Live And Let Die (1973)

Bond
James Bond


Why is the only good poster in all the internet a novel cover?

Bond: Roger Moore (Octopussy • A View To A Kill)

Bond Girl: Solitaire  Played By: Jane Seymour (Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger • "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman")
Bond Villain: Mister Big  Played By: Yaphet Kotto (Alien • The Running Man)
Villain's Goon: Tee Hee  Played By: Julius Harris (King Kong (1976) • Super Fly)
Villain's Goon: Baron Samedi  Played By: Geoffrey Holder (Annie • Boomerang)
Villain's Goon: Whisper  Played By: Earl Jolly Brown (Black Belt Jones)

Genre: Action Adventure Thriller (UK) 

Directed By: Guy Hamilton (Goldfinger • The Man with the Golden Gun)

Overview: When three British agents monitoring the Caribbean island of San Monique are assassinated, Bond is sent to investigate. He goes from Harlem to New Orleans to follows the trail of 'Mr. Big', a heroin druglord with, you guessed it, another even greater sinister plot.

 
After having doubted the staying power of James Bond, after having seen Connery begin to crest that hillock of 'too old for the job', Roger Moore picks up the Walther PPK and runs with our superspy extraordinaire, setting a fairly high expectation with Live and Let Die. A Bond film entirely different than the rest, Live and Let Die is rich with mood and theme, and though not as dark and full of voodoo cult awesome as I had hoped, Bond Number 8, Roger Moore's first of seven attempts in James' shoes, is genuinely incredible.

We open with Brits getting whacked left and right, then the credits are complete with a nude whose grand bosom speaks volumes. We shortly cut to Bond already in bed with a recent addition to the tally, and already I'm intrigued. Bond is sent to various destinations. He is confronted in Harlem by swaggering odds of puffed out pimps. He and his African-American CIA contact are attacked in the Caribbean by groovin' guys, and haunted in New Orleans by Voodoo cultists. It's certainly one of the funnest adventures Bond has had, and the exuberance and personalities of Mr. Big's goons are so grand that all three deserve mention, as you can see in my above credits. In fact, I even bumped Oddjob and Vargas out to make room for Baron Samedi and Tee Hee.

Sadly the issues I had with this latest Bond was the hope and expectation that the voodoo / tarot undercurrent would be terrifying rather than campy, and though some scenes are dark, such terror is quickly diminished by the antics of bayou sheriff Pepper, overly played by Clifton James, famous for playing the creepy Warden in Cool Hand Luke. Still, there's no action scene like that speedboat chase through Louisiana swampland.

And what of Roger Moore, the man who tried to do what Lazenby failed at? The man who would replace Sean? After an hour of watching Live And Let Die, I turned to my guest and commented how I just realized that I had no issues. With George Lazenby, the differences were glaring; with Moore, the transition is seamless. All that to say that I'm looking forward to much… Moore.

ZING!

And for ye who hoped to get a moment of insignt from our happy little review, I'll add that most impressive was the honest attitude present in those South-set scenes. Frequently we saw moments of exaggerated racism dripping from honkies as they slowly spit the title 'Boy' to the blacks. These were the pleasantly surprising little moments of social commentary that were unexpected from a campy action film. Which only reminds me how dissapointed I was at The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and how it completely ignored this societal stratum in the early 1900s, a film you would hope would push some context rather than ignore it for the sake of a love story.

 
And yes, without a doubt, the most amazing of all the Goons yet

Performance: 9 Cinematography: 9 Script: 8 Plot: 9 Mood: 8

Overall Rating: 86% (A Real Killer!)

SuperSpyStats

Personal bodycount: 6

Foiled Assassinations: 6

Near Misses: 0

Dames Bedded: 3

Martinis Drank: 0

What's all this?