Roger Moore's First Bond Movie Restored What Made Connery's So Great
The eighth James Bond film, Live and Let Die, was a significant moment in the 007 chronology, seeing Sir Roger Moore take on the role for the first time, replacing Sir Sean Connery, and restoring much of what we loved about the very first film in the series, Dr. No. Live and Let Die was always going to be a nervous project. However, thanks to several key decisions, the movie succeeded in restoring the successes of the Connery era.
With Live and Let Die, the Bond producers needed to bring things back down to basics. After the wacky Diamonds Are Forever (Connery’s last outing), the producers knew that the only way forward was to pay homage to Connery’s first, Dr. No, to show that there’s still respect to be had in the classics. For Live and Let Die, a new actor was being brought in to play James Bond, following George Lazenby's one time playing the character. As a result, the pressure was on to get it right this time.
Related: James Bond: Why Dali’s Tarot Cards Were Cut From Live and Let Die
Live and Let Die saw a fresh-faced Moore take down a voodoo drug lord in the Caribbean islands, and Jamaica was actually used for the filming location of the fictional island of San Monique on which they were based. Dr. No famously takes place in Jamaica, where Connery’s 007 meets Honey Rider on the beach. Jamaica is also where James Bond, literarily, was conceived, in an estate named Goldeneye, situated on the Oracabessa bay area, by the late Ian Fleming who wrote many titles. It was near this estate where, in Live and Let Die, Bond and his guide, Quarrel Jr. (whose namesake also features in Dr. No), stop to ask for directions. There are also similarities between the scenes in which a spider appears in Bond’s bed in Dr. No, and the
Read more on screenrant.com
