Live And Let Die is the Bond Blaxpoitation film. I've never seen it all the way through, but I had seen enough to know that for inexplicable reasons, MI6 is working on a case of drug smugglers in the US. This is the Bond film where the bad guys refer to him as "the man" and "honky". The word "pimpmobile" is used without ironic affect. It's also the Bond film with action sequences scored by Paul McCartney. Relax, baby, let's see what's goin' down.
The basic plot of Live And Let Die is: After three British agents are killed in three different locations, Bond is sent to investigate. In short order, he finds clues in Harlem that lead him to New Orleans, where he learns of a drug connection between a Harlem gangster and Caribbean dictator, later revealed to be the same person. Bond seduces the girl, played by Jane Seymour, as well as a black double agent. After escaping death by crocodile via high-speed bayou boat chase, Bond makes his way to the Caribbean island, where he rescues the girl from a voodoo ritual, destroys the villains poppy fields, and kills the villain by blowing him up with a compressed gas cartridge over a shark-filled pool. Also, he fights a man with a claw for a hand.
As Bond films goes, Live And Let Die isn't bad, it's just weird. It's weird to see an agent of the cold war fighting Blaxpoitation villains. On the one hand, this shouldn't be too much of a stretch because ultimately, SPECTRE was a an international criminal conspiracy, just like a drug operation but on the other hand, Bond was born in the Cold War. His DNA contains strands of WW2-era British intelligence and Continental intrigue. Chasing down drug lords in the US is Shaft's thing, not Bond's.
This was Roger Moore's first outing, and he does nicely. He is a more droll and sophisticated Bond than Connery, and he is more truly British rather than Scottish. Moore is the Bond I grew up with, so I may be more forgiving of any faults others find in him as Bond, notably that he was older when he started as Bond than Connery was when he stopped playing Bond (Never Say Never Again notwithstanding).
The action sequences are novel and pretty amazing. An early attempt at dispatching Bond puts him in an out-of-control car on the FDR highway in New York City. The Bayou boat chase is pretty phenomenal, and is one of the earlier instances I'm aware of of the hick sheriff in hot pursuit, later perfected by Jackie Gleason in Smokey and the Bandit. Jane Seymour works well as a Bond girl, but her character is pretty useless, less inclined towards action that some of her predecessors.
Live And Let Die isn't bad Bond film, but it's no must-see either. It's OK, a little weird, aand moderately engaging. It's a may-see.
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