Live and Let Die (1973) Film Review

Live and Let Die (1973) Director: Guy Hamilton

“Who’s funeral is it?”
“Yours!”

★★★☆☆

By the time the eighth Eon James Bond film was released, founding producers –Harry Saltzman and Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli– were hardly on speaking terms. They decided to divide producer credit for the future Bond films –Broccoli was given lead credit for Diamonds Are Forever while Saltzman was listed as lead producer for Live and Let Die. The latter was to be their penultimate co-producing venture. In Live and Let Die, director Guy Hamilton returns for his third of four Bond films (Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, and The Man with the Golden Gun), and Live and Let Die serves as a passing of the torch of sorts for the Bond films as Roger Moore assumes a confident and relaxed presence in the lead role –by this point, Sean Connery declined to reprise the role, though he later returned in a non-canonical Bond film aptly titled Never Say Never Again. Both Adam West and Burt Reynolds were apparently approached for the role of Bond (can you imagine!) and after the controversies surrounding George Lazenby’s brief tenure, the producers were not eager to approach another cinematic outsider, hence, Roger Moore served as a nice compromise in their eyes.

With a script by Tom Mankiewicz (adapted from Ian Fleming’s 1954 novel of the same name) the plot for Live and Let Die is something of an oddity in the James Bond saga in that it contains numerous “blaxploitation” motifs by taking us deep into the gritty streets of 1970s Harlem where we find drug lords, pimpmobiles, strange voodoo cults, and so on. Also unlike other Bond films, which tended to feature megalomaniacal super villains, Live and Let Die is about a Caribbean drug trafficking ring that is smuggling heroin into the United States. After three agents are mysteriously found dead within 24 hours of each other –one in the United Nations headquarters in New York, another in New Orleans during a jazz funeral, and the final in the Caribbean island nation of San Monique– Bond finds himself trailing an infamous drug lord known as “Mr. Big” (Yaphet Kotto) who turns out to be the alter ego of a Caribbean dictator named Dr. Kananga (the name Kananga was a result of the crew’s experience scouting for locations in Jamaica and stumbling upon a Crocodile Farm owned by a man named Ross Kananga). In the film, Dr. Kananga serves as a corrupt Caribbean political leader, but in Ian Fleming’s novel, “Mr. Big” is a crime lord with connections to SMERSH while he is smuggling Henry Morgan’s “pirate gold” into the United States from Jamaica. Both premises are pretty amusing. In the film, there is a fairly remarkable boat chase scene, and it is intriguing to see England’s top gentleman spy cruising the seedier night clubs of Harlem. Between talk of “honkeys” and “bad mothers” as well as trash-piled, smoke-filled New York streets, this is a unique outing for Mr. Bond to say the least. This time, Bond’s romantic counterpart is Solitaire (Jane Seymour), a tarot-reading virgin with possible otherworldly powers, who is tightly controlled by Mr. Big. Can she be trusted? Bond pays a visit to her vast seaside palatial home and seduces her which causes her to lose her supposed psychic tarot abilities (or so she believes). In the end, Bond disrupts the planned heroin drug trade –he kills one of the primary henchmen, a tall cackling man named Baron Samedi (Geoffrey Holder) by tossing him into a coffin filled with snakes, and he battles another henchman man with a metallic claw for a hand named “Tee Hee” (Julius Harris). Bond rescues Solitaire just before she can be ritualistically sacrificed but they are soon captured. Mr. Big slowly lowers Bond and Solitaire into a shark-infested pond but Bond escapes using his magnetic watch (for some reason no one is watching Bond while he escapes?). Bond kills Mr. Big using a small inflatable gadget which causes Mr. Big’s body to drastically expand like a balloon and explode in what is perhaps the most comically ridiculous demise of any Bond villain. As far as gadgets go, Desmond Llewelyn was noticeably absent in this film in his iconic role of Q –while reasons for his absence are somewhat vague, apparently he was excluded from the film as a cost-cutting measure.

In the epilogue, while escaping via train (perhaps a nod to the Orient Express in From Russia With Love), Bond is again attacked by the occultist henchman Tee Hee, but Bond manages to kill the clawed man by throwing him out a window, leaving only his attached hook behind while Solitaire remains enclosed in a fold-up bed, unaware of the whole fight sequence that has just occurred. The film ends with the “undead” Baron Samedi –one of the voodoo occultists who Bond previously had thrown into a coffin filled with poisonous snakes– laughing maniacally on the edge of the train as it speeds off into the night.

Live and Let Die is a clear departure for the James Bond franchise, though it is far from the worst of the Roger Moore era. An uncomfortable film at times, especially with its many racial cliches, all things considered I would say Live and Let Die is a fascinating entry, a smaller-scale, gritty spy film which nevertheless is filled with unsettling allusions to voodoo and the occult. Live and Let Die is the first Bond film to also feature a black Bond girl –a CIA agent named Rosie Carver (Gloria Hendry)– though United Artists refused to allow a black actress in the lead supporting role at the time (she is killed off in the first half of the film and the primary Bond girl becomes the elusive Solitaire). Indeed, the production crew apparently ran into considerable racism during filming in Louisiana, hence why certain production decision were made –such as the brief appearance of the bumbling racist American imbecile named Sheriff J.W. Pepper (played by Clifton James who also reprises his role in The Man With The Golden Gun). It brought a smile to my face to see that “Quarrel Jr.” is introduced in this film (apparently he is intended to be the son of Quarrel from Dr. No), and the scenes with Felix Leiter and the CIA offer nice bits of continuity but they serve as little more than frivolous background characters –contributing to the theory that James Bond represents a subtle critique of the American method of espionage. At best, Live and Let Die is an entertaining flick which presents something different to the Bond universe. But for me, the highlight of the film is the music Paul McCartney & Wings singing the theme song is the peak of Bond theme music. And, as if having Paul McCartney in the film wasn’t enough, the classic Bond composer John Barry was forced to sit this one out for tax reasons so the legendary Beatles producer George Martin completed the wonderful score for Live and Let Die. 

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Book Review: Live and Let Die (1954) by Ian Fleming

• James Bond actor: Roger Moore
• Director: Guy Hamilton
• Producers: Harry Saltzman and Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli
• Screenplay: Tom Mankiewicz, adapted from Ian Fleming’s novel
• Cinematography: Ted Moore
• Editor: Bert Bates, Raymond Poulton, and John Shirley
• Gun Barrel Sequence: completed by Roger Moore with his signature arm grab as he fires back at the screen (note that the hat from the Connery/Lazenby era is now gone)
• Villain(s): Dr. Kananga/Mr. Big (Yaphet Kotto) and his henchmen –Tee Hee Johnson (Julius W. Harris), Baron Samedi (Geoffrey Holder), Adam (Tommy Lane), and Whisper (Earl Jolly Brown)
• Bond Girl(s): Solitaire (Jane Seymour), and Rosie Carver (Gloria Hendry)
• Allies: Felix Leiter (David Hedison), Sheriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James), Quarrel Jr. (Roy Stewart), and CIA agent Harry Strutter (Lon Satton)
• MI6: M (Bernard Lee) and Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell) –notably Desmond Llewelyn was excluded from reprising his role as Q in this film
• Bond Gadgets: Rolex Submariner watch which has a “hyper-intensified magnetic field”
• Score: George Martin (“the fifth Beatle”)
• Theme Song: “Live and Let Die” by Paul McCartney and Wings (written by Paul and Linda McCartney)
• Locales: New Orleans, San Monique in the Caribbean, London, New York, Harlem