Original cover of Ian
Fleming's “The Man with the Golden Gun” which was published by Jonathan Cape on
April 1st 1965, 55 years ago this month. Art: Richard Chopping (1917-2008).
It has become
an annual delight to discover the production of yet another of the James Bond
novels by the BBC Radio Drama department. To be more accurate, the stories of
Ian Fleming’s foreign intelligence agent are produced by the husband and wife
team of Martin Jarvis and Rosalind Ayres for the BBC.
This
adaptation, again by Archie Scottney, is The
Man With The Golden Gun. This Fleming work was published after his death
and received rather lukewarm reviews. It is the novel which followed You Only Live Twice, where Bond avenged
the death of his wife Tracy by killing his arch-enemy Ernst Stavro Blofeld in
Japan.
But Bond was
injured while escaping from the wrecking of Blofeld’s castle. And as he did not
report back after his mission, the government declared him to be ‘Missing in
Action’; presumed dead. His obituary
was in fact published in the London Times.
Bond had in fact survived but became afflicted by amnesia, a condition that persisted
after he regained his physical health while living as a Japanese fisherman. You Only Live Twice ended with a glimmer
of memory recovered: Bond’s coming across the city of Vladivostok in a
newspaper triggers a yearning to go to Russia, a country with which he thinks
his forgotten life history was intimately involved.
The Man With The Golden Gun takes up the
story. Bond is eventually discovered and apprehended by the Soviet Secret
Service which brainwashes him and programmed him to assassinate his boss, M, who
in the novel has his identity revealed for the first time as Admiral Sir Miles
Messervy.
Once the plot
is foiled, Bond is rehabilitated and rather than face criminal charges of
treason and attempted murder is, to use the words of M, “thrown back” at the
Soviets by assigning him the task of neutralising Francisco Scaramanga, a fast
drawing gunman who is a contract killer for his Soviet masters, and who is
embarked on a nefarious enterprise involving the pro-Soviet regime of Fidel
Castro which is trying to muscle out its Caribbean competitors in the sugar
cane market.
Toby Stephens
plays Bond in his ninth outing.
Director:
Martin Jarvis
Producer:
Rosalind Ayres
Adaptor:
Archie Scottney
© Adeyinka
Makinde
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