The Viewpoint Blog's Ranking of the James Bond Films. 22: Live And Let Die.

We're onto day 4 of our countdown of the James Bond films from worst to best and at number 22, we have Roger Moore's first James Bond film, Live And Let Die.



Now, some Bond purists, look down on Roger Moore's portrayal and characterisation of James Bond as being too light hearted, too jovial, too comedic.  But I know that many others, such as Calvin Dyson, absolutely love the Roger Moore era, because it didn't take itself too seriously.

What do I think of Roger Moore?  Well, he's not my favourite Bond, but he's not my least favourite either.  I always ranked George Lazenby below him, and as time as progressed, I think time has actually been kind to Roger Moore's portrayal, and generally, it's no longer viewed as the worst, but why?

Well, I already felt that even in the worst Bond film on this list, Moonraker, that Roger Moore gave a good performance as 007, and he had a pedigree for this kind of role, after playing Simon Templar in The Saint, and as Lord Brett Sinclair in The Persuaders.  So, I never felt, even as a kid, that Roger Moore wasn't a good actor for the role, but as I already stated from Moonraker, the worst aspects there was not Moore's performance, but the scripting, and especially how the villains were utilised and portrayed.

So, did Live And Let Die suffer in a similar way, well, let's begin the review to find out.

THE PRE-TITLE SEQUENCE

After the gun barrel, we open up in New York at the United Nations, where a speech is being made by a Hungarian delegate.  We then cut to a shot of an English translator at work, providing translation for a number of different delegates, including the UK's delegate there.  Suddenly, a mysterious hand removes the wire from the United Kingdom's audio slot, and replaces it with another wire attached to a plunger device of some kind.  And then, somehow, the UK delegate winces in pain, and slumps on the desk, dead.  At this point we are introduced to the two people who will become the focus of this film.  The main villain, Dr Kananga, played by Yaphet Kotto, and the Bond girl, Solitaire, played here in her film debut, by Jane Seymour.  The shot introducing is only a few seconds, and is played as part of a group of shots, of people staring at the dead guy.

We then cut to New Orleans, where a man is stood outside a "Fillet Of Soul" restaurant, watching it.  Suddenly, a funeral procession turns into the street, and another man comes up beside our guy.  The first guy asks who's funeral it is, only to be told it is his, as the other guy sticks a knife in him.  Whereupon the coffin bearers walk either side of the body, put the coffin down over it, and when they lift it up, the body has been picked up inside the coffin.  How, I have no idea, but that's a neat trick.  Then the whole tone of the procession changes, and everybody starts dancing, as the band leading the procession switch from downtempo to upbeat.  Believe it or not, this is not made up, this kind of jazz funeral, really does happen in New Orleans, although they don't usually pick up dead bodies on route...

We then cut to San Monique in the Caribbean, where another guy is tied to a steak and is facing a man holding a snake.  No prizes for guessing what happens next.  Yep, the snake bites the guy, and he dies.  Wow!  less than 5 minutes in and the body count is already at 3.  At this rate, we'll have about 72 deaths in this film if this keeps up.

After this we cut to the titles... huh, wait a minute!  We haven't seen Bond yet.  How can you cut to the titles here, we haven't been introduced to our new James Bond.  We've had a brief introduction of Bond girl and villain, so brief that you wouldn't realise that they are meant to be Bond girl and villain, but no introduction to Bond?  Come on, now.  That's poor.

I don't mind the fact it has basically set up the plot, but this is a James Bond film, and where is James Bond?

THE TITLE SEQUENCE.

The titles for this movie are visually quite striking, and they're basically using a theme of skulls here, to evoke the voodoo element in the movie, and also evoking death.  They're nice titles, but the fibre optic backdrop does kinda date them a bit, and why is that woman waving formlessly at something or someone that we can't see?  Also, those red, blue and green arms and hands look a little bit weird.



The music though, from Paul McCartney and Wings, is excellent, and actually stands up on its own without the titles.  That is one of the things that I use to define whether or not a song or a score that is created as a film theme, is actually any good, does it stand up just as music?  Some don't, some do, that one stands up very well indeed.

THE PLOT.

The film proper opens up with a shot of a sleeping female, and she's in the bed of a man, who at this point, we hadn't seen before in the prior films.  I can only guess that this must be our new Bond.  Not much of an intro though.  We here a persisting buzzing sound, but it's not an alarm clock, it's actually the front door bell.  Our mystery man gets up, puts on a robe, and quips back at our mystery woman, "Not married, by any chance, are you?"  We see a familiar face at the door, a rather grizzly looking M, who when our mystery man opens the door says, "Good morning, 007."  Well, when Bond checked his watch, it was 5:48, so it's early, but M paying Bond a visit, in his apartment???  Sorry, that just doesn't add up.  In Doctor No, Bond was called into the office and it was gone 3am.  I cannot imagine that M would ever do this to one of his agents.

The rest of this sequence, as it seems to become somewhat "Carry On"-esque.  Bond using a couple of machines to make M some coffee, and M's quip about "Is that all it does?" is kinda funny, but Moneypenny's arrival and the Italian agent trying to avoid being spotted by M, and the whole thing with the watch, really feels kinda out of place, or perhaps I should say out of situ.  It feels wrong that all this happens in Bond's apartment.  We should have Q explaining the watch to Bond, not Bond explaining the watch to M.  So much about this scene feels wrong in so many ways.  The slightly conspiratorial smile that Moneypenny gives Bond after M leaves, and her line "...or should I say, ciao, bello." and the sequence with the magnet watch pulling down the zip of her dress do work kinda well, but it's not enough to save the sequence, from being one of the worst in Bond history.  I'll do that full list after the reviews.  That'll be one of several lists that I will do later in the month.

There's an odd little scene where someone, who we're not sure at this point, is dealing out tarot cards, and saying some things, as a plane flies Bond to New York.  I think we're supposed to believe these are connected, but honestly, the film would be better without it.  I know it's setting up a theme that will play into the movie, but I really think it's unnecessary.

Bond arrives in New York, and a car is waiting for him.  The car has a phone in it, and we get what should have been a scene that would have intercut between Bond in the car, and Felix Leiter, played here by David Hedison, in a building somewhere in New York, but we get all of Bond's dialogue first and then all of Leiter's.  It really felt like somebody forgot to do the editing on that bit.  A white car pulls up alongside the car that Bond is riding in, and his driver is shot with a poison dart from out of a wing mirror.  Like, really?  That is a pretty big buy for me to make in this film, and it's made worse by the fact that the driver, puts his foot down, all the way on the accelerator.  Somehow, I don't think a dead man is going to put his foot down like that.  We get a tense moment out of it, as Bond has to try to bring the car to a stop, whilst somehow not removing the dead guy's foot from the accelerator.  But the un-believability of it just takes me right out of the film.

We have a moment where Kananga returns to his embassy, and seemingly is dictating a letter to his secretary, but in fact, he is playing an audio tape of the letter, whilst he, the girl we saw earlier, and his goons change their clothes.  Err, why?  It just comes across as silly.  The clunk of the reel-to-reel tape player starting up, would be obvious to anybody who was listening in.  You can get away with some ludicrous things as long as you play it straight, but this is beyond ludicrous.

Meanwhile, Bond visits the address where the white car we saw earlier was registered to.    It's a shop called the Oh Cult Voodoo Shop.  I get this is probably a Tom Mankiewicz touch, but it's so lame, it ought to be put out of it's misery.

Bond does some investigating, whilst in the embassy, Kananga's goons and the lady, make preparations to leave, but we don't see Kananga.  We then cut to Bond checking out the white car, before he becomes aware that a lift is arriving, and ducks out of sight.  Now we saw 4 people at the top end of the lift and Kananga was not one of them, but there are clearly 5 sets of shoes seen walking to another car.  We don't know who the 5th person is.  Bond watches the car leave and hails a taxi to trail it.  Meanwhile the woman inside the shop is talking to someone on a radio.  All she says is "He's tailing."  We then cut back to another car outside and another person "I've got him in my sights."  All in all, it's all very suspicious and we think that Bond is caught between a rock and a hard place.

This is the start of the infamous "Bond in Harlem" sequence, and basically the whole sequence is just painful, watching James Bond walk blindly and blithely into Harlem without a clue in the world what will happen, is just painful.  There is nothing mitigating about this whole sequence, though to be fair, it doesn't degenerate like the Bondola sequence from Moonraker.  It just starts off very painful to watch, and never gets any better, never gets any worse.  Just remains painful until we get to the moment when Felix's voice emirates from... a car cigarette lighter.  Oh, why don't you just turn the corn all the way up to 11??? Oh, you just did...

It's also during this sequence that we see Mr Big for the first time, looking rather suspiciously like Dr Kananga in some bad prosthetics...

Anyway, Kananga leaves New York to return to San Monique and Bond follows.  We have a scene where a snake enters Bond's hotel room, and we get a moment that feels like it's trying to evoke the spider scene from Dr No.  Bond disposes of the reptile by using his cigar to light some flammable hairspray or deodorant, I'm not entirely sure what it is, and apparently the hotel added Flame Grilled Snake to the menu that night...

Oh yeah, one thing that this film does do well, is echo From Russia With Love, in the fact that Bond checks out his room as he arrives with a gadget and also transmits something to someone, but we never see who receives it, which is a dropped "bolas"...

Oh yeah, I guess I ought to mention this here too, but in this film, and in The Man With The Golden Gun, Bond doesn't smoke cigarettes, he smokes cigars, big long cigars.  Roger Moore was a cigar smoker back in those days, but seeing James Bond lighting up a cigar feels wrong and out of character.  We hadn't seen Bond smoke since On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and even then it was fairly brief.  But cigars? No, that's not very Bondian at all.

It's just after this that we are introduced to CIA Agent Rosie Carver, played by Gloria Hendry.  She is the most inept agent we've ever seen in the Bond films, even worse than the double identity 'James Bond's of the Casino Royale spoof, worse than Felix Leiter in Goldfinger.  Her whole presence in the film is cringeworthy, and marks her down as being one of the worst characters in James Bond film history.

I know what you're saying, there's a worse character than Rosie coming up later in this very film, and we'll get to that when he makes his appearance.  I must mention that after we are introduced to Rosie, Bond receives a tarot card with his breakfast the next morning, the card is the Queen Of Cups, and Bond goes to a local tarot establishment to find out what that means.

Anyway, Bond and Rosie hire a boat, and we are introduced to Quarrel Jr, played by Roy Stewart.  In the books, this was Quarrel, because Live And Let Die was written before Dr No.  Rosie's ineptness is on-display here as well, which makes the whole scene worse.  I like Quarrel Jr, he's quite good actually as an ally of Bond.  He's a contender for the Top 10 Bond Allies list.

I think we need to make something clear here.  I'm not blaming Gloria Hendry, the actress, for Rosie Carver.  She is doing what she is required to do by the script.  My problem with Rosie is the way she is written.  Tom Mankiewicz wrote her so badly, that her whole presence in the film feels like a waste of time.  On the other hand, Quarrel Jr is well written, mostly due to the fact that it is actually meant to be Quarrel, except for the fact that Dr No was shot 11 years before Live And Let Die and Quarrel died in Dr No.  So, the way Quarrel Jr is written, is mostly due to Ian Fleming.  As far as I know, Rosie Carver was never in the original book, so she is written by Tom Mankiewicz and the difference in the writing quality shows.  Also, in the film, Solitaire's real name is never mentioned, why I don't know, but her real name is Simone Latrelle.  I don't know why this detail was omitted, but I would have prefered it to be included, if only towards the end of the film, so that Bond had a name to use other than Solitaire.

The writing has always been up and down when it comes to Bond films.  At best, even with changes, it still tells the story well.  At worst, it can be massively detrimental to the film, and I guess that how well I feel a film has been written, influences how I feel about the film.  Many would go for the action sequences, the jokes, the visuals, but for me, a good film is grounded in a good, well written story, and without that base, there's nothing to support the rest of the film.  Oh, I would add that also, you need to believe in your main character, without that, the rest of the film struggles.  And at least in this regard, Roger Moore is doing better than George Lazenby did.  I believe in him as Bond, whereas I didn't with George Lazenby, but it is fair to say Moore's best performance was yet to come.

Anyway, enough distractions, back to the plot.  Bond checks out Solitaire's house from the boat, and the boat docks somewhere, but we don't see exactly where in relation to the house.  Bond and Rosie check out the area and Rosie leads Bond to an area, where they get it on, but Bond reveals that he knows Rosie Carver is a double agent, and threatens to kill her if she doesn't talk.  But she chooses to run, and is killed by one of the many scarecrow-type things on the island.

We see a rift starting to develop between Kananga and Solitaire, whilst Bond is on a hand glider, tethered to Quarrel's boat.  At a signal from Bond the tether is released, and Bond floats down to land outside Solitaire's house.  Solitaire finds Bond playing with her Tarot cards and is much miffed.  This is the scene where Bond dupes her into making love to him, giving him her virginity and removing her 'gift'.  It is an uncomfortable sequence, and one that leaves me feeling cold.  Bond has done some very ungentlemanly things before, but this feels worse than anything else up to this point in the film series, even making love to Domino before telling her of her brother's death.

I have to confess, I have little care at this for most of the characters, and we're not even halfway through the movie yet, though again, it has already felt much longer than the 53 or so minutes the film has been running.  Bond leads Solitaire across the island, and we get a scene with Baron Samedi which is just strange.  Also strange is the way the music builds up as though Bond is about to discover something major, but all we get is a peaceful meadow scene.  That feels really poor actually.

However, Bond does discover that poppies are being grown under camouflaged netting, so that they won't be discovered.  Now that works for aerial surveillance obviously, but Bond was on foot, so that didn't really help.

And as a helicopter fires on Bond and Solitaire, we begin a big action sequence, which normally would be a good thing.  However here, the sequence feels a bit lame in general.  Let me explain. After evading the helicopter, Bond commanders a bus, and is chased by three motorcycles and two police cars.  A wet patch deals with the motorcycles, and Bond's weaving of the bus puts one police car out of action.  The bus is diverted onto a road with a low bridge by a roadblock, and Bond drives straight underneath, with the top deck of the bus being sliced right off and landing on the remaining police car.  Yep, lame, really.  Nice technical trick, but lame in story terms.  And we still have an hour to go.

The bus pulls up on a dock, where Quarrel Jr is waiting with his boat and they make their escape, much to the chagrin of Kananga.

Bond arrives with Solitaire in New Orleans, and they get into a cab, but Bond recognises the driver from New York.  Turns out he's an associate of Mr Big's.  He takes them to an airfield where some of Mr Big's hoods plan to drop Bond out of a plane without a parachute.  Hmm, he would end up actually doing that 3 films later...

Solitaire has a strange moment where she attacks Bond with her handbag, but this somehow manages to allow Bond to escape.  This is weird writing really.  It makes no sense.  Hmm, I've been saying that a lot since reviewing Casino Royale 1967...

Bond spots an small airplane waiting, and goes to commandeer it, and we're introduced to an old woman who's obviously a learner pilot, and the sequence degenerates here.  The woman is completely unnecessary and she adds nothing at all to the film.  It would have been far better if she hadn't even been there.

Anyway, Bond meets up with Felix in a New Orleans hotel, and we see one of his fellow CIA agents, the one who helped Bond escape from Harlem, meet the same fate as the guy at the start of the film, but they don't show him being killed, which is kinda odd.  Bond and Felix take a seat at the New Orleans Fillet Of Soul restaurant, where we get a performance of Live And Let Die from B J Arnau, and it's not a bad one, but it does feel kinda shoehorned in.  Felix is separated from Bond, and Bond gets lowered into some villain's lair.  In New York, he chose the booth that swung round, here, he gets the sinking feeling.  Some of these moments are a little too convenient.  Especially, the fact that they replace the table, chairs, and drinks, before Felix gets back, very convenient...

Bond is in a room, where everybody else is a silhouette at first.  We're re-introduced to Mr Big here, and Mr Big tries to intimidate Bond into answering his question, the question being did he fool about with Solitaire.  Bond says he will only answer when he sees Kananga.  At this point Mr Big removes the prosthetics to reveal, that he is Dr Kananga.  Gee, I never saw that coming, I mean he so didn't look like he was wearing obvious prosthetics... ok, I'm being sarcastic.

The most predictable reveal in the film, and indeed, in all of Bond-dom.  When it comes to disguises, the Bond films are horrible at it.  Whether its Bond turning Japanese in You Only Live Twice, Bond being Sir Hilary Bray in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, or the dual identity of Dr Kananga and Mr Big here, every attempt at disguise flops, horribly.

This next bit isn't too bad, as we basically get the villain's scheme, and it's actually not completely over the top, but is a big deal.  Putting all other dealers out of business, by giving away free heroin at his chain of restaurants, and then when they're all out of business, charging exorbitant prices for it.  It quite nicely brings all the various elements together that we've been introduced to during the film.  This is the point where the film actually gets kinda good for a little while.  What a shame it's taken over 70 minutes to get here.

Bond is knocked out and taken to a crocodile farm, here he is going to be left as crocodile food.  This part of the film actually plays well.  As TeeHee shows Bond around the farm, it builds the tension nicely.  We see that the farm also doubles as a Heroin refinery, so it has plot relevance too.  When we get to feeding time, then the tension actually increases and as Bond is left on the island to become a feast for hungry crocs, it pitches up the tension again.  The slow moving crocs create a real sense of menace too, the whole thing plays really well.  What a shame it comes this far into the film.

The music isn't too bad here either.  But such a shame that the musical score for this film is so 70s.  George Martin cleverly cuts the music when Bond realises that the boat he is trying to attract to the island via his magnet watch is tethered and won't get to him, and just letting the natural sound play, adds another level to the growing tension.  It's one of the few bits that George Martin got right in this film.  For some reason, John Barry wasn't available to do the score, and they hired George Martin, the famous Beatles producer to do it.  But the score is so 70s sounding, that even when I first saw it about 10 years after its initial release, the score sounded horribly dated, and time has not been kind on the music.  Other than the title song, the rest of the score is pretty forgettable.

In fact, when it comes to this whole film, it is very dated, not just in score terms, but in visual terms too.  Blaxploitation cinema was big at this time, and it's clear that the producers were using some of those elements in this film.  But the problem is, it does make the film very dated, very quickly.  Even before the end of the 1970s, Blaxploitation films were looking very dated and had fallen out of favour with viewers and the studios.

Anyway, Bond escapes by using some of the crocs as stepping stones, and proceeds to destroy the refinery, with a mixture of luring one of the crocs into the refinery with some of the meat that was left, petrol and fire.  Bond then escapes the place by stealing one of the villain's boats, and we begin the pursuit through the canals and bayous.  It's also here that we're introduced to probably the most incompetent policeman since the Keystone Kops, Sheriff J W Pepper, played by Clifton James.  There is nothing Fleming-esque about him, and I know that rankles the purists, but J W is a highlight of this film, along with the whole chase sequence.  J W is a southern racist of the old Jim Crowe school, but that actually makes the character funnier.

The whole chases sequence is intercut with hilarious moments from J W Pepper, and the various people we encounter on route.  It's a well done sequence, and the most entertaining bit of the movie, but again, I have to say it, it comes too late in the movie really to save what had been before this, a really dire movie, but at least the sequence goes some way to redeeming it.

I particularly like the bit at the end, where Bond is puttering in New Orleans harbour, at least I think it is, and Sheriff J W Pepper turns up and looks at Bond and says, "What are you, some kind of doomsday machine, boy?"  and then his response to being told that Bond is a secret agent.  "SECRET AGENT?!?!?  ON WHO'S SIDE?!?!?"  He is quite funny, and just the right kind of light relief needed before the film gets serious again.

The final reel of this film takes place on San Monique, and is basically Bond rescuing Solitaire whilst Leiter and Quarrel Jr plant bombs to destroy the poppy fields.  We get a coffin full of snakes, and various bits, but after the excitement of the crocodile farm and the boat chase, this feels like an anti-climax.  Yeah, the poppy fields get blown up and Bond rescues Solitaire and kills Baron Samedi via a lot of snake bites, and uses the same elevator that Baron Samedi came up to escape into the villain's lair, and they manage to avoid most of the guards, but the whole sequence feels anti-climactic.

Bond and Solitaire run into Kananga, and captured.  Kananga asks about the unusual gun he has.  It turns out it fires compressed gas pellets, which Kananga proceeds to demonstrate by shooting one into the sofa that his henchman Whisper is sitting on.  The sofa inflates aggressively and then blows up when it can no longer contain the pressure.  I know they're setting up the villain's demise later, and the moment with the inflating sofa is actually quite funny, but the whole sequence here feels lame and lazy.  There's a really over the top demise planned for Bond and Solitaire, via being drowned and eaten by a shark.  I really find this whole sequence to be exemplifying all the worst things about this film, and about the Bond franchise in general.  For instance, Bond using his watch to pick up a compressed gas pellet that had been left lying around.  No magnet can work that well from that kind of distance.  Even the most powerful magnets, Neodymium magnets, only really work at close range, but they pull about 500lbs equivalent each.  So, they would easily pull a little pellet like that, though not at that range.

The watch also has another feature.  The outside dial has a seated edge, and spins like a circular saw.  This is much more believable, but since this hadn't been mentioned at all up until this point, this really feels sonic screwdriver-esque.  We get a bit of a fight between Kananga and Bond, before they end up in the water, and Bond forces Kananga to swallow the compressed gas pellet, leaving Kananga to die via an explosion of compressed gas.  The idea is lame, and the execution is even worse, as we get the most obvious balloon pretending to be Kananga exploding, and yet there is no blood.  You'd think that everywhere would be splattered with blood and guts.

Anyway, we cut to Bond and Solitaire leaving by train, as Felix sees them off, and we see some post sacks being loaded on.  Anyhow, TeeHee was in one of those sacks, and he pops up again to have one more pop at Bond, in a sequence that is rather obviously meant to evoke memories of From Russia With Love here, in the fact that it is the henchman's own gadget, his metal pincer arm, that is his own undoing.  Bond grabs a nail clipper and manages to cut the wires that control the pincer, locking TeeHee to the window, and he then throws him out the window.  We end with a shot of Baron Samedi apparently riding on the front of the train.

The whole thing feels weak and feeble, like they're trying too hard, and not succeeding.

THE VILLAIN

I have to say that Dr Kananga/Mr Big is probably the worst written villain in Bond history.  Heck, even Hugo Drax was better written than this, and he was let down by a poor portrayal.  I can't dog too much on Yaphet Kotto, he does well with what he's got, but most of the dialogue feels like the stuff of Bond parodies.

His demise is equally lame, and is probably one of the worst villain demises in Bond history, as well as being one of the worst moments in Bond history, only topped in this film, by the whole Bond in Harlem sequence.

THE BOND GIRL/WOMAN

Solitaire is played brilliantly here by Jane Seymour.  Yes, she does seem to be the typical damsel in distress, but having her being one of the villain's mob at the start is just brilliant actually and Jane Seymour plays it well.

She isn't one of the best Bond girls, but isn't one of the worst either.  Just generally solid and enjoyable to watch.

THE ALLIES.

M and Moneypenny are played well, but it just feels wrong that they are visiting Bond's apartment, rather than calling Bond into the office.  There's no Q here, but the watch means his presence is felt.

Felix Leiter here is much better than he's been since Dr No, but he's still not much more than a cipher character.  He has little action of his own, and isn't well used.  But David Hedison puts more character into him in the moments he's on screen, than Cec Linder, Rik Von Nutter and Norman Burton put together.

Harold Strutter, the guy who comes to Bond's aid in Harlem, and appears again in New Orleans, is pretty good in the scenes he's in, and Lon Satton gives him some great character, but it's a shame that he's killed, even though we don't see him being killed.

Quarrel Jr, I've already mentioned earlier on, as being one of Bond's best allies, even though he isn't a major part of the film, but Roy Stewart plays him well, and gives him some character too.  I would have loved to have seen Quarrel Jr make some other appearances, but that was not to be.

SUPPORTING CAST

I'm utilising a 'supporting cast' section here to highlight a couple of people.

First, Sherrif J W Pepper.  He is a comedic highlight in this film, and I know some of the purists will hate me for saying this, but I liked J W Pepper in this.  Clifton James played him beautifully giving him such energy and character that it makes the scenes a joy to watch.

Secondly, there is another appearance here, by Roy Hollis, who appeared as a Las Vegas Sheriff in Diamonds Are Forever.  I don't know if it's meant to be the same character, as he's a Louisiana Sheriff here but it's a nice touch.  

THE HENCHMEN

Tee Hee is the main henchman here, played by Julius Harris, and Tee Hee is actually a lot more memorable than his boss.  The metal arm with the pincer gives him a nice villainous touch, and his smile and laugh just add to the sense of menace that he has.  In the Crocodile farm scenes, Tee Hee has some real character to him, and he really comes across well.  It's a shame that he got paired with such a lame villain.

The rest of the crew don't come off so well.  Whisper is interesting but ultimately not that good.  Baron Samedi is completely over the top without any real character to him.  Most of Mr Big's goons, including the guy J W Pepper catches up to, are pretty forgettable, none have any real character to them, and just don't add anything to the film.

STUNTS AND ACTION SEQUENCES

The best sequence in the film, is from the crocodile farm to the end of the boat chase, and that contains some of the best stunt work in the film, and the boat chase is far and away the best action sequence.

The sequence with the top deck of the bus being shawn right off was an amazing technical trick to pull off, but that whole sequence felt kinda weak all the way.  It just wasn't strong enough to help what was already a weak film.

THE SCORE

I haven't really mentioned the score in the previous three entries, mainly because they're solid but nothing special.  John Barry's Moonraker score was good, Burt Bacharach's Casino Royale score was okay, if a little weird in places for not really playing the right emotional cues but where it worked, it worked very well.  David Arnold's Quantum Of Solace score was good, but trying to avoid using the Bond theme was a small mistake, not a big one, but enough to make some of the scoring more difficult than it should have been.

But here, as I previously mentioned, the score was done by former Beatles producer George Martin and is generally weak, and dated.  It comes across as very 70s and always has done, which meant it dated very quickly.  John Barry's scores have a much more timeless feel about them, but this I'm afraid didn't do the film any real favours.

George Martin's version of the Bond theme is a little weird too.



It's okay, but it's nothing special.

OTHER NOTES

It's weird that this goes back from 2.4:1 to 16:9 aspect ratio.  Not sure why, but after watching Thunderball onwards in the wider ratio, this feels weird.  Maybe that's because they realised the first three were the best films in the series so far and they thought that going back to the aspect ratio of those films would help, but really it didn't have anything to do with the aspect ratio.

It was weird how they made a conscious effort to avoid the 'Connery tropes' as if they were doing all they could to avoid making reference to Connery.  Bond drinking Bourbon, not having a hat, smoking cigars, it was like they were looking over their shoulder at the shadow of Sean Connery, and were afraid of it.

But that wasn't the only shadow they were aware of, as they were also aware of the shadow of one of Roger Moore's previous characters, Simon Templar, aka The Saint.  Even though Roger Moore had filmed The Persuaders between The Saint and Live And Let Die, it seemed that they were desperate to avoid comparison between Bond and Templar.  It has to be said though, there are moments that feel somewhat Templar-esque, but they were desperate to avoid the eyebrow raise which was almost considered a Roger Moore trademark.

It would be fair to say that James Bond and Simon Templar do share some character traits, but generally, Moore does sell himself as James Bond in this film, which is important.  If you can't believe in the actor playing the character, then the film does tend to fall apart.  It happened to a degree on On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and Roger Moore managed to avoid that trap here.  He is Bond, albeit a different aspect than we saw in the Sean Connery films, but there is enough there to make you believe in him, and that's what matters.

OVERALL

The film overall is mostly pretty weak.  There's a 25 minute or so block around reels 4 & 5 where the film does well, but the rest is pretty awful.  Kananga is a weak villain, though the scheme is pretty good.  They would do the drug dealer angle far better many years later.

The voodoo theme is meant to help the story, but often seems to hinder it.  But at least the croc farm and the boat chase are enjoyable, and you can get a good laugh from Sheriff J W Pepper.

Next time, number 21, where we take our second and final entry into the unofficial films.