The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
1974 Guy Hamilton Bond film with Moore facing Christopher Lee's Scaramanga. Far East setting, energy-crisis MacGuffin, solar weapon.
Writer: Tom Mankiewicz
Tom Mankiewicz, son of Joseph L Mankiewicz, wrote three Bond films in the early 1970s and is largely responsible for the shift toward humour that defined the Roger Moore era. Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun are his.
He then did substantial uncredited work on Superman, receiving a creative consultant credit after a Writers Guild dispute, and the film’s balance of sincerity and wit is generally attributed to him.
He also wrote Ladyhawke and directed Dragnet. His memoir is unusually candid about how much studio screenwriting is repair work on someone else’s draft.
