LALD Pre-Title Sequence
CmdrAtticus
United StatesPosts: 1,102MI6 Agent
I just finished watching LALD, which I had not seen in ages.
From the first time I saw it when it was released, I was bothered by the PTS. Now after all these years and seeing it again with fresher eyes, I broke it down into the reasons it bothers me.
First, the UN killing. It was the first time I had ever seen someone assassinated using sound. To me, it just looked silly as well as improbable. I knew enough about the physics of sound on the body and hearing to know that the whole idea was ludicrous. Sound can be used to injure, but not kill.
Second, the New Orleans funeral killing. At first, I assumed from his dress and hat and the way he spoke (even with only five words) the actor was an American. However, M. tells Bond that he was one of their agents. Was there a script changed after this was filmed? Was the man supposed to originally be CIA - because the actor wasn't British and he certainly appeared to be American.
Now he's knifed by the men next to him on the street in broad daylight and he dies?? I'm sorry...people who get stabbed once in their side would scream like hell and yell "WHAT THE HELL, DID YOU DO THAT FOR!!". Now, you can slit their throat so they can't scream and create a jet of blood like you would see in a zombie move and they would die pretty quickly, but of course they're not going to do that in broad daylight and certainly not in a Bond film!
Now we have a New Orleans traditional jazz infused funeral procession that approaches and picks up the body with the magic coffin. So all these people were paid or blackmailed somehow into going along with this murder and stashing the corpse??? This whole scene to me is difficult to watch, in that it seems to suggest that a crowd of blacks just participated in murdering a man on a street in full view of the public. What were they thinking when the came up with this?
Third, the killing of the agent in the vodou ceremony. The man with the snake waves it around the agent and scares him with it, then forces the snake to bite him and kills him - instantly?? Now, I've tried to rationalize this by thinking that perhaps the agent just passed out from fright
(unlikely) and they killed him later, or he had a heart attack on the spot (also unlikely, as being an agent he would hardly be sent on assignment with a bad ticker (or for that matter, be eligible to be an agent with a bad ticker to begin with).
Now, I realize that audiences over the decades were exposed to a multitude of images of men getting shot with one bullet then falling and dying instantly and in most instance with little or no blood showing. This was all sanitized Hollywood make believe. The Bond films went along with this to a degree to get their PG ratings. This ridiculous bit of fiction always bothered me because it was so far removed from real firearm violence, but I just went along with it. However, in the LALD PTS they went even further and killed off the agents with even more cartoonish methods.
Well, I have to admit this certainly set up the right tone for the rest of the film, which was, "this is just a big romp of stunt set pieces and one liners and slapstick right up to the inflated and bursting Mr. Big".
Now that my rant is over, I can wait another number of years before trying to sit through this all again.
From the first time I saw it when it was released, I was bothered by the PTS. Now after all these years and seeing it again with fresher eyes, I broke it down into the reasons it bothers me.
First, the UN killing. It was the first time I had ever seen someone assassinated using sound. To me, it just looked silly as well as improbable. I knew enough about the physics of sound on the body and hearing to know that the whole idea was ludicrous. Sound can be used to injure, but not kill.
Second, the New Orleans funeral killing. At first, I assumed from his dress and hat and the way he spoke (even with only five words) the actor was an American. However, M. tells Bond that he was one of their agents. Was there a script changed after this was filmed? Was the man supposed to originally be CIA - because the actor wasn't British and he certainly appeared to be American.
Now he's knifed by the men next to him on the street in broad daylight and he dies?? I'm sorry...people who get stabbed once in their side would scream like hell and yell "WHAT THE HELL, DID YOU DO THAT FOR!!". Now, you can slit their throat so they can't scream and create a jet of blood like you would see in a zombie move and they would die pretty quickly, but of course they're not going to do that in broad daylight and certainly not in a Bond film!
Now we have a New Orleans traditional jazz infused funeral procession that approaches and picks up the body with the magic coffin. So all these people were paid or blackmailed somehow into going along with this murder and stashing the corpse??? This whole scene to me is difficult to watch, in that it seems to suggest that a crowd of blacks just participated in murdering a man on a street in full view of the public. What were they thinking when the came up with this?
Third, the killing of the agent in the vodou ceremony. The man with the snake waves it around the agent and scares him with it, then forces the snake to bite him and kills him - instantly?? Now, I've tried to rationalize this by thinking that perhaps the agent just passed out from fright
(unlikely) and they killed him later, or he had a heart attack on the spot (also unlikely, as being an agent he would hardly be sent on assignment with a bad ticker (or for that matter, be eligible to be an agent with a bad ticker to begin with).
Now, I realize that audiences over the decades were exposed to a multitude of images of men getting shot with one bullet then falling and dying instantly and in most instance with little or no blood showing. This was all sanitized Hollywood make believe. The Bond films went along with this to a degree to get their PG ratings. This ridiculous bit of fiction always bothered me because it was so far removed from real firearm violence, but I just went along with it. However, in the LALD PTS they went even further and killed off the agents with even more cartoonish methods.
Well, I have to admit this certainly set up the right tone for the rest of the film, which was, "this is just a big romp of stunt set pieces and one liners and slapstick right up to the inflated and bursting Mr. Big".
Now that my rant is over, I can wait another number of years before trying to sit through this all again.
Comments
Things and different things either bother or thrill us.
On the Killer sound. I'm ( I guess an average cinema viewer ) so if the film kills a guy
With a sound wave, I buy that. After all I buy a woman being killed by getting covered
In gold paint, or a car turning into a submarine.
The agents accent : I'd say he was under cover so did an American accent.
( Please remember, this is only how I explain it to myself
His getting stabbed ? Bond is a family film so can't be too graphic in its violence
So it was an easy way to show him getting " taken out "
The funeral party being in on the kill, Mr Big did use fear of voodoo to control people
and obviously from a visual point it looks fantastic, a bit eerie and fun.
It's not my favourite pts in a Bond, may even be the worst but simply because I think
They should have introduced Roger Moore as Bond.
As a side issue on the agent's accent- I believe that the one line he says was dubbed by Shane Rimmer, no stranger to Bond fans (YOLT/DAF/TSWLM) although I have no proof of this- it just sounds like him!
Body double from the saint, and either lived or was on holiday there and after
Dropping by to say Hello got the job.
Body double from the saint, and either lived or was on holiday there and after
Dropping by to say Hello got the job.
Yes, which makes it more likely that his line was dubbed.
In Dr No, why did the "three blind mice" walk all the way to Strangways' house with white sticks? Surely that would just draw attention? And how did the agent in FRWL wear a rubber Bond mask and still display facial expressions? Why Bond's face when it wasn't until Kronsteen suggested Bond to Blofeld some time later? And in Goldfinger, a rubber duck on bond's head? And a perfectly unrumpled dinner suit under the wetsuit?
The mask in From Russia with Love is fine with me. The implication is that the target should be as realistic as possible. Even if the specific caper doesn't come to light until later, the idea that Spectre's top assassin would be groomed to kill Britain's top agent makes sense.
With Goldfinger, though, that was all part of the in-joke. Guy Hamilton, for instance, never expected the film to be taken seriously at all. Little did he realize that the tropes he and others introduced would become the formula.
Getting back to Live and Let Die, I always assumed the plunger was not for sound but electricity -- to send a charge through the line that electrocuted the ambassador. At the risk of overcomplicating, there's no reason to believe the knife used to kill the British agent wasn't coated with poison -- perhaps the same poison the snake uses to almost instantaneously kill the other agent. This is a movie about voodoo, for instance, and a heretofore unnamed tropical island nation that could harbor who knows what species of snake found nowhere else in the world. Personally, I just think it's a combination movie fantasy and Hamilton, but, hey.
Shane Rimmer is Canadian.
" I don't listen to hip hop!"
You are right on the money with all your points and I totally agree. Probably the main difference is that the quick, bloodless deaths don't bother me. Rather, the overall scope of the PTS is sub-standard because it shows the death of 3 agents, but no sight of Bond. I suppose it did a good job of setting up Bond's missions and locations, but overall the weakest PTS of the RM era.
PS- The street parade could reflect Mr. Big's influence and his large payroll. The agent who was stabbed was American, which is why Felix and the CIA got involved…right? ?:)
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
Wasn't fond of them either and I remember reading the guy playing the witch doctor
Holding the snake ( which bit, Baines) was a Dancer who was also scared of them !
Although he was Avery good actor as you'd never think it from watching him. My
Wife's main comment on his scene was " He has a lovely bum ! " nothing gets by that
Woman.
By Barbel. The chase seemingly in a country garden,only to show at the end
To be a skyscraper roof garden. As I only found out about this a couple of
years ago.
The PTS works for me. I think it's very menacing and sets things up nicely. {[]
The PTS works for me. Like TMWTGG i like the fact that there is no Bond there..
It never occurred to me the UN killing was done by electocution - that's a good explanation, though one still has to suspend belief quite a bit even for that since it takes longer for electrocution to work, and in order for them to have had enough power to send through the headphones to do this that quickly, it would have fried them and the wiring. An example of this is how long it takes for prisoners to be executed.
As to the funeral death, I realize Big is supposed to have a lot of power and influence and in another scenario - say in a graveyard ceremony attended by a small crowd and isolated from the public where the fake mourners are heading for the gravesite and the agent is dispatched on the way - I would have bought that easier. Even creepier, he could have been just knocked out and then buried alive. That sound's like something more from Fleming's typewriter. However, having enough influence to do this in broad daylight on a street full of other pedestrians - I just cant bring myself to suspend belief long enough for this, even in a Bond film. And yes, I realize the killings are done quickly for sanitation purposes, but when I've seen the same type of sanitized killing done in shows like Get Smart (which are supposed to be unbelievable and funny - "Sorry about that Chief"), it just
undermines my ability to take any of it seriously.
As far as the knife having toxin as well as the snake - it's a nice way to dress it up to make it more convincing, but we all know toxins don't act immediately whether from a stab or a snake ( and the snake was a green boa, which have no venom - not that most of the audiences would be award of this).
I do realize that other Bond films and other films in general show sanitized, stylized killings and that some other Bond PT sequences also contain other scenes that require a lot of suspension of belief (jet packs, Bond escaping through volleys of machine gun fire, etc..), but when it comes to the immediate one on one killings I have a more difficult time. I thought the face mask gimmick in FRWL was a bit of a cheat the first time I saw it and of course no one can be killed within a few seconds from being garroted. However, it's shown in such a violent way it's still seems more realistic.
I realize they would have never shown these killings in LALD as graphically as the violence was in the Craig films. However, given the scenarios they came up with, I just which they would have been more suspenseful and plausible.
As far as the wiki Suspension of Belief reference - yes, when it comes to fiction the audience is supposed to suspend judgement concerning the plausibility of the story - but IMO only up to a certain point. They make reference to the Superman/Kent scenario. We can buy him doing all his amazing feats yet have to also swallow the idea he can put on a suit and eyeglasses and no one (especially Lois) would notice. I suppose this is what bothers me about the LALD PTS and many other Bond scenes. I can't be selective enough to suspend my belief in one area and not in another. However, I was focusing solely on this PTS in of itself.
I can totally respect that.
While I'm not crazy about the LALD PTS, it does serve a useful purpose, and nicely sets up the story. Nor does it detract from the film like the embarrassing bedroom farce with Miss Caruso.
However, I wish they would have tacked on a little segment of Bond doing something cool. Imagine The Spy Who Loved Me PTS without the spectacular skiing sequence and parachute stunt. You would basically have the same format as LALD.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
TSWLM is like Lewis Gilbert's other two Bond films. A craft is stolen, then something with Bond. Adding on a fourth bit to the LALD PTS wouldn't flow well.
I agree, TP, the biggest problem with the LALD PTS is Bond's absence.