Live and Let Die

(Here be spoilers if you are yet to see the James Bond movies...)

The Mission
M (Bernard Lee) dispatches James Bond (Roge rMoore) to Harlem, New York, to investigate the murders of three MI6 agents. The murders have been connected to Kananga (Yaphet Kotto), the dictator of a caribbean island named San Monique, and a Harlem gangster named Mr. Big. Soon Bond is tracking one of the largest heroin smuggling operations the world has ever seen, and finds himself facing an array of jive-talking gangsters and voodoo fanatics.

Jimmy Bond Yo!
Roger Moore begins his reign as the definitive 1970s James Bond in this film, giving a fitting but different interpretation of the character. He doesn't go out of his way to be distinctive but still manages to put his own self-assured stamp on it. It's a more chummy and lighthearted performance than the previous Bonds, and Moore has great fun with a polite 'old boy' routine. His wisecracks are less smug than Connery's aloof characterisation, like they're more of a nervous habit or a mechanism designed to charm the opposition. In Connery's hands the wisecracks always sounded like they were strictly for Bond's own amusement, whereas Moore turns them into something a bit more practical or reflective of the character's psyche.

Bond's house is the typically classy bachelor pad one might expect from a superspy, complete with polished oak furnishings and a luxurious espresso machine (quite futuristic for the early 1970s). He goes to great lengths to hide his girl when M comes calling in the middle of the night, and has now taken to wearing black leather gloves. He also smokes cigars now (even while hang gliding!), can drive a bus and a speedboat, knows how to interpret tarot cards, and is savvy with a fishing rod.

Villainy
Yaphet Kotto plays Kananga, a seemingly righteous black tyrant who turns out to be the head of a rather lucrative heroin business. He's fairly humourless and cold-hearted, and has also taken to disguising himself as a Harlem druglord called Mr. Big. His masterplan is to distribute a billion dollars worth of heroin across America in order to jack up demand. As Mr. Big he has a rather pimptastic headquarters hidden behind a false wall in a Harlem restaurant. He also has a warehouse and crocodile farm near New Orleans, and (predictably) keeps a vicious pet shark in his lair back in San Monique.

Tee Hee Johnson (Julius Harris) is Kananga's main henchman - a genial giant with a robotic arm and penchant for chuckling as he goes about his violent business. He's one of the more interesting henchmen the series has created up until this point. Other henchmen include Whisper, a fat man with a beard and a hoarse voice, and Baron Samedi (the iconic voodoo figure in top hat and skeleton paint).

Buddies and Babes
Felix Leiter (David Hedison) makes his fifth appearance in the franchise as Bond's CIA man. They have a professional and easygoing working relationship but Leiter still gets exasperated by the trail of destruction Bond leaves in his wake.

Bond's main girl in Live and Let Die is Solitaire (Jane Seymour), a tarot card-reading employee of Kananga with the power of second sight. She's rather fey and naive, and lives in fear of losing her powers due to Kananga threatening to kill her should this ever happen. Bond becomes her way out, though at some points in the film it isn't entirely clear who she is loyal to.

Bond is also seen enjoying the company of Miss Caruso (Madeline Smith), an Italian girl he picked up at the end of his last (unseen) mission, and double-agent Rosie Carver (Gloria Hendry), a rather green CIA agent warned against Bond's womanising by Felix. Bond also gets help from two token black good guys - CIA agent Harold Strutter and Quarrel Jr (the son of Quarrel from Dr. No).


Locations
It's the grand tour of 70s blaxploitation locales, with the film set equally in Harlem, New Orleans and the island of San Monique (the first fictional country to be featured in the series). Harlem is mainly represented via a smokey restaurant-bar called the Fillet of Soul and crumbling New York slums, whereas New Orleans brings with it the requisite street-jazz, swamp shacks, crocodiles and redneck sheriffs. Jamaica stands in for San Monique, a fictional nation that brings with it all the stereotypical trappings of voodoo - snakes, sacrifices and Baron Samedi.

Gadgets and Tricks of the Trade
Bond gets a special magnetic watch from Q that can be used to unzip dresses and draw metal objects closer. It also doubles as a small circular saw. 007 also carries a bug-detecting device and a gun that shoots compressed gas pellets.

Always resourceful, James Bond takes care of a rather nasty snake by lighting his aftershave with a stogie. He always gets out of a rather sticky situation by using a group of crocodiles as stepping stones.

Licence to Kill
Echoing Connery's first fatality in Dr. No (a spider), Moore's first kill as James Bond is the brutal frying of a snake courtesy of a makeshift flamethrower. It's mentioned that he kills one of Mr. Big's men after scuffling with them in a Harlem alleyway but this is probably unintentional as Bond seems to just knock the goons out by dropping a ladder on them. More impressively, he blows up a man and his speedboat by using a tin can full of gasoline and some precious boat-driving. He also shoots dead two men during a voodoo ceremony, throws another into a coffin full of deadly snakes, and force feeds Kananga a gas pellet that inflates him to death. Finally, in the film's epilogue, he throws Kananga's chief hencman through a train window.

Shag-Rate
Roger Moore's first scene as James Bond is a post-coital one, courtesy of Miss Caruso, an Italian agent he picks up on an unseen adventure. He later spends the night with Rosie Carver, and shags her again in the forest after a spot of lunch. Last but not least, he uses Solitaire's belief in tarot to convince her that they're destined to be lovers, and beds her as a means to getting information. She then requests a second round, despite Bond admitting some duplicity on his part.

Quotes
BLACK CABDRIVER: Hey man, for 20 bucks I'll take you a Ku Klux Klan cookout!

BOND (after hearing Felix Leiter's voice coming from a special cigarette lighter) A genuine Felix lighter. How illuminating.

CARVER: I'm afraid I'm gonna be useless to you.
BOND: Oh I'm sure we can lick you into shape.

BLACK CABDRIVER: Well hello Jim, what's happening baby? Just ease back now Jim - relax. Mr B wants to see you.

KANANGA: Did you touch her?
BOND: Well, it's not the sort of question a gentleman answers.

KANANGA: What shall we drink to, Mr. Bond?
BOND: How 'bout an earthquake?


How Does It Rate?
One of the funnest Bond films to date, the series get dragged into the 1970s with a renewed sense of humour and the confidence to try something a bit different. Made during the height of the blaxploitation era, this is James Bond getting amongst hip black cats and black magic. Instead of foiling a plot to rule the world he's up against heroin dealers and voodoo-inspired fear tactics. It's a great turnabout after the rather stale Diamonds Are Forever - it's good to see the series off in a fresh new direction away from SPECTRE and Blofeld, and with an enthusiastic leading man in the form of Roger Moore.

Whereas the 1960s Bond films build on cold war fears of nuclear destruction, Live and Let Die uses the 1970s white fear of post-civil rights black anger as inspiration for its villains. It's a little problematic in the sense that there's an implication that all the black characters are in league with each other, like it's a black conspiracy (witness the character of Rosie Carver, and the likeable jive-talking taxi driver who turns out to be another one of Mr. Big's employees), but the danger of actual racism becomes somewhat irrelevant once it's revealed that Kananga's grand plan isn't to hold the world to ransom or exact revenge on white oppressors; he simply wants to sell a crapload of drugs. In this sense it all feels a little bit silly, the film is very much a product of its time and feels slightly unique for a James Bond film, but this is also a big part of its charm. The Paul McCartney-penned theme tune really seals the deal too, with the music being used as a dramatic sting for certain sequences to great effect.

It's not a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination, the speedboat chase becomes an excuse for a series of gags and the over-the-top comedy character of Sheriff J. W. Pepper (Clifton James). Some of the formula beats are getting a little predictable too - the last minute appearance of the chief henchman after everything seems done and dusted is starting to feel old, but these are really just minor things. I love the way Moore just breezes into the role like it's always been his, I love the music and the way the whole film leans so heavily into the blaxploitation genre, and most of all - I love that final shot of Baron Samedi on the train!

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DIRECTOR: Guy Hamilton
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Tony Mankiewicz, based on the novel by Ian Fleming,
KEY ACTORS: Roger Moore, Yaphet Kotto, Jane Seymour, Julius Harris, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, Clifton James, Geoffrey Holder, David Hedison, Earl Jolly Brown, Roy Stewart, Gloria Hendry.

RELATED TEXTS:
- The novel Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming, which was actually the 2nd James Bond novel.
- Jamaica was previously used for location-filming in Dr. No.
- James Bond had previously visited the United States of America in Diamonds Are Forever and Goldfinger. He previously visited the caribbean in Dr. No and Thunderball.
- The blaxploitation sub-genre was at its most popular from 1971 to 1977... the two main films often credited with kickstarting it are Sweet Sweetbacks Badasssss Song and Shaft. Often popular or acclaimed blaxploitation films are Cleopatra Jones, Super Fly, Across 110th Street, Coffy and Blackula.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated Best Song (Live and Let Die)