Day 08 - Live & Let Die (1973) - Film Review

Starring: Roger Moore, Yaphet Kotto, Jane Seymour & Julius Harris

Screenplay: Tom Mankiewicz

Directed By: Guy Hamilton

Certificate: PG

Day 8 brings us to the start of Roger Moore's tenure, the third actor to take up the mantle of Bond. 'Live & Let Die' begins with the death of three MI6 agents under suspicious circumstances. All three agents were investigating the operations of Dr. Kananga, the dictator of the Caribbean island of San Monique. Kananga is attending a United Nations meeting in New York, when M sends in James Bond to investigate. After multiple failed assassination attempts, Bond follows a trail of clues back to San Monique, where he becomes embroiled in a world of gangsters, drug trafficking and voodoo...

'Live & Let Die' gets off to an... interesting start with the deaths of the MI6 agents. We have one agent killed off in an appropriately unlikely way during a UN meeting, and another on the street in the "Whose funeral is it?" "Yours" scene, which is just so well staged and executed. Then there's the third agent, who's killed after being tied up and bitten by a venomous snake in some nondescript celebratory ritual by indigenous Caribbean folks - a scene which set off more than a couple of alarm bells in my head, and which invites us to talk about the film's approach to race. But trust me we'll get to that later on, and in the meantime, let's talk about our Bond theme of the same name, provided by Paul McCartney and Wings. Although this marathon is my first time watching the films themselves, I was already familiar with most of the themes going in and had three particular favourites. I'll let you know about the other two when we get to their films, but 'Live & Let Die' is the first of those three. The theme is a notable departure from the ballad-oriented themes of the Connery films, incorporating symphonic rock, tropical-sounding sections and more. It's a piece with a lot of variety, and stands as one of the very best Bond themes as far as I'm concerned. In fact, the score throughout 'Live & Let Die' is probably my favourite of the Bond films so far.

Perhaps the most significant thing about 'Live & Let Die' is its standing as Roger Moore's first time in the lead role. Yet despite this being Moore's first appearance... I oddly don't have a lot to say about him. I'd been told that the Moore Bond films were something of a mixed bag overall, but that Moore himself was a decent Bond, and he is... but unlike Connery or Lazenby, there's not much that stands out yet about his particular interpretation of the role. Functional might be a good way to describe it... there's nothing about the performance I can exactly criticize, but also nothing to sing to the heavens about. He knows what the role requires, and fulfils it. At a push, one of the few things that does stand out is the way he tackles the more comedic moments. At one point, Bond tries to escape his pursuers in a biplane with a learner pilot, Mrs Bell, and the runaround that ensues is really fun. Mrs Bell's reactions are great and the way Moore delivers the line "Same time tomorrow, Mrs Bell?" really got me chuckling. It's a comedy scene that works a damn sight better than the more action-oriented boat chase scene, which goes on for far too long and is intermixed with some really lame incompetent police comedy.

Being released in 1973, 'Live & Let Die' capitalized on one of the film trends of the time - the blaxploitation film. 1973 was practically the mid-point of the blaxploitation sub-genre's peak of success, so it makes sense for the Bond franchise to want to ride that wave too. Blaxploitation films aren't an area of expertise for me and I'm by no means any kind of authority on it. In fact, like quite a few (predominantly white) people today, one of the only reasons I'm even aware that blaxploitation cinema was a thing is because of the work of Quentin Tarantino. And like most people, the blaxploitation film always strikes me as something of a double-edged sword, 'Live & Let Die' being no exception to that rule. The films have faced criticism for their racial stereotyping and reliance on archetypes like pimps, pimpmobiles, drug trafficking, crime etc., all of which feature heavily here. Of course the reason it's called blaxploitation in the first place is because often it would see white filmmakers exploiting black communities and cultures for profit, with many black contributors sharing very little of the success. Conversely, the blaxploitation wave did give prominence to many black actors and give audiences iconic characters like Shaft or Coffy. Due to this, it's difficult to conclude whether blaxploitation cinema did more harm than good, or vice versa, and I'm personally just as conflicted on the matter. Even focusing on just 'Live & Let Die', I'm not sure how to feel. On the one hand, the film does feature the first African-American Bond girl, Rosie Carver, probably one of my favourite characters in here and it's a shame she's killed off so soon. But on the other hand, to a modern set of eyes, the focus on voodoo, with a finale that sees a cult comprised of mostly black people sacrificing a virginal white girl also dressed in white just feels pretty uncomfortable to sit through.

Now to be fair to the film, there were plenty of things I did appreciate about it. For instance it ditches things like Blofeld and SPECTRE in favour of more down-to-Earth villainy likes drugs trafficking. Much as I enjoyed the big, ridiculous sci-fi plans of SPECTRE, you can only get away with it for so long and keep amping up the scale of it, so this marked a step in the right direction I feel. Besides, there is still a touch of that cartoon-ishness in there - almost every bystander we meet seems to have a secret microphone to talk to Kananga, and twice Bond finds himself abducted in a club through intricate hidden doors and vanishing floor panels. The villain in 'Live & Let Die' does unfortunately let the side down in comparison to the franchise's previous baddies. Since watching his appearance in 'Alien', I really like Yaphet Kotto as an actor but Kananga is just a little generic and dull. The revelation that Kananga and Mr. Big are the same person also barely registered upon first viewing. Faring much better, I must confess I really liked Kananga's henchman Tee Hee, with his metal pincer for a hand, if purely for the fact that Julius Harris seems to be having so much fun playing him.

'Live & Let Die' is a perfectly fine couple of hours. There's not a whole lot more I have to say about it other than the fact that it's a functional James Bond film, but rarely anything extraordinary. As first impressions go, Roger Moore's debut could've been better but I'll take what I get. I'm hoping his next few films can warm me up a bit more to his take as Bond, although given the sketchy reputation some of his films have, I'll keep my fingers crossed this will be the case.

6/10

NEXT TIME - The Man With The Golden Gun