Our man gets to go on a boat chase through a wedding, drive a bus that loses
its roof, fly a plane that loses its wings and have fun with a wristwatch
equipped with a hyper-intensified magnetic field, powerful enough to deflect
the path of a bullet at long range.
However, when Bond's car in an early scene goes awry, why did he just take the
keys out of the ignition?
The picture breaks with tradition and goes back to a 1.85:1 screen ratio
and is anamorphic but does have a level of grain that you'd expect with
its age along with the usual print flecks and dropouts.
The average bitrate is a so-so 5.48Mb/s, briefly peaking over 8Mb/s.
And we're back to plain mono. Dialogue and sound effects are fairly clear,
but a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundmix as was done for
Thunderball
would have been a nice treat. Why didn't they do this for all the early
Bond films? On booting up the disc, I thought I was
in for something special as the opening 'MGM lion roar' *was*
in Dolby Digital 5.1.
The theme tune comes courtesy of Paul McCartney and Wings and was
written by Macca and his veggie-food-selling late wife Linda.
Extras :
Chapters :
The usual 32 chapters for an MGM, which is an excellent amount. If only some other DVD
companies could take a lesson from this one.
Languages & Subtitles :
English is the only language on the disc - in Dolby Surround - and there are subtitles
for English (and hard of hearing).
And there's more... :
MGM seem to be pulling out all the stops for their Bond collection and starting with the
first Bond film made we have a great amount for you to sink your teeth into.
Featurette: Inside Live and Let Die (29 mins): Another
documentary narrated by Patrick MacNee, with chat from many
stars and crew members such as screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz, director
Guy Hamilton and its star Roger Moore.
Theatrical Trailer (3 mins): In anamorphic widescreen
and of rather iffy quality, but worth a look nonetheless.
Theatrical Teaser (2 mins): In 4:3 with some clips in 14:9
2 TV Spots (90 seconds): One 30-second and one 60-second
trailer, both in 4:3.
Radio spots (90 seconds): 2 brief radio adverts, one lasting
30 seconds and the remainder of the time is taken up by a longer one which
details what Bond's up against.
UK Milk Board Commercial (60 seconds): Even 30 years ago they
were telling us that milk wasn't something to put on your cornflakes, as the
cast and crew stop filming halfway through a 60-second advert to take a gulp
before continuing with the action and the announcer urges us to "pick up a
pinta - stay on top".
On Set with Roger Moore (5½ minutes): Two parts to this.
Firstly, Roger, via a very old piece of footage tells us that his mother was
Richard Dix's No.1 fan and the man who is murdered in a street funeral is
Richard's son, Bob.
Behind-the-scenes info is then provided on Moore's hang-gliding sequence.
The Live And Let Die Gallery: Over 150 production stills and
photos from several points in the film.
2 Audio Commentaries: one from director Guy Hamilton,
Yaphet Kotto, Jane Seymour, plus many more and a second by screenwriter
Tom Mankiewicz.
Some of the content, particularly the TV spots, isn't exactly first-rate
in terms of picture quality and sound, but it adds to the nostalgic quality
and all the interviews are clear enough.
Menu :
Animated and scored as we've come to expect from these Bond releases,
with a red background and overtones of tarot and black magic.
The initial screen offers you the choice to start the film, select a scene,
choose a language or watch the extras.
When you were young and your heart was an open book, did you also feel, like
me, that the voodoo elements spooked you out a little? I could never understand
the guy who had part of his head blown off, yet still appeared to be alive
:)
Overall though, Roger Moore's first voyage into the special agent's shoes is a
successful one and this disc is definitely well-stacked with extras. There's
no cuts either so no reason not to buy this superb disc.
FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL
The following is a list of all the Bond films now available in production order
with their dates of release, followed by the unofficial movies:
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
