The Man with the Golden Touch by Sinclair McKay

Author:Sinclair McKay [MCKAY, SINCLAIR]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: PER004000, PER004030, SOC022000
ISBN: 9781468303087
Publisher: The Overlook Press
Published: 2012-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN ONCE MORE ROUND THE WORLD

The artistic career of Roger Moore outside of Bond was, in the 1970s, a mixed affair, and to watch some of his other films now, one must have quite a high tolerance level for unintended kitsch. I refer mostly to the 1974 epic Gold, in which he starred with Susannah York, Ray Milland and John Gielgud. There was a rumour – wholly unsubstantiated – that this South Africa-based thriller, directed by erstwhile Bond hand Peter Hunt, was made with financial assistance from the apartheid-era South African government, presumably on the grounds that it would boost tourism.

There was rather more comical ground to be covered as Moore co-starred with Lee Marvin in a period adventure called Shout at the Devil (1976), attempting to foil the villainous Hun in Africa during the time of the Great War; Moore also put on a deerstalker for Sherlock Holmes in New York (1976) alongside Patrick Macnee as Watson.

And anyone who has ever stumbled in late from the pub and switched on the television will doubtless be familiar with The Wild Geese (1978), which always seems to be on BBC1 after the late night local news. In this, a cigar-chomping Moore played alongside Richard Burton and Richard Harris as a bunch of superannuated mercenaries. The scenes in London in which the men are gradually pulled in to the story are a vivid illustration of how very grim the late 1970s were in aesthetic terms.

Elsewhere, there was the wartime escapade Escape to Athena (1979). And who could forget the excitement generated by 1980’s North Sea Hijack, in which Moore played a hero called Rufus Excalibur Ffolkes, pitted against the villainy of Anthony Perkins? Well, practically everyone could forget it, apparently, although the film did what it said on the tin. I saw it in a village hall on the Isle of Arran just off the coast of Scotland. The projectionist accidentally played the start of the second reel upside down. No one seemed too bothered.

The same year, 1980, also brought the genial slapstick comedy of The Cannonball Run, one of those American all-star caper movies involving an epic car race; Moore played a man who was convinced that he was … Roger Moore. But with a Jewish mother. Now, you might think, we never see these films any more (unless they are given away free as DVDs by newspapers) and there must be a reason for that. But really, at the time, Moore was a big deal. And the above list gives a good idea at least of what a hard worker he was across the years.

Could his reflexive self-deprecation have done him out of weightier roles? In 1979, Moore declared: ‘I may not be Olivier, but I’m taller. I have my three expressions. 1) Eyebrow raised. 2) Eyebrow lowered. 3) Crossed eyes when the villain Jaws grabs me by the kidney stone.’ 1

Indeed, whether he was being ironic or not, Roger was always drawing attention to his acting deficiencies. ‘Have you ever seen a single film I was ever any good in?’ he asked one interviewer humorously.

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