Live and Let Die (1973)

Replacing Sean Connery is a tall order; George Lazenby already tried it, with mostly successful results.  With Live and Let Die, Roger Moore – fresh off a comparable turn as Simon Templar in The Saint – steps into those big shoes in a Bond film that’s quite Seventies, quite American, and quite different from what we’ve seen thus far.  But is it any good?  The verdict in brief is that the film itself isn’t a fantastic first entry for Moore, though he acquits himself well in the role.

A series of mysterious murders puts Bond, James Bond (Moore) on the trail of Dr. Kananga (Yaphet Kotto) and the heroin kingpin Mr. Big from Harlem to the voodoo swamps of Louisiana.  When Bond falls in with the virginal fortuneteller Solitaire (Jane Seymour), he becomes enmeshed in the gang’s activities and must face a gauntlet of unusual henchmen before coming face-to-face with Mr. Big himself.

I’ve said that the best Bond films are the ones where Bond has to piece together clues in order to uncover the big mastermind behind the plot, but there’s something quite maddening about how long it takes for Bond to discover the big twist – (spoiler warning) that Dr. Kananga is Mr. Big.  It’s barely a revelation, concealed by some poor prosthetics and an unconvincing voice modulation, and the way in which the film quickly disposes of the big reveal makes me wonder why it’s even in the plot at all.  I’d much rather have spent more time on Mr. Big’s oddball henchmen – the hoarse-voiced Whisper, the prosthetic-clawed Tee Hee, and the voodoo Loa Baron Samedi (who may or may not be immortal).  These characters are reduced to window dressing by the film, which unfortunately never gives them the chance to shine as Goldfinger did for Oddjob.

As the resident Bond girl, Jane Seymour is naïve yet sexy, a compelling love interest for the sexually aggressive Bond (more on that later) with a wit about her that has more than a little something to do with her powers of clairvoyance (which, like Samedi’s resurrection, the film wisely accepts without question).  It’s entirely distracting, though, that Seymour is – like so many of her predecessors – dubbed over by Nikki van der Zyl; the result is that Seymour sounds just like Ursula Andress from Dr. No, and I can’t for the life of me understand this casting decision.  After all, Seymour can speak English relatively well.

But enough bandying about.  What to make of Roger Moore, the newest Bond in our rewatch (and, in hindsight, the longest serving 007)?  The good news is that he steps into the role rather seamlessly; his Bond has echoes of Connery and smartly so, while he picks up the sophistication of George Lazenby but without the milquetoast.  His sexual prowess is a bit more refined than Connery’s rougher edges, such that he doesn’t even use his hands to unzip one lady’s nightie, and his seduction of Solitaire is so calculated you can almost hear Connery mumbling, “Why didn’t I think of that?”  But even in the action sequences, amid the marring effect of too much comic relief, Moore seems at home as the world’s top secret agent – on foot, in a boat, in a car.

But ultimately the film wears its 1973 birthday on its sleeve with a bit too much pride as to how badly dated it is.  Forget Blaxploitation – this is Bondsploitation, and the two genres don’t mix as well as that shaken-not-stirred.  But with a promising new lead behind the wheel of the proverbial Aston Martin, perhaps the best is yet to be – let this one die so that Bond can live.

Live and Let Die is rated PG.  Quite tame by Bond standards thus far in the canon, the film depicts a fair bit of gunplay, sans blood, though one man explodes (again, without blood and with laughable special effects).  Bond courts three lasses, though none show anything immodest.

James Bond and The Cinema King will return in a review of The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) on September 7, 2013!