With Skyfall dropping in theaters in just a few months, along with the 50th anniversary of the James Bond series, a close friend and fellow film nerd, Brandon Peters, has generously offered to do a comprehensive review of the entire 007 film franchise. Today is the eigth entry, with a full review at one of Roger Moore's debut entry, Live and Let Die. I hope you enjoy what is a pretty massive feature leading up the November 9th release of Skyfall. I'll do my best to leave my two-cents out of it, give or take a few items I have up my sleeve (including a guest review from my wife as she sings the praises of her favorite 007 film, you won't believe what it is). But just because I'm stepping aside doesn't mean you should, as I can only hope for robust discussions in the comments section. Without further ado...
Live and Let Die
1973
Director:
Guy Hamilton
Starring:
Roger Moore, Yaphet Kotto, Jane Seymour, David Hedison
Rated PG
Names is for tombstones, baby! Y'all take this
honkey out and WASTE HIM! NOW!
~Mr.
Big (Dr. Kananga)
STATS
Kills: 8 + 1
snake (I’ve always LOVED this. While
smoking a cigar in the bathroom, Bond takes a hair spray bottle and sprays it
at the cigar creating a flame thrower to kill the snake)
Bond
Girls: Solitaire, Rosie Carver, Miss
Caruso
Car: Bond drives a double decker bus and a speed
boat in this one, no car
Locales: Harlem, New Orleans , San Monique
(fictional)
Odd Villain Trait: Tee Hee has
a mechanical arm, Whisper is obese and speaks in…yes a whisper, Baron Samedi
involved in the voodoo occult
Song: “Live and Let Die”
performed by Wings (that’s Paul McCartney’s ‘other’ band for those who don’t
know)
Live and Let Die starts the seven-film
run of Roger Moore as 007. Moore ’s first adventure, and Eon’s eighth, attempts to showcase Moore as a different Bond. This film takes the franchise and alters the
stakes by playing in another genre’s sandbox.
Guy Hamilton returns for his third outing, yet the film is quite
different from his previous work in the 007 series until close to the finale. The film packs plenty of action sequences,
but frankly feels a little long. Three MI:6 agents monitoring the operations of a small island dictator
(Dr. Kananga played by Yaphet Kotto) are
mysteriously killed in a 24-hour period.
James Bond is sent to New York
to contact with Felix Leiter (David Hedison) and investigate the first
murder. The investigation leads to a
connection between a drug dealer, Mr. Big (also Yaphet Kotto), and Kananga . Bond’s investigations team him up with
Quarrel’s (from Dr. No) son taking
him from the streets of New Orleans to the island of San Monique where Bond is
immersed in a world of voodoo, bayous, tarot and drugs.
