Focus Of The Week: Scaramanga

Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee) known as The Man With The Golden Gun, plans to auction the world’s most efficient solar energy system to the highest bidder. Already the world’s highest paid assassin, Scaramanga schemes to transform himself into an immensely powerful underworld figure.

Scaramanga grew up in the circus where he gained a reputation as a trick shot artist and after murdering a cruel elephant handler he decided to devote his life to the “art” of murder. The KGB recruited and trained Scaramanga, turning him into an overworked and underpaid assassin. He left the Soviets, offering his services to anyone who could afford his price – one million dollars a kill. No known photographs of him exist but he has one distinguishing feature – a third nipple.

Scaramanga kills his victims with gold bullets and uses a number of golden guns, including one made from seemingly innocuous objects – a lighter, a pen, a cigarette case, and a cuff link. Living on a remote island in Chinese waters with his valet Nick Nack (Hervé Villechaize) and mistress Andrea Anders (Maud Adams), Scaramanga hones his assassin skills by instructing Nick Nack to bring in hitmen to engage him in shootouts. They took place in a specifically designed fun house maze which contains a lifelike mannequin of Bond, the only man Scaramanga sees as a peer. Scaramanga becomes corrupt industrialist Hai Fat’s junior partner in a scheme to monopolize a new solar energy process designed by British scientist Gibson. Unknown to Scaramanga, Anders wants him dead, and she sends the British Secret Service a golden bullet inscribed “007,” hoping Bond will be dispatched to kill him. When Gibson attempts to re-defect to the British using the Solex Agitator (the key to converting solar energy into electricity), Scaramanga assassinates him. This act launches Bond on Scaramanga’s trail. Scaramanga then kills Hai Fat to consolidate his position as lone controller of the solar technology. He murders Anders for betraying him, kidnaps Bond’s assistant, Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland), and sets up a showdown with Bond.

Bond tracks Scaramanga to his island, where a duel between the two occurs. Scaramanga leads Bond on a chase through Nick Nack’s fun house, but Bond outwits him by posing as his own mannequin and shooting him.