The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

There's a long stretch in the middle of this ninth James Bond movie, the second starring Roger Moore, that plays out like the Dukes of Hazzard with a car doing a loop-the-loop over a bridge complete with zany popwhistle sound effects while a Boss Hog character gets hot and bothered in the back seat, and other stretches of the movie, which features Nick-Nack the "midget" butler, Miss Goodnight the Bond Girl and Mr Scaramonga the assassin with a superfluous nipple and a golden gun, resemble Fantasy Island and the old tv The Avengers, but not much of it feels like quality James Bond with the movie erring on the side of camp parody.

★★☆☆☆

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Endless Night (1972)

I can think of three other Agatha Christie books that use the same major plot device but this film version of Endless Night, about a chauffeur whose dreams of owning a house at Gypsy's Acre come true when he marries well, is played as a thriller, not a murder mystery - the body count is still zero at the 75 minute mark - and there is a touch of the paranormal with one elderly gypsy character drifting around spouting macabre stuff about a curse, making it a more interesting film version than many adaptations of the Queen of Crime's books.

★★★☆☆

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The Wicker Man (1973)

A policeman heads to a Scottish island to investigate a young girl's disappearance and discovers a veritable Pitcairn of pagan craziness, but the most troubling thing by far is the sight of Christopher Lee in a series of mustard-coloured skivvies.

★★★★☆

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