Villain and Henchmen Deaths in LALD?

Silhouette Man

It's been said by some commentators (especially in the 2002 Virgin Books book Bond Films by Jim Smith and Stephen Lavington) that the black villains all meet their commupence in one way or other at the hands of James Bond, giving out a not-very-palatable message to black audiences at the time and even since then. Quoted below is the critical passage relevant to this thread:

"The most prominent - for some the most problematic - Bond film in this respect is Live and Let Die. Some find it inherently racist that the principal villain is black., and the hero is white. Also dubious is the presentation of Solitaire - a young white girl imprisoned by, and in the power of, these villains who is saved by Bond. This reading, however, is slightly reductive. The part of Solitaire was written for a blavck woman (screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz wanted Diana Ross cast) and a white actress was only hired because Uniited Artists made clear to Eon that it would be difficult for them to sell a picture with a white leading man and a black leadiing lady in several American states.

[...]

The key problem that many have - Bond's victory over Kananga - is easy to explain. The villain ultimately loses, like so many before him, because he is up against James Bond. Bond is the hero it's his movie. End of story."

(Quoted from 'Racism?: 'Take this honky out and waste him.' Jim Smith and Stephen Lavington, Bond Films, (Virgin Film, Virgin Books, London 2002), pp. 127-128.


I believe that this critical line could not be further from the truth if it tried to be. An analysis of all of the villain deaths in LALD will bare this out:

Dr Kananga - overinflated and then blown up with a gas pellet from a shark gun
Tee Hee - disarmed by being thrown from train window to his death due to failure of steel hook for arm
Whisper - knocked inside a heroin watertight container and then locked inside of it - demise or otherwise besides this unknown. May still be in the container some 40 years on, 1973-2013.
Rosie Carver - Rogue CIA agent shot dead by her own side's scarecrow face gun.
Adam - has petrol thrown in his eyes and dies when his speedboat hits a shipwreck
Baron Samedi - thrown into a coffin of snakes to his seeming death, but he reappears on the cowcatcher of the train Bond and Solitaire are on, laughing straight at the camera and lifting his top hat - there was talk of this character returning in a later film a la Jaws. God of Cemetaries and the Undead so his resurrection may be explained by this. (?)
Taxi Cab Driver - in Harlem and New Orleans - survives.
Olympia Brass Band and their Knifeman - They all survive.

This hardly seems to be excessive - both Whisper and Baron Samedi appear to have survived - I assume this was done as a sop to film audiences who didn't want the whitre James Bond to completely vanquish the black villains that he came up against in LALD.

I'd really love to hear your views on this subject area, as always.

Blackleiter

Since the villains featured in LALD are Black, and Bond is usually the person who disposes of the villains, I'm not sure what the complaint is here. I have noticed what I deem to be traces of racism in certain Bond films (e.g. the way Bond orders around Quarrell in Dr. No. and the way the Black woman is depicted eating the banana in OHMSS), but I don't see the villains' deaths in LALD as falling into that category.

Silhouette Man wrote:

It's been said by some commentators that the black villains all meet their commupence in one way or other at the hands of James Bond, giving out a not-very-palatable message to black audiences at the time and even since then. I believe that this critical line could not be further from the truth if it tried to be. An analysis of all of the villain deaths in LALD will bare this out:

Dr Kananga - overinflated and then blown up with a gas pellet from a shark gun
Tee Hee - disarmed by being thrown from train window to his death due to failure of steel hook for arm
Whisper - knocked inside a heroin watertight container and then locked inside of it - demise or otherwise besides this unknown
Rosie Carver - Rogue CIA agent shot dead by her own side's scarecrow face gun
Adam - has petrol thrown in hisv eyes and dies when his speedboat hits a shipwreck
Baron Samedi - thrown into a coffin of snakes to his seeming death, but he reappears on the cowcatcher of the train Bond and Solitairte are on, laughing straight at the camera and lifting his top hat - there was talk of this character returning in a later film a la Jaws.

This hardly seems to be excessive - both Whisper and Baron Samedi appear to have survived - I assume this was done as a sop to film audiences who didn't want the whitre James Bond to completely vanquish the black villains that he came up against in LALD.

I'd really love to hear your views on this subject area, as always.

Barbel

To paraphrase Jim Smith & Stephen Lavington in their book Bond Films (Virgin, 2002), Bond defeats the bad guys and wins because he's the hero, it's his movie. Bond kills bad guys whatever their race, just as he beds women whatever their race.

Firemass

Would it be considered racist if all the villains in all the Bond films were black ?

Blackleiter

Yep!

Firemass wrote:

Would it be considered racist if all the villains in all the Bond films were black ?

Sir Hillary Bray

Good point, SM. I would argue that even Tee Hee may have survived. After all, Jaws and Mischka both survived falls from moving trains, so why not Tee Hee?

Thunderpussy

There might of been a Train going the other way.............................
That side of the train ran along a cliff.
The train was passing Kananga's croc farm.
He survived and lost his memory, so Took to looking after
a friendly seal. So giving up a life hurting People.
( It's happened before in a Bond film :v )

Silhouette Man

Thunderpussy wrote:

There might of been a Train going the other way.............................
That side of the train ran along a cliff.
The train was passing Kananga's croc farm.
He survived and lost his memory, so Took to looking after
a friendly seal. So giving up a life hurting People.
( It's happened before in a Bond film :v )

I assume you're thinking of Jaws and Dolly in MR or the film version of The Shadow here? ?:)

Thunderpussy

Yes I was thinking of Moonraker, But I wasn't being Serious. :007)
( I've spent a lot of time by myself here on AJB today, might of
Gone a little crazy )
The looking after a seal line was because Julius Harris did a kids
show "Salty: the seal" which I watched as a Kid.

Silhouette Man

Sir Hillary Bray wrote:

Good point, SM. I would argue that even Tee Hee may have survived. After all, Jaws and Mischka both survived falls from moving trains, so why not Tee Hee?

I suppose that it's a possibility but his metal arm was ripped off so he may have been injured by that too or bled to death. I'd mark him down as dead, personally. It's interesting indeed how so many of the later Moore films copy elements from the very first, Live and Let Die, although often in much less creative ways, of course.

AlphaOmegaSin

Teehee probably survived. Just that his Blood Curdling Scream made it sound like he died.

Silhouette Man

I think Tee Hee died, otherwise we'd have got a shot of him dusting himself off a la Jaws in TSWLM or chasing after Bond a la Mishka in OP. I think that the very lack of such an aftershot scene is the best proof there is that we're meant to think as a audience that Tee Hee's dead and gone. There were enough other survivors or potential survivors for the producers to have mad the point that Bond didn't triumph against all of the black ensemble of villains - Whisper, Baron Samedi and the Tax Cab Driver all survive the assault by Britain's premier whoite secret agent, James Bond 007, and that was enough to annul any further criticism of the 1973 film on racial discrimination grounds. That's the point I'm trying to argue in this thread - that those who said the racial element of the film with all black villains versus a white Englishman secret agent aremisguided and wrong as more villains seem to survive (perhaps even Tee Hee, although this is subject to debate of course) than those that actually die. Plus, Rosie Carver is killed by her own side, meaning that James Bond only really kills two of the main black villains - Adam, Dr Kananga Tee Hee for sure (and we're not even certain of this!). Hence this thread wanting to correct this critical impression.

ChromeJob

Boy, some people would find something to criticize in free cake and ice cream. Yes, LALD was rather dated in its racial portrayals (or was it), it's co-opt of blaxploitation films of the time, its funky soundtrack, costumes, language ("Holy s***!" was a big, big laugh in the theaters), etc.

Yes, it's a hero movie, they're the baddies, Bond defeats baddies. There are so, so many that he doesn't kill, though. Remember that Leiter's right-hand man was black, too. "Great disguise, Bond...." I groan at some of the movie, but I still like the scene of Bond being stopped (saved) by Strutter. Dirty, garbage strewn back alley ... it made the film feel a little more dangerous than DAF or TMWTGG.

If you look at Tee Hee's arm, it wasn't surgically attached. Looks like it was "attached," perhaps fitted over what Albert left of his arm. He could've survived; probably not.

Personally, I think it would've been really daring if Rosie Carver had been Caucasian, or an island girl, and Solitaire had been ethnic. Somehow, the "mo-gu-tu woman" or whatever Quarrel, Jr. calls her


Still one of my favorite lines. "I mean,... I could've shot you." "You might even have killed me if you'd taken the safety off." (Pity that they made Rosie seem like such a hopeless ditz. I mean, c'mon would Leiter or the CIA have fielded such a maroon to help Bond?

Silhouette Man

Barbel wrote:

To paraphrase Jim Smith & Stephen Lavington in their book Bond Films (Virgin, 2002), Bond defeats the bad guys and wins because he's the hero, it's his movie. Bond kills bad guys whatever their race, just as he beds women whatever their race.

Yes, I've put their quote up in the first post in the thread here, as I found the book late last night. This gives a source for this particular LALD commentary.

AlphaOmegaSin

I still have the Theory that Jaws is a Robot. It would explain why he can survive so many Accidents.

Silhouette Man

AlphaOmegaSin wrote:

I still have the Theory that Jaws is a Robot. It would explain why he can survive so many Accidents.

Don't know about that one. )

AlphaOmegaSin

Silhouette Man wrote:

AlphaOmegaSin wrote:

I still have the Theory that Jaws is a Robot. It would explain why he can survive so many Accidents.

Don't know about that one. )

Sent back in Time to Terminate the future Leader of the Resistance?

Oh, wrong Franchise. )

Silhouette Man

AlphaOmegaSin wrote:

Silhouette Man wrote:

AlphaOmegaSin wrote:

I still have the Theory that Jaws is a Robot. It would explain why he can survive so many Accidents.

Don't know about that one. )

Sent back in Time to Terminate the future Leader of the Resistance?

Oh, wrong Franchise. )

Oh, now don't say that. I suppose it could be applied to the Daniel Craig era to get back to the "classic James Bond film era" again! )

Silhouette Man

I've made the opening post a bit longer to explain the sources for this thread idea. Hope that helps put across what I was trying to get at.

Shady Tree

What disturbs me about the portrayal of black people in LALD is that almost every black character in the movie is an agent of the villain, as if being black is as much a badge of 'villainy' as wearing a boiler suit and a helmet in a SPECTRE movie. One of the movie's jokes is that virtually the whole of Harlem is in cahoots with Mr. Big. The entire community of San Monique including its police force is seemingly complicit in Kananga's operation. Black men and women of all ages, shapes and sizes participate in Baron Samedi's murderous rites, and the same can be said of the funeral march processions in New Orleans which act as a cover for assassinations. The only two black characters not complicit in villainy are rather ineffectual: Strutter (who is bumped off before he has much of a chance to make his mark on the movie) and Quarrel Jr (a not especially memorable reference back to the original Quarrel and with a role which is hardly more progressive).

Silhouette Man

Shady Tree wrote:

What disturbs me about the portrayal of black people in LALD is that almost every black character in the movie is an agent of the villain, as if being black is as much a badge of 'villainy' as wearing a boiler suit and a helmet in a SPECTRE movie. One of the movie's jokes is that virtually the whole of Harlem is in cahoots with Mr. Big. The entire community of San Monique including its police force is seemingly complicit in Kananga's operation. Black men and women of all ages, shapes and sizes participate in Baron Samedi's murderous rites, and the same can be said of the funeral march processions in New Orleans which act as a cover for assassinations. The only two black characters not complicit in villainy are rather ineffectual: Strutter (who is bumped off before he has much of a chance to make his mark on the movie) and Quarrel Jr (a not especially memorable reference back to the original Quarrel and with a role which is hardly more progressive).

Yes, now we're really getting to the meat of the discussion with this post. This is what the quote from the Bond Films book was getting at and you've encapsulated it better than I ever could. I suppose the San Monique police work for a dictator so we can overlook their villainy. As for islanders, yes, that's a fair point and none too palatable either, I suppose.

Silhouette Man

I've just added to the list of LALD henchmen who survive the Olympia Brass Band and their Knifeman. I had forgot to add them earlier. I think that this adds to the case that the villains in LALD are treated better than in any other Bond film, due to their being black presumably. Hardly any racist undertones there, are there? Quite the opposite, in fact!

Silhouette Man

There's definitely something in the theory that the first two James Bond films starring Roer Moore as James Bond had noticably less villain deaths and less violence than theur predecessors and successor James Bond films, especially true in TMWTGG where the only villain Bond kills is Francisco Scaramanga himself!

Blackleiter

I think you're taking quite a leap there, my friend! I couldn't detect anything in LALD that indicated better treatment for the villains. The fact that not every bad guy dies is, in my opinion, merely happenstance and certainly has nothing to do with the fact they are Black. I haven't taken up the task yet, but I feel certain that if I go back and review the catalogue of Bond films I could find several other examples of various henchmen and evildoers who manage to survive.

Silhouette Man wrote:

I think that this adds to the case that the villains in LALD are treated better than in any other Bond film, due to their being black presumably. Hardly any racist undertones there, are there? Quite the opposite, in fact!

Barbel

Blackleiter wrote:

I feel certain that if I go back and review the catalogue of Bond films I could find several other examples of various henchmen and evildoers who manage to survive.

A few in no particular order- Mr White (so far...), Irma Bunt, Jaws, Bambi & Thumper, Nick Nack, Baron Samedi (arguably), Georgi Koskov.

Silhouette Man

Yes, but Nick Nack is in TMWTGG - my theory on the first two Roger Moore films and their reduced level of violence seems to be holding water. I think that there is some merit in what I have said. I stand by my views. LALD is an exception amongst the Bond villains - Baron Samedi laughing at the very end on the end of the train is Tom Mankiewicz telling us that the black villains have had a spiritual and physical victory over the mere mortal secret agent James Bond 007. That's the message that comes from that end scene - it's a sop to the black audience in those militant black and Civil Rights times of the late 1960s and the early 1970s. Like everything else about James Bond, it is a product of its time.

Blackleiter

Interesting theory, but I'm still not convinced it holds water. Both Blofeld and Irma Bunt survived OHMSS, and they killed Bond's wife for Christ's sake! Plus, when it's mentioned that Nick Nack lived at the end of TMWTGG, you again suggest that the first two Roger Moore Bond films were consciously conceived to be less violent. So forgive me for being a bit confused, but are you saying that LALD is unique and let its villains survive because they are Black, or are you saying that LALD had fewer deaths because it is a part of that "holding water", reduced violence phase?

Silhouette Man wrote:

Tom Mankiewicz telling us that the black villains have had a spiritual and physical victory over the mere mortal secret agent James Bond 007. That's the message that comes from that end scene - it's a sop to the black audience in those militant black and Civil Rights times of the late 1960s and the early 1970s.

superado

I think it was a tough task and obligation to bring Fleming's novel to the screen. Since we can all agree that Fleming was racist during a time when it was normative, I think he had no racial malevolence in writing LALD and I think in his own way actually elevates the status of blacks against the accepted norms of the times by creating a sophisticated "negro criminal network." To dodge the bullet that faced the producers since all of that pleasant intention from Fleming would have been lost in adapting the book, should they have opted to change the race of the villain and his gang? It would have been neat and controversial but with good publicity buzz if they changed the part when Mr. Big pulls off his fake face where we see a white guy underneath...problem solved! Furthermore, make him a Nazi war criminal and diffuse any potential racial backlash "from the other side." LOL

Silhouette Man

Blackleiter wrote:

Interesting theory, but I'm still not convinced it holds water. Both Blofeld and Irma Bunt survived OHMSS, and they killed Bond's wife for Christ's sake! Plus, when it's mentioned that Nick Nack lived at the end of TMWTGG, you again suggest that the first two Roger Moore Bond films were consciously conceived to be less violent. So forgive me for being a bit confused, but are you saying that LALD is unique and let its villains survive because they are Black, or are you saying that LALD had fewer deaths because it is a part of that "holding water", reduced violence phase?

Silhouette Man wrote:

Tom Mankiewicz telling us that the black villains have had a spiritual and physical victory over the mere mortal secret agent James Bond 007. That's the message that comes from that end scene - it's a sop to the black audience in those militant black and Civil Rights times of the late 1960s and the early 1970s.

I'd say it's a bit of both, plus I'm aware I'm argung here with a US attorney, so I do have to be careful how I word myself here. I have a Masters in Law degree. I think more villains survive in number than in any other Bond film - just look at all of the red-shirted villains in Kananga's underground base that survive too. I do think that Tom Mankiewicz was sending a message out to black audiences watching the film - that Bond could not really hold a candle to these highly intelligent and resourceful black villains he had happened upon and that Bond looked a right Fish out of Water in comparison. Bond was on their home turf of Harlem in the film and so was thereby already at a disadvantage. This is my theory. I did in fact say that. It remains true.

Blackleiter

Silhouette Man wrote:

Bond looked a right Fish out of Water in comparison. Bond was on their home turf of Harlem in the film and so was thereby already at a disadvantage.

I grew up in Harlem myself, so I know that part is true! )

Anyway, as I said your theory is interesting and perhaps even correct, but you haven't really offered any compelling evidence other than your hunch that it isn't a mere coincidence that more villains survive in LALD than in other Bond films. But you have demonstrated that you are a very wise and resourceful "Bondophile", so perhaps you will surprise me yet! In the meantime, although we won't always agree, I will continue to enjoy your wealth of knowledge about all things Bond. -{

Silhouette Man

Thank you, kind sir. I enjoy debatng with you btoo, very much. It makes a fresh change from all of the mindless trolling that goes on here too. Debates like this are what I (and doubtless others) come to the most excellent AJB for.

I meant to add that your reference of Blofeld and Bunt survivng the film OHMSS - you are correct on that, of course, but it was merely following the story of the original 1963 Fleming novel and Blofeld was killed in the next novel YOLT in 1964, if not quite killed in the next film, DAF in 1971. So that detracts from your villains escaping death in other Bond films point, at least a little bit. I'm telling you, there's something about LALD. I hope to write a detailed alternative review on it for my blog in time.