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Live and Let Die Trailer

Vital Statistics Conquests: 3 Martinis: 0 Kills: 6 "Bond, James Bond": 1

Synopsis:

• Three MI6 agents have died mysteriously - in New Orleans, on the island of San Monique and in Harlem, New York. M dispatches 007 to investigate. Bond's arrival in Harlem is predicted by a medium named Solitaire, and he is immediately a marked man. Her guardian, Dr. Kananga, rules the island of San Monique. Under the alias of Harlem hood, Mr. Big, he plans to flood US homes with home-grown heroin, relying on Solitaire's uncanny skill with a tarot pack to keep several steps ahead of the law. 007 has to find a way to get a couple steps ahead of Solitaire herself.

Release Date:

• July 6, 1973

Plot:

• Total control of the heroin market

Box Office Results:

• $126.4 million

Running Time:

• 2 hours, 2 minutes

Issued Sidearm:

• Walther PPK

Gadgets:

• Suitcase Of Goodies
• Rolex Plus
• "Shark Gun" with compressed air bullets

Director:

• Guy Hamilton

Screenplay:

• Tom Mankiewicz

Main Theme:

• 'Live and Let Die' by Paul and LInda McCartney
• Sung by Paul McCartney and Wings

Starring:

• Roger Moore as James Bond

Villain:

• Yaphet Kotto as Dr. Kananga / Mr. Big

Henchmen:

• Julius W Harris as Tee Hee
• Earl Jolly Brown as Whisper
• Geoffrey Holder as Baron Samedi
• Tommy Lane as Adam
• Gloria Hendry as Rosie Carver
• kanangas thugs

Bond Girls:

• Jane Seymour as Solitaire
• Madeline Smith as Miss Caruso

Supporting Cast:

• David Hedison as Felix Leiter
• Roy Stewart as Quarrel Jr.
• Clifton James as Sheriff J.W. Pepper

• Bernard Lee as M
• Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny

Filming Locations:

• London, UK; Fictional country of San Monique (Jamaica); New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, USA; New York City, New York, USA; Slidell, Louisiana, USA

Best Quote: (According to mi6.co.uk)

• Bond: "Why it's just a hat darling, belonging to a smallheaded man of limited means who lost a fight with a chicken."

Best Mistake: (According to mi6.co.uk)

• On the back of Solitaire's cards is a red and white design featuring the number 007 repeated over and over.

Distinguishing Feature:

• First appearance by Roger Moore as Bond. Also, it's the second time the pre-credit scene didn't include Bond himself.

Detailed synopsis:

A sonic attack shorting out the mind of the British representative of the United Nations in New York. A second British agent getting stabbed while investigating a Fillet of Soul restaurant in New Orleans. A third agent caught within a bizarre voodoo ritual on the small Caribbean island of San Monique where he gets bit by a snake. What do these three incidents have in common? Whatever it is leads right back to MI6, who is forced to call upon James Bond (just back from a journey to Rome) to head out an investigate. As Bond tries to keep his "former business" under wraps, M gives him valuable early morning instructions at his home regarding the incidents. In particular is the appearance and potential connection of the murders to one Dr. Kananga, the president of San Monique who was in New York at the time of the murder to speak on behalf of his nation at the UN. After receiving orders and "finishing up" with his former encounter, Bond hops a flight to the states...but his arrival is predicted by a mysterious tarot-reader who shows that his arrival will bring "destruction".



Once in New York, Bond follows the instructions to meet up with his old friend Felix Leiter to gather further information. But trouble soon follows as soon as he hits the F.D.R. Expressway as a large set black man shoots Bond's driver with a dart from his rear-view mirror. With quick thinking, Bond is forced to take control of the car and bring it under control. Once he stops driving, Bond contacts Leiter and tells him of the license plate for the car that tried to throw him off the road. The information leads Bond to the Oh Cult Voodoo Shop, where unknowingly Kananga is continuing to throw off the Americans with his good intentions while preparing himself and his personal tarot-reader Solitaire for their true purpose in the city. As they leave, Bond attempts to follow, but is manipulated by a cabby and the well-alert people of Harlem to lead him to a nearby Fillet of Soul. Though appearing to be a normal restaurant, Bond is thrown for a loop (literally) into the hideout of well known American gangster Mr. Big, where he's further humiliated as his gun is scrunched by a large clamp-handed man. Bond tries to make small-talk with Solitaire to determine her position personally and via the cards, but ends up surprising her when telling his future and seeing the card of "The Lovers" representing him. As she blocks it out, Mr. Big personally tells his men to take him outside to handle Bond, but the men are quickly dispatched by a combination of the agent and an African-American agent working for Leiter. Informed by the Americans about Kananga's departure from the city back to his home, Bond finds that his next stop is to head to San Monique to further investigate the situation.



Yet no sooner than Bond arriving in the Caribbean that suspicious things begin to happen once again: the local hotel is throwing a show starring the cemetery god Baron Samedi and he already has a hotel room courtesy of a Mrs. Bond! Staying in the room provided by him, Bond attempts to relax while trying to keep an eye open to anything suspicious, including bugs and wires. But as he bathes, a snake crawls right into the bathroom preparing to attack him. Initially drawn away thanks to the hotel's butler, Bond takes care of the snake with quick thinking (and a makeshift blowtorch out of a cigar and shaving cream), but is no sooner has a gun pointed at him by a mysterious woman! The woman identifies herself as the "Mrs. Bond": CIA agent Rosie Carver, whose first mission involved the dead man on San Monique (Bond is her second). Though slightly incompitent, Bond takes her in his arms to help her out. But by the next morning while waiting for Rosie, Bond discovers a forboding message by way of an upside-down Queen of Cups, forcing him to look further into a nearby tarot shop before continuing with the mission.

Hiring a boat at the nearby docks run by the friendly Quarrel Jr., Bond & Rosie head out to sea to search for any particular clues. Of particular note is a large mansion, a home specifically set-up by Kananga for Solitaire. The duo land and search nearby for anything suspicious, but a slight break allows Bond to reveal the truth of his tarot message: Rosie is a double-agent sent by Kananga! But the message is too late for the woman, as she is spotted by one of the many "scarecrows" guarding his property and promptly assassinated for her failure. Realizing that he has no further choice but to go ask someone close to Kananga himself, Bond decides to fly into Solitaire's mansion by way of hang-glider, while the fortune reader herself begins to waver in fear due to the previous "Lovers" prediction she made amidst threats by her sponsor to "take her power himself" when the time came. When Bond finally reaches Solitaire, she tries to deny him and her own predicted fate herself, but Bond (alongside a "stacked deck" of Lover cards) finally forces the predictor to approach the inevitable.

Now powerless due to the agent, Solitaire begins to doubt herself and where she stands at this point, but Bond promises to protect her as a "lover" until Kananga was finally stopped. Using her further, the duo proceed back to the investigation of the island, where they are forced to follow the "protecting" scarecrows to find out his true intention. After a slight encounter with an "unmasked" Samedi, Bond finally discovers what Kananga was hiding all this time: a farm growing tons of poppy fields for heroin! But no sooner had he made that discovery that a helicopter attacks him and Solitaire and the duo are forced to flee into town. Seizing a derelict double-decker bus, Bond is forced to drive while escaping from local authorities and decieving them while using the massive vehicle to his advantage. Once they've escaped, Bond and Solitaire jump onto Quarrel's ship where they've escaped for the time being. But with his mind back on the mission, he contacts Felix to meet him in New Orleans, the site of the third agent's death, to try and attempt connect them all while using the girl as bait to get Kananga to reveal himself.

Once back in the states and barely off the airplane, Bond and Solitaire are immediately discovered by the minions for Mr. Big. Still not believing Bond and feeling her loyalties towards Kananga, the girl breaks away and rejoins them, forcing Bond to take action to take them down, even commandeering an airplane with an old lady waiting for her flight lesson to do so! With Solitaire gone and the men still on the loose, Leiter forces Bond to stick to his mission investigating the Fillet of Soul restaurant where the agent was killed. Yet no sooner inside the restaurant that Bond drops right in to another secret room, with Mr. Big waiting and Solitaire by his side! Still confused as why a "two-bit gangster" would work with a corrupt leader, Mr. Big reveals the truth: he is Kananga! With that relevation, Bond finally discovers the true scheme: the distribution of free heroin grown by Kananga himself to control a drug monopoly in the country. But Kananga's worries are not about his scheme but more about the potential loss of his greatest protection in Solitaire's tarot-reading. Though seeming to protect her while Bond is still around before being taken away to "the farm", Kananga shows greater anger for her giving herself away and losing her gift in private, with death the only option for her salvation.

Meanwhile, Tee-Hee and several other minions take Bond to the "farm": a farm of alligators and crocodiles being raised amidst an operation of heroin processing for distribution at the Fillet of Soul restaurants. Tee-Hee abandons Bond to be eaten by the vicious predators, where the agent slowly runs out of options except to jump across the crocodile backs himself to get away. Once out of the pool, Bond blows up the heroin processing plant while attempting to get away by speedboat to safety. Adam, another of Kananga's minions, leads a platoon of men to follow the agent across the bayou while avoiding anything and everything in their way. Yet in the midst of the entire speedboat showdown, the duo are simultaneously being watched by (and completely annoying) Sherrif J.W. Pepper, a local "good-old boy" sherrif who slowly goes mad with the craziness happening around him. Ultimately Bond is able to corner Adam forcing him into a derelict ship that leads to him crashing his speedboat and blowing him up in the process. By the time the British agent reaches shore and Leiter attempts to explain to Pepper who they are and why they disturbed the local peace, they find out that Kananga has returned to San Monique with Solitaire, forcing them to chase them back to the island.

Returning to their former locale, Bond begins his mission of destroying Kananga's poppy fields while likewise saving Solitaire from voodoo-style execution lead by Baron Samedi himself. After destorying a Samedi idol, Bond is forced to face the real cemetary god in a one-on-one match, ultimately throwing him in a coffin filled with snakes as the bomb destroying Kananga's heroin crop goes up. With the girl free, the duo attempt to escape via a cave-like network nearby, but are recaptured once again by the San Monique leader who removes Bond's threat which includes a gun with bullets filled with pressurized air. Kananga attempts to rid himself of both of his threats by dropping them into the waterway and drawing sharks to Bond with a wound dripping with blood. But the agent escapes and faces Kananga in a final showdown where the duo fall into the water and Bond stuff one of the air bullets into the leader's mouth, making him inflate to explosion!

Escaping from San Monique, Bond and Solitaire return to New Orleans to put their adventure behind them with a long train ride. But old enemies die hard as Tee-Hee sneaks onto the train and claws his way to Bond and a final showdown with the agent. But using ingenuity (as well as wire-cutters and an open window), the large minion is thrown from the train and Bond and Solitaire finally have peace once again. But as Baron Samedi laughs off into the sunset, it shows that some threats may "never die"...