The Man with the Golden Gun (with Interview) recap

After losing his memory in Japan, James Bond reaches the Soviet Union and is brainwashed into returning to London to kill M. The attempt fails; treatment restores him, and M tests his recovery by sending him to Jamaica after the assassin Francisco Scaramanga. With help from Mary Goodnight, Bond finds Scaramanga and takes a job as his temporary assistant at the Thunderbird Hotel, where gangsters are meeting over criminal investments and sabotage. Felix Leiter and another American agent are already undercover there. Bond's identity is exposed as the group takes an excursion train, prompting a violent showdown that wrecks the train and scatters the conspiracy. Bond pursues Scaramanga into the marshes and kills him, though a poisoned bullet nearly kills Bond in turn. He recovers in hospital, refuses a public honor, and returns to Service life without accepting Goodnight's implied hope of marriage.

Previously: after destroying Blofeld's Japanese stronghold, Bond lost his memory and lived with Kissy Suzuki before travelling toward the Soviet Union in search of his past.

James Bond, long missing after his mission in Japan, unexpectedly returns to Secret Service headquarters and requests a private meeting with M. Soviet treatment has conditioned him to regard M as an enemy, and he attempts to kill his chief with a concealed weapon. Office defenses foil the attack. Rather than discard Bond, M places him under Sir James Molony's care, and months of neurological and psychological treatment undo much of the conditioning. To determine whether Bond can again function as an agent, M gives him a demanding assignment in Jamaica: find and kill Francisco Scaramanga, a freelance assassin known for his gold-plated pistol and work with hostile and criminal organizations. The mission offers Bond a route back to double-0 duty but is also dangerous enough to serve as a final test of his recovery.

In Jamaica, Bond makes contact with Mary Goodnight, his former secretary and now a member of the local station. Her information helps him follow Scaramanga's trail west. At Tiffy's 3½ Love Lane, Bond encounters the assassin in person and sees his casual cruelty and confidence with a handgun. Instead of attacking immediately in a crowded setting, Bond accepts Scaramanga's offer of well-paid temporary work. He travels with him to the unfinished Thunderbird Hotel, where Scaramanga needs an assistant and security man for a private gathering. Bond's improvised cover places him beside his target, but it also leaves him isolated among Scaramanga's associates, with no safe opportunity yet to carry out M's order.

At the Thunderbird, Bond prepares drinks, records discussions, and watches Scaramanga's guests assemble. The men represent casino, property, narcotics, and other criminal interests. Their conference concerns the failing Jamaican development as well as plans for wider illegal operations and political disruption. Mr. Hendriks stands apart from the American gangsters as a representative of Soviet interests. Bond hides his scrutiny beneath the role of a capable hired assistant while looking for a chance to isolate Scaramanga. The meeting confirms that the gunman is more than a solitary killer: he is protecting a network that combines organized crime with hostile intelligence aims. Bond remains unsuspected for the moment, but Hendriks is waiting for outside information about a British agent believed to be operating in Jamaica.

Bond discovers that Felix Leiter and an American agent named Nicholson are undercover at the hotel, gathering evidence and preparing action against Scaramanga's group. The allies exchange information cautiously while Bond continues serving the conference. Entertainment and staged hospitality give way to mounting suspicion. Mary Goodnight reaches the hotel and warns Bond that his identity is in danger of being transmitted to Hendriks. Her appearance also puts her at risk inside the gang's isolated base. Bond sabotages what he can and prepares for an open fight, while Leiter and Nicholson arrange explosives connected with the development's railway. Scaramanga still uses Bond, but the margin for maintaining the false role is disappearing as Hendriks receives the information he has been awaiting.

Scaramanga takes the conference party on an excursion aboard the property's small train. Hendriks identifies Bond as the British agent sent against them, turning the outing into a planned execution. Goodnight is also caught in the danger, while Leiter and Nicholson move ahead with their attempt to destroy the gang's route and base. Bond fights back aboard the train and gets Goodnight clear before the explosives and gunfire wreck the excursion. The criminal meeting is broken apart and several conspirators are killed. Scaramanga survives the destruction and flees into the marsh country, with the wounded Bond following rather than allowing his primary target to escape. Their mission has narrowed to a direct contest away from the ruined train and the larger operation.

In the marshes, Bond and Scaramanga stalk and shoot at one another after the train's destruction. Scaramanga uses a last concealed weapon to hit Bond with a poisoned bullet, but Bond kills him before collapsing. Bond's allies recover him, and prolonged hospital treatment saves his life. The Thunderbird conspiracy has been shattered, its plans and participants exposed, while Scaramanga's career ends with his death. During Bond's convalescence, the Service proposes a high public honor for his work. He refuses it because public distinction would be incompatible with the anonymous life he intends to resume. Mary Goodnight remains affectionate and imagines a more permanent future with him, but Bond recoils from marriage and chooses continued independence. Restored in body and accepted back into the Service, he completes the mission M gave him as proof of his recovery.

Scaramanga's excursion train becomes the setting for the final clash. Once Bond's identity is known, the journey turns into an attempted execution, but Bond, Felix Leiter, and Nicholson's operation destroys the train and breaks up the conference. Mary Goodnight is brought clear of the danger. Bond and Scaramanga escape the wreck into the marshes, where their pursuit ends in a close gunfight. Scaramanga wounds Bond with a poisoned bullet, but Bond kills him. Bond is found and taken to hospital, where treatment saves his life. The surviving conspirators' plans are exposed, and the Jamaican operation is dismantled. During his recovery Bond declines a high public honor, preferring to remain an anonymous working agent. Goodnight remains close to him, but he does not accept the settled domestic future she imagines, leaving him alive, restored to the Service, and emotionally resistant to permanent commitment.