Books - Live and Let Die

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	Books - Live and Let Die

Live and Let Die is the second James Bond novel by Ian Fleming, first published in 1954. It is also 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.

The novel

Live and Let Die is considered one of Fleming's most controversial novels due to its depiction of blacks. In 2002 for the first time in the United States since the book was published, the original title of chapter five ("Nigger Heaven") is used.

Elements from this novel appeared in three Bond films. Besides the 1973 film of the same name (see below), the 1981 film For Your Eyes Only
and 1989's Licence to Kill
also used major plot elements from the book.

Plot summary

James Bond 007 is sent to New York City to investigate "Mr. Big", an underworld leader who is selling 17th century gold coins to finance Soviet spy operations. Bond is also going, essentially, to get revenge against SMERSH in retaliation for being tortured and branded on his hand by another SMERSH operative, Le Chiffre, in Casino Royale
. Along the way, he encounters Solitaire, a fortune teller who becomes his ally, as well as Quarrel and Strangways (who later appear in Dr. No
). Bond's CIA liaison and friend, Felix Leiter also returns and is gravely injured by Mr. Big's minions. Other locations include St. Petersburg, FL and Jamaica.

Comic strip adaptation

Fleming's original novel was adapted as a daily comic strip which was published in the British Daily Express newspaper and syndicated around the world. The adaptation ran from December 15, 1958 to March 28, 1959. The adaptation was written by Henry Gammidge and illustrated by John McLusky. The strip was reprinted by Titan Books in the early 1990s and again by Titan in 2005.

The film

The film, Live and Let Die, was released during the height of the 1970s blaxploitation era, and the influence of those films is quite evident. For instance, the film departs from conventional Bond plots (which entailed villainous plots to disrupt world power structures) and instead places its emphasis on drug trafficking, a common hallmark of the blaxploitation genre. The film further deviates from most Bond films, in that it takes place in the African American cultural centers of Harlem, New Orleans, and the Caribbean Islands. Furthermore, the film contains several blaxploitation archetypes, most notably afro hairstyles, derogatory racial epithets (i.e "honky"), black gangsters, and "pimpmobiles". In addition, the white police officers, especially Sheriff J.W. Pepper, are poorly displayed with several negative stereotypes.

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 Kananga is the leader of a nation. Live and Let Die is also the first James Bond film from which Q was absent. Furthermore, Live and Let Die marked the appearance of the first romantically-involved African American Bond girl, Rosie Carver (played by Gloria Hendry, an actress who stars in several blaxploitation films, including Black Caesar and its sequel Hell Up in Harlem). When the film was first released in South Africa, the love scenes between Gloria Hendry and Roger Moore were removed because interracial affairs were prohibited by the apartheid government.

Plot summary

Several British agents monitoring the operations of Dr. Kananga, the dictator of a small Caribbean island called San Monique, are murdered in mysterious circumstances. James Bond is sent to New York, where the last agent was killed and where Kananga is currently visiting the UN, to investigate. As soon as Bond arrives in New York, his driver is killed while taking him to meet Felix Leiter of the CIA. The driver's killer leads Bond to Mr. Big, a gangster who runs a chain of restaurants throughout the United States. It is during his confrontation with Mr. Big that Bond first meets Solitaire, a beautiful tarot expert who has the uncanny ability to see the future. Bond follows Kananga back to San Monique where he seduces Solitaire (it had been foretold in the cards but actually was set up by Bond, having created a deck of only "The Lovers" cards), which, by "compelling to earthly love", takes away her power. It transpires that Kananga is producing two metric tonnes of heroin and is protecting the poppy fields through fear of voodoo and the occult. Through his alter ego Mr. Big (Kananga in disguise), he would distribute the heroin from his chain of Fillet Of Soul restaurants for free until the number of drug addicts doubles, and his rival drug lords around the world are put out of business, leaving Kananga with a monopoly. In the closing scene of the film, the central voodoo character, Baron Samedi, is seen perched on the front of the speeding train in which Bond and Solitaire are travelling, in his voodoo outfit and laughing mysteriously, despite having been supposedly killed by Bond during the film's climax.

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Books - Live and Let Die

The novel

Plot summary

Comic strip adaptation

The film

Plot summary

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