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Dom Robinson reviews

Special Edition

Distributed by

MGM


Live And Let Die was the first Bond film I ever saw and as they say, the first actor you see in the role is the one you associate as the definitive Bond. Good news for Roger Moore then, since he had a lot to live up to in his debut 007 outing.

It was apparently the most controversial of Ian Fleming's Bond novels, given that the film was made around the time of the rise of the Black Panthers, a black revolution was coming and yet all the main baddies were black. I guess, as a result, they didn't want to give Bernard Manning a bit part just in case anyone got a bit upset.

To make his mark, Moore has to go to New Orleans to investigate the deaths of three fellow agents and put a stop to the plans of heroin magnate Kananga - aka Mr Big - (Homicide: Life on the Street's Yaphet Kotto) and the Bond girl was tarot-card twisting Solitaire (Jane Seymour). Clifton James also put in a second appearance as Sheriff J.W. Pepper. There's a fourth Felix Leiter in the form of David Hedison, the character no doubt recovering after a nasty incident in Goldfinger.

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. 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:

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.

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