I honestly didn't expect this...

Live and Let Die has never been one of my favourites, but watching it again completely changed my opinion. I'm still not sold on J.W. Pepper 😅, but I came away with a whole new appreciation for Roger Moore's debut.

Where does this one rank for you?

I think it's unforgivable that the back of Solitaire's tarot cards have 007 printed all over the back. And the worst part is… It took me YEARS to notice that!

I was a teenager when LALD was released in the theater.  I remember walking away and feeling totally disgusted by this film.  That it was no better than a Dean Martin “Matt Helm” movie.   Nowadays, I have to admit that the film has grown on me, but I still dislike too many aspects of it (yes, J.W. Pepper being one of them) to rank it high on my Bond list.  LALD will always be toward the bottom of my Bond rankings.

Maybe it's just me but the man with the golden gun is one of the Bond films I watch the most, Christopher Lee  is so good in the film plus the music, the only thing that spoils it is the whistle in the superb bridge jump scene....live and let die and the man with the golden gun are great films...

Roger's performance in this is weird. It's like he's playing a lazy agent. In the beginning when M tells him to pack, Bond is like "Pack, sir? 😮😵‍💫" He's a 00 agent! Like he's shocked he has to go somewhere. Roger's Bond in this film is aloof, like he isn't bothered and doesn't even want to do it. Later films Roger was more steely and not this lightweight.

This was my second James Bond film at the cinema when I was 11 years old and it is still my favourite Roger Moore 007 film. I could watch the speed boat chase all day and I would love to see/hear it put to music. I do not mind JW Pepper at all. An excellent theme song and score and I to have the La La Land expansion.

The JD Pepper sheriff was from car commercials in late 60s onward.  Dodge.  Most of y'all will know Pepper also appeared in Man w G Gun.  Fan service, the way "Jaws" reappeared as well.  It was fine at the time ... I was a teenager.  But doesn't hold up.

Live and Let Die has always suffered from being stuck between 2 real stinkers and it’s been tarred with the same brush which is a shame because it’s a much better film than either Diamonds of Gun which, tbh, isn’t difficult. I agree that the real lead weight here is JW Pepper who seems to have wandered in from Diamonds and stuck in front of the camera. Bur despite Pepper it’s still a very enjoyable slice of 70’s 007 and it’s good to see a comparatively youthful Roger Moore making his debut. I know Moore’s Bond is completely out of fashion these days but he’s still enjoyable in his debut and makes the part his own. There are some excellent set pieces, it looks very nice and it satisfies in a way Diamonds and Gun simply never achieve. It’s the only early 70’s Bond which I regularly return to.

Damn, I'm off to bed as I'm off to work in the morning, but when I get back on Wednesday I'll be looking forward to seeing this.

I like that you found some love for LALD! It's a good entry! Live and Let Die is definitely one of the odder and more unique entries in the series, primarily due to its dalliance with the metaphysical (Solitaire's powers do appear to be real and Baron Semadi is a supernatural Voodoo character, but these things are perhaps wisely never fully addressed). It's also a product of its time, as most of these films are, and fits into the fashions of the day...I always view Guy Hamilton's three 1970s Bonds as a very loose trilogy with similar themes. They're brash, colourful and Americanised Bonds with lots of noisy car chases, comedy sheriffs (DAF did have this, albeit in lesser amount) and a more tongue in cheek Bond portrayal. They did good box office as well, after the perceived commercial failure of OHMSS...or at least they did until The Man with the Golden Gun, which I think was the lowest grossing Bond film up to that time and probably necessitated a re-think of where the series was going... which it did!

This is my second favorite Bond film, with Diamonds Are Forever being number 1.  I think I liked all the things you disliked:  the JW Pepper character was unique in the Bond canon, and he added to the campiness of the film.  The amount of camp is why I rank this film and Diamonds at the top.  I'm in it for the fun; for the spy-craft, not so much.  I liked the Boat Chase because of JW Pepper's saying "wait for my cousin Billy Bob to come with his speed-boat", and when Billy Bob's boat is being driven by the black henchman, JW is so flabbergasted.  Many people don't like all the black henchmen in this film, saying they were depicted as racist stereotypes.  I do not get how that is true.   I think each hench man plays to character, the voodoo witch doctor, the crocodile keeper, the Shaft-look-alike driving Billy Bob's boat, okay, Shaft was black, but a cooler black dude never appeared on film.  For me, the villains set this film apart.  And, Yaphet Kotto's dual role as Mr. Big/Kananga make this group of villains my favorite in the Bond series.  My favorite henchmen goes to Mr Wendt and Mr. Kidd from Diamonds, but I'm not as big a fan of Charles Grey's Blofeld.  The voodoo in this one is unique to this film in the Bond series, once again setting this film apart.  I am glad you enjoyed this one more this time around.  I grew up with the Roger Moore entries, so he's my favorite Bond.  If you get a chance to see some episodes of "The Saint", Roger Moore played Bond with some of the same mannerisms as he played "The Saint".  Well worth a look IMHO.

Really enjoyed your commentary on LALD! Roger Moore did keep the series going and I appreciate him now more than ever. Especially after he left the role, he was a great ambassador for the Bond series, much more than any other actor.

This has always been my second most favorite Roger Moore Bond movie, after Your Eyes Only. Apart from the ridiculously over the top death for Kananga, and the super annoying sheriff, it's real fun ride.

The Man With The Golden Gun has the main gangster from Slumber Inc from Diamonds Are Forever in the opening.  Definitely looking forward to your thoughts on the movie.

This is a pretty decent film. Not top tier, but good. I like JW, but I do think you're right regarding the pacing and it would have been a better film if the boat chase had been tighter.

For some reason, as a kid I was immensely pleased to see the inside of Bond's house.

Great review! I'm very glad that the film has moved up on your list! This film is important to me because it's the first Bond film I every saw and, arguably, the first "grown up" film I saw in the cinema (that wasn't something boring or hideously inappropriate because my parents didn't want to spring for a babysitter). It was the summer of 1973 and we were living on an American Air Force base on Okinawa. I was 9 years old at the time (I won't see 62 again) - our dad took us and some of our neighborhood friends to the on-base theater. I remember finding the film very exciting and, at times, very scary. The snake in the hotel bathroom scared me and I was abjectly terrified by the coconut-headed scarecrows in the jungle. During Rosie's panicked flight through the foliage, I was so scared, I asked my dad to take me out of the theater. He didn't, thankfully. After the film was over, we no doubt returned to the playground in our neighborhood, which was in the depths of the jungle and was infested with poisonous snakes.

I pretty much agree with all the opinions you expressed about aspects of the film and I think your overall rating is quite just. Parts of the boat chase which, I admit, is PRETTY long, ARE accompanied by music. I agree that music could have added additional suspense to the jump and the explosive climax, but at least it wasn't a slide whistle, right?

J.W. Pepper is annoying, I think by design. I'm not sure I can fathom precisely how the writers meant for the character to be received, but when I watch the film now, I see a racist buffoon being mocked and lampooned, so that works for me. If you're baffled by his presence in THIS film, what must you think of his role in the NEXT one? "We're Democrats, MaeBelle!" Well, I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Like you, I love the musical score - George Martin did a fantastic job creating a sound that perfectly accompanies the action and imagery. The title song is a banger and I love how the score smoothly transitions into the theme at both the beginning of the film and at the end, when Baron Samedi's head bursts into flames.

The cast is uniformly excellent. I quite like David Hedison's performance - I think he strikes the right balance of professionalism and chumminess. Definitely an improvement over the role as written/performed in the previous film. Jane Seymour is wonderful. The age difference is a bit cringeworthy. Yaphet Kotto is amazing - such a commanding screen presence. Geoffrey Holder is fantastic as the enigmatic Baron Samedi character.

Which brings me to a mystery. I'd always assumed that Fleming was inspired to incorporate the supernatural threat of Baron Samedi into the novel by Francois Duvalier, the brutal president of Haiti, who created a cult of personality by emulating aspects of Baron Samedi in order to terrify and subjugate the populace. But the novel was published in 1954, and Duvalier didn't (according to what I was able to find) begin cultivating his Baron Samedi persona until 1959. So, is this a case of life imitates art?

Again, wonderful review! I'm both excited and apprehensive to watch your review of "The Man With the Golden Gun"!

“Live and Let Die” ranks in the bottom tier of James Bond films; along with Guy Hamilton’s other efforts. (I’ll give a bit of breathing room to “Goldfinger,” but even that is obscenely overrated.) He cares little about character and plot development, and his action scenes are devoid of style or imagination. (Peter Hunt, he is not!) In an interview shortly before the film’s release, Hamilton said, “We want you to leave your brains under the seat and not ask too many questions.” He was aided in his goal by the least impressive screenwriter, and a leading man who coasted through on his customarily smug, ain’t-I-cute veneer. Excellent for “The Saint” and “The Persuaders”; totally wrong for Bond!

Tom Mankiewicz added insult to injury by peddling the myth that Roger Moore was closest to Fleming’s conception of Bond. I guess that’s what inspired him to pen an even more asinine script for the next production.

Among its many sins, “Live and Let Die” contains the worst introduction of a new Bond: a tiresome bedroom comedy out of the 1950s, complete with a monogrammed JB robe. (And M comes to Bond’s flat? I think not!) As with Moore’s other films, Moneypenny is a nonentity. Bond’s reaction to a colleague’s murder is, “I always liked him; he and I shared the same boot-maker.” No shock, no anger.

I realise that the novel contained old racial attitudes and other anachronisms. But sticking to the original ambience — rather than cashing in on the 1970s “Blaxploitation” craze — would have made for a film of genuine suspense and intrigue. (Hopefully without Mankiewicz’s idea of “wit.”) It was years later in “For Your Eyes Only” — Moore’s ONLY good Bond film — that John Glen had the guts to stage the “keelhauling” sequence.

Yaphet Kotto is one in a long line of fine actors wasted as a badly developed villain. (The Harlem boss disguise was ludicrous.) Geoffrey Holder should have been the main villain. Lacking the courage to cast a Black actress as Solitaire, the producers settled for one as a superstitious, dimwitted sidekick — who gets killed, anyway! Felix Leiter, again, is none-too-bright. Kotto’s death is absolutely one of the most idiotic of the series! The train fight doesn’t have one ounce of the tension of “From Russia With Love.”

Hamilton offered us a dragged-out forerunner to “Smokey and the Bandit,” complete with the cartoonish sheriff. He had suggested Burt Reynolds for the role of Bond, which should tell you a thing or two! The sets have a cheapjack look to them, including the voodoo camp and Kananga’s hideaway.

I’ll close on a positive note: George Martin’s excellent score, and Paul McCartney’s dynamic title song.

Although I really like Roger Moore as Bond, LALD never was my favourite and it constantly ranks in the lower half or bottom third in my ranking. I think at that times it became obvious and visible that for a striking Bond film a production budget of $7 million simply wasn´t enough (Bond films stuck to this budget level since OHMSS to TMWTGG) and while it maybe was a decent budget in 1969 for OHMSS, the inflation and salary for Roger Moore ate quite a chunk of it. Resulting from this there were couple of restraints that you also mentioned. So here are my "problems" with this film:

1. Switch from the "cinematic" wide screen aspect ratio of 2.39 : 1 to a more ordinary 1.85 : 1. This caused a flatter and sometimes almost a TV look of the film.
2. The plot itself is not that bad, but after some larger than life plots from previous films, it felt a bit too ordinary / nothing special.
3. The main villain was ok, but paradoxically Baron Samedi felt for me more menacing than Kananga. Solitaire is a nice looking girl but I think she lacks charisma and is not memorable enough.
4. The boat chase was too long, I think it could be cut by 3-4 minutes and it would be just fine.
5. Sheriff J. W. Pepper was absolutely unnecessary character (and more so in TMWTGG) and was quite annoying.
6. The music - after the monumental John Barry scores, this one was quite different and aged not so well IMO.
7. The US locations are not as appealing (this applies to all Bond films). The much smaller and humbler interior sets gave it the rest.

Overall a OK Bond film that isn´t as goofy as DAF but a bigger budget would have help it make better (I think this generally applies for DAF, LALD and TMWTGG).

This film was released at the same time as Smokey and the Bandit which was very popular. The JW Pepper was basically a copy of the Jackie Gleason character.

While I am no fan of Man with the Golden Gun, I still think Moonraker is even worse. Golden Gun is just boring, but Moonraker is actively offensive to the degree that it feels more like an Austin Powers parody than an actual Bond movie.