The James Bond Challenge – The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Posted on March 25, 2021 by therealchrisparkle

In which James Bond sets out on an unofficial mission to track down Scaramanga, who has sent MI6 a golden bullet with 007 carved on it; he has to find Scaramanga before Scaramanga finds him! However, there are no photographs of his enemy, so no one knows what he looks like – whereas everyone knows what Bond looks like. A big task for 007, but is he up to the challenge? Of course he is!

For a pay cheque of $240,000 plus 2.5% of the profits, Roger Moore was willing to reprise the role of Bond for a second shot. This would be the last time that producers Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli would work together as Eon Productions; after the film was released, Saltzman sold his 50% stake in Eon’s parent company, Danjaq, to United Artists, the legalities of which delayed the appearance of the next film, The Spy Who Loved Me, for three years. The Man with the Golden Gun was a box office success, although not as successful as Live and Let Die, grossing $97.6 million at the box office on a budget of $7 million.

Ted Moore was once again engaged as Cinematographer, but was replaced during filming by Oswald Morris, due to illness. Morris didn’t want the job, because he’d been in the position of taking over from another cinematographer several times before, knew the pitfalls, and he didn’t enjoy it. But he was wined and dined by Cubby Broccoli and allowed himself to be bribed into it. Morris was a seasoned cinematographer whose first film, The Card, was made in 1952, and whose last, The Dark Crystal, was in 1982. This was Morris’ only work on a James Bond film; and it was also Ted Moore’s last, even though he remained active in the industry for the next eight years. Raymond Poulton returned as editor, along with John Shirley; Guy Hamilton returned for his fourth and final time as Director, refusing to do more Bond films afterwards as he had run out of ideas. Regular composer John Barry returned to score the film but only had three weeks to work on it, and considers it the least successful of all his scores for Bond. Design was by Peter Burton, who had designed Thunderball, and the screenplay credits were shared by Tom Mankiewicz, who wrote the first draft, and Richard Maibaum, who was brought back to revise it.

The Man with the Golden Gun was published posthumously in 1965 and was the twelfth and final novel in Ian Fleming’s series of books, although Octopussy/The Living Daylights was published later as a collection of short stories. Fleming wrote it in the first few months of 1964 but ill health prevented him from enhancing the bare bones of it, and the relative thinness of the plot is probably due to the fact that Fleming never had the opportunity to fill the story out at a second re-writing stage. As often happened, some of the characters were based on people Fleming knew in real life; he was at school (and often fought with) a boy he loathed by name of George Scaramanga.

The film is a very loose adaptation of the book. In both, Bond works his way into meeting Scaramanga, whose weapon of choice is a gold Colt 45 that shoots golden bullets; eventually he corners Scaramanga and kills him. Beyond that, the film and the book diverge. In the book, Bond had been brainwashed in the Soviet Union into attempting to assassinate M – fortunately he fails; Scaramanga’s evil plans are to destabilise the Jamaica sugar industry, with drug running and smuggling prostitutes as side interests; and Bond meets up with old CIA pal Felix Leiter who helps him to kill Scaramanga. The book is largely set in Jamaica, but the production team thought that was too repetitive after Live and Let Die, so they relocated the story to Macau, Hong Kong, and Thailand, which allowed them to cash in with some karate and kung fu scenes that were very popular at the time – but nothing to do with the book. The characters of Nick Nack, Andrea Anders, and Pepper were all creations for the film.

Perhaps unexpectedly, the book received polite, if lukewarm reviews. Knowing that its writer was ill when it was written, and had since died, reviewers tended to give Fleming the benefit of the doubt. The Observer commented “perhaps Ian Fleming was very tired when he wrote it. Perhaps … he left it unrevised. The fact remains that this posthumous Bond is a sadly sub-standard job.” Time magazine was less generous, saying “it may have been just as well that Fleming died when everybody still thought he could do no wrong.” Ian Fleming’s biographer, Henry Chandler, noted that the novel “received polite and rather sad reviews, recognizing that the book had effectively been left half-finished, and as such did not represent Fleming at the top of his game.”

The film, however, couldn’t blame problems with the screenplay on a largely unfinished novel. The Guardian was savage with its critique, saying that “the script is the limpest of the lot and … Roger Moore as 007 is the last man on earth to make it sound better than it is.” The New York Times considered the film to suffer from “poverty of invention and excitement”, criticising the writing and Moore’s performance and finding Hervé Villechaize as Nick Nack and Christopher Lee as Scaramanga, as the only positive points for their “sinister vitality that cuts through the narrative dough”. Of the more recent reviews, American critic Danny Peary wrote that the film “lacks invention … is one of the least interesting Bond films” and is “a very laboured movie, with Bond a stiff bore, Adams and Britt Ekland uninspired leading ladies”.

As usual, the opening credits begin, with Maurice Binder’s iconic glimpse of Bond walking across the screen whilst being captured by the barrel of a gun, only for him to turn around, see us, and shoot; and then for the blood to start filling up the screen. What makes it slightly different in this film is the rather jaunty, easy-listening treatment given to Monty Norman’s James Bond Theme, with some enjoyable strings and brass.

The opening scene features Scaramanga and Anders on a beach, being brought some champagne by Nick Nack – her sensually drying him off providing the cue for some visual humour with the fizz popping and spuming in time with the sexual undertones of the scene. Then there follows a rather long and drawn out encounter between a Chicago gangster who’s been engaged to kill Scaramanga both as an exercise for keeping Scaramanga alert and on top of his game, and also for the chance for Nick Nack to inherit his money if the gangster were to be successful. After being confused and disturbed by a number of fairground attractions, that have been installed in Scaramanga’s lair, Rodney the gangster is disadvantaged and Scaramanga eventually kills him instead. However, it’s all rather slow and humourless, and comes across as probably the least interesting opening scene of any Bond film so far.

Then the credits resume with Lulu’s performance of The Man with the Golden Gun, an innuendo-filled theme that has not stood the test of time at all well. “He has a powerful weapon […] Love is required whenever he’s hired […] Who will he bang? […] He’ll shoot anyone with his golden gun.” The silhouette of a naked dancing lady cheers the title sequence up a bit, but for the most part it’s a rather unimaginative series of faces and bodies distorted by water reflection. They’re insufficiently artistic to impress you with the artistry, and insufficiently sexy to inspire you the other way. In fact, the film doesn’t have a lot going for it so far!

And the locations? The original plan – which sounds bizarre today – was to film in Iran, and in fact the creative team travelled out there to spec out locations. But on their way back, the Yom Kippur War started and that put an end to that plan. So Plan B was for Bond to track Scaramanga down through an eastern Odyssey of Macau, Hong Kong and Thailand, plus, of course, M’s office in London. Some of the filming took place around the capsized Queen Elizabeth in Hong Kong Harbour, before the authorities removed it. Whilst filming in Hong Kong the cast and crew stayed at the Peninsula Hotel, which also features in the film and looks every inch the best place to stay. As does Hai Fat’s pad in Bangkok – the location for filming his Pad Thai (sorry, I had to include that pun) was the Hong Kong Dragon Garden, in the New Territories. The outside of the Bottoms Up strip club was filmed in Kowloon, although the interiors were filmed at Pinewood; and they used the floating Casino de Macau because there weren’t any casinos in the more “puritan” Hong Kong.

Bond, James Bond. Although he received quite a lot of criticism for his performance, I thought Roger Moore warmed into Bond better than he did in Live and Let Die. He’s less smarmy, less of a smart-arse (although I’m sure you can blame the scriptwriters for that), a little more animated and a little more believable. He does get to say the magic words, Bond James Bond – in fact, the full “Good evening, my name is Bond, James Bond” when he introduces himself to Beirut Belly Dancer Saida, played with enthusiasm by sometime Royal Shakespeare Company actor Carmen du Sautoy (the “du” is omitted from the credits on the film.) He also says it when he introduces himself to Lazar. A rather dark tone is set by having the character of Bond noticeably more sadistic in this film. He gives Andrea several slaps about the face, he rejoices in aiming to shoot Lazar in his nether regions, and he even pushes the souvenir-selling boy out of the boat. Apparently, Moore wasn’t happy with either his treatment of Andrea or the boy, believing that Bond would have worked out a more elegant solution to both problems. Lazar’s goolies, however, seemed to be fair game.

Boo-boos. As always, a few mistakes made their way onto the screen. When Andrea Anders is sitting, dead, next to Bond, you can see Maud Adams move twice; once her nostril flares, and another time you can see the level of her hat go up and down in time with her breathing. And when Nick Nack starts flinging the wine bottles at Bond to keep him at bay, hardly any wine splashes out from the bottles – because they’re fake, empty bottles! And then when Bond and Goodnight walk around all the glass debris, they don’t cut themselves. When Bond gets roughed up in Saida’s dressing room, you can see the reflection of camera and crew members in her full length mirror; and you can also clearly see the actor who plays the mannequin of Al Capone blink twice.

The Bond Girl. As usual, it’s not entirely clear at first who is going to develop into the role of Bond Girl at the beginning of this film, and to be fair, the honours are shared by having two Bond Girls. First we see Maud Adams, as Andrea Anders, Scaramanga’s lover, reclining sexily on the beach; and as her part in the story increases, she starts to switch sides to Bond’s favour. She reveals to Bond that it was she who sent the bullet to MI6, to encourage Bond to seek Scaramanga out and kill him, because she saw that as her only chance of escaping his clutches. However that disloyalty dooms her to an early death; thus she’s the tragic Bond Girl in this film. Maud Adams was born in Lulea, Sweden, in 1945 and also plays “The Bond Girl” in Octopussy, in 1983. She’s enjoyed a long and successful career as an actor and model.

Playing the more positive and sunny aspects of Bond Girlhood is Britt Ekland as Mary Goodnight, who was originally written as Bond’s secretary in the novels by Fleming, but by the time of The Man with the Golden Gun, Fleming had imagined her as an agent based in Kingston, Jamaica. Britt Ekland plays Mary Goodnight with more vacuousness than is really good for her – part intentional, and part not. The Sunday Mirror described Goodnight as “an astoundingly stupid blonde British agent”. Britt Ekland was also born in Sweden, in 1942, and has also enjoyed a long and successful career as both actor and celebrity. Although there are two Bond girls in this film – for the first time in the series – although I think Goodnight trumps Anders, to be considered as the main Bond Girl – if only because she’s still alive in the final reel.

What Bond Girls Are Like. Apart from the Japanese heritage that sets You Only Live Twice’s Kissy apart from the rest of the Girls, our currently agreed list of attributes common to the Bond Girls is: sexy, exotic, unpredictable, as equally likely to attack Bond as to support him, strong and self-reliant up to a point, sometimes tragic, professional, scary, vengeful, bossy – but with a vulnerable side. How well do these two Bond girls conform to the role? Goodnight has some of those qualities – she definitely gets resentful when she thinks Bond is with another woman – and she’s also rather dumb and liable to get things badly wrong, such as when she turns on the Manual Overide (sic) button with her bottom, without realising it. Where Goodnight brings a certain clumsy charm to the Bond Girl persona, Andrea Anders brings sophistication as well as being dangerously vulnerable. So, on the whole, both girls fit the bill pretty well.

The Villain. In an unusual structure for a Bond film, we meet the villain in the first few seconds. Francisco Scaramanga, played by Christopher Lee, is a top-notch assassin, charging a million dollars per kill, known for his personal secrecy and anonymity. From that point of view he is a million miles away from the likes of Goldfinger, who lives a brash and showy lifestyle. He has a fascination with all things circus, because his father used to run one. Allegedly, the boy Scaramanga was a trick-shot pistol marksman at the age of ten and by the age of fifteen was an international assassin-for-hire. I blame the parents. Whereas most Bond villains are very snappy dressers, always appearing immaculate in their expensive suits, Scaramanga is a much more casual type, frequently found loafing around in his open necked shirt. Nevertheless he is charming and urbane, and generous in his appreciation of others’ talents. He’d still kill you as soon as look at you, though. Christopher Lee, best known for his appearance in countless horror movies, was actually Ian Fleming’s step-cousin, and Fleming’s own first choice to play the role of Dr No back in 1962. He was born in 1922 and died in 2015 at the age of 93.

Other memorable characters? Probably even more memorable than the villain himself, is his sidekick Nick Nack, who acts as his personal servant, butler and henchman, enabler of villainy, encourager of challenges and all-round aide-de-camp. Unusually, he doesn’t actually die at the end of the film, he’s simply hoist inside a dangling cage on the junk sailing out to sea. He was played by Hervé Villechaize, a French-American actor born in Paris in 1943, who got his big break with this role, and who went on to spend seven years as Tattoo in the American TV series Fantasy Island. Despite his success and popularity, his is a sad story; he died by suicide in 1993, unable to endure the chronic pain he suffered from having internal organs too large for his small body.

Clifton James returned as the loutish Sheriff J. W. Pepper, a creation of the writer Tom Mankiewicz, who had written him into Live and Let Die. He was given this extra role because Guy Hamilton had really enjoyed him in the previous Bond film. Here he is on holiday with his souvenir-hunting wife Maybelle, first getting splashed by Bond being chased, and then being pushed into the canal by a baby elephant. He accidentally gets caught up in Bond’s car chase – an experience he thoroughly enjoys. Personally, I thought he was a dire inclusion in Live and Let Die, but provides a good comic interlude in this film.

Elsewhere, Richard Loo played Hai Fat, the millionaire Thai industrialist who had paid Scaramanga to assassinate the inventor of the Solex energy device so that he could steal it. It’s an enjoyable, no nonsense performance. Richard Loo was originally a businessman, but the Wall Street Crash made him think again, and he ended up appearing in around 120 films, The Man in the Golden Gun being his last film appearance.

There’s also a nice performance by Soon-Taik Oh as Lieutenant Hip, Bond’s contact in Hong Kong and Bangkok. Born in Korea, his family emigrated to the United States just before the Korean war, and he enjoyed a successful acting career on stage, TV and in film – his biggest success being the voice of Fa Zhou in Disney’s Mulan. His agent was Bessie Loo – the wife of the aforementioned Richard Loo! And Marne Maitland played the self-confident but ultimately outsmarted Lazar, the gunsmith who creates Scaramanga’s bullets; he appeared in many TV programmes and films over the years, including Pandit Baba in Granada TV’s The Jewel in the Crown.

As usual, Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell reprise their roles as M and Moneypenny; she just for one scene, but M, unusually, appears in four scenes, because he travels out to Hong Kong to keep an eye on what Bond is up to. His secret office is located on board the capsized Queen Elizabeth, in a piece of genius set design and imagination. Q is back, having missed out on Live and Let Die, still played by Desmond Llewellyn, and is given a couple of opportunities to dismiss and disapprove of Bond’s tactics and demands.

And what about the music? John Barry was his own worst critic for his soundtrack for this film, and is quoted as saying “It’s the one I hate most… it just never happened for me.” Ironically though, I feel that the oriental instrumentation on the familiar themes makes rather a pleasant change on the ears. There’s not much in the way of incidental music though, and what little there is, is rather repetitive. Lulu’s voice for the title theme doesn’t feel as though it suits the style of the song to me at all, and it certainly doesn’t feature in the list of iconic Bond themes and performances.

Car chases. There’s one exciting car chase where Bond, accompanied by a buoyed-up Pepper, drives a car out of a showroom (directly through the plate glass) and takes it on a mad run, following Scaramanga and Nick Nack through the streets of Bangkok; with the inevitable accompaniment of also being chased by the police. There’s one particularly exciting scene where Bond performs a corkscrew jump to cross a river, but it’s ruined by a ridiculous comedy swanee whistle sound effect, which John Barry later regretted because it undermines the entire stunt. Before then, there’s also a boat chase through the klongs of Bangkok, with Chula and others from the Karate School tracking Bond over water, until their boat gets stopped by another turning around, and Bond takes the opportunity to slice it in two by driving through it.

Cocktails and Casinos. No cocktails here, just plenty of champagne, including a bottle that pops saucily on the beach in the opening credits, another bottle opened between Bond and Andrea after he’s given her the rough treatment, the bottle of Phuyuck (not strictly champagne, and an obvious pun intended) that Bond shares with Goodnight at the Thai hotel and one that Scaramanga treats as target practice when he greets Bond as he arrives on his island. There is also one casino scene – it’s at the Casino de Macau where Andrea receives the golden bullets from Lazar.

Gadgets. There are some gadgets, but the majority of them are used by the enemy. Lazar’s gun, made for a client missing two fingers, where you squeeze the butt rather than pull a trigger; the Solex Agitator itself (“the essential unit to convert radiation from the sun into electricity on an industrial basis”, according to Q), the false third nipple that disgusts Q, the homing button on Goodnight’s dress. The golden gun itself is a cleverly constructed piece of kit, as it gets made out of three other golden accessories! But the crowning glory must be Scaramanga’s car that converts into an aeroplane.

In Memoriam. In a running count of deaths in Bond movies, Dr No previously held the record for the lightest number of fatalities at around 11; Thunderball is looking pretty heavy at around 50 people; but Diamonds are Forever is lethal at around 70. How does The Man with the Golden Gun compare? Let’s briefly look back at those who gave their lives so that Bond can finally have his junk and a good night (with Goodnight):

Rodney, the gangster
3 guys in Saida’s dressing room (but they might not be dead)
Gibson
Two men who die in fights to the death at the Karate School (one of them is definitely dead, the other might just be stunned!)
Ten or so left clinging on to life at the Karate school (who knows how many of them are dead?)
Hai Fat
Andrea
Scaramanga
Kra

That’s actually a very modest toll for a Bond movie.

Humour to offset the death count. It’s a sad reflection on the film that there are very few of the regular smart-alec bon mots whenever someone dies or whenever someone has a sexual encounter. The few funny lines that there are, tend to be given at other plot points.

When Saida realises that her belly-button charm is missing after the fight in her dressing room, she cries “Ah! I’ve lost my charm!” “Not from where I’m standing” replies Bond.

When Bond catches Andrea in her hotel room shower, and she opens its door to reveal a gun pointing at him, he asks, “a water pistol?”

When Bond explains that Hai Fat invited Bond to dinner, he tells Hip, “he must have found me quite titillating.”

Goodnight talking of how she killed Kra (by pushing him into the absolute zero helium tank): “I laid him out cold”.

Bond, to M, who wants to speak to Goodnight on the phone whilst Bond is making passionate love to her: “She’s just coming, sir.”

Any less frothy elements? So once again it’s time to consider if there are any outstanding themes or elements that don’t sit well with today’s audience, and perhaps surprisingly there’s not a lot to go on. There’s a little latent racism from Pepper towards the locals; and the creepy henchman Kra, treating Goodnight’s body as a plaything doesn’t feel entirely right. But this is an under-written Bond, so there’s little scope for offence.

Bizarre other stuff that occurred to me and a few observations.

My original reaction to the film was that it’s quite dull, boring and with very little story! Watching this film, it felt for the first time that my James Bond Challenge could be an arduous experience. There are two main scenes of exposition – the first two that feature M – where we find out what Bond’s tasks in the film are. Everything else is how he does or doesn’t meet those tasks, so it feels very pedestrian. However, I must admit that after watching it three times, I warmed towards it a little – it has an understated elegance which is quite appealing. It does, however, truly miss out on humour.

Although Oswald Morris was unhappy at taking over the role of cinematographer from the ailing Ted Moore, visually this film is superb. It’s down to the script that sometimes you feel like it’s more of a travelogue than a spy movie, but it always looks luscious.

It’s never explained why the three thugs attack Bond at the Beirut night club. If they’re working for Scaramanga and guarding Saida’s bullet-belly-button-charm, so that no one can trace it back to him, you can’t help thing there are easier ways of keeping that charm safe. But as someone said many years before – it’s best not to think too hard about the plots of Bond films. It was a nice touch for Bond to squirt the great smell of Brut into one of those henchmen’s faces, as Moore had been part of an advertising campaign for the company.

The fascination regarding solar power seems very old hat now! Many people now have their own solar panels on their roofs. It’s hard to believe it was once seen as a route to world domination.

A duel to the death seems remarkably formal and traditional – but it was a feature of Fleming’s novel. It was based on the duel in the 1955 film, Shane. Scaramanga describes it as “the only true test for gentlemen”. Although the script is slight, the fact that Nick Nack will inherit all Scaramanga’s wealth if Bond kills him does add an unexpected twist to the final showdown.

The actors who played Hip’s two young lady companions – his “nieces”, whom Bond at first tries to protect, but turn out to be karate experts – were actually members of a local judo club. But are they really his nieces? Maybe Bond is not the only womaniser on MI6’s side.

Wei Wei Wong, who played the topless waitress at the Bottoms Up club, and who also danced in the opening titles, appeared in a few films but was best known for her Saturday night BBC TV appearances as part of the light entertainment dance troupe, The Young Generation.

Why did Hip and the two karate girls drive off and leave Bond behind?

Awards: None!

To sum up: Despite a few nice moments and surprising subtleties, I’d say this was the worst of the Bond films so far. The primary problem is with the script, which is lifeless and boring, and doesn’t provide any memorable lines or jokes. Although it may not have been Britt Ekland’s sparkling vocal delivery that got her the job in the first place, her performance tends towards the bland and faltering. Moore is better than in his first role, and the cinematography is excellent. Otherwise this is a very disappointing film! There would be a three year wait until the next film, The Spy Who Loved Me. Let’s hope it’s worth the wait!

My rating: 2 Sparkles

All photos from the film of course belong to their various copyright holders.

The James Bond Challenge – Live and Let Die (1973)

Posted on December 1, 2020 by therealchrisparkle

In which James Bond is sent to eliminate ruthless Caribbean dictator and heroin supremo Dr Kananga (aka Mr Big), in an escapade involving voodoo, tarot, crocodiles, snakes and sharks. Will our hero prevent Kananga flooding the heroin market with two tons of free product so that he becomes the world’s only supplier? Of course he will!

Producers Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli were desperate to sign Sean Connery up to play Bond for the seventh time, but not even a pay cheque of $5.5 million would tempt him. Instead, they considered many other actors, including Julian Glover, John Gavin, Jeremy Brett, Simon Oates, John Ronane, and William Gaunt. They favoured Michael Billington, who was best known for his appearances in TV’s The Onedin Line, but when Roger Moore became available, his star status was too much of a draw for them to ignore.

Ted Moore returned as Cinematographer again, for the first time since Thunderball, with editors Bert Bates (who had worked on Diamonds are Forever), Raymond Poulton (who would also return for The Man with the Golden Gun) and John Shirley. Guy Hamilton returned for the third time as Director; regular composer John Barry was unavailable and Paul McCartney, who had written the title track, was too expensive, so the producers chose George Martin – who was, of course, The Beatles’ producer – to compose the score. Design was by Syd Cain, who had designed From Russia with Love, and the screenplay was by Tom Mankiewicz, who had played a major part in revising the original script of Diamonds are Forever, and would go on to contribute to three later Bond movies. Live and Let Die, however, would be the only film for which he received sole credit for writing the screenplay.

Live and Let Die was published in 1954 and was the second book in Ian Fleming’s series of James Bond novels. Fleming had actually finished writing it before the first book, Casino Royale, was published. It was written at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica, and was originally intended to have a more serious tone than its predecessor. Its original title, The Undertaker’s Wind, describes one of Jamaica’s winds that, allegedly, blows all the bad air out of the island. Many of Fleming’s own experiences were incorporated into the story. Scuba diving with Jacques Cousteau inspired the description of swimming out to Mr Big’s boat; his friend Patrick Leigh Fermor’s book The Traveller’s Tree, which had also been partly written at Goldeneye, is full of information and insights about voodoo. Even the character of Solitaire took her name from the local Jamaican rufous-throated solitaire bird.

The previous film, Diamonds are Forever, was the last James Bond film that I saw with my schoolfriend John at the cinema sometime in the mid-1970s. After then, I did not see another James Bond film until I saw Skyfall when it came out. So until I watched the film for the first time recently, I had never seen Roger Moore in the role. More of him later!

There are some similarities between the film and the book; but there are more areas in which the two completely diverge. In both the film and the book M sends Bond to New York to investigate Mr Big, although in the book he is suspected of selling gold coins and in the film he is dealing in heroin. In both the film and the book Bond is assisted by his old friend and CIA agent Felix Leiter, although in the book Leiter suffers considerable injuries en route and the film he largely gets off scot-free. The character of Solitaire plays a similar role in both film and book, but the voodoo element is played up a lot in the film. Because of altering the sequence of adaptations in the film series, Quarrel in the book becomes Quarrel Jr in the film, as we have already encountered the former (and seen him die) in Dr No. In the book Mr Big is a member of SMERSH, whereas in the film he’s the alter-ego of the dictator of the fictitious island of San Monique, Dr Kananga. The characters of Rosie Carver, Tee Hee, Adam, Whisper and Sheriff Pepper were all created for the film only. Samedi is an established figure in Voodoo, but also did not appear in the book.

For the most part, the book received very good reviews. The Times Literary Supplement observed that Fleming was “without doubt the most interesting recent recruit among thriller-writers” and that Live and Let Die “fully maintains the promise of … Casino Royale.” The Daily Telegraph felt that “the book is continually exciting, whether it takes us into the heart of Harlem or describes an underwater swim in shark-infested waters; and it is more entertaining because Mr Fleming does not take it all too seriously himself”. The Times thought that “this is an ingenious affair, full of recondite knowledge and horrific spills and thrills—of slightly sadistic excitements also—though without the simple and bold design of its predecessor”. However, reviews for the film weren’t always quite so positive. The reviewer for Time Magazine described the film as “the most vulgar addition to a series that has long since outlived its brief historical moment — if not, alas, its profitability.” He also criticized the action sequences as excessive, but noted that “aside an all right speedboat spectacular over land and water, the film is both perfunctory and predictable—leaving the mind free to wander into the question of its overall taste. Or lack of it.” Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times stated that Moore “has the superficial attributes for the job: The urbanity, the quizzically raised eyebrow, the calm under fire and in bed”. However, he felt that Moore wasn’t satisfactory in living up to the legacy left by Sean Connery in the preceding films. He rated the villains “a little banal”, adding that the film “doesn’t have a Bond villain worthy of the Goldfingers, Dr. Nos and Oddjobs of the past”.

As usual, the opening credits begin, with Maurice Binder’s iconic glimpse of Bond walking across the screen whilst being captured by the barrel of a gun, only for him to turn around, see us, and shoot; and then for the blood to start filling up the screen. Where we’re used to seeing Sean Connery, Bond is now noticeably Roger Moore, a slightly more elegant and poised presence than Connery, a characterisation that continues throughout the film.

We’re taken to the UN building in New York, where the delegates are listening intently, if languidly, to a dull speech from the Hungarian delegate. However, an interloper replaces the feed from the translator to the British delegate with some kind of electric charge and kills him stone dead. Then we move to a New Orleans jazz funeral march, another British spy gets killed – knifed whilst watching the march, and then we move to the fictitious island of San Monique, where a Voodoo snake ceremony is taking place. As a consequence, a third British agent is fanged to death. Three deaths so early!

And now the credits really start with Paul McCartney and Wings’ performance of Live and Let Die, an iconic track that’s still much loved all these years on. Binder’s title sequence calls for a view after view of fire and fireworks, plus some very cheesy use of an oversized optic fibre lamp, which after a short while becomes slightly less than interesting. Luckily, there are a few shots of barely hidden bosoms to perk the credits up. But I would suggest this is possibly the least creative title sequence in the series so far.

And the locations? As already described, we start off in New York – from then, the action takes place in New Orleans and Louisiana, and the fictitious island of San Monique; scenes there were filmed in Jamaica. Whilst in New York, the producers were reportedly required to pay protection money to a local Harlem gang to ensure the crew’s safety. When the cash ran out, they were “encouraged” to leave.

Bond, James Bond. This was Roger Moore’s debut in the role – so how did he make out? Well, being Bond, he made out quite a lot. Aged 45 at the time of filming, Moore is very suave, very posh, very sophisticated; but to me, his performance felt quite forced. Guy Hamilton gave him the affectation of the cigar, which makes him look even more lascivious and creepy than he already behaves. His first words are not simply “Bond, James Bond”, which is rather a shame, considering in The Saint, he was “Templar, Simon Templar”. In fact, his first words are those of disappointment at an unnecessarily early visit from M – “not married by any chance, are you?” And when he does eventually formally reveal his identity to us, saying the familiar line “My name’s Bond, James Bond”, it’s not until we’re 23 minutes into the film, when he introduces himself to Solitaire for the first time. Sometimes Roger Moore’s trademark underacting doesn’t work for me. I think Bond should be a bit more animated!

Boo-boos. Here are some, I am sure there are more. When making the coffee for M, Bond puts the milk in the coffee and then puts the steam into the coffee, demonstrating that neither he nor anyone involved in the scene had the faintest idea how to use the machine; added to which, the coffee grinder is alternately empty/full between shots. When Bond gives Mrs. Bell her “flying” lesson, the wings are torn off the plane. Yet when he asks her “Same time tomorrow?”, the reaction shot of Mrs. Bell shows an intact left wing – it’s the same ‘reaction’ shot as when he climbed into the plane. There are two scenes of funeral marches in New Orleans; one at the very beginning, and one in the middle of the film. They were both obviously shot at the same time: the sun and shadows are the same, the marchers and dancers are wearing the exact same clothes, and the extras hanging around a doorway across the street are identical. The whole crew and spectators are reflected in the cab’s window when Bond leaves the Voodoo shop.

The Bond Girl. As usual, the producers and scriptwriter bowl us a couple of curved balls early on in the film to fool us as to who The Bond Girl is in this adventure. First candidate is Miss Caruso, the Italian agent with whom Bond is sharing intimate moments when M comes awkwardly to call. She is played by Madeline Smith, originally a model and then a starlet in grisly Hammer horror films, before becoming one of those bit-part actresses seen in numerous light entertainment and comedy roles on TV and in films. She was recommended for the role by Roger Moore himself, who had worked with her in an episode of his TV series The Persuaders. Her career wound down in the 1980s when she had a daughter, but she’s still going strong to this day.

Next candidate for Bond Girl is the apparently ditzy and careless Rosie Carver, played by Gloria Hendry. Rosie is an inexpert CIA agent who adds some nice touches of comedy to the film with her clumsy gadget-handling and useless spy skills. However, as Bond quickly comes to realise, this is all a bluff and she’s double-crossing the CIA by working for Kananga. Her employer realises she can’t be trusted and has her killed. Rosie and Bond’s affair is a brief, double-crossing fling which ends the hard way. Gloria Hendry was originally a Playboy Bunny but then gained a couple of acting jobs and her appearance in Live and Let Die was significant as being the first African American woman to become romantically linked with James Bond! She’s had a varied career in movies since then, and has also written an autobiography. When the film was shown in South Africa her sex scenes with Bond were removed because of the Apartheid laws.

However, the Bond Girl in this film is undoubtedly Solitaire, played by Jane Seymour. Solitaire is used by Kananga for her tarot, psychic and occult skills and is icy at first but soon warms up after Bond breaks down her resistance (so to speak). As a result, she loses those skills and is of no use to Kananga, and he orders his voodoo henchmen to assassinate her – but Bond has other ideas. Jane Seymour, who was not the first choice for the role – that was Diana Ross, has had a long and highly successful movie career from her first appearance in 1969’s Oh What a Lovely War right to the present day. She has earned an Emmy Award, two Golden Globe Awards and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, not to mention her OBE in 2000.

The Villain. Meet Kananga – or Mr Big, as he is the same person; when he is acting as Mr Big he wears a facial prosthetic which gets removed to quite spooky effect. In many respects, Kananga’s a typical Bond villain – outwardly sophisticated and genteel, concealing a ruthlessness and cruelty to take your breath away. He was given the name Kananga – he’s only Mr Big in the book – by Tom Mankiewicz in honour of Ross Kananga, the charismatic owner of the crocodile farm used to shoot the scene where Bond leaps over the backs of several crocs to escape. Kananga suffers the highly improbable and deliciously disgusting fate of swallowing a compressed-gas pellet used in shark guns, causing his body to inflate up in the air and explode into tiny bits. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person. Kananga was played by Yaphet Kotto, who had a long and successful movie career, including playing President Idi Amin in the film Raid on Entebbe. Despite evidence to the contrary, Kotto has claimed descendance from the Crown Prince of Cameroon and Queen Victoria – a fact dismissed by Buckingham Palace. He was apparently quite unhappy with Tom Mankiewicz’s cartoon-style blaxploitative script; he summed his feelings up as “The entire experience was not as rewarding as I wanted it to be”.

Other memorable characters? In addition to those already mentioned, we welcome back CIA agent and Bond ally Felix Leiter for the fifth time, on this occasion played by David Hedison, another actor recommended to the role by Roger Moore – they were old friends. Hedison enjoyed some charismatic roles, including the title character in the original version of The Fly, and Captain Lee Crane in the TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Although Leiter isn’t given that much to do in this film, his on-screen chemistry with Moore worked very well – and he would return to the role many years later in Licence to Kill.

There’s a good performance from Roy Stewart as Quarrel Jr, the local agent who is always on hand to lend help with a boat. Stewart had a fascinating career, not only as an actor and stuntman, but also as the owner of a gym in Kensington (where the late Dave Prowse trained as a weightlifter) and the owner of a Caribbean restaurant, The Globe, that ran from the 1960s until his death in 2008 – and in fact, the restaurant continues to this day. Apparently, it’s where Jimi Hendrix spent his last evening alive.

Every good Bond villain has to have a chief henchman, and in Live and Let Die it’s Tee Hee Johnson, played by Julius Harris. Tee Hee is an elegant and smiling man – but definitely not to be trusted, with a hook for a hand like a Fleming version of a Peter Pan’s nemesis. It’s a great performance, with Mr Harris perfectly cast as this apparently upright, jovial chap but with a heart of complete stone. Julius Harris appeared in many notable TV programmes and films, including The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, Super Fly, even Cagney and Lacey and Murder She Wrote. He died in 2004 at the age of 81.

Perhaps the most notable character is that of Sheriff J. W. Pepper, a creation of Mankiewicz, brought in to provide some light relief. This pompous, loutish cop would return in The Man with the Golden Gun. He was played by Clifton James, a man with a career in movies that lasted a full fifty years, and who died in 2017 at the age of 96. It’s an arresting (no pun intended) performance that certainly breaks up the intensity of the speedboat chases. However, personally, I found the character incredibly tedious!

As usual, Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell reprise their roles as M and Moneypenny, both just for the one scene. Q, usually played by Desmond Llewellyn, is absent from this film due to his commitments to the TV series Follyfoot, although the writers of that show left him out of three episodes of that series to give him time to play Q as well. When Q was written out of this movie, because the producers wanted to give less emphasis to the gadgets, apparently Llewellyn was furious. Fans demanded Llewelyn’s return, and he appeared in eleven more Bond movies from 1974 to 1999.

And what about the music? As always, the film starts with the main James Bond Theme, in a light, crisp guitar and string arrangement, written by Monty Norman; and then, once the opening credits start to roll, we’re straight into Paul McCartney and Wings’ Live and Let Die. A hit for the band, reaching No 9 in the UK charts but No 2 in the US Billboard Hot 100, plus No 2 in Canada and Norway, and 5 in Australia, it didn’t appear on a Wings album, which is odd as it would have fitted perfectly, stylistically, in Band on the Run. It was also successfully covered by Guns ‘n’ Roses. After that, there’s no John Barry, but George Martin, including Martin’s arrangement of both the Norman theme and the McCartney theme, primarily that chaotic and exciting Middle-8 sequence. It was the first time that McCartney and Martin had worked together since the Beatles’ Abbey Road. Most of the music was performed by an orchestra under George Martin’s directorship; two notable exceptions are B J Arnau’s soul version of the title track and the New Orleans Olympia Brass Band under the leadership of Harold “Duke” Dejan, who play the funeral march (twice) where spies get knifed. The actor playing the baby-faced killer was actually band trumpeter Alvin Alcorn.

Car chases. Not much in the way of car chases as such; there’s a sequence with James Bond leaving the airport in New York to meet up with Leiter, but with his driver having been killed without Bond realising; cue some hair-raising stunt collisions. Another car chase follows, where Bond in a taxi is followed by one of Kananga’s henchmen. Apart from those, there’s a brief helicopter chase, where Bond and Solitaire try to hide from the pilot, a scene where three cops chase Bond driving a bus (which gets decapitated as it goes under a bridge), the plane that Mrs Bell has her flying lesson in (chased by henchmen), and the extensive speedboat chase, which crosses roads, bridges, wedding receptions, garden parties and much more.

Cocktails and Casinos. As if to make a clean break with the Connery style-Bond, there are no casinos in this film, and cocktails are kept to the minimum. Rather than have a cocktail shaken not stirred, Bond creates that noisy and arduous Cappuccino in the opening scenes. Otherwise, Moore’s Bond drinks Bourbon with no ice – although Leiter changes his order at the club to two Sazeracs.

Gadgets. With Q absent, there aren’t as many gadgets this time round; however, those that did make it into the movie are pretty impressive. Bond’s magnetic watch starts by grabbing M’s coffee spoon from his saucer, remotely unzips Miss Caruso’s dress, but also turns into a circular saw and thus ends up both saving his life and helping end that of Kananga. There’s a hairbrush that doubles up as a cassette recorder (how charming), together with a device for locating bugs (the recording, listening-in type, rather than creepy crawlies). Rather quaintly, the hairbrush also sends and picks up morse code, which seems rather retro. Bond also has a shaving foam spray can that doubles up as a flame thrower – alas poor intrusive snake who lets himself into Bond’s bathroom. And Strutter’s car has a microphone in the lighter. The enemy also have some good gadgets; for example, the lethal dart thrower that is sent from Whisper’s wing mirror, and a ghastly recorder with a microphone attached. The actor makes an awful noise with it, even worse than a child playing it.

In Memoriam. In a running count of death counts in Bond movies, Dr No had the lightest number of fatalities at around 11; Thunderball is looking pretty heavy at around 50 people; but Diamonds are Forever is lethal at around 70. How does Live and Let Die compare? Let’s briefly look back at those who gave their lives so that Bond can rescue Solitaire from the wrath of the voodoo:

First UN agent, electrocuted through his earphone
Second UN agent, knifed by a passer-by
Third UN agent, bitten by an asp
Charlie the driver, harpooned in the head by a miniature dart aimed through the window by the henchman Whisper, driving an overtaking car
2 henchmen in the Harlem wasteland (although maybe not, it didn’t take much to kill them, just a kick or two)
Rosie
Henchman kicked over by Bond dangling from hang glider
Strutter, knifed on a New Orleans street corner just like death #2)
Billy Bob, thwacked on the back of the head by Adam (maybe?)
Adam, doused in petrol by Bond and flambéd in the speedboat
Dambala and another man in voodoo scene
3^rd man in snake coffin – Samedi, or is he?
Whisper – confined into a torpedo
Kananga blown to smithereens (internally)
Tee Hee, disarmed and ejected through the train window

Approximately 15? Maybe that’s not too many after all.

Humour to offset the death count. In previous films, Bond’s classic asides are normally delivered whenever someone dies. Live and Let Die continues the tradition of applying Bond’s wry sense of humour to all sorts of occasions. Is it me, or in this film he is particularly cheesy?

It all starts in his first scene, when he’s caught in flagrante delicto with the Italian spy Miss Caruso. When he uses the magnetic watch to unzip her dress and she admires his magic touch, he replies, “sheer magnetism, darling.”

When Felix Leiter listens into the conversation between Bond and the CIA agent Strutter, courtesy of a microphone in the cigarette lighter, Bond comments, “A genuine Felix Lighter – illuminating!”

When Rosie says she’s going to be of no use to Bond, he replies, “oh well I’m sure we can soon lick you into shape.”

Solitaire suggests a quickie before they go and capture Kananga. “Is there time before we leave for Lesson Number 3?” “Absolutely” replies Bond. “There’s no sense in going off half-cocked.”

When Leiter queries why Bond decides against the table by the wall at the New Orleans club, he replies “I once had a nasty turn in a booth”.

When Bond and Solitaire have been roped together in Kananga’s lair, Leiter tells the worrying Quarrel, “relax, he must have got tied up somewhere”.

And when Kananga cuts Bond’s arm to release blood to alert the sharks, 007 quips “perhaps we could try something in a simpler vein.”

After Kananga has been exploded into tiny bits: “he always did have an inflated opinion of himself.”

And as Bond tosses Tee Hee’s arm out of the window, after he’s been flung from the train: “Just being disarming, darling.”

Any less frothy elements? So once again it’s time to consider if there are any outstanding themes or elements that don’t sit well with today’s audience. In this film, latent (and not so latent) sexism tends to give way to racism, with the blaxploitation theme. It’s said that the racial overtones in this book make it Fleming’s most difficult novel to accept nowadays (I’ve not read it myself); and the creative team were very concerned about this being the first Bond film where all the villains are black. The driver of the taxi (who’s obviously in the employ of Mr Big) taking him into Harlem tells Bond that for a big tip he’d take them to a Ku Klux Klan hideout – that doesn’t sit very comfortably. One of the other guys radios in: “you’ve got a Honky on your tail”; and “you can’t miss him, it’s like following a cue ball”. It’s not the only use of the H word, and that also doesn’t sit very comfortably! Then Strutter refers to all the tarot cards as “spades” – with all its racist overtones.

Rosie Carver is another problematic character; the CIA agent who appears to be totally useless, and screams at the sight of the dead snake and the “warning” feather hat on the bed, feigns confidence but basically swoons into his arms at the merest suggestion of how’s-your-father. When Bond draws a gun on her as her duplicitousness is revealed, she says “you couldn’t, you wouldn’t, not after what we’ve just done”, and his response is “I certainly wouldn’t have killed you before”. To be fair, it’s probably no more or less sexist than his interaction with any other woman in any other Bond film.

Bizarre other stuff that occurred to me and a few observations.

Owner of the crocodile farm Ross Kananga was paid $60,000 to do the “jumping-on-the-back-of-the-crocs” stunt. Sadly, he died at the age of 32 from a cardiac arrest, two years after being attacked by his pet leopard, Satan.

Denis Edwards, who played the third British agent (Baines) in the opening sequence, was terrified of snakes and wasn’t aware that he would be confronted by one, face-to-fang. He passed out. All that and he didn’t even get a credit.

Whilst the team were filming in the apparently disused tenement blocks of Harlem, associate art director Peter Lamont wanted to include some of the trailing wires that were hanging loose from some of the buildings. To make it more obvious in shot, he arranged for the wires to be cut so that they hung in the right place for the shot. Later that day, the telephone engineers arrived as they had had several reports that the phone lines were down – red faces from the art design team!

Geoffrey Holder, who played Baron Samedi, was primarily a dancer and choreographer – in the 1950s he was a principal dancer with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in New York. He had also once met Ian Fleming at his home Goldeneye in Jamaica. He was also terrified of snakes. One wonders how cruel the casting team really were! He appears in the very final scene at the front of the train, because originally the producers had thought of bringing him back for the next film.

The “little musical extravaganza” that entertains the guests at Bond’s hotel has overtones of rather a grotesque sex show, heavy on the Voodoo. Maybe tastes have changed since 1973.

The amusing flying lesson with the terrifying and terrified Mrs Bell. Not much to say about it, but it has to be mentioned!

Bond refers to Tee Hee as “Butterhook” when the actor Julius Harris fumbled a scene where he had to remove Bond’s watch with his hook; it was an off-the-cuff quip, but it stayed in the script, and subsequently became Moore’s nickname for Harris.

In the scene where Jane Seymour is about to be nibbled to death by a snake, Roger Moore crouches in the distance, watching, and his face conveys all the horror of being slightly late for tea. Talk about underacting!

The film holds the record for the most viewed broadcast film on television in the United Kingdom by attracting 23.5 million viewers when premiered on ITV on 20 January 1980.

Awards: Paul and Linda McCartney were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song – they missed out to Marvin Hamlisch’s title track for The Way We Were. They were also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, where they lost out to Neil Diamond and Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Guy Hamilton did, however, win the Evening Standard award for Best Film.

To sum up: I was a little disappointed in this movie. I thought it was rather slow, rather coarse, lacking in finesse, and a little too easy. Solitaire is a rather ineffective and drippy Bond Girl, and Kananga lacks the brutal streak of a Blofeld. But mainly, I wasn’t over impressed with Roger Moore in the role and could see how either Connery or Lazenby would have nailed it much better. That said, having watched it three times over the course of writing this blog, the film and Moore have both started to appeal a little more, so I’m going to upgrade it by one sparkle. Nevertheless, I’m hoping for an improvement in his next offering, which was The Man with the Golden Gun. Fingers crossed!