Moore presented a rather jarring contrast to his predecessor with a Bond who unabashedly wore his emotions on his sleeve: he relished in the puns, invoked genuine rage during fight sequences, and expressed wide-eyed worry when placed in mortal peril. The filmmakers seemed to understand the differences in his interpretation of the role and toned down the "epic" aspects of the series accordingly. After four consecutive adventures facing off against Blofeld and SPECTRE, Live and Let Die sends Bond to Harlem and New Orleans in search of Mr. Big, a drug baron with a mysterious connection to blustery Caribbean diplomat/dictator Dr. Kananga (Yaphet Kotto). Unfortunately, screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz and director Guy Hamilton are still hung up on their previous collaboration, Diamonds Are Forever, and their insistence on maintaining a massive, all-encompassing conspiracy turns Mr. Big's operation into a "black SPECTRE," as a friend of mine described it with sarcastic accuracy. As Bond stumbles through Harlem with every African-American within a five-mile radius monitoring his every move, the scenario does little to understand racial boundaries, or even highlight Bond's ignorance of them; it only unwittingly validates white paranoia. It should come as no surprise that Mr. Big is merely an alias that allows Kananga to distribute his island's heroin supply in the States, but given that the film so thoroughly establishes Kananga as the antagonist right off the bat, the dramatic revelation of his double identity renders it a weak MacGuffin at best. With neither personality exhibiting much of their influence beyond the villainous scheme du jour, Live and Let Die draws uncomfortable correlations between black politicians and conniving drug dealers.

It's nowhere near Dr. No in terms of blind racism--indeed, the inclusion of Bond's quick-witted ally Quarrel Junior primarily serves as an apology for the character's father, the Stepin Fetchit of 1962--but in its attempt to forge a kinship with blaxploitation films, Live and Let Die only manages to stress how completely oblivious it is to modern concerns. (As Bond busts up a deadly tribal ritual on Kananga's native island of San Monique, his trademark Walther PPK has been oddly replaced with a more flagrantly colonial six-shooter.) As such, it's a little too easy to dismiss the thrills the film does offer when it's not making these kinds of awkward statements. A trek across the Louisiana Bayou facilitates an easy critique of the entire film: a manic boat chase would keep you at rapt attention if it weren't periodically interrupted by the slapstick antics of bigoted redneck sheriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James). Someone certainly thought Pepper was hilarious enough to break up the action and essentially destroy the film's half-stated pleas for legitimacy. And, perhaps more tragically, someone thought he was hilarious enough to bring him back in the next film, helping force in the process some serious questions about the series' cultural value in the 1970s.-

The three (!) commentary options here are a mix of the new and the recycled. None other than Sir Roger Moore flies solo on the first track ("I'm the fellow down the end of the barrel"), John Cork comes through with another illuminating hodgepodge on the second (while now misidentifying it as "track one"), and screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz gets the third to himself. No disrespect to Moore, but he put me to sleep pretty quickly; it occurs to me that he needs a dance partner, because without one his considerable charm goes to waste. Same goes for Mankiewicz, really, the proof being his engaging rap sessions with Dick Donner on the DVD releases of Superman and Superman II. Mankiewicz and Moore too often let the crickets chirp, leading me to wonder why the enterprising Cork didn't intercut the two. (It's not as if either yakker is especially screen-specific.) Still, I always enjoying listening to Mankiewicz expound on the filmmaking process in his pack-a-day voice, and it's interesting, to say the least, toggling back-and-forth between his liberal guilt over the glib characterization of CIA operative Rosie Carver and actress Gloria Hendry's undying glee at having landed said part, which made her the first black Bond girl. Generally, though, the film's racial politics are treated like a landmine in all three yak-tracks.

Declassified: MI6 Vault launches with Chris Doll's "Bond 1973: The Lost Documentary" (22 mins., 480i), a piece that opens with producer Harry Saltzman revealing that Moore was their initial choice for On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Director Guy Hamilton is more reserved, insisting that Moore's "got to earn [the audience's] respect," at which point Moore himself addresses the camera to discuss the demands of the role in a sardonic way that I can't imagine inspired much confidence in contemporary viewers. Other highlights: Julius Harris demonstrating his mechanical arm poolside to a couple of half-enthralled children; Geoffrey Holder (who'll always be the "Ha-ha-haaa! Coool and refreshing!" 7-Up pitchman in my eyes) singing "Ode to Joy"; and young Jane Seymour in a skimpy bikini. As in Live and Let Die proper, the boat chase eventually hijacks the proceedings for an interminable spell, but it's moderately entertaining while it lasts. As we learn in "Roger Moore as James Bond, Circa 1964" (8 mins., 480i), Live and Let Die was technically Moore's second time in the saddle, having essayed a very paranoid take on the secret agent in this "Muppet Show"-esque sketch from Millicent Martin's variety program "Mainly Millicent". It's cute and well-choreographed, although it never knows when to quit. Finishing off this section, "Live and Let Die Conceptual Art" (2 mins., 480i) sees producer Michael Wilson narrating a brief and pointless evolutionary tour of the design concept for the film's poster.

Bypassing 007 Mission Control for obvious reasons, thus bringing us to Mission Dossier. (That sense of déjà vu you're experiencing is normal.) "Inside Live and Let Die" (30 mins., 1080i) tells us that Burt Reynolds was the front-runner to take over for the departing Sean Connery but ultimately deemed too short and not British enough. Phew. On that note, Mankiewicz reiterates an intriguing theory about what fundamentally distinguishes Moore from Connery: in scenes with women, Connery has the luxury of kissing or killing them; Moore can only get away with the former. This is an immanently watchable making-of, with Cork evidently feeling sufficiently liberated by the movie's hokum content to crack wise in subtitles over Seymour's talking head as she and Moore recall the persuasive psychic consultations they indulged in on set. (Moore's reading with a "witch doctor" was filmed and is excerpted here.) And holy shit, that walking-across-the-alligators'-backs stunt was real, executed six (!) times by 'gator farmer Ross Kananga, after whom Mankiewicz christened the villain². One quibble, though: the interviewees use the terms alligator and crocodile interchangeably, and Cork never steps in to set the record straight. Doll returns behind the camera for "On Set with Roger Moore: The Funeral Parade" (2 mins., 480i), in which Moore explains his personal connection to actor Bob Dix as he watches the actor shoot his cameo from a nearby balcony. Lastly, "On Set with Roger Moore: Hang Gliding Lessons" (4 mins., 480i) sees the star passing the baton to stunt flier Bill Bennett, who makes it look so easy. The Ministry of Propaganda houses two trailers, three TV spots (including a commercial wherein the picture's cast and crew guzzle milk between takes), and two radio spots for Live and Let Die, while this disc's Image Database encompasses "The New 007," "Portraits," "The Filmmakers," "Ross Kananga," "Joie Chitwood's Driving team," "Mr. Big's Makeup," "James Bond and His Gadgets," "Marketing," and "Around the World with 007."-

1. Let's not forget that United Artists, the studio 007 called home, was also the leading distributor of blaxploitation, having brought us, among many others, Black Caesar and Across 110th Street--the casts of which were raided when searching for black talent to plug into Live and Let Die. Something was definitely in the ether. return

2. Indeed, the real Kananga sounds like the sort of only-in-America character whose colourful life warrants at least a featurette of its own, if not a full-on Werner Herzog documentary. return

1.85:1 (1080p, VC-1); English DTS-HD 5.1 MLA, English Mono, French DD 5.1, Spanish Mono; English, English SDH, Spanish subtitles; BD-50; 121 minutes; PG; MGM

The film states its intentions right up front with its pre-credits sequence, which begins with flowers placed at the grave of Bond's wife Teresa and ends with 007 dropping his archnemesis Blofeld (John Hollis, uncredited) down a smokestack. Perhaps it was a declaration that the character's over-the-top SPECTRE days were behind him--or maybe it was just a blatant middle-finger directed at Kevin McClory, who was in the early stages of producing Never Say Never Again by this point--but, apparently, it didn't discourage anyone from regurgitating themes that had been exhausted almost twenty years before. (Maybe it's a statement on how the appearance of Reagan and Thatcher signalled the end of the détente between East and West, what with a look-alike for the Prime Minister appearing at the finale to congratulate our hero. But the fact that the film usually acts as if that détente never actually happened speaks volumes.) No longer facing crazed billionaires seeking to exterminate the human race, Bond is charged with recovering the ATAC, a missile guidance system lost to the Ionian Sea, before a mysterious Greek smuggler gets his hands on it and sells it off to the Russians. Traveling through Italy and Greece, he teams up with Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet), whose parents were killed before they could definitively locate the ATAC; her quest to avenge them with a carefully-aimed crossbow leads Bond to offer a few stern sentences of warning.

It's not too much of a stretch to consider this film a rough '80s counterpart to Quantum of Solace, another tale of blind vengeance that found the "importance" of Bond's adventures noticeably diminished in scope. The current Bond flick legitimizes the use of Bolivia's water supply as a major plot point, however, by asking whether Her Majesty's government would be half as interested in protecting the masses if it didn't mean breaking the necks of the assholes responsible. You're not supposed to ask these kinds of questions in For Your Eyes Only, since the two concepts apparently go hand-in-hand: by the time Bond has twice lectured Melina on the follies of vengeance, we have seen him kill his wife's murderer and a silent assassin in an identically cold-blooded fashion (sending them both plummeting from very high distances). Not given much insight into Bond's own motives, are we to accept that his desire for revenge is a greater prerogative than Melina's by the mere fact that he is our eternal protagonist?^*

Call it another condescending pat on the head to the fairer sex, though the problem runs deeper than that. The series was threatening to go meta in precisely the wrong direction, not by highlighting the violent nature of Bond's actions but by rooting itself so deeply in its conventions that you would be actively mocked for wanting something more substantial. The villain (Julian Glover) is weak because everyone knows he doesn't really have to represent anything except another intermediary for the Soviets (and you thought the series had learned its lesson about this glad-handing bullshit by The Spy Who Loved Me), while the myriad chase sequences are a particular problem since we're constantly reminded that Bond is indestructible--despite his lethargic reaction to virtually any peril that comes his way. For Your Eyes Only is often claimed to be the best film of Moore's tenure in the series, but it's ultimately the first step in the inexorable descent to its eventual nadir, A View to a Kill. The film brats of the '70s saw their chance to lay claim to the action/adventure genre and took it without hesitation--and it's not difficult to understand why everyone had stopped caring by the time Bond's producers finally decided to galvanize the character's personal stakes in Licence to Kill, eight long years later.-

For Your Eyes Only arrives on Blu-ray in an adequate 2.35:1, 1080p transfer. Restorers Lowry Digital falter by applying too much DVNR (the less-than-crisp letters of the opening credits betray this better than any other aspect of the image), but I suspect it would've looked a little soft anyway due to the picture's unconquerable eighties-ness. Colour-wise, For Your Eyes Only certainly boasts a renewed brilliance here, something that's obvious from the fire-engine-red helicopter in the very first scene. The accompanying 5.1 DTS-HD remix deserves some sort of best-in-show award when compared to the four earlier titles in the inaugural batch of Bond BDs; working from a four-track master (also included as a Dolby 2.0 Surround option), the DTS track features discrete and more active rear channels as well as occasionally guttural bass. If the music sounded "bright" to me, the grating instrumentation of Bill Conti's score is at least partly to blame.

Also on board are three full-length commentaries, neither of which offer any clue as to why Sheena Easton sings her hideous title track on screen (is it because her generic hotness lent itself to the Bond aesthetic?), though Conti amuses with his recollection of reluctantly meeting with Easton, not understanding a word she said, and eventually being won over by her vocal range. That's the third yak-track, the second of two patchworks moderated by David Naylor, who does a bang-up job in John Cork's stead. Director John Glen and select cast members are the focus of yakker #2, while #3 is devoted to producer Michael G. Wilson and various crew; Sir Roger Moore once again gets the first to himself. By Moore's own admission, he has nothing to say (and seems more interested in talking about Spice World at that), but I did enjoy how his declaration that he was never conscious of any attempt to reboot the franchise post-Moonraker conflicts with Glen's side of the story, which has him and the actor discussing the character's return to basics at length. Naylor's only misstep is not pulling the reins on Topol, who seems like a lovely guy but never stops droning on about things he probably doesn't realize most contemporary viewers are hip to, like the minutiae of press junkets.

Declassified: MI6 Vault houses "Deleted Scenes and Expanded Angles"--that is, two of the former and one of the latter. Glen provides non-optional intros and the whole megillah is in 1080p despite its workprint quality. More interesting than 007 dumping a load of snow on his hockey-playing adversaries (seriously: this was their idea of a Bond we could take seriously?)--a gag that was cut for time--is the moment where Melina grills James about his sex life. Glen says this "took away from [Carole Bouquet's] character," but no, it takes away from Moore's, perilously deromanticizing our secret agent. It always makes me feel skeevy to think of Bond working through the Kama Sutra with one of his conquests, and this elision has a similar impact. Meanwhile, "expanded angles" describes a multi-angle feature giving us wider views of Locque's death. It's awfully pointless. Moving on, "Bond in Greece" (6 mins., 480i) is the first of three home-movie-type reels narrated by Wilson that together manage to encapsulate the upcoming making-of. Wilson spoils the surprise of future Bond Pierce Brosnan having been on set in the company of then-wife Cassandra Harris, who played Topol's mistress; and he touches on the issues with the monastery that would see the production hassled by monks. A humorous story of backgammon wagers is unique to this piece, though. "Bond in Cortina" (4 mins., 480i) is more of the same, with Wilson quoting Glen's utterly un-quote-worthy assessment of Bouquet's most striking feature: "As John Glen put it, 'Those wonderful eyes.'" Lastly, in "Neptune's Journey" (4 mins., 480i), Wilson tells the tale of a modest fake personal submarine that went on to fame and fortune and now resides in a museum devoted to props from the 007 film series.

Leapfrogging over 007 Mission Control, we come to Mission Dossier and Cork's "Inside For Your Eyes Only" (30 mins., 1080i), the de rigueur retrospective making-of. Wasn't sure if they'd have the stones to broach the subject of transsexual Tula, whose bikini-clad appearance in For Your Eyes Only caused quite a stir after-the-fact, but Glen generously remembers her as the most beautiful woman in the film. Moore calls the moment in which he kicks villain Locque's car off a cliff "a bit un-Roger Moore Bond" and admits to taking a Valium before agreeing to go mountain-climbing on camera. As I said, overall it's a tad redundant, but the anecdotes, unlike Wilson's, are largely first-hand, and it's worth a viewing just to see/hear how extensively-interviewed effects maestro Derek Meddings executed a few truly ingenious optical illusions. Rounding out this section are animated storyboards for the snowmobile chase and underwater passage and a so-called "Sheena Easton music video"--in actuality Maurice Binder's title sequence with the words removed. (There's no way a letterboxed clip with this much skin would've landed in rotation on MTV circa 1981. How times change, huh?) Finally, the Ministry of Propaganda contains the film's theatrical trailer, three "TV trailers," and two radio spots, and an Image Database is divided into the following categories: The Filmmakers, Portraits, The Pre-Credits Helicopter Sequence, Music and Titles, Gonzales' Villa/Deux Chevaux Chase, Cortina & Ski Action, Willy Bogner's Ski Action Unit, Corfu, The "Underwater" Scenes, Michael Wilson's Cameo, 007 Meets the Prime Minister, Donald O'Connor Visits the Set, Doubling 007, and Around the World with 007.-

*One of Bond's lines in 2006's Casino Royale is given extra weight when considering this unfortunate era in particular: "Why is it that people who can't take advice always insist on giving it?" return

2.35:1 (1080p, VC-1); English DTS-HD 5.1 MLA, English Dolby Surround, French DD 5.1, Spanish Mono; English, English SDH, Spanish subtitles; BD-50; 128 minutes; PG; MGM