Live and Let Die (1973)
Directed by Guy Hamilton
James Bond must investigate a mysterious murder case of a British agent in New Orleans. Soon he finds himself up against a gangster boss named Mr. Big.
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What critics compared Live and Let Die to
The spectacular one-shot opening sequence during Mexico City's Day of the Dead celebrations recalls the voodoo of Live and Let Die while you could spend a lot of time googling things such as "fight on a train" and "1948 Rolls Royce Silver Wraith" to remind where you might have seen those things before.
With 007 (Daniel Craig) down Mexico way on the Day of the Dead, we get a brilliant tracking shot, a nod to Live and Let Die (there are plenty more classy tributes to other favourites to come), a hat on a bed, and a stunt to get even the sternest of set-piece scholars salivating.
Live and Let Die seems to be an inspiration for several winks – Bond’s carnival mask in the beginning is basically a riff on bond villain Baron Samedi and there’s a fight on the train taken straight from that movie as well.
Spectre opens promisingly (or wishfully) on a title card that reads “The dead are alive,” and then immerses itself in a handsome long take that roams around a Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City, evoking Live and Let Die as it finds Craig’s Bond—in the film’s most vivid image—dressed in a skeleton mask and matching tuxedo, en route to an assassination like the cold killing machine of Ian Fleming’s prose.
Even the better bits of "Spectre," such as a close-quarters fistfight on a passenger train between Bond and a thick-necked henchman ( Dave Bautista of " Guardians of the Galaxy "), and a mostly wordless, almost one-take stalking/assassination sequence set during a Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City, pale in comparison to their Bondian inspirations (respectively, "From Russia with Love," and " Live and Let Die " by way of "Octopussy").
We not only see Bond challenge the Big Brother mentality in the fight for significance, Mendes has him walking with the dead, literally, as he’s dressed as a skeleton (a nice nod to Live and Let Die ) walking the streets of Mexico during the Day of the Dead festival in the stunning opening sequence.
A certain pretentiousness accompanies this transformation; it's possible there never again will be a James Bond movie with the snap of "Goldfinger" or the silliness of "The Spy Who Loved Me." ("Skyfall," however, does include a nice brief homage to Roger Moore's escape from the alligators in "Live and Let Die.")
That recalls the silliness of the earlier Roger Moore Bonds and the time that he jumped along the backs of alligators in "Live and Let Die."
These include a scene reminiscent of “Live and Let Die,” a joke involving a gearstick, and the film’s sole clunky CG shot involving a disfigurement (a great idea ruined by bad graphics).
My own moviegoing history with Bond started with Roger Moore and the inarguably racist and inarguably popular “Live and Let Die,” at age 12.
(Like when Bond discovered blaxploitation in “Live and Let Die.”) Young people like to write essays saying these movies “age badly,” but I think that’s what makes them such fun time capsules.
Roger Moore had a Rolex Submariner in “Live and Let Die” fitted with an electromagnet that could deflect a bullet, and the watch bezel was a spinning saw.
(It’s a perfect choice for Craig’s last fling as Bond since the location also was used memorably in Connery’s first film, Dr. No, as well as Moore’s first, 1973’s Live and Let Die and was the locale where Fleming penned all the novels).
When Gary and Alana finally come together, it's obviously reminiscent of Punch-Drunk Love 's delirious, Harry Nilsson-scored reunion scene--except PTA takes the piss out of himself by having them collide and crumble in front of a Live and Let Die marquee.
(And then a giant movie marquee for the Bond movie, Live and Let Die, for those who want more clarity.)
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Certainly Roger Moore was a comparatively lightweight Bond with his seven appearances in the series: Live and Let Die (1973), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983) and A View to a Kill (1985).
Director Doug Liman and screenwriters Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth could have borrowed a name from any number of James Bond films — You Only Live Twice, Live and Let Die, Tomorrow Never Dies, Die Another Day — to describe its hero’s curse and gift.
The opening set-piece, in which US agent Napoleon Solo (all of Henry Cavill, every bit of him) flees Soviet bashing-machine Illya Kuryakin (the even more substantial Armie Hammer) across the old East Berlin is, for this writer, the best hunk of Bond action since Roger Moore danced across crocodiles in Live and Let Die.
And yeah, she’s still a potty mouth, especially in an overlong third act that seems more like “The Heat” than “Live and Let Die.”
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Had a pop artist handled this, the franchise could have had its On Her Majesty's Secret Service; with machines directing machines, however, it's closer to its Live and Let Die.