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"One golden shot means another poor victim has come to a glittering end."
― The Golden Gun described in the film's opening song[src]

The Golden Gun is the deadly signature weapon of the notorious assassin Francisco Scaramanga. It first appeared as the titular weapon in Ian Fleming's posthumously published 1965 novel, The Man with the Golden Gun. In the novel it is merely a gold-plated .45-caliber Single Action Army revolver. In the 1974 film adaptation, however, the weapon is entirely different - a custom-built, single-shot pistol assembled from four seemingly innocuous golden objects: a pen, a lighter, a cigarette case and a cufflink. Its popularity led to appearances in most of the James Bond video games.

Novel appearance[]

In Ian Fleming's novel, the Golden Gun is a gold-plated Colt. 45 that carried gold dum-dum bullets with silver jackets. Scaramanga also carried a golden Derringer whose bullet was coated with snake venom, as a backup weapon.

Film appearance[]

Overview[]

For the film, it is a single-shot weapon that fires a custom-made 4.2-millimeter (.165 calibre) golden (23-carat gold with traces of nickel) dum-dum bullet. Scaramanga used the Golden Gun in numerous assassinations of officials, political enemies, gangsters, and even a 00-Agent - Bill Fairbanks (002). Scaramanga later used the Golden Gun to kill British scientist Gibson and his own employer, Hai Fat. When Scaramanga was ultimately killed after losing a gun duel with James Bond, and his island destroyed, the Golden Gun was presumably also lost.

Components[]

To evade security, the pistol can be assembled and disassembled into its component parts:

Gold Pen Fountain Pen – Forming the ‘barrel’ of the pistol, the pen screws directly into the body of the lighter. Includes removable thread cap.
Gold Cigarette Lighter Lighter – With a hidden ‘slide out’ section the lighter forms the main body of the weapon. The lighter ‘lid’ opens to reveal a breech chamber.
Gold Cigarette Case Cigarette Case – The end of the case opens to create the handle and trigger housing.
Gold Cufflink Cufflink – With sprung blades, the cufflink fits into the trigger housing to create the trigger which can be pulled.
Golden Bullets & Belt Bullet – A single custom-made 4.2 mm golden (23-carat gold with traces of nickel) dum-dum bullet can be fitted into the ‘breech’ of the cigarette lighter. For transit, the ammunition is concealed in the buckle of his belt.

Video game appearances[]

Golden Gun

The Golden Gun as seen in 007 Legends.

Francisco Scaramanga's weapon, the Golden Gun, was initially added to the Egyptian level and multiplayer portion of the iconic Nintendo 64 video game GoldenEye 007. Due to its popularity, it was also added into the subsequent James Bond games The World is Not Enough, Agent Under Fire, Nightfire, Everything or Nothing, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, From Russia with Love, Quantum of Solace, the 2010 remake of GoldenEye 007, and 007 Legends. The vast majority of the games featured the Golden Gun in its film appearance.

In each of the video games it is featured, the Golden Gun counts for an instant kill (except Everything or Nothing), which reflects that Scaramanga never missed, although in the games the player can miss, which prove dangerous in heavy gunfights due to itself carrying a single round. Because of this disadvantage, the Golden Gun is not available in single player mode (except N64 GoldenEye 007 and Everything or Nothing) and thus exclusively found in multiplayer mode. However, golden variants of the game's standard weapon(s) are usually available (such as a golden Walther PPK, P99 and Desert Eagle), sharing the lethal damage and likely to prevent constant reloading, though this is only the case of the original GoldenEye 007; most such weaponry in the later games are simply upgraded versions of their regular counterparts, as seen in Agent Under Fire (despite being named Golden Gun in-game).

In the very few games where the novel appearance is used, the same rules apply to that of the film counterpart, but instead fires up to six rounds before reloading, similar to the golden versions of the standard weapons.

Trivia[]

  • During the development of The Man with the Golden Gun, three Golden Gun props were created for the film; a solid piece, one that could be fired with a cap, and one that could be fully assembled/dissembled. Scaramanga's late actor, Christopher Lee, said the process of putting the prop together and taking it apart was "extremely difficult". In October 10 2008, one of the props used in the film was missing (suspected to be stolen) from Elstree Props and to this day has yet to be found. It is estimated to worth around £80,000. The company Factory Entertainment created official limited edition scaled 24ct gold-plated replicas of the original Golden Gun props for sale, which are currently rare and come in very high prices.
  • In The Man with the Golden Gun film, Scaramanga, after Bond meets Nick Nack in his island, can be seen ironically holding a Colt Single Action Army revolver, the same kind of weapon the Golden Gun originally was in Ian Fleming's novel, before firing a clean shot toward the cork of a champagne to surprise them.
  • The Golden Gun itself is one of the most popular gadgets in the James Bond franchise as a whole.
  • In the movie, Scaramanga's Golden Gun is famously shown to instantly kill targets with a single shot, leading to its eponymous ability of one-hit-kills in the video games. However, in the original novel, the purpose of the assassin's weapon apparently seems to be the complete opposite; while the golden firearm itself is obviously designed to be lethal, Scaramaga used his Colt. 45 to actually torture his targets by shooting them in their knees or elbows, wanting his enemies to die slowly rather than at once, showing his arrogant nature seen in the posthumous literature. In all video game media, the Golden Gun (or similar guns), no matter what depiction of the weapon based on the novel or film, kills targets instantaneously regardless of any shots within the body.
  • Ironically, in The Man with the Golden Gun film, during the final duel, Bond kills Scaramanga with a single shot, very similar to how the infamous hitman himself assassinates his targets with the Golden Gun, and also the only time Bond successfully shoots anyone. However, this shot from the Walther PPK was onto the villain's heart, a fatal blow; in the original novel, Bond, after being struck by Scaramanga's backup Derringer, fired the entire 6-round magazine to kill the assassin. It should be noted that in the movie, Bond was pretending to be Scaramanga's puppets before catching him by surprise.
  • Auric Goldfinger was also seen seemingly carrying a golden gun before the final fight against James Bond in Goldfinger. However, Goldfinger's firearm is not the actual weapon, but simply an ordinary revolver - a Colt Official Police, in gold plating, while Scaramanga's own was assembled from several gold-made daily items that could fire only a single bullet, though it bares a close resemblance to the original version of the Golden Gun seen in The Man with the Golden Gun novel as it shares the Colt manufacturer. Interestingly, the film predates Ian Fleming's final book by one year, as Goldfinger was released in 1964.
  • Being a world-class hitman with skills rivaling if not surpassing even that of James Bond's, Scaramanga in the 1974 film charges $1 million (equivalent to over $6.1 million as of 2023) every shot in his assassinations, therefore he has killed only four targets with his Golden Gun throughout the movie. In Ian Fleming's 1965 novel, however, the villain has a much greater count of murders, as he claimed to Bond during the climax that he has shot down as many as fifty people in his career.
  • Scaramanga's golden Derringer - his backup weapon seen in the novel, could possibly be an inspiration of the Golden Gun's film design, as it shares the limitation of holding only a single bullet in its magazine. This weapon, however, is not a "Golden Gun" by itself; it did not kill Bond when he was shot by the assassin, and it was more likely designed for torture by letting its target succumb by poisoning (its bullet was coated with venom).
  • In the original 1997 GoldenEye 007, Francisco Scaramanga's Golden Gun was reportedly stolen by another villain - Baron Samedi, as a motive to lure Bond into a trap, before the M16 agent recovers it in a booby-trapped location within a mysterious Egyptan temple to ultimately use the legendary weapon against him. In the same game, it is possible to wield two of them at once via cheats for deadly effect.
  • Interestingly, a different First-Person Shooter game in the Nintendo 64 unrelated to the James Bond franchise (despite being developed by the same company that produced GoldenEye 007 - Rare, as a spiritual successor), Perfect Dark, featured a customized, gold-plated Colt Python revolver, belonging to one of its antagonists named Trent Easton. The weapon itself is known as the DY357-LX, intended as a homage to the Golden Gun's film counterpart used in its predecessor. By coincidence, it is heavily based on the Golden Gun's original depiction from Ian Fleming's novel, if not even deadlier, as it also can instantly destroy any enemy with a single shot as well as penetrating through them, killing yet more in the line of fire. Like GoldenEye, it is also possible to wield two of the weapons at once by cheats. It remains the most accurate depiction of the novel Golden Gun in any video game to date.
  • Similar to the Perfect Dark game, Quantum of Solace features the Golden Gun as a revolver based on the novel rather than the design used in the film, and is so far the only video game of the James Bond franchise to do so. The weapon appears to be a Smith & Wesson Model 686. However, unlike Rareware's First-Person Shooter or in the novel itself, this Golden Gun is equipped with a gold-plated scope and oddly fires explosive rounds.
  • Everything or Nothing is a rare exception in the video games where the Golden Gun does not have its trademark one-hit-kill ability. In this game, it inaccurately uses the same weaponry data as the Walther P99 (while having double damage and high accuracy) and is surpassed by the difficult-to-unlock "Platinum Gun", where this particular gun shares the model of the Golden Gun with a platinum scheme and has explosive rounds, similar to Quantum of Solace.
  • The Gold PP7 seen in the original GoldenEye 007 is the most well known example of a Golden Gun-like version of Bond's standard weapons in any video game based on the series.
  • In the N64 release of The World is Not Enough video game, the Golden Gun must be assembled from the pen, lighter, and cigarette case pieces (but not the cufflink) before it can be used, and, strangely, it has a 5-round magazine rather than just one. It could possibly be an oversight by the game's development team.

Gallery[]

Golden Gun/Gallery

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 (2002) 007 Spy Files #10 (Magazine), 007 Spy Files (in En-UK), London: GE Fabbri Ltd., pp.06-07. 
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