Live and Let Die is the first film to star Roger Moore as Bond, without so much as a Lazenby-esque "This never happened to the other fellow." I found Moore kind of wooden in the role, though he stars in more Bond films than any other actor, so maybe he gets better. All of his reactions are in his eyes. If he had Connery's smirk, he'd be the total package. Wings does the title theme, of course, which are still a highlight of the films.

The movie plays pretty close to the Dr. No formula, throwing in some blaxploitation elements and a bit of what was to come in the Dukes of Hazzard. Geoffrey Holder plays the creepy Baron Samedi, and I knew I'd seen him somewhere before. That somewhere was in Annie, where he plays Daddy Warbucks' Indian servant Punjab. My sister would get a kick out of that.

The chases are pretty bad ass in the film, including a hugely excessive boat chase and a chase around an airfield that prompts what I think is the first curse word in a Bond film so far. I'm continually getting the impression that the Bond films are little more than a string of ideas for action elements strung together, no matter how opposite they may seem. Like, Bond will be jumping a speedboat over a land mass and I'll be thinking, man, just yesterday he was narrowly escaping an exploding building, or jumping on the backs of crocodiles. I know that's how these movies work, but it really feels like such a random grab bag of sequences sometimes.

Overall, some neat visuals and situations, but it drags a bit. Putting Bond in Harlem is kind of interesting and the New Orleans funeral procession killings are pretty great. I'd place it squarely in the middle. A step up from Diamonds, for sure.

Today I am 29 and a quarter.