The Man with the Golden Gun

(Guy Hamilton, UK/US 1974, 125 min., 35mm)

Celebrating James Bond. Roger Moore’s tenure as James Bond was just getting started when series veteran director Guy Hamilton, the man responsible for the fan-favorite classic Goldfinger ten years earlier, directed his fourth and final film in the franchise, The Man with the Golden Gun. For all its oddities, this film is most famous for three things: Christopher Lee’s performance as the iconic villain Francisco Scaramanga, an expert assassin and pistol duelist who uses a golden gun that fires golden bullets; his short-of-stature henchmen Nick Nack; and the creepy mirror-filled funhouse on Scaramanga’s private island in which he traps and torments his victims. The plot, which invokes the looming global energy crisis, is mostly a vehicle to facilitate 007’s encounter with Lee’s great villain.