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The First Time you watched LALD...How did you feel?
While GE was the first Bond film I saw, it wasn't quite the kind the gritty style that I liked as seen in the earlier and future films a decade later with the new actor. It was easy to tell that the grit had been watered down with the techno music and the bloodless shots fired on the villains at the beginning.
It wasn't until I saw LALD that it really felt like this series was something interesting. I hadn't watched many of Conney's movies by that point. But imagine if Connery had played in LALD, it wouldn't have been a good ending for him as Baron Samedi was on the train at the end scene. Keep in mind, the funeral/casket scene was the last to be filmed in DAF as a symbol of Connery not wanting to return to the role at the time.
The music of LALD was not under-lyric-ed like SF, it was something brand new to the scene and non traditional. It had fast and slow parts to help digest the fact that a new Bond was in place. I think CR took a hint from that approach with its song which didn't worry about incorporating the title of the movie in it.
How did you feel when you first saw LALD?
It wasn't until I saw LALD that it really felt like this series was something interesting. I hadn't watched many of Conney's movies by that point. But imagine if Connery had played in LALD, it wouldn't have been a good ending for him as Baron Samedi was on the train at the end scene. Keep in mind, the funeral/casket scene was the last to be filmed in DAF as a symbol of Connery not wanting to return to the role at the time.
The music of LALD was not under-lyric-ed like SF, it was something brand new to the scene and non traditional. It had fast and slow parts to help digest the fact that a new Bond was in place. I think CR took a hint from that approach with its song which didn't worry about incorporating the title of the movie in it.
How did you feel when you first saw LALD?
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Comments
With scenes like the ones with snakes and Baron Samedi hanging around oddly, were you scared when you saw it as a kid in the theater?
Ushering Guy Hamilton back in the director’s chair was a sound move, he had made Goldfinger, the most assured and dynamic of all 007 movies, and with a direct and fine-tuned script from old-hand Tom Mankiewicz, they did what they had to do — hit the ground running. This is good quality Bond, managing to reinterpret the classic moves — action, deduction, seduction — for a more modern idiom without breaking the mould. The film, with its rich Caribbean locations and crazy-spooky asides, manages to be more playful than before — Moore’s chosen approach — without tipping into the painful parody of his later films.
Naturally, there’s much of the regular Bondian formula — a stoney faced M, an irascible Q, the gadgets and Jane Seymour as one of the more memorable Bond girls (Solitaire) — but delivered with a lighter touch. Moore IS BOND.
PS. the score is also amazing.
Roger knocked it out of the park right away!! The film had all this energy that the previous ones simply lacked, and I’m saying this as a big fan of the Connery era!
To this day my super trio is LALD, TSWLM, and OP! My 3 favorite Bond films. I never tire of them! Others I may need to be in the mood for. But these 3 I’m always in the mood for. They just have this “magic” that’s difficult to put into words. To me they encapsulate the perfect Bond entertainment, minus any of that post-Cubby angst or political correctness.
P.S. I saw all these films on VHS first time around. I did however get to see DN, YOLT, TSWLM, and FYEO on the big screen a few years ago when they were replaying them!
To me it was like an acknowledgment that yes Connery is not Bond anymore but we think this journey will not end.
My first impression was the CBS/Fox Home Video edition squeezed the gunbarrel so the dots looked oval.
I really loved this film and it usually remains in my top 10. At the time I would have placed it right below FYEO as my favorite Roger Bond.
At the time OHMSS was often considered to be the one film in the series that felt different. I thought LALD was more so. It really has it's own style and tone.
Sir Roger was great and I was surprised how young he looked compared to his later films. I had been watching OP a lot during that period.
I loved his haircut, overcoat, and overall style in the film. I also loved Tee-Hee who rivaled Oddjob and Jaws as my favorite henchman.
Damn. This puts me in the mood for this one. i may just pop it in later today.
At secondary school this film became the one I loved to quote from, with so many teenage-boy-snigger-inducing lines, I could quote more lines from this than any other, and did a mean Sheriff Pepper impression.
But I have slowly changed my mind, step by step, over the decades, and it’s a firm favourite now.
I'll also add I loved the title song, and still do.
I was immediately drawn into the unique characters, elements and settings. What a great cast. Some dislike Bond in America, but I've never had an issue with it. The croc farm is a highlight of the entire series imho. The Sheriff Pepper sequence probably goes on for too long through an adult's eyes, but I will always love this film. To this day, Solitaire remains my favorite Bond girl.
I loved the humor mixed with the dark voodoo elements. Kananga, Tee Hee, Baron Samedi and Whsiper were so memorable. Hedison's Leiter was great and when I saw LTK in the theater the following summer it made me appreciate him even more. Seeing M and Moneypenny in Bond's home was an amusing change of pace. Bond in Harlem! Moore looked so cool in that black suit, coat and gloves. Tricking Solitaire with the cards.
Anyway, I could go on but I'll just end it by saying I couldn't have been happier upon first viewing.
No Q in LALD, but yes, it was a great trip.
I saw when I was about nine, Because of that film, I thought for years that all black people were villains,LOL.
So, when I saw LALD, and for many years after, I couldn't stand it.
Connery was a giant in my eyes, and I found Moore to be too snobbish and pretty to be menacing or dangerous. There was a stiffness to him and he didn't move like Connery, so visually, I had a very negative opinion of Roger Moore.
As time has gone on, I warmed to him-- but I never did get over his flat-feet, not his knobby-knees. He was never believable in fights (although I noticed in TMWTGG what a big frame he had; I would have used that in some ways to tailor the fights to more grapples).
Like @IGotABrudder , I couldn't stand all the "highlights" of LALD (when I was younger, that boat chase did go on and on and felt monotonous). And, since I had seen Octopussy, it felt Moore carried himself with more gravitas and edge in that film then he did in LALD...
Like I said, this opinion lasted many long years-- my Connery-bias, finding Moore too stuck-up, lacking in the animal physicality I adore in Connery (and Craig and Lazenby).
It's only been in the last few years (after giving this film a big Time Out), where this has blasted up my rankings as a brilliant antidote to a Bond film without King Connery. I believe it is the only Moore in my top ten. I think it starts with Kananga and his alter-ego and crew-- terrific cast of characters-- then; Jane Seymour...; the vibe of 70s NY and the atmosphere of voodoo, and finally, Moore himself...
Neither have I. It'll always be the film I remember watching back in 2016 that induced labor in my wife with our second child.
I loved it. The theme song, opening scene with Maddy Smith, Bonds eventful arrival at the airport, the voodoo, the boat chase (oh, and I must mention the bus set piece, which is still great!) seduction of Solitaire , crocodile farm, and a great set of villains, plus that final scene with Baron Samedi on the back of the train.
I was in secondary school, and all my mates were talking about it the next day.
Great memories!
Me too, just turned 8. Tremendously exciting at the time and loved it for years afterwards. It's aged really badly, unfortunately and isn't one of my favourite Bonds any more.
I was already a Roger Moore fan from watching the Saint and the Persuaders.The boat chase was very exciting, the crocodile island very scary and I remember being afraid of Tee Hee.
It's still a personal favourite of mine, and I still want that magnetic watch !
I do find it a bit slow in the first half now, all the stuff with Rosie is a bit tiresome and the pts is terrible. But it has classic set pieces, and Roger himself makes an excellent debut! ( or "dayboo" as Sheriff Pepper would say!)
I don't know the exact circumstances any more, but LALD came out in Germany in early 1974 (or at least as far as general distribution went), and I know I saw it first at our local cinema (North German small town), somewhere else (wherever...it's a bit clouded) and ultimately in summer, in a cinema in Austria (Schladming, Styria to be exact) where I spent the summer vacation with my parents then and was bored somehow. Needless to say (or not?) that it was always the version dubbed in German. There simply was no real opportunity to watch original versions unless one decided to travel to a foreign country then.
I've always enjoyed LALD while never failing to note that I found the voodoo/transcendental/supernatural stuff a bit too much to take. Bond may have troubles regarding the "suspension of disbelief" here and there, but that should be limited to phenomena that might at least somehow be explained based on scientific principles. That's one of the failures here. But still good fun, and in that regard probably more so than the incredibly hyped TSWLM. LALD is at least one of the top three or four Moore films, leaving at least TMWTGG, OP and AVTAK miles behind.
Sadly, whereas I have a lot of memories of seeing DAF the year before, I don't recall anything standing out with LALD, but the crocs and sharks and Tee Hee had to stand out to a kid who loved fantasy stuff at that age. I later got to relive the film with the LALD ViewMaster reels.
It was also fun to see a movie that was filmed, in part, in my city and state. New Orleans, Louisiana.
Not to knock your opinion, but it brings up a point. Pepper is part of what made this era lose sight of what made the earlier films so special. You didn't need broad comic moments and characters to enjoy the early films. A Connery (or Lazenby) quip or situation such as Ruby writing in lipstick on "Sir Hillary's" thigh are a hell of a lot more effective than watching a stereotype stumble out of a wrecked police car and get frustrated.
If Pepper was in one or two scenes it wouldn't be bad, not unlike Mrs. Bell, which still doesn't excuse her inclusion, but he becomes a bigger part and that distracts from the boat chase overall. In fairness, LALD just extends what Mankiewicz began with DAF.