Live and Let Die (film)

Live and Let Die
Theatrical release poster by Robert McGinnis
Directed byGuy Hamilton
Screenplay byTom Mankiewicz
Based onLive and Let Die
by Ian Fleming
Produced byHarry Saltzman
Albert R. Broccoli
Starring
CinematographyTed Moore
Edited by
Music byGeorge Martin
Production
company
Distributed byUnited Artists
Release dates
  • 27 June 1973 (1973-06-27) (United States)
  • 12 July 1973 (1973-07-12) (United Kingdom)
Running time
121 minutes
CountriesUnited Kingdom[1]
United States[2]
LanguageEnglish
Budget$7 million
Box office$161.8 million

Live and Let Die is a 1973 spy film, the eighth film in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, and the first to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It was directed by Guy Hamilton and produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, while Tom Mankiewicz wrote the script.

The film is based on Ian Fleming's 1954 novel of the same name. The storyline involves a Harlem drug lord known as Mr. Big who plans to distribute two tons of heroin for free to put rival drug barons out of business and then become a monopoly supplier. Mr. Big is revealed to be the alter ego of Dr. Kananga, a corrupt Caribbean dictator, who rules San Monique, a fictional island where opium poppies are secretly farmed. Bond is investigating the deaths of three British agents, leading him to Kananga, and he is soon trapped in a world of gangsters and voodoo as he fights to put a stop to the drug baron's scheme.

Live and Let Die was released during the height of the blaxploitation era, and many blaxploitation archetypes and clichés are depicted in the film, including derogatory racial epithets ("honky"), black gangsters, and pimpmobiles.[3] It departs from the former plots of the James Bond films about megalomaniac super-villains, and instead focuses on drug trafficking, a common theme of blaxploitation films of the period. It is set in African-American cultural centres such as Harlem and New Orleans, as well as the Caribbean Islands. It was also the first James Bond film featuring an African-American Bond girl romantically involved with 007, Rosie Carver, who was played by Gloria Hendry.

The film was a box-office success and received generally positive reviews from critics. Its title song, written by Paul and Linda McCartney and performed by their band Wings, was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

  1. ^ "Live and Let Die". Lumiere. European Audiovisual Observatory. Archived from the original on 14 June 2021. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  2. ^ "Live and Let Die (1973)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Archived from the original on 2 December 2020. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference booklet was invoked but never defined (see the help page).