Live and Let Die marked Roger Moore's inauspicious screen debut as 007. He had big shoes to fill with Connery gone, and this first of his long series of Bond associations proved less than promising.
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Goodbye, Sean; hello, Roger. "Live and Let Die" marked Roger Moore's inauspicious screen debut as 007. He had big shoes to fill with Connery gone, and this first of his long series of Bond associations proved less than promising. It is said that Moore was author Ian Fleming's first choice for Bond as far back as 1962, but Moore was unavailable at the time, preparing for "The Saint." Lucky us. One thing, though: He looks great in a sport coat.
In an effort to recapture the spirit of earlier Bonds, producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman brought in director Guy Hamilton, who had previously done "Goldfinger" and "Diamonds Are Forever," and screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz, who had written "Diamonds Are Forever" and would later do "The Man With the Golden Gun."
Next, they set a part of the story in a location, Jamaica, reminiscent of "Dr. No" and made sure Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell showed up to reprise their roles as M and Moneypenny. They added Yaphet Kotto as the villainous kingpin, Kananga, and Jane Seymour as the chaste, psychic heroine, Solitaire. Finally, they stirred in Julius W. Harris as a mechanical-armed heavy, Geoffrey Holder as a musically inclined baddie, Clifton James as a harried redneck sheriff, plus a whole lot of alligators, crocodiles, drug smuggling deals, boat chases, and voodoo mumbo-jumbo. Everything was tied together by a title song from Paul and Linda McCartney, perhaps the best part of the film.
Did much of it work besides the song? Not really. Moore is suave, debonair, and unflappable, to be sure, but he's relatively bland compared to Connery and, worse, doesn't look as if he could really handle himself in a pinch. When he goes into a bar in downtown Harlem we have little confidence in his ability to get out alive. He's too handsome, too pretty in effect, to project the aura of invincibility a really tough Bond needs. Moore's recourse would be to play Bond increasingly tongue-in-cheek in future issues.
Then there's the plot. To be blunt, it has no pace; it simply meanders. By halfway through the film we don't know where the story is going or what the villains are up to. Kotto is never given a chance to stretch as the antagonist and winds up as one of the series' least memorable evil doers, just as Seymour is nearly forgotten as the love interest. And it seems almost perverse of Bond to seduce her, an untouched maiden, even though in the convoluted plot losing her virginity is the only way she can escape Kananga's clutches. Maybe a double-0 number gives Bond the right to do more than just kill. The film's release date, 1973, is dated by its Afro hairstyles, long sideburns, paisley shirts, and garish colors. Gad, it's Austin Powers!
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[release]3008[/release]