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By the early '70s the Bond films were in a quandary. Connery had left for good, and when the series attempted to create a well-crafted film that captured the letter and spirit of Fleming's works ("On Her Majesty's Secret Service," the finest 007 flick) its box office returns convinced them to crank out self-parodies instead. And if any man was suited to poke fun at himself and walk through an entire movie tongue in his cheek, it was surely Roger Moore.

This is Moore's first outing as 007, and the producers attempted to differentiate this Bond film from the rest. Gone are the tuxedos, Vodka martinis or cigarettes. Gone are Ken Adams' huge, magnificent sets. Gone is John Barry's luxurious, rousing music. Gone is Peter Hunt's whip-smart editing. Most importantly, gone is the input of Richard Maibaum, the scriptwriter who had a hand in all the best Bond films (Name your favorite--he wrote it.)Instead the script was written by an American, Tom Manckiewicz, who'd helped out on the previous Bond, "Diamonds are Forever," the worst Connery film. The cartoonish, larger-than-life approach of DAF was carried through to "Live and Let Die." Instead of a clever, flamboyant thriller, we got a confused and drab action flick.

Guy Hamilton, who'd directed "Goldfinger," was brought back on board, presumably as a good luck charm. No dice. His direction is slow-wittedly uninspired and so is the art direction and cinematography. As for the screenplay, it has no forward momentum or suspense, and the villain's grand scheme--some muddled hokum about a heroin giveaway--is rather ho-hum and forgettable. It's a weak fumble of a story with very little excitement in it. So, the film's sets, photography and story all lack the epic, lavish feel you've come to expect from the Bond series. This is a low-budget Bond and it shows.

What's even more embarrassing are the racial attitudes at the heart of the film. It's basically about Bond rescuing a pretty white girl from conspiratorial hordes of all-black villains who either talk jive or perform voodoo ceremonies.
Some of the blame for this should go to Ian Fleming, whose novel bore a patronizing attitude toward race issues, especially regarding voodoo and a supposed Communist influence on African Americans. But Fleming ultimately respected African Americans far more than the film makers, who've filled their film up with cartoonish blaxpoiltation types. Fleming's ultimate message was that blacks had just as much intelligence and ability as anybody else, so the emergence of black supercriminals and enormous crime schemes were not only expected, but a sign of progress. But the film luridly exploits its black characters (all but one of whom are villains).

Those villains are up against the whitest-bread Bond you can imagine. The sight of Roger Moore stiffly strolling into a Harlem bar and trying not to raise his mock-aristocratic eyebrows is one of the weirdest images in the Bond series. Despite his lack of in-depth acting skills, his meager physical abilities, and his reluctance to act anything like a government assassin, it's impossible to really dislike Roger Moore. He doesn't have any pretenses about himself. He's got the charm of self-assurance, though in LALD he's still feeling his way into the role.

"Live and Let Die" has several elements worth the price of a rental. First is George Martin's score, the first Bond soundtrack not written by John Barry. It's got a harder edge than Barry's work, and incorporates funk/soul elements that never again found their way into Bond music. It's very pleasantly dated, and the guitars and horns have a definite early '70s feel.
Second is the title sequence, created by the amazing Maurice Binder. Designed to accompany Paul McCartney's weird, rousing title song, it's a surreal little tone poem. Utilizing such commonplace items as matches and sparklers, Binder created a compelling, ominous minifilm that captures the vibe and thrill of voodoo far better than anything in the actual film. The moment when McCartney sings "Live and let . . . DIE!" a close-up of a woman's dark face turns into a flaming skull--it's a wonderful moment.

Finally, "Live and Let Die" is the one Bond film that flirts with the idea of the supernatural. These are in fact the most interesting, surreal moments in the film. LALD might have been one of the truly interesting Bond films if such touches were expanded upon to give the entire film a surreal atmosphere of the bizarre. The prevalence of skulls and dart-shooting scarecrows, the continual shots of tarot cards and of Solitaire predicting the future with them (her powers seems genuine), along with images like an effigy of Baron Samedi rolling his eyes to look at the immense chunk Bond's just shot off of his head, or the Baron's triumphant appearance in the final shot, all seem to playfully suggest that the world of the supernatural may actually exist. But the actual film lets this fascinating aspect down with its tired direction and otherwise dull, down-to-earth screenplay. "Live and Let Die" might have been truly memorable if it had combined a compelling epic plot, with the usual suave Bondian antics and a surreal atmosphere wittily suggestive of the supernatural power of voodoo rather than exploitive of it. As it is, it's a mediocre film with memorable moments.