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Brief Synopsis
When Bond investigates the murders of three fellow agents, he soon finds himself a target, evading vicious assassins as he closes in on the powerful Kananga (Yaphet Kotto). Known on the streets as "Mr. Big," Kananga is coordinating a globally threatening scheme using tons of self-produced heroin. As Bond tries to unravel the mastermind's plan, he meets Solitaire (Jane Seymour), the beautiful Tarot card reader whose magical gifts are crucial to the crime lord. Bond, of course, works his own magic on her, and the stage is set for a series of pulse-pounding action sequences involving voodoo, hungry crocodiles and turbo-charged speedboats. |
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Why It's #14
Diamonds Are Forever's moronic plot proved to be the start of a new direction for Bond: a sillier, less dramatic spy adventure. Sean Connery had turned his back on the franchise twice by now and, thankfully, there was no way that producers were going to go back to Lazenby from On Her Majesty's Secret Service for Bond 8. Enter Roger Moore, one of the goofiest men on the planet. Having already played The Saint on television, they thought he would fit right in as 007. The Result: a rather humurous story of Bond trying to take down a drug lord who somehow has every black person Bond meets working for him. I think the mentality here was "well, there's been about 5 black people in the previous seven Bond movies so we have to make up for it. Oh I know! how about making a movie with nothing BUT black people in it... except for Bond and the good Bond girl, of course."
The thing about Live and Let Die is that it's sometimes a very funny movie, but from personal experience, the more you watch it, the less entertaining it gets. In fact, stripped away from its superficial humor, there really isn't much substance underneath. But I guess one can't hold that against it since it wasn't intended to have any. But even the jokes have horrible auras from the 70's: there's the inequality African Americans experienced in the South, the Ghettos they had to live in in the big cities, bigots like Sheriff JW Pepper who embodies the stereotypical racist southerner (who for some strange reason was brought back in the following movie), there's also one of the worst displays of taking advantage of women that comes not from a villain who must be brought to justice but by Bond himself. Solitaire looks to her Tarot cards for guidance so when Bond wants information from her, he replaces all the cards in her deck with the "lovers" card, thus she feels she has no choice but to submit to Bond both figuratively and phyically.
So if Lie and Let Die is really so "horrible" then why is it still near the middle? Why not dead last? Could the following movies actually be worse than this? Well, to answer that question, yes, but more to the point, this movie wasn't intended to offend anyone. It was supposed to be a good time filled with speedboat chases and killer crocs. And to a degree, it does that. The action keeps you going, even if there are moments when you feel like cringing. Also, it helps having a really memorable cast of characters. There's Kananga played really well by Yaphet Koto, the scary Tee-Hee who always has that frightening smile on his face, Whisper who has to repeat everything like 3 times before anyone can understand him, and last but not least, there's Mr. Bond himself.
I'm pretty sure that nobody had any faith in this new Bond. After all, back then, Connery had been the only Bond, with the exception of Lazenby, easily forgotten with the Connery comeback that followed. Unlike Lazenby, who seemed to try to play it like Connery had, Moore, made the role his from the very start. His whole mentality was that this was all make-believe and no one was going to get hurt, so he just played it smoothly and with as many one liners as he could throw at the camera. You know you've defined a part on your own terms when writers start modeling the next movies after you and your unique interpretation. And that's what ended up happening. The cool, fun loving Bond would define a generation of movie goers as Moore took hold.
This movie is rather strange. Though they made the adventures a lot less believable, producers wanted to phase out the gimmicks for some strange reason. Thus this remains the only Bond movie without Desmond Llewelyn as Q from his first appearance in the second Bond Movie (From Russia with Love) to The World is not Enough, after which, he died in a car accident.
| Pre Titles Sequence |
Bond is no where to be seen. And thank goodness for that, as thre separate secret Agents get killed by Kananga's evil black syndicate in New York, New Orleans, and Kananga's island of San Monique in the Carribean. Coulda been a bit more dramatic. We're just bombarded with these guys dying... then the credits...kinda lame. |
| Credits Sequence |
OOOh naked voodoo chicks!For being really low tech, this has to be one of Binder's good ones. He does a great job incorporating smoke, paint and strange, scary images into this neat little package. |
| Bond Song |
Yeah, so this is one of the Bond songs almost everyone knows. "Oh man, that guy from the Beatles sang it so it MUST be good" right? well, perhaps. However, this little square is devoted to rating how well it functions as a Bond song, and let's just look at the facts: it's lacking a Bond-esque sound to it, it says nothingabout the actual storyline, and it doesn't really describe anyone in the movie. This song shouldn't be a Bond Song, as catchy as it may be. |
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Bond Gadgets/ Cars |
Bond: "Why it's just a hat, darling, belonging to a smallheaded man of limited means who lost a fight with a chicken!"
Bond: "Well, you just keep on the tail of that jukebox and there's an extra 20 in it for you."
Cabdriver: "Hey man, for 20 bucks I'll take you to a Ku Klux Klan cook out."
Bond: "A genuine Felix 'Lighter'. Illuminating!"
Bond: "Now just stay right there. I shan't be a moment." | Though there's no Q or Bond car, we get a thrilling boat chase sequence and some gadets like a Rolex Magnet and mini saw. There are also other chases involving Busses and pimp mobiles. You dig? |
