Live and Let Die is the eighth official film in the EON Productions Bond franchise and the first to star Roger Moore as British Secret Service agent, Commander James Bond. The film was released in 1973 and was produced by Albert R Broccoli and Harry Saltzman.

Live and Let Die marked several milestones for Bond films. It was the first time a fictional country would be used as a setting (this would happen again in Licence to Kill), and it was also the only occasion in which 007 commits what amounts to a political assassination, since Dr Kananga is the leader of a nation. Live and Let Die is also the first James Bond film in which the character Q was absent – though he is referenced in an early scene when Miss Moneypenny gives Bond his only piece of gadgetry in the film, a hyper-magnetic watch. (Q does appear in Dr No, though not played by Desmond Llewelyn and not addressed as Q but rather by his real name, Major Boothroyd.) Furthermore, Live and Let Die marked the appearance of the first romantically-involved African American Bond girl, Rosie Carver.

James Bond and Rosie Carver.

Plot summary: Three British MI6 agents, including one “on loan” to the American government, are killed under mysterious circumstances within 24 hours while monitoring the operations of Dr Kananga, the dictator of a small Caribbean island called San Monique. James Bond is sent to New York City, where the first agent was killed and where Kananga is currently visiting the UN, to investigate. As soon as Bond arrives in New York City, his driver is killed while taking him to meet Felix Leiter of the CIA and Bond is nearly killed in the ensuing car crash.

The driver’s killer leads Bond to Mr Big, a gangster who runs a chain of Fillet of Soul restaurants throughout the United States. It is during his confrontation with Mr Big that Bond first meets Solitaire, a beautiful virgin tarot expert who has the uncanny ability to see both the future and remote events in the present. In disguise as Mr Big, Kananga demands that his henchman kill Bond, who manages to escape unscathed. Bond follows Kananga back to San Monique, where he subsequently meets Rosie Carver, a CIA double agent, who is subsequently murdered on the island by Kanaga’s scarecrow men after Bond suspects her of working for Kananga.

Later he meets the boatman Quarrel Jr, who takes him to Solitaire’s home. Using a stacked tarot deck of only cards showing “The Lovers”, Bond tricks her into thinking that seduction is in her future and then seduces her. Solitaire loses her ability to foretell the future when she loses her virginity to Bond and is forced into cooperating with Bond to bring down Kananga.

It transpires that Kananga is producing two metric tons of heroin and is protecting the poppy fields by exploiting locals’ fear of voodoo and the occult. Through his alter ego, Mr Big, Kananga plans to distribute the heroin free of charge on the market, which will drive all the other drug cartels out of business, increase the number of addicts, and give Kananga a monopoly of the heroin market. Kananga’s men capture Bond and Solitaire at the New Orleans airport. Bond does not identify Mr Big, as the latter is wearing a plastic gangster mask.

Kananga rips off his mask and asks a disgusted Bond if he slept with Solitaire, using Bond to test her abilities. Kananga turns Solitaire over to Baron Samedi to be sacrificed after he discovers that her ability to read the tarot is gone. Kananga leaves Bond with his henchman, Tee Hee Johnson, who takes Bond to a crocodile farm community in the Louisiana backwoods. Bond escapes being eaten by the crocodiles by running along the animals’ backs to safety. He sets the farm on fire and steals a speedboat, engaging in a chase with Kananga’s men, local sheriff JW Pepper and the Louisiana state police. Later, back in San Monique, Bond interrupts the voodoo sacrifice and saves Solitaire.

Bond and Solitaire escape below ground into Kananga’s lair. Kananga captures them both and proceeds to lower them into a shark tank. Bond escapes and forces a shark gun pellet in Kananga’s mouth, causing him to literally blow up like a balloon, float to the top of the cave, and explode. After the job is done, Felix leaves Bond and Solitaire on a train out of the country.

Tee Hee follows Bond and Solitaire onto a train and tries to kill them both, but after a fight with Bond, is thrown out of the train at high speed, without his arm. Samedi is seen perched on the front of the speeding train in which Bond and Solitaire are travelling, laughing in his voodoo outfit, before the film ends.

See also:

• Live and Let Die: Film - Cast
• Live and Let Die: Film - Crew
• Live and Let Die: Film - Goofups
• Live and Let Die: Film - Locations
• Live and Let Die: Film - Soundtrack
• Live and Let Die: Film - Trivia