James Bond DVD collection review #8. By 1972, Sean Connery has really left the building. For some reason, the replacement they chose was the then-46 year old star of the TV spy series The Saint. He would go on to make 7 Bond films, one more than Connery (because Never Say Never Again was not an official Bond movie); he was 57 and looked too old by the mid-80s. He didn't make fans totally forget Connery, but the transition was complete - its the character, not the actor. This Bond had a bit more sensitivity, and injected a bit more of humor in Britain's foremost secret agent. For better or worse, the Roger Moore era began with Live and Let Die.

Live and Let Die (1973) - Guy Hamilton
The Plot
Radical. Drugs and black people. Isn't that a great recurring theme? A Caribbean island is practically a heroin factory, counting on thugs and voodoo to put the people in line (sounds like Haiti). And its leader plans to flood the US market with free drugs that will put their competitors out of business. But of course, they didn't count on a certain secret agent playing the fly in the ointment.
Grade: A-

Locales
NYC, babyyyyyyyy! The Caribbean island of San Monique (say what?). New Orleans and the Louisiana Bayou.
Grade: B+

The Man
Roger Moore. New Bond, new attitude, same ol' love machine. A nice debut.
Grade: A-

The Villain(s)
Kananga/Mr Big (Yaphet Kotto) - We have a Janus here: Kananga, de facto dictator of San Monique, seems like your everyday opportunistic third world head of state; and Mr. Big, up-and-coming drug king of the Western world. Wait a second. 3rd world? The freak has high tech stuff to become a junior SPECTRE. Too bad he was arrogant enough to off 3 British agents thus drawing attention to himself. Head gets uh, too big for such grandiose plans, so it explodes. Literally.

Tee Hee (Julius Harris) - Kananga's premier enforcer (imagine an evil Morgan Freeman). Arm chewed off by alligator, replaced with steel pincers. Would go one-on-one with Bond but ends up getting tossed off a hurtling train (kind of getting to be a Bond tradition).

Baron Samedi (Geoffrey Holder) - Kananga's voodoo priest. Showdown theatrics cut short by getting pushed into a coffinfull of snakes.
Grade: A-

The Girl(s)
Solitaire (Jane Seymour) - Kananga's ace-in-the-hole: a tarot-reader. In short, he knows in advance every move Bond makes. Except she didn't foresee falling for Bond's charms. K-Ching!

Rosie Carver (Gloria Hendry) - we wouldn't want to stereotype now: all the villains of this piece are black. The only sister we see flirting with Bond, turns out to be Kananga plant (duuh.). Gets shot by those high-tech scarecrows guarding the heroin fields.

Ms Caruso (Madeline Smith) - Italian agent doing uh, cross-training with Bond.
Grade: A-

Gadgets
Watch that has a cutting saw and also emits magnetic field. Useful for slicing ropes and pinching bullets when no one's looking. Also for unzipping women's dresses.

This wasn't Bond's - a sidemirror gun to shoot Bond's chauffeur. Why hasn't anyone picked up on that idea?

Hang glider. Did this start the trend?
Grade: A-

Bond Moments
What else is New Orleans known for, except Mardi Gras? Well, there's those street funerals that make it up as it goes along (e.g., picking the coffin's occupant from the street.

To seduce Solitaire, Bond stacks the deck in his favor by making her pick a Lovers card (from a deck-full of Lovers cards).

Bond skip-hops through a bunch of gators and crocs. Watching the making of the scene, that was amazing.

One of the best action scenes of all time would be the never-ending powerboat chase through the Louisiana bayou.

To balance the portrayal of blacks as the bad guys, the movie tosses in some redneck cops led by the irrepressible and funny Sheriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James). He steals the scenes he's in.
Grade: B

One Liners
(Sheriff JW Pepper, finally catching up with Bond after the long and crash-laden powerboat chase)
JW Pepper: What are you, some kinda doomsday machine, boy???

(Sheriff Pepper is informed Bond is a British secret agent)
JW Pepper: Secret agent?! On whose side??

(Bond explaining his gadget watch to his boss M)
Bond: By pulling out this button, it turns the watch into a hyper-intensified magnetic field. Powerful enough to even deflect the path of a bullet - at long range, or so Q claims...
M: I feel very tempted to test that theory right now!

(during the unzipping)
Ms Caruso: Such a delicate touch.
Bond: Sheer magnetism, darling.

(meeting Mr Big)
Bond: My name is -
Mr Big: Names are for tombstones, baby!

(after seducing Solitaire)
Solitaire: Is there time before you leave for lesson #3?
Bond: Absolutely. There's no sense in going off half-cocked.

(after Kananga blows up)
Solitaire: Where's Kananga?
Bond: Well, he always did have an inflated opinion of himself.
Grade: A-

Overall
Pressure replacing Connery? No pressure. Moore does better than anyone expected.
Grade: A-


Before Princess Leia and Princess Amidala, there was ... Solitaire.