Bondathon: Live and Let Die

1973’s marked the start of a new era for the Bond franchise with Roger Moore taking over the Bond role.

Three British agents have been killed in the space of 24 hours whilst investigating a Caribbean dictator and a New York drug lord. M assigns Bond the mission to investigate what happened and carry on with their work. His mission takes him to New York, New Orleans, and the Caribbean.

I have a soft spot for Live and Let Die because it is the first Bond film I remember seeing. I have vivid memories of watching it with my brother in his room. Scenes that stuck in my mind were when Tee Hee (Julius W. Harris) left Bond on an island in the crocodile farm, Kananga (Yaphet Kotto) cutting Bond’s arm, and Kananga’s death scene. It shows how powerful an impression a film can have on a young person.

I derided Diamonds Are Forever because of its campy tone, overuse of comedy, poor production values, and a ridiculous plot. Diamonds Are Forever was made as a counterweight to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service which audiences reacted negatively to. Live and Let Die was able to find the right mix of serious spy plot, Bond ridiculousness, big action set-pieces, and humour.

Live and Let Die had some excellent action sequences. This was the film with a massive car chase where Bond drove a double-decker bus and had the boat chase in the Irish Bayou. Both scenes have lots of clashes and carriage and the boat chase was one of the most iconic action scenes from the Moore era. These were scenes that were filmed on location and didn’t need to rely on back-projection like the previous films. The stunt involving Bond running on the back of three crocodiles was done for real. This set the standard for and expectation from the Bond franchise: breath-taking and revolutionary stunts.

Kananga’s plot was to flood America with heroin so he would force his competitors out of business and monopolise the drug trade. This was the right level for what a villain’s plot could be: it was grand and ambitious but still in the realm of possibility. The villains weren’t trying to end the world such as in films like the villains in You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and Diamonds Are Forever. The use of drugs as the villain’s plot helped give Live and Let Die a sense of grit.

Guy Hamilton came back to direct his third film in the series. He was able to balance the plot, action, and humour. Even in his first film Moore was a master at delivering quips and there was plenty of humour during the action sequences. Most of the action scenes had a knockabout quality to them because vehicles crash around all over the place. Bond’s introduction was comedic because he was hiding one of his conquests from M and Moneypenny helped out our hero.

Live and Let Die did have a fine collection of villains. Kananga was secretly Mr. Big, so was both the supplier and distributor of heroin. As Mr. Big, he was a stereotypical black gangster who dressed in his finest pimp outfits, whilst Kananga was a more refined yet psychotic figure. Kotto was younger than Moore so he was more of a physical threat. The henchmen were memorable. Tee Hee was big, imposing, and notable because of his claw hand. Geoffrey Holder as the voodoo priest Baron Samedi was wonderfully theatrical and creepy and had a fantastic laugh. Even a minor character played by Arnold Williams was memorable because of the dialogue he was given.

Paul McCartney and Wings provided Live and Let Die one of the greatest Bond themes. It was different to the previous Bond themes because it had a rock style which helped it stand out. The composer, George Martin used the song’s instrumentals during the action sequences which was a fun touch.

Whilst Live and Let Die was a solid entry in the series there were also some serious problems. I have criticised other Bond films for going down the sci-fi route, so I have to criticise Live and Let Die for its supernatural elements. In the film, the Bond girl, Solitaire (Jane Seymour) was a tarot card reader who made accurate predictions and only lost her abilities after sleeping with Bond. The scene where Solitaire was going to be sacrificed looked like it should have been in an Indiana Jones, especially when Bond shot a copy of Baron Samedi. Live and Let Die ends in a baffling way because Baron Samedi (who had been killed in the film) was sitting on the front of a train and laughing at the audience.

Every villain in the film were black. This was understandable because the Kananga was a Caribbean dictator and Mr. Big was a Harlem-based gangster. But there was a troubling scene was when Bond was going through New York and it seemed like every black person was monitoring the agent and radioing each other. Even one of the Bond girls was in league with the villains. There were only two black characters who were allies of Bond, CIA agent Harry Strutter (Lou Satton) and Quarrel Jr. (Roy Stewart), the son of Quarrel from Dr. No.

The Bond franchise series was a trendsetter in the ‘60s. There were many spy films and TV shows being made to capitalise on the Bond franchise’s success. Live and Let Die turned Bond from being a trendsetter to a trend follower because the film was influenced by the Blaxploitation movement of the early ‘70s. It was an odd mix but Live and Let Die was able to make it work. However, this started an unfortunate precedent because future Bond films followed popular trends: i.e. martial arts (The Man With the Golden Gun), sci-fi epics (Moonraker), and shaky cam action (Quantum of Solace).

This period of the series had the unfortunate trait of having hopeless Bond girls. Diamonds Are Forever had Tiffany Case and The Man With the Golden Gun had one of the worst Bond girls, Mary Goodnight. Live and Let Die had Rosie Carver (Gloria Hendry), a CIA agent operating in San Monique and she became so frightened so easily that it was a wonder that she was a CIA agent.

Moore’s Bond in this film came around as a sleazeball. Bond had sex with Rosie before confronting her about her treachery and tricked Solitaire into sleeping with him by using a stacked pack of tarot cards. Connery could get away with this because he could be brutalist and rakish but Moore didn’t have that aggression so couldn’t pull off these scenes. It doesn’t help that there was a large age difference between Moore and Seymour which made them look like father and daughter rather than lovers.

Even though Live and Let Die was Moore’s first film he did have a lacklustre introduction. Every other Bond actor had a grand introduction whilst in Live and Let Die M just visits Bond at his home. This was properly done to show it was just business as normal and that Moore’s Bond was a continuation of Connery and Lazenby’s Bonds.

Live and Let Die was a fun adventure in the Bond series. It was a good opening adventure for Moore thanks to its action sequences, and a solid plot that overrode the issues that affected the film. Moore declared it his second favourite Bond film he made.