Roger Moore: Live and Let Die. (PG.) Directed by Guy Hamilton. Starring Moore, Jane Seymour and Yaphet Kotto. 1973. 121 mins/ The Spy Who Loved Me. (PG.) Directed by Lewis Gilbert. Starring Moore, Barbara Bach and Curd Jurgens. 1977. 125 mins.
During the Doctor Who 50th anniversary celebrations, show runner Steven Moffat said that of all the actors that had played the role, the second incarnation, Patrick Troughton, was the most important because he was the one that established that the character could change and adapt while still retaining the audience's affection. Roger Moore was the third big screen Bond but as George Lazenby was encased within the Connery years, and was giving his interpretation of Connery's perfromance, Moore's version was the one that gave the series its longevity. He established the role's flexibility and, almost as much as Connery, is probably the reason Bond is still massive today.
He is the longest running Bond and a great Bond, but one you probably have mixed feelings about. His version seems based more on John Steed from the TV Avengers than big screen Connery. He's a pastiche of British reserve and stiff upper lip, without the dynamism that Connery or Lazenby brought to the role. The Carry On films and the Bonds are inextricably linked, both being made up in Pinewood studio, both projecting an image of Britishness to the world, two cornerstones of the nation's culture that you sat down to watch over Christmas on the box. In the seventies, as the Carry Ons were winding down, Moore's Bond effectively took over their function. Sex was a real thing for Connery – a thing of hydraulics and insertions. You didn't see it, but you fully believed it happened. With Moore you didn't see it, and you didn't believe it happened. Sex was a more abstract concept. When Moore made out with a lady it was fundamentally on a par with Sid James going Phwoar as Barbara Windsor bra came off, or Benny Hill Fwd chasing scantily clad ladies around a park. Moore did have physical intimacy with his ladies but only the slow lean into the kiss or the post-coital recline back. How could there be any more? Intrinsic to his interpretation was that Bond never broke into a sweat.
Live and Let Die
His first effort Live and Let Die betrays the producer's uncertainty and hesitancy about where to take Bond. In the sixties Bond films led; in the seventies they followed. Bond jumped on whatever fad was big at the box office: kung fu, sci-fi or in this case Blaxploitation. Quite why the producers ever thought this a good idea is lost to history but it does offer us the priceless scene where Roger Moore, the world’s whitest man, Honky No 1, is driven up to Harlem to go seek out bad guy Kananga (Kotto.)
It is also noticeably less glamorous than 60s Bonds. He still travels the world – New York, New Orleans, Jamaica – but the colours seem more muted. Only two films before they had made the lush, gleaming Milk Tray ad Bond, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Now they were turning out this comparative drab looking travelogue Bonds. Live And Let Die works though because of the quantity and quality of its “good bits.” There's the bayou speed boat chase, the crocodile escape scene, the double decker bus car chase and, of course, McCartney's opening song which, in this ever changing world in which we live in, is still probably the best Bond themes.
The Spy Who Loved Me.
Even today Bond is still seen as a sixties thing, and maybe our continuing affection for it is tied in with it being one of the few innovations from that decade that hasn't gone sour on us. Moving Bond into the new, harsher realities of 70s was a tricky task and the answer they struck on was making Bond a self-aggrandizing parody. Moore allowed audiences to laugh at themselves for ever taking this ridiculous figure seriously, while still furtively getting the same escapist pleasures from it, but in a more knowing way. This found its most perfect expression four years on in The Spy Who Loved Me. This is a Bond that is once again sure of himself. Rather than feed off a contemporary movie trend, this film goes back to feed off classic sixties Bond. Director Lewis Gilbert is recalled to remake You Only Live Twice – the one with the secret volcano lair from which Donald Pleasance tried to start World War Three by sending out his rocket to gobble up US and Soviet rockets.
Here we have Stromberg (Jurgens), an aquatic megalomaniac set on destroying humanity and starting again under the sea with all his great toys. And what great toys this film has: a giant oil tanker that swallows submarines, the Lotus that becomes a submarine, Stromberg's undersea base and, simply but effective, a union jack parachute. Ken Adam really excelled himself on this one, it was a live action Thunderbirds. And at the heart of it all was Moore, gliding through everything unflustered and unperturbed, relishing his place in a world where everything has been shaped for his benefit and comfort.
During the Doctor Who 50th anniversary celebrations, show runner Steven Moffat said that of all the actors that had played the role, the second incarnation, Patrick Troughton, was the most important because he was the one that established that the character could change and adapt while still retaining the audience's affection. Roger Moore was the third big screen Bond but as George Lazenby was encased within the Connery years, and was giving his interpretation of Connery's perfromance, Moore's version was the one that gave the series its longevity. He established the role's flexibility and, almost as much as Connery, is probably the reason Bond is still massive today.
He is the longest running Bond and a great Bond, but one you probably have mixed feelings about. His version seems based more on John Steed from the TV Avengers than big screen Connery. He's a pastiche of British reserve and stiff upper lip, without the dynamism that Connery or Lazenby brought to the role. The Carry On films and the Bonds are inextricably linked, both being made up in Pinewood studio, both projecting an image of Britishness to the world, two cornerstones of the nation's culture that you sat down to watch over Christmas on the box. In the seventies, as the Carry Ons were winding down, Moore's Bond effectively took over their function. Sex was a real thing for Connery – a thing of hydraulics and insertions. You didn't see it, but you fully believed it happened. With Moore you didn't see it, and you didn't believe it happened. Sex was a more abstract concept. When Moore made out with a lady it was fundamentally on a par with Sid James going Phwoar as Barbara Windsor bra came off, or Benny Hill Fwd chasing scantily clad ladies around a park. Moore did have physical intimacy with his ladies but only the slow lean into the kiss or the post-coital recline back. How could there be any more? Intrinsic to his interpretation was that Bond never broke into a sweat.
Live and Let Die
His first effort Live and Let Die betrays the producer's uncertainty and hesitancy about where to take Bond. In the sixties Bond films led; in the seventies they followed. Bond jumped on whatever fad was big at the box office: kung fu, sci-fi or in this case Blaxploitation. Quite why the producers ever thought this a good idea is lost to history but it does offer us the priceless scene where Roger Moore, the world’s whitest man, Honky No 1, is driven up to Harlem to go seek out bad guy Kananga (Kotto.)
It is also noticeably less glamorous than 60s Bonds. He still travels the world – New York, New Orleans, Jamaica – but the colours seem more muted. Only two films before they had made the lush, gleaming Milk Tray ad Bond, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Now they were turning out this comparative drab looking travelogue Bonds. Live And Let Die works though because of the quantity and quality of its “good bits.” There's the bayou speed boat chase, the crocodile escape scene, the double decker bus car chase and, of course, McCartney's opening song which, in this ever changing world in which we live in, is still probably the best Bond themes.
The Spy Who Loved Me.
Even today Bond is still seen as a sixties thing, and maybe our continuing affection for it is tied in with it being one of the few innovations from that decade that hasn't gone sour on us. Moving Bond into the new, harsher realities of 70s was a tricky task and the answer they struck on was making Bond a self-aggrandizing parody. Moore allowed audiences to laugh at themselves for ever taking this ridiculous figure seriously, while still furtively getting the same escapist pleasures from it, but in a more knowing way. This found its most perfect expression four years on in The Spy Who Loved Me. This is a Bond that is once again sure of himself. Rather than feed off a contemporary movie trend, this film goes back to feed off classic sixties Bond. Director Lewis Gilbert is recalled to remake You Only Live Twice – the one with the secret volcano lair from which Donald Pleasance tried to start World War Three by sending out his rocket to gobble up US and Soviet rockets.
Here we have Stromberg (Jurgens), an aquatic megalomaniac set on destroying humanity and starting again under the sea with all his great toys. And what great toys this film has: a giant oil tanker that swallows submarines, the Lotus that becomes a submarine, Stromberg's undersea base and, simply but effective, a union jack parachute. Ken Adam really excelled himself on this one, it was a live action Thunderbirds. And at the heart of it all was Moore, gliding through everything unflustered and unperturbed, relishing his place in a world where everything has been shaped for his benefit and comfort.
