Viking Night: Live and Let Die
By Bruce Hall
December 13, 2017
BoxOfficeProphets.com
It worked, although I’ve always assumed the negotiations took place over the phone. The Connery who appears in Diamonds are Forever looked like he’d just sprinted over from the craft services table right before the camera rolled. He huffs and puffs and sweats his way through the first truly mediocre Bond film, and wisely declined to drag himself out of bed for the sequel.
Once again, it was time for a change. Connery had been a fit 29 years old when he was first cast, and he left the role as a musky, well-fed man in his forties.
Today it’s natural so see a curiously young looking actor cast in a franchise role, on the idea that they’ll eventually “age” into it. Not so back in the day, when an already middle-aged Roger Moore took over as the world’s most debonair secret agent. At the time he was in better shape than his predecessor, who when last seen had tragically succumbed to dad-bod. But to my eyes, Moore always seemed more comfortable with wisecracking subterfuge than with punching faces in, which is the way Bond had done things in the past.
Case in point - Live and Let Die. It’s most notable not just for being Moore’s debut, but for Paul McCartney’s popular theme song. Both of those are important things, because they portend a dark future for the franchise. While I do like McCartney’s song, he supposedly wrote it in about an hour, and with more than a little indifference. Having revisited it prior to writing this, I once again came away with mixed feelings.
Obviously, a former Beatle half-assing it beats my best work any day of the week.
But this is a song that stands out mostly by virtue of being unconventional. And in the pantheon of Bond themes it lands in the middle of the pack, thanks to people like Madonna, Rita Coolidge and “That Band That Sounds Like Duran Duran But Isn’t” padding the bottom of the list.
As a film, Live and Let Die is considerably less campy than Diamonds are Forever (which can best be described with either the term “devastatingly unwatchable” or “unforgettably horrific”). It starts out a little like the first Bond film, with multiple British agents murdered overseas, and Bond dispatched to New York to investigate.
He is immediately identified because in a place like Harlem (more on that in a moment), can a British guy in a designer suit asking questions about the local heroin trade be anything BUT a record producer or an MI6 agent? Not only are the murdered British agents complicit in their own deaths by reason of stupidity, Bond nearly is as well.
Meanwhile the henchmen sent to murder him keep giving him the information he needs to continue his “investigation,” because they keep not murdering him. On the upside, they introduce 007 to his next sexual conquest, so there’s that. It’s a cat and mouse game of incompetence that serves Mr. Bond’s libido, and little else. Everything Bond does undercover gives himself away, and everything the villain does to KEEP him away draws him closer.
It was cute the first few times, and maybe it even felt a little innovative the first few times. In Dr. No, for instance, the villain’s reasons for taking Bond into his confidence feel at least moderately plausible. And I’m not trying to say that writing with templates is necessarily a bad thing (it’s part of the reason every episode of Rick and Morty is a masterpiece). But when combined with lazy writing and story construction, it’ll bring down your movie every time.
All of this nonsense is a series of contrivances meant to capitalize on the “Blaxploitation” craze of the era (remember I said this story starts out in Harlem?). They later serve to drive the story into the heart of the Louisiana bayou, and a series of Southern-fried action set-pieces where 007 walks on alligators and flips a speedboat. Admittedly, Moore performs with uncommon panache. But it’s all in in pursuit of a villain better suited to Burt Reynolds and less to Her Majesty’s Finest.
That’s not to say that Yaphet Kotto doesn’t acquit himself well as said villain. He’s a fine actor. It’s just that his character, “Dr. Kananga,” doesn’t quite deserve to be in the same conversation with “Dr. No.” And once Kananga’s plans are revealed, you find yourself pitying the criminal mastermind who lowers himself to such machinations. Much of his pointless dirty work could be farmed out to his seemingly infinite supply of henchmen, as a Bond villain should. Instead Kananga is the subject of a rather silly plot twist that makes him feel more sad than fearsome.
The primary Bond Girl in this installment is Solitaire, a fortune telling gypsy girl played by Jane Seymour. This character is also boilerplate, in ways that are actually pretty dark. But Seymour imbues enough grace into her for you to actually root for her. She’s no Honey Rider or Pussy Galore, and I’m not saying she should replace Susan B. Anthony on our currency. But she does get a less embarrassing name, along with not quite enough credit for being a bright spot in an otherwise disappointing film.
Probably because when you’re standing in a dumpster fire, it makes you hard to see.
The remainder of the supporting cast fare less well, being almost entirely grab-bag of racial, sexual or regional stereotypes. I can’t realistically blame the filmmakers for doing what they felt would make them money at the time, because it’s still what filmmakers do today. I can dismiss it as a casualty of time, and be thankful it exists - to remind us of what we really don’t want to see going forward. While Live and Let Die does include one of the most entertaining speedboat chases ever put to film, it also contains enough casual racism to jumpstart a white supremacist YouTube channel. It’s an unfortunate chapter in the franchise, and a story unworthy of Bond.
And it’s inhabited by a lead who fills the role admirably, but never quite looks entirely comfortable holding a gun. Connery’s Bond was a seasoned killer. Lazenby beat up or murdered nearly every other male character in sight.
Moore’s Bond has a trust fund vibe about him, always vaguely aware that he’s the star of the show. He played it that way on purpose and while I enjoyed it as a child, and I do still enjoy him in the role, it doesn’t work for me quite the way it used to. Maybe it’s because the effete sense of entitlement Moore brought to the character inadvertently made him the creepiest of all the Bonds, once he became too old to play the role. Watching a 50-year-old man’s feeble attempts to date rape a girl half his age because he can’t find a guy who lives on an island shaped like a skull?
No. Just...no.
That’s really ironic, because Moore himself was probably the sweetest man who ever lived, and I do genuinely enjoy some of his work.
But Live and Let Die is not on the list.