The Bangkok police actually used left hand drive AMC Matadors when the film was made.
The former ocean liner Queen Elizabeth had been wrecked in Hong Kong harbour after catching fire in January 1972; the wreck was largely dismantled for scrap between 1974 and 1975.
Scaramanga runs off and is rather unceremoniously shot by Bond after a brief game of hide and seek.
Nick Nack simply kicks Bond in the shins, throws bottles of wine at him, and is defeated with a suitcase. This is admittedly justifiable given how diminutive he is, but compared to the henchmen in the films either side of this one (Tee-Hee and Jaws respectively), the difference is glaring.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The karate school. For some bizarre reason, the villains believe that the perfect place to kill Bond is at a karate school, where he is supposed to follow the rules and fight honorably. Really?
Broken Base: As a direct result of the debate between the halves of the Bond fandom preferring a silly or gritty tone, the film is either very fun, or a shame to the entire Bond franchise.
Cry for the Devil: When Scaramanga worked as a child in his father's circus, his only friend was an elephant he took care of. When the trainer shot the elephant, Scaramanga murdered the man and so began his life of crime.
Damsel Scrappy: Mary Goodnight is among the least popular girls from the Bond franchise because of this. Even though she's a MI6 employee, Goodnight can't do anything right, and the whole third act on Scaramanga Island happens because she's kidnapped by Scaramanga while trying to track his car. Oh yes, and she also almost kills Bond accidentally with a laser beam — which in turn happens after she inadvertently turns Scaramanga's base into a Collapsing Lair by ignorantly disposing of a henchman in a coolant vat.
Evil Is Cool: Francisco Scaramanga. He is often regarded as one of the best things in the movie, even by people who don't like it, and by extension, one of the best villains in the entire series. The fact he has an interesting backstory and is played by Christopher Lee has helped elevate the character.
Fan Nickname: Due to this film, the isle of Khao Phing Kan (with the famous Ko Ta Pu rock) off the coasts of Thailand that serves as Scaramanga's Island Base has been nicknamed "James Bond Island".
Heartwarming Moments: Christopher Lee died in 2015. For the In Memorium segment at the following Oscars, the clip for him was a line from this film (considered one of the lesser Bond outings) that nonetheless completely encapsulates the life and work of Sir Christopher Lee.
As Scaramanga shows off his high-tech lair to Bond, he admits that he cannot explain its finer points, as science isn't really his thing. Years later in the Licensed GameGoldenEye: Rogue Agent, he is quite the opposite, as he is made into an Evil Counterpart of Q, and his job is to come up with the all the cool gadgets for the protagonist. This is actually much closer to his characterization in the novel.
Maud Adams character is killed after having sex with Bond - and specifically because she had sex with Bond, which Scaramanga did not appreciate. Years later Maud Adams played the title character in Octopussy where she thinks that Bond dies horribly after having sex with her, but fortunately he survives.
Clifton James, who plays Sheriff J.W. Pepper in both this movie and Live and Let Die, would play yet another loudmouth sheriff a few years later in Superman II. In fact, all three movies were partially written by Tom Mankiewicz.
Bonus points in the Brazilian Portuguese dub, in which Sacaramanga's voice actor, Darcy Pedrosa, also voices Mr. Roarke.note Villechaize is also voiced by his Fantasy Island dubber, Carlos Marques.
Desmond Llewellyn mentions that Q Branch is working on a flying car. In Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, he sells the titular car to Caractacus Potts, who converts it to fly!
Magnificent Bastard: Francisco Scaramanga was once a circus boy who loved an elephant. When the elephant was abused to death by its trainer, Scaramanga murdered the man and discovered a love for, and talent at killing. Becoming a master assassin, Scaramanga keeps his skills sharp by having his sidekick Nick Nack hire assassins to kill him so he can always test himself with his life on the line. Scaramanga also outplays the ostensible villain of the film, the industrialist Hai Fat, killing him to steal the powerful solar device to sell to the highest bidder and retire. When he has his hands on Bond, Scaramanga demonstrates his respect and wish to challenge Bond by challenging him to a duel, gleeful to show his own talents against the world's greatest secret agent.
Lulu's completely over-the-top title song straddles the line between this and Narm Charm.
Bond swallowing the golden slug that the belly dancer used as a charm, and then having to have his stomach pumped to retrieve the bullet to show to Q back in London. An entirely useless sequence (given that MI-6 already has one of Scaramanga's golden bullets), and probably the most ridiculous thing to happen to James Bond.
The infamous slide whistle sound effect placed over the famous barrel roll scene remains a constant target of mockery for most critics of this film.
Bond hitting Andrea Anders and threatening to hurt her more if she didn't give him the information he wanted. Granted, this isn't the first time Bond has hit a woman (he did the same thing to Tatiana in From Russia with Love), but it's still egregiously misogynistic on Bond's part, especially when you remember that Anders is depicted as Scaramanga's Sex Slave and was scared of what he would do to her if she ratted him out. Of course, Bond did not know this at the time (she only tells him how much she hates Scaramanga during their second meeting) and believed her to be a willing accomplice. She also pulled a gun on him.
Bond cheating a kid out of a deal and later pushing them off his motorboat into the river only makes Bond look like a Jerkass. Even Roger Moore disliked that scene, and apologized for it on the DVD Commentary.
"And so here's me, Roger Moore, UNICEF ambassador, pushing a child overboard..."
One-Scene Wonder: Chula, the practically minded star pupil at the villain-affiliated karate school Bond finds himself in; his entire appearance seems to be channeling Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon to the point where it's easy to assume the man himself would've been offered the part if he hadn't died the year before.
Padding: The film is prolonged by pointless meandering in a few cases. For example, why Bond had to get the bullet in Beirut when he had the one sent to him, the Kung Fu scene and its following canal chase because Lieutenant Hip just leaves Bond after rescuing him, etc.
Paranoia Fuel: The second verse of the title song suggests that Scaramanga could kill anyone from anywhere. This gets driven home later in the film when Bond goes to meet Andrea Anders and doesn't realize she's dead until he see the bullet hole in her chest.
"Lurking in some darkened doorway, or crouched on a rooftop somewhere, in the next room or this very one, the Man with the Golden Gun."
One of Hip's nieces who help rescue Bond is portrayed by a uncredited and very young Yuen Qiu, who'd later acquire fame as The Landlady in Kung Fu Hustle.
Mary Goodnight is often cited as one of the worst Bond Girls in the franchise alongside Stacey Sutton and Christmas Jones, due to Britt Ekland's Dull Surprise acting, and the character constantly coming across as both The Load, a Damsel in Distress and a bad Comic Relief, despite supposedly being a trained secret agent. It also doesn't help that Andrea Anders, the secondary Bond Girl played by Maud Adams (who would return as the main Bond Girl in Octopussy), is widely considered to be much better-acted and a more interesting character, only to be unceremoniously killed off halfway through the film.
J.W. Pepper gets even more annoying after his debut in Live and Let Die.
Sequelitis: Ever since its initial release, it has gained a reputation as one of the worst Bond films to date, as many have criticized it for its overly campy tone and poor pacing.
Special Effect Failure: The "dummy" portraying Al Capone in the opening blinks and flinches while shooting at the hitman. The James Bond dummy is also clearly played by Roger Moore, since he can be seen moving in certain shots. The ones where he doesn't are achieved by a freeze frame.
Take That, Scrappy!: Pepper is arrested by the Thai police in his last scene in the movie and and franchise as well.
Mary Goodnight. The idea of Bond having a fellow MI6 agent helping him on the case and as the film's main Bond Girl could have been excellent. Unfortunately, the script uses Mary as an absurdly clumsy and stupid Ms. Fanservice. It doesn't help that the Goodnight from the novels was competent and likeable, far from the Dumb Blonde of this film.
Andrea Anders is an infinitely more interesting character than Mary Goodnight, and deserved to be the main Bond Girl of the movie. Unfortunately, the writers kill her midway through the plot, forcing Bond and the viewer to continue with Goodnight. It seems that the producers realized this mistake, considering that actress Maud Adams would return as lead Bond Girl in Octopussy.
The concept of James Bond being chased by a professional killer hired to kill him could have been a great and most welcome change to the franchise's status quo. Unfortunately, in the second half of the film, the script forces Scaramanga to become another crazy megalomaniac who threatens to destroy the world, making Bond's actions more for the safety of the world than for his own life. The plot would probably have worked better with the Sean Connery version of the character than Roger Moore.
Although the climax of the film is by no means bad, the concept of Bond and Scaramanga having a showdown should have been more suspenseful and dramatic and a lot longer. Instead, Scaramanga spends almost the entire duel running away and leaving Bond to traverse his funhouse, before being shot before he manages to even pull the trigger. In fact, the duel originally would have been longer, with scenes of Bond and Scaramanga hunting each other across the island before entering the funhouse, but unfortunately the scenes were cut and only a few seconds of the footage appear in the trailer.
Took the Bad Film Seriously: Christopher Lee's excellent performance deserved a better Bond film than this one. It's quite telling that Scaramanga is often considered to be one of the best Bond villains despite being in one of the worst Bond films.
Unintentional Period Piece: The film is obviously a product of The '70s, from its extensive talks about the energy crisis to the martial arts school showcasing the kung fu craze of the time to product placement by American Motors Company (most prominently the Matador and Hornet) then at its height of power and brand recognition to MI6 using the burned and capsized wreck of the RMS Queen Elizabeth as a covert Hong Kong headquarters, which was dismantled for scrap shortly after filming and blasted to clear the shipping channel, then buried by an artificial island some two decades later, to say nothing about the decor and fashions featured in the film, too.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: In Bond's final duel against Scaramanga, his trick of impersonating a wax statue to get the jump on an unsuspecting Scaramanga comes off as this. Bond has always been a Combat Pragmatist, but in this instance when he's duelling a Noble Demon who's spoken at length about wanting to have a fair fight with Bond, thanks to Christopher Lee's performance you can't help but feel sorry for Scaramanga when he realises Bond's trick just before he dies. This one is possibly a consequence of the editing room, as early trailers hint that Scaramanga was supposed to be cheating in this duel, making Bond turning the tables on him using his wits seem far more justified and necessary, as opposed to Bond just taking the easy way out of a fight. Of course, it's only a fair fight if you take Scaramanga's claims of such at face value: he still has a massive Home Field Advantage by setting the duel in a terrain he knows intimately and simply decides to wait for Bond at a convenient hiding spot of his choosing. Bond just used Scaramanga's own trick against him.
The depiction of women in the series bottoms-out into outright misogyny in this one. In this it follows a trend; earlier entries may have had dated gender roles by contemporary standards, but they still managed to find a place for badass women like Pussy Galore and Tracy Bond. Beginning with Diamonds Are Forever, the Bond Girls degraded into Shrinking Violets, and by Man With the Golden Gun, we've devolved into Bond brutalizing Scaramanga's Sex Slave Andrea Anders (who subsequently dies a cruel and sudden death with little fanfare), and Mary Goodnight, as a Dumb Blonde. Roger Moore even voiced his displeasure about how things were going in such a direction. Fortunately, this trend would reverse with the very next entry in the series, The Spy Who Loved Me.
Nick Nack being referred to throughout the film as a "midget" can rub modern viewers the wrong way, that word being considered a pejorative to Little People.
The novel:
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: A brainwashed James Bond working for the Soviet Union is an interesting story itself, but it is quickly undone so that he can be put against Scaramanga, who is essentially just a glorified thug whose grand plan is to build a hotel.
Further dissonance in the idea that being a latent homosexual is Scaramanga's 'perversion'.
The most remembered part of the aformentioned report is that "homosexuals can't whistle". However, even in the novel this is held only to be a myth that isn't supported by the scientific community.
