LIVE AND LET DIE (FILM)

'''Live and Let Die''' is a 1973 spy film. It is the 8th film in the British James Bond series, and the first to star Roger Moore as MI6 agent James Bond. The film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. In the early 1970s, Broccoli and Saltzman wanted to choose a new actor to portray the Bond character, to replace Sean Connery, who portrayed the Bond character in several films from the 1960s. After a substantial search, they picked actor Roger Moore for the lead role.
The film is based loosely on the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. In the film, a drug lord known as Mr. Big plans to distribute two tonnes of heroin free so as to put rival drug barons out of business. Bond is soon trapped in a world of gangsters and voodoo as he fights to put a stop to Mr. Big's scheme.

Contents

Plot

Voodoo

Cast

Vehicles and gadgets

Production

Film locations

Shooting locations

Casting

Language

Filming

Soundtrack

Influence

Release

Awards

Publications

External links

Plot

Three British MI6 agents, including one "on loan" to the American government, are killed under mysterious circumstances while monitoring the operations of Dr. Kananga, the dictator of a small Caribbean island called San Monique. James Bond is sent to New York City, where the first agent was killed and where Kananga is currently visiting the UN, to investigate. As soon as Bond arrives in New York City, his driver is killed while taking him to meet Felix Leiter of the CIA.

The driver's killer leads Bond to Mr. Big, a gangster who runs a chain of ''Fillet of Soul'' restaurants throughout the United States. It is during his confrontation with Mr. Big that Bond first meets Solitaire, a beautiful tarot expert who has the uncanny ability to see both the future and remote events in the present. In disguise as Mr. Big, Kananga demands that his henchman kill Bond, who manages to escape unscathed. Bond follows Kananga back to San Monique, where he subsequently meets Rosie Carver, a CIA double agent. Later he meets the boatman Quarrel Junior (the son of Quarrel from Dr No) who takes him to the home of Solitaire. Using a stacked tarot deck of only cards showing "The Lovers", Bond seduces her. Solitaire, as a result of coupling with Bond, loses her foresight abilities and is forced into cooperating with Bond to bring down Kananga.

It transpires that Kananga is producing two metric tonnes of heroin and is protecting the poppy fields by exploiting locals' fear of voodoo and the occult. Through his alter ego Mr. Big (Kananga in disguise), Kananga plans to distribute the heroin free through his chain of restaurants until the number of drug addicts doubles, putting his rival drug lords around the world out of business. Bond returns to San Monique with Leiter to destroy Kananga's crop with incendiaries, and rescue Solitaire from a voodoo sacrifice. Captured by Kananga, Bond kills the drug lord and escapes with Solitaire. Stateside, Kananga's henchman Tee Hee makes a last attempt on Bond's life and is ejected from their train compartment at high speed. In the closing shot of the film, the central voodoo character, Baron Samedi, is seen perched on the front of the speeding train in which Bond and Solitaire are traveling, in his voodoo outfit and laughing mysteriously, despite having been supposedly killed by Bond while rescuing Solitaire.

Voodoo

This was the first and, to date, only James Bond film to acknowledge the supernatural. Although there are indications that Baron Samedi is simply a magician and showman, and that his "resurrection" after falling into a coffin of snakes could be explained as a trick, Solitaire's psychic abilities are more difficult to rationalise.
Solitaire's Tarot cards are backed with a repeating red pattern with '007' worked into it. The High Priestess card was deliberately designed to resemble Jane Seymour. The deck was released as the "James Bond 007 Tarot Deck" with blue backs and, along with an instruction book and layout mat as the "James Bond 007 Tarot Game." The deck was later reissued, with a different back pattern, as the "Tarot of the Witches Deck" (with a different backing, probably to avoid licensing issues). The deck faces were designed by Fergus Hall.

Cast

Main articles: List of James Bond henchmen in Live and Let Die , List of James Bond allies in Live and Let Die


★ James Bond — Roger Moore

★ M — Bernard Lee

★ Miss Moneypenny — Lois Maxwell

★ Felix Leiter — David Hedison

★ Dr. Kananga/Mr. Big — Yaphet Kotto

★ Solitaire — Jane Seymour

★ Sheriff J.W. Pepper — Clifton James

★ Tee Hee Johnson — Julius Harris

★ Baron Samedi — Geoffrey Holder

★ Rosie Carver — Gloria Hendry

★ Quarrel Jr. — Roy Stewart

★ Miss Caruso — Madeline Smith

★ Whisper — Earl Jolly Brown

Vehicles and gadgets

Main articles: List of James Bond vehicles, List of James Bond gadgets



★ Magnetic watch (Rolex Submariner)— Returned to Bond by Miss Moneypenny from Q Branch. When turned on, it generates a powerful magnetic field. In theory, Bond claims it can even deflect a bullet, though in reality the typical bullet is non-magnetic. It also has a motorized, rotary saw built into the bezel.

★ Bug sweeper — Bond uses a handheld device that can sweep a room for electronic microphones.

★ Morse code transmitter - hidden inside a grooming brush.

★ Although not an official gadget, Bond improvises a small flamethrower using a can of after-shave lotion and a lit cigar.

★ Glastron Speedboats- used in the extensive Louisiana boat chase

★ Bond has an espresso machine at his home. In 1973, such devices were uncommon for home use (much as Bond, in ''From Russia with Love,'' had a pager and car-phone years before mobile phones were within consumer reach). M: "Is that all it does?"

★ Similarly, early on in the film, Bond is seen using a Pulsar P2 digital watch, which only entered distribution as recently as 1972. Bond has an LED display which was activated by pushing a button on the side.
Coachbuilder Les Dunham provided a Chevrolet Corvette conversion (the Corvorado) which uses components from a 1971 or 1972 Cadillac Eldorado; this car was briefly seen in the blaxploitation film ''Superfly''. He kept the vehicle for several years as a show car. One of the vehicles 007 is pursuing in the film (as a passenger in a taxicab) is a Cadillac Fleetwood Pimpmobile, along with an Eldorado coupe.

Production

''Live and Let Die'' was the first Bond film scored by someone other than John Barry (George Martin), and it was the first time a fictional country was used as a setting (this would happen again in ''Licence to Kill''). As well, it is the only film in which the Bond character commits a political assassination, since the Kananga character he kills is the leader of a nation. It is also the first Bond film in which the character Q was absent, although he is referenced in an early scene when Miss Moneypenny gives Bond his only gadget, a specially modified Rolex Submariner with hyper-magnetic properties and a spinning bezel. Q does appear in ''Dr. No'', though not played by Desmond Llewelyn and not addressed as Q but rather by his real name, Major Boothroyd.
When Broccoli and Saltzman had to replace Sean Connery in the Bond role, they at first decided they would not hire another actor and instead hire someone from the Armed Services. Acting upon this EON Productions advertised in various army magazines with the line: "Are you 007?" This idea was later thrown out after Equity objected and demanded they stop.
By 1972, Broccoli and Saltzman had auditioned or considered a number of actors for the role, most notably Julian Glover (later the villain in the 1981 Bond film ''For Your Eyes Only''), John Gavin, Jeremy Brett, and frontrunner Michael Billington, who ultimately lost the role to Roger Moore. Thereafter Billington was always a constant frontrunner to replace Moore if Moore did not return to the role, notably for ''Moonraker'', ''For Your Eyes Only'', and ''Octopussy''; he also appeared in the 1977 film, ''The Spy Who Loved Me'' as a villain who is killed in the pre-title sequence.
Moore had previously been considered for the role of Bond after ''You Only Live Twice'', but was quickly dismissed due to his popularity as Simon Templar in the television series ''The Saint''. There are also some reports that Moore was considered in 1962 for ''Dr. No'', however, these are seen by some fans and researchers as apocryphal given that most of the evidence used to support these reports are false or misleading (see: the search for James Bond).
''Live and Let Die'' also marked the appearance of the first romantically-involved African American Bond girl, Rosie Carver (played by Gloria Hendry, an actress who starred in several blaxploitation films, including ''Black Caesar'' and its sequel ''Hell Up in Harlem''). When the film was first released in South Africa, the love scenes between Gloria Hendry and Roger Moore were removed because interracial affairs were prohibited by the apartheid government.
The producers made a conscious effort to distance the new James Bond played by Roger Moore from the interpretation made famous by Sean Connery, perhaps an effort to avoid comparisons to George Lazenby. For example: Roger Moore's Bond never orders a vodka martini (neither shaken, nor stirred), he drinks bourbon whiskey; the mission briefing occurs in Bond's flat (not seen since ''Dr. No'' in '62); Roger Moore's James Bond does not wear a hat; he smokes cigars, not cigarettes. In time, as Moore grew in to the role, many old Bond-isms returned, and some new elements were dropped.

Film locations

★ London, England

★ New Orleans, Louisiana

★ San Monique, Jamaica

★ New York City, New York

Shooting locations

★ Pinewood Studios

★ Jamaica
San Souci Lido hotel

★ New York city
Voodoo shop Location and parking garage exit are at East 65 street and Madison Ave

Casting

''Live and Let Die'' is the first of two films featuring Louisiana Sheriff J.W. Pepper portrayed by Clifton James, who later reprised the role in ''The Man with the Golden Gun''. It is also the first of two films featuring David Hedison as Felix Leiter, who later reprised the role in ''Licence to Kill''; no other actor has played Leiter more than once.
The Jamaican agent, Quarrel Jr., is the son of Quarrel from ''Dr. No''. In the novel series, ''Live and Let Die'' was the first appearance of Quarrel, followed by his death in ''Dr. No''.
Madeline Smith, who played the beautiful young Italian agent Miss Caruso who is in bed with Bond in the film's opening, was recommended for the part by Roger Moore after working with her on TV. Smith said that Moore was extremely polite to work with, but she felt very uncomfortable being clad in only blue bikini panties since Moore's wife was on the set overseeing the scene.

Language

This is the first James Bond film to use extensive adult language. The old woman whose flying lesson is hijacked by Bond utters the word "shit" (US network-television viewers never hear this), Sheriff Pepper begins uttering the word "fuck" but is cut off when Bond jumps over him in a speed boat. The partial expletive "mother" is also heard numerous times. When Pepper is walking to a State Troopers car, hearing that a resident wants him to shoot a rabid dog, he mutters, "You tell her to take a flying ... at that dog." His dialog fades out and in again, but actor Clifton James is clearly saying the entire line. Even in 1973, that was not enough to have the film rated past PG in the USA. Viewers would have to wait until 1985 for ''A View to a Kill'' in which the word "shit" is muttered several times by Stacey Sutton during the fire engine chase (this is most notable in the closed captioning) and when a police officer audibly mutters the word afterwards. More notably however, in 1989 for ''Licence to Kill'' (coincidentally also partly based on the novel ''Live and Let Die'') such language was heard again.

Filming

Director Guy Hamilton liked the running over alligators stunt so much he named the villain after the stuntman who performed it, Ross Kananga, the owner of the alligator farm where the scene was filmed. In one take of the stunt, the last gator snapped at Kananga's heel, tearing his trousers. This is detailed on the Special Edition DVD, complete with slow-motion replay. The filmmakers discovered the farm while scouting for locations when they saw a sign warning that "TRESPASSERS WILL BE EATEN." This sign is also seen in the film.
For the gator farm scene, Moore suggested that he wear alligator skin shoes. Bond's boat in the speedboat jump scene over the bayou unintentionally set a Guinness World Record at the time, and a villain's boat that made the jump later unintentionally destroyed Sheriff Pepper's patrol car. Due to Clifton James's spontaneous character acting in that scene, it was kept.
Bond evades several police officers when commandeering a double-decker bus — two Chevrolet Novas were seen as police vehicles. Although the Chevrolet vehicles were on loan from GM, this was a few years before the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department experimented with a similar Nova for police duty to which law enforcement agencies ordered them in bulk.

Soundtrack

Influence

In one scene, Bond kills a snake in a hotel bathroom and, when Rosie Carver is later alarmed to discover the dormant reptile, Bond apologises for forgetting to tell her about the snake, commenting, "You should never go in the bathroom without a mongoose". This line was later referenced in the spoof film '', in which Doctor Evil says of Austin Powers, "He's the snake to my mongoose, or the mongoose to my snake. Either way it's bad. I don't know animals." A fight between a cobra and a mongoose would later feature in the 2006 version of ''Casino Royale''.

Release

''Live and Let Die'' was released during the height of the 1970s blaxploitation era, and so many blaxploitation archetypes and cliché are depicted such as afro hairstyles, derogatory racial epithets (i.e "''honky''"), black gangsters, and ''"pimpmobiles."'' The film departs from conventional Bond plot about villains plotting to dominate the world and instead focuses on drug trafficking, an activity often depicted in blaxploitation films. As well, the film takes place in African American cultural centres such as Harlem, New Orleans, and the Caribbean Islands. It was also the first Bond film which used an African American Bond girl, Rosie Carver (played by Gloria Hendry. an actress who starred in several blaxploitation films, including ''Black Caesar'' and its sequel ''Hell Up in Harlem'').

Awards

Year	Result	Award	Recipients
1974	Nominated	Academy Award for Best Original Song	Paul & Linda McCartney
1974	Nominated	Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture	Paul & Linda McCartney
1975	Won	Evening Standard Best Picture	Guy Hamilton

Publications

Roger Moore wrote a book about the filming of ''Live and Let Die'', based on his diaries. ''Roger Moore as James Bond: Roger Moores's own account of filming Live and Let Die'' was published in London in 1973 by Pan Books. The book includes an acknowledgment to Sean Connery: "I would also like to thank Sean Connery – ''with'' whom it would not have been possible."

External links

★

★

★

★ MGM Official Site: ''Live and Let Die''

★ Blaxploitation and Live and Let Die - from the article ''Cleopatra Jones, 007: Blaxploitation, James Bond, and Reciprocal Co-optation''