Roger Moore’s second outing as Bond always seemed to me to have culture, wit and sophistication but I was pretty young when I saw it and much of the criticism aimed at the film at the time of release passed me by. What it came down to, and composer John Barry also said this in an interview, is that it never seemed to get to the actual point. It never seemed to come together and just meandered from one entertaining situation to the next.
The presence of Christopher Lee as Francisco Scaramanga did not seem to matter much in this. Au contraire, there were moments that, once Scaramanga was (quite easily) taken care of, the true villain showed itself in Herve Villechaize, playing the diminutive servant of the earlier mentioned hitman, but this was of course a notion quickly set aside.
While it seems indeed to be the case that the story is almost looking for a raison d’etre, screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz had taken a turn at it and begged to be let off of the film because he had run out of steam for Bond, in his own words. Richard Maibaum, veteran of 6 earlier Bond film scripts, had then looked it over and delivered his take on the story but it wasn’t until Michael Wilson added the McGuffin to the script with the SOLEX AGITATOR as a solution to the Energy Crisis, that things seemed to fall together into a coherent whole.
A quickly added reappearance of Sheriff J.W. Pepper ( a humorous note from the previous film) did not present any jewel in the crown of a merely adequately set up entertaining film but to me the film’s style was indicative of the direction chosen with the arrival of Roger Moore as Her Majesty’s Hitman. Meaning: don’t try to think it thru too deeply; take it easy. That is where the Roger Moore films are best: they are lightweight entertainment, taking off the edges that were dulled already by the years passed. The Result: some highly entertaining moments when Pepper sees Bond again and recognizes him, and subsequently tries to make the gig his own by tacking along with Bond when he highjacks a car to chase after Scaramanga and Nick Nack. Brilliant, no. Funny, sure.
Considering the titular threat, Scaramanga is done away with awfully easily and quickly but after having seen this film, nothing much remains of it in one’s mind anyway as a masterpiece of it’s time. Sure, there is a wild car stunt where computers did some groundbreaking numbers crunching for a sideways flip. Sure, the finale on Scaramanga’s isle is quite spectacular in setting. But despite the beautiful Asian background and the attention for it’s culture, Bond (and opponent) seem(s) to have lost (their/his) edge in this film.
Moore seems to sail thru the film with great confidence, making the part more his own and redefining what the Bond for the 1970s was to be: a sophisticated ladies man, who’d much rather bed them than kill them. Christopher Lee, who was a nephew to Ian Fleming, plays the villain Scaramanga with great panache but somehow the film seems to get bogged down by the wonderful scenery and the weight of it’s own wittiness.
It would be a while before the next Bond film was to appear due to several ongoing problems plaguing EON. But with THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, Bond would return with wit and edge all intact.
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