Thus on the ground floor the honest coolie can choose a girl of his own class and gamble for pennies by lowering his bet on a fishing-rod contraption through a hole in the floor on to the gambling-tables below.-Ian Fleming, Thrilling Cities
While recently reading the section about Hong Kong, I began to wonder whether Saltzman's move of The Man with the Golden Gun from Jamaica--where the novel took place--to Hong Kong was inspired by Fleming's Thrilling Cities. There was not a lot directly from the film in the book but there were references to a martial arts school, a Sumo match (in Japan) and then there was the above passage (which was about Macao actually). I don't think Saltzman actually used the book for parts of the script but rather turned to it for location ideas instead of having two Bond films in a row set in the Caribbean.
Okay, it's just a theory, but it's one I'd like to hear other takes on. It's quite obvious that Fleming based much of the novel You Only Live Twice on the trip to Tokyo he wrote about in Thrilling Cities ('Tiger' Saito, 'Dikko' Hughes, and the girl named Kissy are evidence of that), but did the film series ever turn to the book? Particularly, did The Man with the Golden Gun use Fleming's travelogue for inspiration?
If you haven't read Thrilling Cities, you should really try to pick up a copy. It's quite like reading a Bond novel but without the plot, intrigue, and violence, but all of that is replaced by Fleming's wonderful sense of humour (and some by his grumpiness as you travel nearer to New York.) A bit of a warning though about buying Thrilling Cities, not all versions contain the short story “007 in New York”. You might make sure the copy you're buying has the story in it before you make a purchase.
