The Man With The Golden Gun was Roger Moore’s second foray as James Bond. 

Having subsequently lived for many years in the Far East, it is interesting for me in retrospect to see its clever use of locations in Thailand and Hong Kong. Some of it was filmed in Phuket, which at the time was barely developed. Now, its hard to move there for boat drivers offering trips to “James Bond island”!

The movie also features one of my all-time favourite actors, Christopher Lee, as the villain. He is both sinister and charming as a sort of evil anti-Bond, although I always felt he was a little under-used. In particular, he doesn’t get much of a bravura death scene. (Bond shoots him and…errr, that’s it). 

The music by John Barry is as cool as ever, although the title track has some of the worst lyrics of any James Bond theme song (“He has a powerful weapon…”). It is however rescued somewhat by Lulu’s bravura performance. This is the original soundtrack album from 1974.

Above is also a photo of Sir Roger looking suave on the cover of a poster magazine that I bought at the time. It folded out to a copy of the movie’s poster.