The Film
"Keeping the British end up, Sir."
With the exception of one impressive car jump stunt, The Man with the Golden Gun wasn't very spectacular. Producer Cubby Broccoli knew he had to dramatically up the ante in that department if he wanted the Bond franchise to survive, and he did just that with The Spy Who Loved Me, to impressive results and great success.
- Skiing off a cliff, holding the audience in suspense for several seconds, then opening the parachute. In the colors of the Union Jack. Nowadays BASE jumping is seen everywhere, but when this movie came out, no one saw it coming. There are audiences who stood up and applauded at that. Stuntman Rick Sylvester deserves special mention, since he was the guy who actually traveled to Baffin Island and skied off the mountain.
- The sequence in general is well done (except for the shots of Moore against a blue screen and the banana yellow ski suit), including Bond skiing backwards and flipping off a ledge.
- According to the documentary, Everything or Nothing, this was the moment that Bond changed from a successful media property that happened to be British, to a national British icon. It was so well done that at one showing Prince Charles got up and applauded!
- The opening credits sequence, coming off of that, beautifully underscores one very important fact: even after several stumbles throughout the franchise's history, at the end of the day, Nobody Does It Better than Bond.
- Fighting a henchman, who nearly falls off a building to his death but manages to keep his balance by grabbing onto Bond's tie. The henchman reaches out for help, Bond grills him for information. The henchman tells him everything. Then Bond slaps the tie out of his hand and he falls to his death. Bond walks nonchalantly away, saying "What a helpful chap."
- The car/motorcycle/helicopter/submarine chase, with the Cool Car to end all Cool Cars. Slightly less serious, but still awesome.
- Q: "I want that ready for Akbar's tea party."
- Bond's entire confession to Anya of his role in her lover's death. This discovery comes by pure chance during an otherwise casual conversation between the two agents and Bond, although never having seen Barsov's face quietly deduces that he must've been the one to end the Russian agent's life. Anya is vengeful and it's apparent to Bond that he now has a price on his head before she has even uttered her vow to kill him, but Bond owns up to all of it and simply explains that he and Barsov both understood what their line of work demands of both of them, and that he simply did what the moment demanded of him and that his encounter with Barsov was simply a grave misfortune.
- Even more impressive is how accepting Bond is of Anya's threat, quietly resigning himself to whatever fate may befall him later.
- Atlantis, Stromberg's Supervillain Lair. It is still one of the coolest-looking in the franchise.
- The elaborate battle sequence inside the hollowed-out supertanker Liparus, with Stromberg's forces going up against the combined efforts of American, Soviet and British submarine crews. With a lot of nameless sailors making Heroic Sacrifices all over the place.
- Bond devices a plan to take the control room of the Liparus since it can't be attacked frontally due to the armor plating and gun holes. He uses the detonator of a nuclear missile, defusing the magnetized device in a high risk move that could have caused a nuclear explosion, and using it to kill everyone in the control room.
- Then, after Bond gets rid of the nuclear threat by having both Stromberg-controlled submarines destroy each other instead of capital cities, the suvivors escape in the American submarine and the Liparus explodes and sinks, with an epic music to boot.
- Real Life example - when it became clear that filming on an actual supertanker was unfeasible, Albert R. Broccoli and Ken Adam came to the conclusion that it would have to be done at Pinewood Studios. When Adam pointed out that there wasn't a soundstage in the world big enough to fit the requirements, Cubby said, "Then build it!" And that, ladies and gentleman, is how The 007 Stage (later re-named The Albert R. Broccoli Stage)
came to be.
- Bond beating the trapdoor in Stromberg's elevator, dodging the weapon under the dinner table, then firing down the tube and into Stromberg's junk.
- Bond catching Jaws with the magnetic crane and dropping him into the Shark Pool. Which is then topped by Jaws killing the shark.
- Anya winning the long duel over who gets to keep the microfilm. "With considerable ease, I might add."
- Bond disarming a nuclear missile with what's essentially the world's most high stakes game of Operation. It's really amazing how much suspense the sequence generates even though everyone goes in knowing there's no way he can actually fail.
The Novel
- Vivienne is one of the most proactive female leads in the series. She nearly manages to escape Sluggsy and Horror by herself and comes within an inch of fatally stabbing one of them in the temple. During the final confrontation as the motel burns, she reaches into a burning room for a first aid kit (against Bond's yelling) to patch him up and even fires Bond's spare revolver at the mobsters' car without hesitation.
