the official Twitter account. Saintly going's on?
https://twitter.com/007/status/544516594454769664/photo/1
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
out of place in TMWTGG.
MWGG is probably around #15-16 on my ranking list. If it cut the kung fu scenes and expanded the Scaramanga/duel-maze scenes instead it would be top 10 material in a heartbeat.
AJB007 Favorite Film Rankings
Pros and Cons Compendium (50 Years)
But that's exactly why I enjoyed him in MWGG so much more.
In LALD, he was shoehorned in there as a device because it was obligatory and they were kinda "supposed to" do it.
In MWGG, it was random, absurd, comedy that worked for me because of how out of place it was.
AJB007 Favorite Film Rankings
Pros and Cons Compendium (50 Years)
Roger Moore surely looks his best in the role. It is his last youthful looking Bond, but he looks more rafish than in his debut, where he did look a bit square and smarty pants sometimes. I liked his green safari shirt in this. In his later films he looked good often, but no escaping he's in his late 40s, so he looked his age, just good on it.
Britt looks great too, either in her Baby Doll blue nightie or her bikini. She has that doll like look that Libran girls can have. Really, tbf, she is trying to be a character ie a bit of a klutz and they could have played up the comedy angle a bit more, that she is trying to lay Bond but events get in the way, a bit like Sylvia Trench sort of.
Lovely looking print on the Sanyo TV.
I enjoyed JW Pepper, I don't care, at least it's not pretentious. Like running into an old friend at the bar. The ensuing car chase is great really, better directed than the similar one in DAF, it really moves. There's a kind of azure glamour about Scaramanga's flying car.
It probably helped that I missed the first hour, I know others disagree but there are no real action scenes and Bond's trip to Beirut clearly doesn't go beyond Pinewood. Really the leisurely, unthrilling pretext could have done with a more intentionally amiable and humorous approach as Bond goes off on his own to investigate the hitman, only for the tension to rachet up a bit, as it is the humour is naff and Pink Panther-like instead. In some ways this film is not so different to GF, except if you took out Connery's latent menace, the shocking scene with the gold paint that turns the film nasty, the brooding soundtrack, the cool Aston, the laser. Take those out of GF and you have Bond on a similar leisurely spree as here, with no real threat.
The whole Goodnight bedroom farce is horrible of course, and as for Bond's three pillow trick, well, if his meeting with Professor Dent is anything to go by, it's like he's hoping Goodnight would take a bullet on the basis the assassin would think it's him. That would be very unlike Bond, I mean he'd allow that after sleeping with her, but certainly not before...
In fact possibly the most demeaning scene is the ending. Goodnight is so desperate to nail Bond at last, she goes ahead with it even though he appears to mention chucking Nik Nak over the side of the boat, imprisoned in a suitcase. While she enjoys conjugal bliss, she would choose to ignore her belief that the short man is slowly drowning, drowning a poor and most wretched death, that would put most gals (Myra Hindley excepted) off their erotic pleasures.
Both LALD and its successor are good tea time Bond movies.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I like the halo above Moore's head. An unintentional nod to THE SAINT?
I watched ITV's showing of TMWTGG again. They cut the bit where Bond smacks the thug's head against a wall in Saida's dressing room & some of the dialogue with Chew Me. I really can't fathom ITV's handling of Bond in afternoon showings.
The Bond films.
It was certainly the right decision for Mankiewicz and Hamilton to leave after this point IMO.
Thanks for mentioning. This scene is something that has always slightly bothered me. Why did Bond imply that he threw him overboard instead of telling the truth? Why wasn't Goodnight horrified by this?
TMWTGG would be a much stronger film if the ending wasn't so clumsy. It all kind of fell apart in the last 5 minutes.
BTW, I really like the first hour of the film. Never slow or boring for me.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
Moore's films tend to have more of those silly, love due to sentimentality, hate as a film fan, type of situations which are harder to reconcile. I think it just is what it is.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
As for the negatives - well, I don't look for logic in 007 films but the concept of 3 nipples was too much to digest. Ms. Goodnight was irritating at times.
This film has the potential to be remade. License to Kill has shades of this film too.
Why is that hard to digest? It's not an odd concept at all. Third nipples are actually fairly common. According to Wikipedia, they are present on 1 in 18 males.