Right OK so its about time I did another post and this un will be on another James Bond film and I've opted to go for Live and Let Die, Roger Moore's debut in the role. So let's raise those eyebrows, get out the fancy gadgets and give this un a look....
So the story begins with the deaths of three MI6 agents who are all killed in mysterious circumstances, while they were monitoring the operations of Dr Kananga (Yaphet Kotto) a dictator of a small island, San Monique in the Carribean. James Bond (Moore) is then assigned to investigate the death of the agent in New York and Kananga is also there, visiting the United Nations. Bond's driver however is killed by a passing motorist when he travels enroute to meet his FBI buddy, Felix Liter (David Hedison) which nearly causes a car crash. Bond is then able to trace the killer's licence plate to Mr Big, a ruthless gangster who runs a chain of restaurants throughout the United States. Bond entering one of Mr Big's restaurants is taken to see Mr Big who orders to have him killed, but before he is taken out, Bond meets Mr Big's tarot, Solitaire, a beautiful young women who can see both the future and events that happen remotely in the present. Bond manages to escape and is soon lead back to Felix by one of Felix's men and after this Bond travels to San Monique where he meets up with a rookie FBI agent, Rosie Carver (Gloria Hendry). Together with Rosie, Bond travels on a boat along with Bond's friend, Quarrel Jr (Roy Stewart) to Solitaire's home. However Bond suspects Rosie of being a double agent and working for Kananga and forces her to tell him what is going but she flees and is killed remotely by Kananga, by a dart. Bond then sneaks into Solitaire's home and tricks her by showing a tarot card that they will be "Lovers" and uses this to seduce her, although we soon see he was holding a stacked set of "Lovers" cards. Solitaire shortly afterward reluctantly agrees to help Bond bring down Kananga and they flee and escape the island and travel to New Orleans.
After arriving in New Orleans however Bond is captured and taken to Mr Big who angrily insists did he touch Solitaire but Bond insists he will only reveal this to Kananga, which prompts Mr Big to reveal that he is in fact Kananga by removing facial make-up. Kananga also reveals that he is producing two tonnes of heroin and uses the locals fear of voodoo and the occult to keep the poppy fields safe. Kananga eventually also plans on giving away the heroin by using his alter ego of Mr Big to increase the drug addicts in America, so he can drive his other competitors out of the business and hike up the prices for his own benefit. Bond however refuses to admit that he seduced Solitaire and he is instead knocked out by Kananga's henchman, Tee Hee Johnson (Julius Harris) who has a prosthetic arm and taken away. Kananga then expresses his anger at Solitaire as he said it should have been him that claimed her virginity and not anyone else. Meanwhile Bond is taken to a crocodile farm where he is left by Tee Hee to be eaten by crocodiles, but Bond manages to escape by running along the crocodiles backs and he steals a speedboat, which leads into a big chase where he is persued by Kananga's men and the Louisiana state police, which includes Sheriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James). After Bond successfully evades Kananga's men he travels back to San Monique in order to save Solitaire who has been ordered to be put to death by Kananga at the hands of Baron Samedi (Geoffrey Holder). And from here Bond must try and rescue not only Solitaire but put a stop to Kananga's nefarious schemes once and for all......
As a debut for Roger Moore in the role of 007, Live and Let Die is a very entertaining and impressive Bond film, which saw the series undergo a refreshing change in pace and in tone of the franchise. The film also was somewhat daring and a little controversial in its use of black villains and it mirrored the idea of militant black groups of the time such as the Black Panthers in America. Initially the producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli were keen to have Sean Connery star in the role again, however Connery declined, which saw a big casting take place to replace the leading role, which eventually went to Roger Moore.
Performance wise things are generally good with Roger Moore who while he is not the world's best actor he still provides a charismatic performance as 007 and he has his fair share of good one liners and he incorporates a good mix of humour and seriousness when required. Moore has quite a few highlights in the film such as his first scene where he hides an Italian girl he is seeing in a closet and he receivesba briefing from M and after he goes he lets out the girl and uses his magnetised watch to unzip her dress and she says "Such a delicate touch!" and Bond quips "sheer magnetism, darling!". Then there is the scene where he kills a snake that is let loose in his hotel room by using a cigarette lighter and aftershave spray and casually uses the spray on himself afterward! Another scene is when he is being chased by Kananga's men and he steals a biplane to evade them pretending to be the instructor to a client and he says to her after smashing through some hangar bay doors to escape them "Same time next week, Mrs Bell??". Then there is the scene when Bond seduces Solitaire and after they have slept with one another he says "Darling, I must admit I had the decked slightly stacked in my favour" after he tricked by using a stack of tarot cards that with the lovers symbol on them. And lastly there is Bond's climactic fight scened first with Kananga where he forces him to swallow a compressed air pellet which causes him literally burst which must rank as one of the funniest ever Bond deaths and Bond after says "Well he always did have an inflated opinion of himself!". And last of all is Bond's fight with Tee Hee where he cuts the wires inside his prosthetic arm which locks to the train window and Bond opens the window and throws Tee Hee out leaving his arm! Bond then dumps the arm out the window as Solitaire asks what he is doing he says "Just being disarming, darling!".
Yaphet Kotto is great in his role as the main villain, Dr Kananga who also uses his alter ego of Mr Big to sell drugs in order to expand his drug empire. Kotto has his fair share of highlights such as the the scene where Kananga is disguised as Mr Big in his first scene and he meets briefly with Bond and says "Name's are for tombstones, baby! Take this honky outside and waste him!". Also Mr Big's second scene is a really good one (in fact its Yaphet's best scene in the film) where he angrily confronts Bond again demanding to know if he had slept with Solitaire and he says "You damn lucky you got an ear left to hear the question with! Which is (pointing to Solitaire) did you mess with that?" and Bond refuses to answer which prompts Mr Big to yell "You ain't gonna see the sunlight unless you answer me, boy! DID YOU TOUCH HER???!". And Bond firmly says "When I see Kananga!" which prompts Mr Big to reveal himself to be Kananga by tearing off his face make-up. And later in the same scene when Kananga has Bond strapped into his chair and Tee Hee uses the pincer on his prosthetic arm to grab Bonds' pinky! And Kananga says "Tee Hee, from the first wrong answer from Solitaire, you will snip the little finger on Mr Bond's right hand. Starting with the second wrong answer you may proceed to the more.... VITAL areas!". And later after Bond is taken away, Kananga grows angry with Solitaire and slaps her and says "When the time came, I myself would have given you love. You knew that. YOU KNEW THAT!!!" and he continues "There is only one proper way to deal with this" and Baron Samedi who is in the room with them picks a tarot card that says "Death" and Kananga continues "and one proper time!". Amusingly enough the name Kananga came from the owner of a crocodile farm, Ross Kananga, whom the film crew discovered while location scouting in Jamaica for the film. The film's writer, Tom Mankiewicz, then later decided to write in the farm to the script and also named the main villain as Kananga as a result.
Jane Seymour while she is a decent actress (and a lovely looking lady) she actually provides the film's weakest performance as Solitaire as her character is almost like a spoilt child who is kept in the dark and Bond eventually deflowers her. And her character largely talks in cliches and most of Seymour's dialogue is pretty hackneyed. This is especially noted near the end where she waits for James to come out the bathroom on the train and she says "for the first time in my life I feel like a complete woman!". Acchh sheeddup. Although Seymour does seem to enjoy conveying Solitaire's repressed sexual desires after Bond takes her virginity, she all of a sudden appears to be a bit horny after they have first slept together. And in the scene Bond explains the first two rules of the lovers and Solitaire asks "Is there enough time for lesson number 3?".
Julius Harris on the other hand is really good in his role as Kananga's main henchman, Tee Hee, who has a prosphetic arm as the result of an unfortunate dalliance with a crocodile. And Harris's best scene comes when he takes Bond to the crocodile farm and he shows him around the farm before leaving Bond stranded with the crocs. And Tee Hee says to Bond "There are two ways to disable a crocodile you know" and as Bond asks "I don't suppose you'd care to share that information with me" and Tee Hee says "One way is to take a pencil, and jam it into the pressure hole between his eye" and Bond asks "and the other?" and Tee Hee responds "oh the other is twice as simple. You just put your hand in its mouth and pull it teeth out!". David Hedison, one of the rarest of actors to have played Felix Liter twice does well with his role of the FBI agent here and in fact in a way you could almost see him as the definitive choice to play the part and in a way its a pity he wasn't recast in the part more often.
Geoffrey Holder is quite effective in his role of Baron Samedi, one of the Kananga's henchmen who has links to the occult and voodoo. Samedi is also noted in the film as the man who never dies and this certainly appears to be the case as in his second last scene after he struggles with Bond, Bond punches Samedi into a coffin of snakes, apparently he is killed off, but later we see him sitting on the end of the train at the very end of the film, cackling madly. Gloria Hendry on the other hand is quite annoying in her part as the inept FBI agent, Rosie Carver who has a brief liaison on with Bond but turns out to be a double agent working for Kananga.
And last of all we have Clifton James as the infamous Sheriff J.W. Pepper who is quite a memorable but also annoying character in the Bond franchise as he is essentially just a redneck cop who loves to spout "boy!" every five seconds and spits out also every five seconds! Still James has a few amusing moments in the film and fun lines of dialogue such as in the scene where his car has been wrecked by a boat landing on it. And Pepper walks slowly up to another patrol car and says to the driver "By the powers invested in me by this parish, I hereby do commandeer this vehicle and all those persons within! And that means YOU smartass!". And after Bond has evaded Kananga's men and Pepper finally catches up with him he looks disgusted with him and says "What are you?! Some kinda doomsday machine, boy? Well WE gotta a cage strong enough to hold you!". And at this point one of the state troopers tells Pepper who Bond is and Pepper reacts incredulously "Secret AGENT?!! On WHOSE SIDE???!!".
As for the director, Guy Hamilton does an excellent job here and he was already an established veteran of the series by then and he confidently handles the film's fast action and setpieces admirably well. And I can't forget to mention the film's excellent music by the Beatles producer, George Martin, who provides an impressive arrangement of orchestral tracks along with the use of guitar, bass and percussion. And there is of course also the film's great title theme sung by Paul MacCartney from Wings, which to this day still stands out as one of the very best Bond title themes.
So as for the film's flaws???? Well.... Live and Let Die does have some problems, perhaps the first one could be the film could be seen to have some racial overtones in the depiction of its black villains but it morely mirrors the Blaxploitation films of the time and heavily borrows from them in the depiction of the African American gangsters. However the film does thankfully manage to steer mostly clear of any direct racial bigotry and potrays Bond as not being prejudiced in any way in the film as he even has a brief romance with Rosie Carver and is good friends with Quarrel Jr (played by Roy Stewart). One of the other problems the film has is that it does lag in places, particularly in the chase scenes on Kananga's island where Bond and Solitaire try to escape using a bus as this scene is pretty boring and feels flat but thankfully the pacing picks up again after that scene. There is also the inclusion of characters such as Sheriff J.W. Pepper where his bigoted nature and bumbling sense of humour could appear to be an attempt to appeal to the audience but by doing so it would be playing on the amusement of his prejudiced attitude as well, which makes his character in itself a little uneasy to watch in the film. Yet they decided to bring Pepper back into The man with the golden gun (which I have already reviewed) as if he was such a great an amusing character but overall he is just an arse and a bigoted one at that.
Anyway despite those niggles Live and Let Die is still a very entertaining and solid entry in the Bond series and it saw Roger Moore make a fine start in his debut of the role, which he would play for a further 12 years (although I think its safe to say he was getting a bit too old for the part by then!).
And with that I shall say to yee's goodnight!
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