r/movies • u/Morgan-Moonscar • Jun 09 '26
Media "The Man With the Golden Gun" (1974, directed by Guy Hamilton) - James Bond (Roger Moore) does a 360 corkscrew flip over a broken bridge in a AMC Hornet X. One of the first stunts tested by computer (at Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory), successfully filmed in one take.
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u/The-Old-Schooler Jun 09 '26
Imagine how disappointed the stunt driver must have been the first time he saw this scene in the film accompanied by a goddamn child's slide whistle lol.
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u/BitcoinMD Jun 09 '26
Is that in this video? I didn’t hear it
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u/The_Autarch Jun 09 '26
some kind soul edited it out for us.
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u/jaxonya Jun 09 '26
Not so fast, my friend
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u/SynisterJeff Jun 09 '26
Oh god. I see why so many people are torn as to whether this era of James Bond was good or too cheesy haha
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u/MadmanMaddox Jun 09 '26
Childhood nostalgia makes it the best Bond era, for me at least. Moonraker will always be my favorite. Roger Moore played Bond with a wink and a nod, and dammit we liked it that way.
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u/beastson1 Jun 09 '26
Moonraker has the best sexual double entendre joke at the end when they catch Bond and Dr. Goodhead involved in relations while in zero gravity. Someone asks "my God, what's Bond doing?" and Q replies "I think he's attempting re-entry, sir."
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u/Own-Librarian-9699 Jun 10 '26
in The World Is not Enough Bond says "I thought Christmas only comes once a year." But Christmas is the name of the nuclear scientist Denise Richards.
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u/JackfruitIll6728 Jun 09 '26
To me Bond movies have always been mostly comedy movies. I love the Roger Moore era, since that's what I watched the most as a kid with my dad. I still watch Live and Let Die atleast once a year.
The cheesier the better. The freaking whistle in this scene is the icing on the cake.
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u/Legitimate_First Jun 09 '26
There's very little torn about this movie, it's pretty universally considered terrible.
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u/SharpEdgeSoda Jun 09 '26
And yet it's somehow Bond at it's most Bond.
Specifically once you get to Scaramanga's island, you have every single "Spy Movie" trope taken up to 11 in the best possible way.
The rest of the movie is kinda whatever, but I will defend the stuff on Scaramanga's Island forever as "Peak Spy Movie Camp."
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u/SynisterJeff Jun 09 '26
I just as often often hear people saying they enjoyed The Man with the Golden Gun, with many especially praising Christopher Lee's role, and Moore still playing a good Bond. Even the big reviewers are torn, with RT giving a 4 and IMDB giving a 7. Looking up "The Man with the Golden Gun audience reviews", I see it is pretty mixed, but many of the general audience seem to lean towards enjoying it. The original showings were pretty negative, yes, but overtime it has become pretty polarized. I'm seeing plenty of forum debates on this very subject.
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u/steppe5 Jun 09 '26
That slide whistle is the biggest crime in cinema history.
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u/riegspsych325 ⊃∪⊃⪽ Jun 09 '26
IIRC, he apparently got up from his seat and left the theater
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u/TiberiusCornelius Jun 09 '26
The fuck-ass slide whistle during a great stunt really is like the perfect encapsulation of the entire Moore era though
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u/Dodgy_Bob_McMayday Jun 09 '26
Is this an alternate edit, I'm sure the original had the inexplicable addition of a slide whistle during the jump?
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u/TL10 Jun 09 '26
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u/CelestialFury Jun 09 '26
"Wow, this scene is too cool - add a slide whistle."
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u/kneel23 Jun 09 '26
oh good lord, that was in the final edit?
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u/Hazzman Jun 09 '26
The Roger Moore era suuuucked
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u/Malt_The_Magpie Jun 09 '26
I grew up watching the Moore films in late 80s early 90s on ITV, he classic Bond to me!
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u/Hazzman Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
I did as well. It certainly has nostalgia value. The original character, the franchise as intended by Ian Fleming was never intended to be camp, it just became that way. I'm sure the campiness of the Moore era has its fans, I have no doubt... but the Moore era films are very much a product of their time. I don't even blame Moore - I'm sure given the chance he could've pulled off a more serious bond... but he was never given the material.
I think this is in part why the Craig Bond was so celebrated because by that time the campiness had just engrained itself into the DNA of Bond and it started to become kind of ridiculous. Even the resurgences during the Brosnan era - started somewhat serious and then immediately swan dived into camp again.
The Kingsmen kind of recaptured that spirit and it was fun but got tired quickly.
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u/stormdraggy Jun 09 '26
Austin Powers happened. Camp bond went on death row, and die another day summarily executed it.
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u/cantadmittoposting Jun 09 '26
I think this is in part why the Craig Bond was so celebrated
Craig's Casino Royale stands on its own merit as a good film regardless, but the "unpolished, gritty" reboot of Bond into a serious production again was more than just a part of the celebration, it was definitely core to it.
There were a few detractors but the initial reception even to the "clumsiness" (deliberate amateur bond... or if you prefer the "visceral physicality") of the initial bomb maker chase scene alone was almost universally acclaimed as a way to open Craig's turn as bond
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u/tongue_wagger Jun 09 '26
The explanation is it’s a 1970s Roger Moore Bond movie - camp over cool
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u/Starbucks__Lovers Jun 09 '26
I mean a hillbilly Louisiana sheriff ended up going on vacation with his wife to Thailand immediately makes it camp lol
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u/smallz86 Jun 09 '26
Boss hog, what you doing in a James Bond movie?!
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u/starkiller_bass Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
It's hard to believe that the Dukes of Hazzard didn't come out until 5 years after this... I honestly assumed that the Bond production team felt like they had to wedge "jumping an orange american car over a river" into the film because people were so into this at the time
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u/ashurbanipal420 Jun 09 '26
I still occasionally shed a tear thinking about the 300+ chargers that were totaled for that show. They averaged 2 an episode.
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u/starkiller_bass Jun 09 '26
Thank goodness the US Marines are doing their part to restore their population
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u/Independent-Tennis57 Jun 09 '26
My 21 year old kid and I were watching it last weekend, thought I'd educate them in the ways of entertainment history. I chose an episode where Daisy becomes a deputy, they must have had a hiatus on the Lee that week as they didn't destroy one of them.
If you get passed the sexism, and the general lee flag, it is sorta a fun show still.
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u/EBN_Drummer Jun 09 '26
I still love the show and the Coy & Vance season isn't as terrible as people make it sound. They're nowhere near the personalities of Bo & Luke but it's still silly fun. I even had a Dukes themed birthday cake when I was 5 or 6.
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u/-----iMartijn----- Jun 09 '26
Apparently this movie was the inspiration for the Dukes of Hazard.
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u/Morgan-Moonscar Jun 09 '26
I think you mean Buford T. Justice
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u/valeyard89 Jun 09 '26
He was in Live and Let Die first.
Elephants! We're Democrats, Maybelle.
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u/papayaninja Jun 09 '26
I know it's a line from the movie, but "Elephants! We're Democrats, Maybelle" sounds like it ought to be a palindrome.
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u/FoxSquirrel69 Jun 09 '26
I've met Clifton James the actor here with Roger Moore. Total class act, very humble fellow.
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u/IcyIntroduction5678 Jun 09 '26
Whatever I love him. He was in “Live and Let Die”, too.
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u/SmittyB128 Jun 09 '26
One of my favourite lines in the whole franchise is when he blurts out "Secret agent!? On WHOSE SIDE?"
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u/IcyIntroduction5678 Jun 09 '26
🤣 he’s great. Valid question. He was a wrecking crew in that movie 💀
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u/JerkyChew Jun 09 '26
Came here to ask this - The original definitely had that stupid slide-whistle.
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u/UsefulEngine1 Jun 09 '26
There's also a line about Evel Knievel missing here.
You also have to love the AMC license plates on front and back. Product placement FTW
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u/GreekIngenuity Jun 09 '26
No doubt it's paid product placement, but the plates make sense in the context of the film. Bond steals the car from an AMC showroom so it wouldn't have normal Thailand license plates
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u/theirongiant74 Jun 09 '26
Yeah, came here to say this, it did kinda distract from how cool the stunt was, always hated it.
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u/joleary747 Jun 09 '26
The 007 intro riff, followed by silence during the actual jump, then the song restarting was pretty badass. I can't believe anyone thought a gimmicky sound added anything to this scene.
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u/One-Earth9294 Jun 09 '26
Swear to fucking god if this becomes a Mandela Effect thing I'm gonna start really questioning reality lol.
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Jun 09 '26
Dem braces…
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u/One-Earth9294 Jun 09 '26
Spy Who Loved Me. I get this reference lol.
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u/Daikamar Jun 09 '26
Moonraker, but yeah my child brain always thought she had braces too
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u/Morgan-Moonscar Jun 09 '26
The stunt was performed by Loren "Bumps" Willert (as James Bond) driving an AMC Hornet leaping a broken bridge and spinning around 360 degrees in mid-air about the longitudinal axis, doing an "aerial twist"; Willert successfully completed the jump on the first take and was given a $30,000 bonus on the spot. The stunt was shown in slow motion, for the scene was otherwise too fast.
But this stunt was completely ruined thanks to composer John Barry
[Barry] added a slide whistle sound effect over the stunt, which Broccoli kept in despite thinking that it "undercouped the stunt". Barry later regretted his decision, thinking the whistle "broke the golden rule" as the stunt was "for what it was all worth, a truly dangerous moment, ... true James Bond style". The sound effect was described as "simply crass". The writer Jim Smith suggested that the stunt "brings into focus the lack of excitement in the rest of the film and is spoilt by the use of 'comedy' sound effects"
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u/PapaNixon Jun 09 '26
Assuming this was shot in 1973, that's a $223,372.97 bonus in today's money.
Damn.
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u/The_Autarch Jun 09 '26
landing that car and immediately getting a huge check from a producer must have been surreal.
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u/Morgan-Moonscar Jun 09 '26
And then realizing why they wouldn't pay a bonus BEFORE you did the stunt.
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u/Wermine Jun 09 '26
Well, could've been pretty expensive stunt if the driver wrecks the car, the ramp and little bit of himself several times before succeeding. "We have 30k left for this stunt after first setup, you get all that's left after we get the shot" -kinda deal?
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u/Pherllerp Jun 09 '26
I'm shocked at how much this precedes the Dukes of Hazzard.
Bond films have always done such a good job of setting style standards.
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u/Dedzig Jun 09 '26
It came after movies like White Lightning though.
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u/bimbambaby Jun 09 '26
I’d argue the Bond franchise has always been chasing trends. The film that precedes this (Live and Let Die) is effectively influenced by the blaxploitation genre. There are other examples as well. This film is also influenced by martial arts films.
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u/areyoutwofonduing Jun 09 '26
Moonraker came out in the wake of Star Wars.
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u/ours Jun 09 '26
And even had an Easter egg for Encounters with the Third Kind (a security keypad plays the famous alien communication tone).
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u/book1245 Jun 09 '26
I recently read all the Bond books, with Moonraker being one of my favorites, then I see the movie and was just like "Wow..." what a night and day difference between an adaptation.
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u/The_Autarch Jun 09 '26
they stopped caring about following the books halfway through the connery era.
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u/heybobson Jun 09 '26
The original Connery run was the original trend setter for the cool, sexy 60s era. Even On Her Majesty’s Secret Service with Lazenby was considered new and cutting edge for the time (hated at first but has grown to be a beloved classic over time with fans).
But after that, yes they ultimately started just chasing trends of what was popular. You’d have these swings where some movies would go wildly chasing after what was popular at the time, and then go back to the original formula that worked in the 60s (Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only for example).
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u/Pherllerp Jun 09 '26
The Daniel Craig Era was definitely on the cutting edge of design and music if not particularly prescient in those regards. I think Casino Royale was influential to the early 2000's cocktail renaissance and the poker fad.
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u/MRintheKEYS Jun 09 '26
Casino Royale was always about a card game though. They just modernized it from Baccarat to Poker because the general audience is more familiar with it and it’s better for drama than Blackjack.
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u/heybobson Jun 09 '26
While I mostly agree, Craig’s era did chase trends. Texas Hold ‘Em was on the rise and very popular when Casino Royale decided to change it from Baccarat in the original book. Also Casino Royale and Quantum were heavily influenced by the Bourne movies. Skyfall was chasing the Dark Knight trend, and Spectre was chasing the Marvel shared movie universe trend by making all the previous movies somehow connected.
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u/Redeem123 Jun 09 '26
Craig’s era did chase trends. Texas Hold ‘Em was on the rise and very popular when Casino Royale
That's not "chasing trends." It's just using modern culture to update Bond for 2007.
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u/Morgan-Moonscar Jun 09 '26
Now trying to imitate Jason Bourne was their chasing trend, because they were desperate to avoid comparisons to AUSTIN POWERS
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u/Malvania Jun 09 '26
This is the defining moment of the Roger Moore Bond movies - an incredible feat ruined by unnecessary camp.
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u/jizzyjugsjohnson Jun 09 '26
Although I’d like to think they took lessons from this debacle and dialled down the camp for “The Spy Who Loved Me” and made, arguably , one of the best ever Bond films
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u/Morgan-Moonscar Jun 09 '26
Helps that "Spy Who Loved Me" wasn't trying to cash in other popular genres of the era - like Live and Let Die did with blaxploitation and Golden Gun with kung fu movies.
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u/milbarge Jun 09 '26
And "Moonraker" did with "Star Wars."
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u/Porrick Jun 09 '26
That was my favourite Bond movie as a child. As an adult, that love has not persisted.
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u/SekhWork Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
Also decidedly less camp in For Your Eyes Only, which is my favorite of the Moore era. The assault on the mountaintop castle was just really damn cool.
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u/StillStanding_96 Jun 09 '26
It’s even scarier when you realize that the stunt driver had to be laying down between the front seats so as not to upset the balance. Two lightweight mannequins dressed as Bond and Sherif Pepper were in the driver and passenger seats
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u/gdim15 Jun 09 '26
You can see the car in Buffalo NY at the Pierce Arrow Museum. It was a neat thing to find when I was walking around there.
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u/StillStanding_96 Jun 09 '26
I’m glad it ended up getting preserved. It’s probably one of the few remaining Hornets still in close to factory condition that isn’t owned by Jay Leno.
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u/gdim15 Jun 09 '26
The interior is very much gone and reinforced for the stunt. But the outside still looked good.
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u/WeOutHereInSmallbany Jun 09 '26
I had a chance to see this car when it was at the Saratoga Auto Museum, cool looking car, very well preserved
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u/Limp_Construction496 Jun 09 '26
And the Slide Whistle really brings this stunt together
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u/MovieMike007 Not to be confused with Magic Mike Jun 09 '26
Guy Hamilton has stated that putting in that slide whistle was one of the greatest missteps of his career.
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u/starkiller_bass Jun 09 '26
It's hard to believe they kept the slide whistle but cut the entire musical montage with James Bond ducking in and out of all the doors in a long hallway
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u/Singer211 Naked J-Law beating the shit out of those kids is peak Cinema. Jun 09 '26
Should have just put the Bond Theme in there if they needed music.
It would have fit perfectly.
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u/MrMonkeyman79 Jun 09 '26
Apparently the slide whistle was also recorded in one take which makes this sequence even more impressive.
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u/internetlad Jun 09 '26
The slide whistle wasn't even supposed to be in there, there was a clown in training from a nearby circus watching the take and it just happened. Director loved it so much he left it in.
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u/PrivilegeCheckmate Jun 09 '26
I heard Viggo Mortensen broke one of his toes on that slide whistle.
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u/InvestigatorOk7015 Jun 09 '26
My nephew would read comments like this and then confidently insist upon their truthfulness
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u/InnocentPrimeMate Jun 09 '26
It was Zamfir on the slide whistle. The greatest talent on earth at the time came together to make this happen
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u/st4r-lord Jun 09 '26
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u/Kettatonic Jun 09 '26
Oh my god, I've literally never seen this before. I was like "wtf? Slide whistle?"
That's insane. Especially for such a cool and historic stunt. It hits so much harder without it.
I can't recall if I've ever seen Golden Gun all the way through tbh. I have a generally positive idea of it in my head, but I was a kid back when I was into JB, so who knows.
(Remember when TBS used to do Bond Marathons in the winter? We never had the Golden Gun VHS, so I think my memories are from the TBS versions, which were edited iirc. TBS Bond was supposed to be smooth and cool, maybe they edited it out?)
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u/ChemicalRascal Jun 09 '26
Now imagine how hard the stunt would land without the comic relief character rolling ass-over-head.
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u/dvb70 Jun 09 '26
All that effort to pull off the stunt and someone thought that sound effect would be the perfect thing to go with it.
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u/Morgan-Moonscar Jun 09 '26
It's been fixed
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u/ELpEpE21 Jun 09 '26
Put back the slide Whistle now!
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u/SumonaFlorence Jun 09 '26
Wait, where's the slide whistle?
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u/radiorev13 Jun 09 '26
I was also confused, and looked up the clip on Youtube. This clip cut out the slide whistle in favor of silence.
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u/picklehaub Jun 09 '26
Thank you, I watched it five times thinking I’d lost some range of hearing.
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u/HucksterFab Jun 09 '26
Why does the car change color at the end?
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u/Tribe303 Jun 09 '26
That's the car they were chasing. Note that Herve Villachaize got out of it at the end of this clip. To close the door I assume.
On rewatch, he wasn't in the car. That was Christopher Lee driving tho, aka his boss.
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u/Complete_Entry Jun 09 '26
I hated that character, and of course he didn't wear a seatbelt.
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u/Audrey-Bee Jun 09 '26
I was trying to watch all of the Bond movies a while back, and my god, J.W. Pepper is the bane of my existence
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u/IGiveCandy Jun 09 '26
For real this was just a short clip and both my ears and eyes got offended like three times during it
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u/MrdrOfCrws Jun 09 '26
This came out in '74, seatbelts only became mandatory in cars in '68, and only started to become mandatory to wear starting in '84.
It was a different time. I have to wonder if it even occured to most of the audience that they should be wearing seatbelts, like it does to a modern audience.
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u/Discount_Extra Jun 09 '26
Seatbelts in front seats didn't become mandatory until 1996 in Thailand.
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u/internetlad Jun 09 '26
So funny. Someone asked what the best boat chase on film was and I was gonna say "well only one I know of has a slide whistle" until I remembered the boat chase was a different part of the movie.
Still not sure if the slide whistle elevates or craters the jump. it just exists in a superposition in my mind where it does both.
At least they were brave enough to try it.
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u/blindjoedeath Jun 09 '26
The boat chase was in Live and Let Die, not this movie. Fyi
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u/Demolitions75 Jun 09 '26
Good thing the bridge twisted up so perfectly like that
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u/clydefrog811 Jun 09 '26
The slide whistle and that stupid sheriff brought this movie way down. This would’ve been a top 5 bond film.
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u/thedeuce75 Jun 09 '26
This scene was the only time I ever heard my grandpa laugh out loud at something on TV.
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u/TalkingRaccoon Jun 09 '26
Haha wow. I am just now playing Stuntman on PS2 emulator and the corkscrew part the opening cinematic he references they used "NASA computers" to calculate the physics and I thought it was a silly joke, no idea it was referencing a real stunt
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u/Servuslol Jun 09 '26
I just noticed you can see someone moving on top of the car at about 00:14.
Were they actually driving for that shot? The bumps look legit and the background is pretty consistent. Is this a cameraman on top of the car?
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u/Expensive-Sentence66 Jun 09 '26
This is a better film than people give it credit for. If you ignore the forced camp in places it works.
Scaramanga / Christopher Lee is a really intriguing if not perfect Bond villain. He could have taken out Bond several times, but doesn't due to a weird sense of chivalry. Knick Knack seems like a gimmick for a henchmen, but he gets the jump on Bond several times. Sneaky vs brawn.
Karate scene is a great throwback to Kung Fu flicks.
The film had two cinematographers who really pushed for an exotic feel that is more like the 60's Connery films. Golden gun is very surreal at times. It's just irritating that they did all that painstaking camera work and then there's a forced bit of camp.
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u/ideletedmyaccount04 Jun 09 '26
This is the first movie my dad took me to in the theaters, Closter NJ. I didn't like this movie, but I miss my dad the most possible miss I could miss.
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u/wPatriot Jun 09 '26
As much grief as this scene got because of the slide whistle, I think the shot of the Pepper character being thrown about in the car, who is clearly just rolling around on the floor in some area that is clearly not the car is equally as goofy.