Review of Live and Let Die (1973) by Lenny R — 10 Dec 2015

OK, so the villain blows up like a balloon and bursts. This is indeed stupid. But it's one of relatively few truly stupid moments for an early '70s Bond movie, and the bits between those stupid moments are actually pretty unstupid indeed.

They've taken Fleming's pretty racist novel ('Raak! Product of its time! Raak!') and made it into a pseudo-blaxploitation movie (a product of ITS time) starring possibly the whitest honky in history, the newly cast Roger Moore.

He does OK, or at least seems to after Sean's lacklustre turn in Diamonds, but wouldn't really find his feet until his mid-stint Gilbert phase. Yaphet Kotto, when not suffering a fatal case of gas, is great in the 'dual' role of Mr Big/Kananga, switching between badass blaxploitation caricature and cold, intelligent nemesis with aplomb.

The movie is almost overflowing with entertainingly gimmicky henchmen - from Whisper (his gimmick is that he whispers - get it?) to claw-handed Tee-Hee (a compulsive giggler, you see), to the actually really cool Voodoo 'magician' Baron Samedi, brilliantly played by Geoffrey Holder.

'Girls'-wise, we've got Rosie, an inept CIA agent, who is written in a more overtly sexist way than inept MI6 agent Mary in the subsequent entry, but still well played by Gloria Hendry. Then we've got tarot card reader Solitaire (get it?) played by some 22-year-old called Introducing Jane Seymour.

She's great too, even if pairing her with already-well-into-his-40s-at-this-point Rodge is a bit creepy. There are some really cool scenes, some good jokes, and the heroin-trafficking storyline is compelling, but the thing that really distinguishes this entry is the amazing bayou speedboat chase.

Plus, Wings give us one of the best Bond theme songs ever, which is also arguably the only good song they ever produced.