The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Plot

A golden bullet engraved 007 arrives at MI6 – the trademark of Francisco Scaramanga, an assassin charging a million dollars per victim. M takes Bond off the hunt for the solar scientist Gibson, but he keeps digging: in Beirut he retrieves from a dancer's navel the bullet that killed agent 002 years earlier.

Ballistics leads him to the gunsmith Lazar in Macau, where Scaramanga's mistress Andrea Anders collects the ammunition. Bond follows her to Hong Kong and the Bottoms Up Club – there Scaramanga shoots Gibson before his eyes, and Nick Nack takes the Solex Agitator, the heart of a solar plant, from him. In the capsized wreck of the Queen Elizabeth, MI6's hidden base, M and Q send him after industrialist Hai Fat in Bangkok.

There Bond poses as Scaramanga with a fake third nipple, is seen through and forced to fight at Hai Fat's academy; with Lieutenant Hip he escapes along the klongs. Scaramanga shoots his employer and takes the Solex. At the boxing stadium Bond finds Andrea dead, pockets the component and finally meets his opponent. In the chase through the city – Sheriff Pepper in the passenger seat – Bond's car corkscrews over a broken bridge, but Scaramanga's Matador takes off as a plane.

Mary Goodnight is locked in the boot; her signal leads Bond by seaplane to an island in Chinese waters. Scaramanga shows off his plant, then challenges him to a duel. In the funhouse Bond poses as a wax figure and shoots first; the plant explodes and both escape on Scaramanga's junk.

Facts

James Bond: Roger Moore
Director: Guy Hamilton
Screenplay: Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz
Producers: Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman
Music: John Barry
Title song: „The Man with the Golden Gun“Lulu
Based on: Ian Fleming: „The Man with the Golden Gun“1965
Running time: 125 minutes
Budget: $7 million
Box office: $98 millionworldwide (Wikipedia en); about $21 million of that in the USA and Canada – the weakest Bond result up to then
Release: UK: 20 December 1974US: 18 December 1974Germany: 19 December 1974

Travel route and filming locations

Gold numbers trace Bond's journey through the story, light markers show the real filming locations. Each layer can be hidden separately.

Bond's route · 8 stops

Total distance (great-circle)≈ 13,509 km

A golden bullet engraved 007 arrives. M takes Bond off the search for the solar scientist Gibson while Colthorpe analyses the round.
London, MI6 headquarters → Beirut, nightclub · ≈ 3,456 km
Bond retrieves the bullet that killed agent 002 three years earlier from dancer Saida's navel – and nearly swallows it in the ensuing brawl.
Beirut, nightclub → Macau · ≈ 7,593 km
The gunsmith Lazar tells Bond how the ammunition is delivered; outside the floating Macau Palace casino he watches Andrea Anders collect it.
Macau → Hong Kong, Kowloon · ≈ 67 km
Bond follows Andrea Anders by ferry to The Peninsula, forces Scaramanga's whereabouts out of her in her room and watches the killer shoot Gibson outside the Bottoms Up Club.
Hong Kong, Kowloon → Hong Kong, wreck of the Queen Elizabeth · ≈ 7 km
Lieutenant Hip takes the apparently arrested Bond to MI6's hidden headquarters in the capsized hull. M and Q explain the Solex Agitator and send him on to Hai Fat.
Hong Kong, wreck of the Queen Elizabeth → Bangkok · ≈ 1,724 km
Bond poses as Scaramanga at Hai Fat's, survives the martial arts academy, escapes along the klongs, finds Andrea shot dead at the boxing stadium and chases Scaramanga across the city.
Bangkok → Over the sea off the coast · ≈ 617 km
Bond follows the homing device in Mary Goodnight's belt in a commandeered seaplane. The film leaves the geography vague; the position follows the filming area in the Andaman Sea.
Over the sea off the coast → Scaramanga's island · ≈ 38 km
Fictional island, said in the film to lie in Chinese waters, filmed at Khao Phing Kan in Thailand: the solar plant demonstration, lunch, the beach duel and Scaramanga's death in the funhouse.
Scaramanga's island → At sea aboard the junk · ≈ 6 km
Bond and Goodnight sail away on Scaramanga's junk with the salvaged Solex until Nick Nack attacks from the wheelhouse. Position is a plausible assumption.

Filming locations · 14

doubles for Secret MI6 base in Hong Kong (Hong Kong)
The capsized hull as MI6's hidden headquarters; the film's first shot was taken here on 6 November 1973
Andrea Anders's arrival in one of the hotel's bottle-green Rolls-Royces and hotel exteriors
The nightclub outside which Scaramanga shoots the solar scientist Gibson and Nick Nack takes the Solex
doubles for Hai Fat's estate in Bangkok (Thailand)
The private garden in Tsuen Wan provided some twenty minutes of backdrop for Hai Fat's estate, pool and grounds
Bond's rickshaw ride to Lazar's workshop and Andrea Anders collecting the golden bullets outside the floating casino
The boat chase along the canals in which Bond flees Hai Fat's men in a long-tail boat with Lieutenant Hip and his nieces
The Muay Thai bout at which Bond finds Andrea Anders shot dead, Scaramanga introduces himself and the Solex is passed on to Hip
doubles for Hai Fat's martial arts academy (Thailand)
The open-air park with its temple replicas served as Hai Fat's martial arts academy where Bond is made to fight Chula
Bond's Hornet and Scaramanga's Matador race past the monument on Ratchadamnoen Avenue
Further stages of the car chase through the old town; nearby Scaramanga hides his car while Bond throws a 180-degree slide
The corkscrew jump over the canal on 1 June 1974: the ramps were disguised as a collapsed bridge with scrap timber
doubles for Scaramanga's island in Chinese waters (China)
Beach, cave and pinnacle as Scaramanga's island: the seaplane landing, the duel on the beach and the camouflaged solar plant
The unit's base for the Phang Nga Bay work; the aerial and seaplane shots over the limestone islands were made from here
doubles for Beirut and Scaramanga's island
The funhouse of the pre-title sequence and the finale, Scaramanga's villa and plant hall, the Beirut nightclub and the interiors of MI6 and the ship's wreck

Characters and cast

Bond

James BondRoger MooreHis second Bond film; the scene in which he twists Andrea Anders's arm is the harshest of his tenure

Bond girls

Villains

Henchmen

Allies

Lieutenant HipSoon-Tek OhBond's police contact in Hong Kong and Bangkok

MI6

Others

Vehicles & Gadgets

Vehicles

The surviving screen car: Bond’s Hornet X in the "Bond in Motion" exhibition at the National Motor Museum in BeaulieuPhoto: Morio · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
AMC Hornet X Hatchback (1974)
Car1974
Bond simply takes the red car out of a Bangkok showroom; it performs the corkscrew jump over the canal
Bond takes the red Hornet X with its white stripes and Cragar wire wheels out of a Bangkok showroom, Sheriff Pepper included, and drives it straight through the plate-glass window into the street. One car was rebuilt for the corkscrew jump: the chassis was widened by two inches, the steering moved to the centre of the car and the automatic selector put on the floor so that weight and centre of gravity sat exactly on the centre line. On 1 June 1974 stunt driver Loren "Bumps" Willert hit the ramp near Rangsit – disguised as a collapsed bridge – at exactly 48 miles per hour, with two dummies beside him as Bond and Pepper, and rolled the car through a full turn in mid-air, on the first take and in front of about a hundred flown-in journalists. One of the film cars survives in the Ian Fleming Foundation collection and has been shown in the "Bond in Motion" exhibition at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu.
Driven by
James Bond, with Sheriff Pepper alongside
Specs
5.9 L V8 (360 cu in), 175 bhp, 0–60 mph in 8.1 s; base engine 3.8 L straight-six
Sources: 007.com: AMC Hornet · 007.com: Focus of the Week – The Man With The Golden Gun’s Corkscrew Jump · Bond Lifestyle: AMC Hornet X Hatchback · IMCDb: 1974 AMC Hornet X in The Man with the Golden Gun · BMT 216A: AMC Hornet hatchback special coupe · Wikipedia (en): AMC Hornet
A 1974 Matador coupé in Oleg Cassini trim – Scaramanga drives a bronze-and-black example of this seriesPhoto: CZmarlin — Christopher Ziemnowicz · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
AMC Matador Brougham Coupé (1974)
Car1974
Scaramanga's car, which turns into an aircraft with a bolt-on flight kit; with wings about nine metres long and thirteen metres wide
Scaramanga’s bronze-and-black coupé carries the Oleg Cassini designer package with which American Motors dressed up the newly styled 1974 Matador. After the Bangkok chase the car disappears into a hangar, where a flight kit of wings, tail and dummy engine is slid onto the roof and clamped to the side panels with struts, with a second, aeronautical instrument panel hidden under the dashboard. With the wings fitted the assembly measured 9.15 m long, 12.80 m across and 3.08 m high; it was never capable of flight, yet a gust of wind almost lifted the car off the ground during filming. The flying shots were made with a radio-controlled model about a metre long carrying figures of Scaramanga and Nick Nack.
Driven by
Francisco Scaramanga, with Nick Nack as co-pilot
Specs
5.9 L V8 (360 cu in), 175 bhp, three-speed automatic, 116 mph
Sources: 007.com: AMC Matador · IMCDb: 1974 AMC Matador Coupe Brougham Oleg Cassini in The Man with the Golden Gun · BMT 216A: AMC Matador X coupe · Wikipedia (en): AMC Matador · Wikipedia (en): The Man with the Golden Gun (film)
A Republic RC-3 Seabee with its pusher propeller behind the cabin – Bond flies to Scaramanga’s island in one of thesePhoto: Alan Wilson · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Republic RC-3 Seabee
Aircraft1946
The amphibian in which Bond follows the homing signal to the island and which the energy beam destroys
The amphibian registered N87545 came off the line in October 1946 as hull number 105; Bond commandeers it in Thailand and follows the signal from Mary Goodnight’s belt to Scaramanga’s island, where the focused sunbeam burns it up in seconds. During filming the left wing float struck a rock and had to be removed, so the pilot had to run the aircraft faster through the water to keep the wings level – hence the hard landing that beaches the aeroplane. Only a mock-up was destroyed: the real Seabee kept flying and was not struck from the American aircraft register until 2012.
Driven by
James Bond
Specs
Franklin 6A8 flat-six, 215 hp, 120 mph, four seats
Sources: BMT 216A: Republic RC-3 Sea Bee · Wikipedia (en): Republic RC-3 Seabee · Paul Fraser Collectibles: ‘Golden Gun’ Seabee seaplane offered in July 4 sale
A first-series Silver Shadow – in 1974 The Peninsula ran a whole fleet of them in bottle greenPhoto: Ddoherty958 · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow
Car1969
One of the bottle-green cars of The Peninsula Hong Kong that collects Andrea Anders from the ferry terminal
The bottle-green Silver Shadow registered AU603 collects Andrea Anders at the ferry terminal and takes her to The Peninsula. When all Bond can give his colleague Goodnight is "a green Rolls-Royce", she points out that the hotel runs a whole fleet of them – in 1974 all of them Silver Shadows. Introduced in 1965, the car was the first Rolls-Royce with unitary construction, independent rear suspension and hydropneumatic self-levelling, and with more than thirty thousand built it became the marque’s best-selling model. The shade of green is now registered with Rolls-Royce as "Peninsula Green" and reserved for the hotel, whose fleet today consists of long-wheelbase Phantoms.
Driven by
A Peninsula chauffeur, with Andrea Anders as passenger
Specs
6.2 L V8, 6.75 L from 1970; output never quoted by Rolls-Royce, about 115 mph
Sources: Bond Lifestyle: The Peninsula, Hong Kong · IMCDb: 1969 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow I in The Man with the Golden Gun · Wikipedia (en): Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow · Wikipedia (en): The Peninsula Hong Kong
Junks like this one shape Hong Kong's harbour; Bond and Mary Goodnight sail away on Scaramanga's junk with the salvaged SolexPhoto: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Chinesische Dschunke Scaramangas Dschunke
Boat
Bond and Goodnight escape the island on it; Nick Nack hides aboard for one last attack
The engined wooden junk lies in the bay off Scaramanga’s island and is the only way out once the power plant blows up; Nick Nack stows away aboard, attacks Bond with a knife and bottles and ends up in a suitcase hauled to the masthead. Junks of this build have no continuous keel but transverse bulkheads dividing the hull into watertight compartments, and sails stiffened by full-length bamboo battens that fold like a blind. In Hong Kong they made up the harbour’s fishing and cargo fleet well into the 1970s, by then mostly running on diesel rather than sail alone.
Driven by
James Bond and Mary Goodnight
Sources: Wikipedia (en): Junk (ship) · Wikipedia (de): Dschunke · Wikipedia (en): The Man with the Golden Gun (film)
A long-tail boat with its exposed engine and long driveshaft – craft of this kind carry the chase along the klongsPhoto: Ian Gratton from Sutton-n-Craven, North Yorkshire, England · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Longtail Ruea Hang Yao
Boat
The long-tail boats in which Bond and Lieutenant Hip flee along the klongs of Bangkok
Outside Hai Fat’s martial arts academy Bond jumps into the nearest long-tail boat and escapes along Khlong Dan in southern Thonburi; Lieutenant Hip and his two nieces catch up with him during the chase. Long-tail boats are narrow wooden hulls with an ordinary car engine mounted on a swivel at the stern: the propeller sits directly on a driveshaft extended by several metres, with no gearbox, and steering is done by swinging the whole engine on a tiller. In shallow, weed-choked canals the propeller can be lifted clear at any moment. The film introduced the boats to an international audience; local craft were used for the chase, with Thailand’s Seng Stunt Team working on the sequence.
Driven by
James Bond, later Lieutenant Hip
Specs
Automotive engine on a swivel mount, propeller straight on the extended shaft; hulls up to 30 m long
Sources: Wikipedia (en): Long-tail boat · Hunting Bond: Khlong Dan Boat Chase from The Man With The Golden Gun · Wikipedia (en): Seng Stunt Team
An early chrome-bumper MGB roadster – the type Mary Goodnight drives in Hong KongPhoto: Andrew Bone from Weymouth, England · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
MG MGB Roadster
Car1973
Goodnight’s open runabout in Hong Kong, in which she and Bond tail the green Rolls-Royce
The Harvest Gold roadster on the Hong Kong plate AL 8083 belongs to Mary Goodnight; from the ferry pier she and Bond use it to tail the green Rolls-Royce to The Peninsula. Bond thinks little of the car and likens it to a bedpan. This example still has the chrome bumpers and wire wheels of the early cars – only in 1974 did the MGB get its tall black polyurethane bumpers and raised body. With roughly half a million built between 1962 and 1980 the MGB remained the best-selling British sports car of its era.
Driven by
Mary Goodnight
Specs
1.8 L four-cylinder (1,798 cc), 95 bhp, 106 mph
Sources: IMCDb: 1973 MG B Roadster [ADO23] in The Man with the Golden Gun · BMT 216A: MGB · Wikipedia (en): MG MGB
A hydrofoil on the Hong Kong–Macau run in 1973 – Bond follows Andrea Anders to Hong Kong aboard one of thesePhoto: U.S. Navy · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Rodriquez Tragflügelboot der Hong Kong Macau Hydrofoil Company
Boat
The fast ferry on which Bond follows Andrea Anders from Macau to Hong Kong
After watching the golden bullets change hands outside the Macau Palace casino, Bond crosses the Pearl River estuary to Hong Kong on one of the Hong Kong Macau Hydrofoil Company’s craft, where a public address announcement points out the wreck of the Queen Elizabeth. The vessel in the film is the Flying Sandpiper, built in 1972 by Rodriquez Cantieri Navali in Messina. The company had opened the service in May 1964 with two Rodriquez PT 20 boats and from 1965 added the larger PT 50 with 125 seats. Under way the foils lift the hull clear of the water, cutting the crossing from three and a half hours to barely two.
Driven by
James Bond as a passenger
Sources: The Industrial History of Hong Kong Group: Y. C. Liang and HK Macao Hydrofoil · Spy Movie Navigator: Hong Kong Macau Hydrofoil Co. Ltd. · gwulo.com: The Man With The Golden Gun (1974) – Hong Kong

Gadgets

The golden gun
Scaramanga’s weapon assembles from four innocuous objects: the fountain pen forms the barrel, the lighter the chamber, the cigarette case the grip and the cufflink the trigger. It fires a single 4.2 mm round. Three props were built for the shoot – a solid one, one that could fire a cap and one that could be taken apart, which Christopher Lee found extremely awkward to assemble. Accounts of who made them differ: the end credits name the lighter maker Colibri, while art director Peter Lamont said he designed a prototype and had three made in gold-plated silver by a London silversmith. One of the originals disappeared from a props store in Elstree in October 2008; its value was given as about £80,000.
Sources: Bond Lifestyle: Golden Gun · 007.com: The Man With The Golden Gun · Wikipedia (en): The Man with the Golden Gun (film)
The golden bullet
Scaramanga’s trademark is a single bullet of 23-carat gold, carried in his belt buckle and engraved with the number of the intended victim. The rounds are made by the gunsmith Lazar in Macau and collected there. The film opens with one such bullet, engraved 007, arriving at MI6, where the ballistics expert Colthorpe examines it; in Beirut Bond retrieves the round that killed agent 002 three years earlier from the navel of the dancer Saida.
Sources: 007.com: The Man With The Golden Gun · Wikipedia (en): The Man with the Golden Gun (film)
Polycrystalline solar cells – the Solex Agitator is supposed to turn sunlight into electricity at ninety-five per cent efficiencyPhoto: Ddgfoto · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Solex Agitator
The fist-sized component converts sunlight into electricity at ninety-five per cent efficiency and is what makes Scaramanga’s power plant work – the object the whole film turns on. It was invented for the script by Michael G. Wilson, who read up on the solar technology of the day; the 1973 oil crisis had turned Fleming’s pure assassin novel into a story about solar power. In the film the Solex changes hands constantly: from Gibson to Nick Nack, on to Scaramanga, then into Bond’s pocket and finally to Lieutenant Hip.
Sources: Wikipedia (en): The Man with the Golden Gun (film) · Wikipedia (de): James Bond 007 – Der Mann mit dem goldenen Colt
Fake third nipple
Since Scaramanga's only known feature is a supernumerary nipple, Bond sticks one on to pass himself off as the killer at Hai Fat's.
Sources: Wikipedia (en): The Man with the Golden Gun (film) · 007.com: Focus Of The Week – Scaramanga
Homing device in a belt
Mary Goodnight plants a transmitter in Scaramanga's car and gets locked in the boot; the signal leads Bond across the sea to the island.
Sources: Wikipedia (de): James Bond 007 – Der Mann mit dem goldenen Colt
The funhouse
Nick Nack’s lethal maze of distorting mirrors, wax figures and stage sets, in which Scaramanga hunts his opponents for sport – the setting of both the pre-title sequence and the finale, with Nick Nack always betting against his master. The idea came from a Disneyland attraction that Guy Hamilton picked up so that the surroundings themselves would favour the killer. Production designer Peter Murton called the set a melting pot of ideas, half funhouse and half horror house; its canted walls and tilted rooms are borrowed from German Expressionist cinema. The whole thing was built at Pinewood Studios.
Sources: Wikipedia (en): The Man with the Golden Gun (film) · 007.com: Focus Of The Week – Nick Nack
The Odeillo solar furnace concentrates light thrown by heliostats into a single focal point – the principle behind Scaramanga’s plantPhoto: H. Zell · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Solar plant with energy beam
The plant on Scaramanga’s island lies hidden under a rock dome; an extending concave mirror focuses the sunlight into a beam with which Scaramanga first burns up Bond’s seaplane and later any target he chooses. Without the Solex Agitator it produces no power; with it, it is meant to supply a whole country. The plant hall was a set at Pinewood Studios, while the exteriors and the destruction were made with miniatures by Derek Meddings, the film cutting back and forth between the two.
Sources: Wikipedia (en): The Man with the Golden Gun (film) · Wikipedia (de): James Bond 007 – Der Mann mit dem goldenen Colt

Production and trivia

Cameras first rolled on 6 November 1973 at the wreck of the Queen Elizabeth in Hong Kong. Principal photography began on 18 April 1974 in Thailand and finished at Pinewood Studios in August 1974.
The plan was originally to shoot in Cambodia, which the civil war ruled out. Beirut, Israel and Iran were also considered, the Iranian plans falling through because of the Yom Kippur War. Production designer Peter Murton suggested Thailand after seeing photographs of Phang Nga Bay in a magazine.
The 1973 oil crisis gave the film its subject: Fleming's pure assassin novel became a story about solar power. When the film opened in December 1974, Britain was still in the middle of the energy crisis.
Christopher Lee was Ian Fleming's step-cousin and golf partner. Fleming had already suggested him for Dr. No in 1962, but the part was cast. The Bangkok shoot cost Lee the role of the Specialist in Ken Russell's Tommy, which went to Jack Nicholson.
The corkscrew jump was filmed on 1 June 1974, the 35th day of shooting, over a klong near Rangsit north of Bangkok. Raymond McHenry had calculated the "astro spiral jump" on computer at the Calspan Corporation – the first film stunt ever simulated by computer.
Stunt driver Loren "Bumps" Willert had to hit the ramp – disguised as a collapsed bridge – at exactly 48 miles per hour, with dummies beside him as Bond and Sheriff Pepper. He made the jump on the first take in front of about a hundred flown-in journalists and earned a $30,000 bonus.
John Barry laid a slide whistle over the jump. The gag turns the film's most dangerous stunt into a joke and remains one of the most criticised sound effects in the series.
Three golden gun props were built: a solid one, a firing one and one that could be taken apart. One of them was stolen from a props store in Elstree in October 2008; its value was given as about £80,000.
American Motors supplied the flying Matador under a promotional deal; a radio-controlled model was used for the flight shots. Bond's Hornet also comes from the AMC range.
John Barry had only three weeks for the score and later said it was the one he hated most. Lulu's title song with lyrics by Don Black is considered one of the weakest in the series; a song submitted by Alice Cooper was turned down.
The wreck housing the MI6 base in the film is real: the Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth burnt out in January 1972 while being converted into the floating Seawise University and capsized in Hong Kong harbour. Scrapping began in December 1974.
After the film Khao Phing Kan with its Ko Tapu pinnacle became a tourist destination and has been known as "James Bond Island" ever since. It has been part of Ao Phang Nga National Park since 1981, and since 1998 boats may no longer approach the pinnacle because of erosion.
With a budget of about seven million dollars and takings of $97.6 million the film fell well short of its predecessor and remains one of the weakest in the series in nominal terms.
The reviews were unusually harsh: the Guardian called the script the limpest of the lot and the Observer saw the series as finished. Almost the only element consistently praised was Christopher Lee's Scaramanga.
It was Guy Hamilton's fourth and last Bond film and the last for Harry Saltzman, who sold his Danjaq stake to United Artists. The ensuing legal dispute delayed the next Bond by three years. The German version was made at Ultra-Film in Munich under dialogue director Niels Clausnitzer, who also voiced Roger Moore himself; Herbert Weicker dubbed Christopher Lee.