LIVE AND LET DIE—–“Ah, Miss Moneypenny.”   007 #8, in a 1973 nosedive, with Bond coming off foppish, Roger Moore looking unable to hold the proverbial candle to Sean Connery. While raking Rog over the coals for his handling of the sex & violence chores shows that Moore was less, there’s enough blame to go round; this outing fails in nearly every other area.

Guy Hamilton, whose rocketing of Goldfinger cemented the style of the series, just connects dots in his direction, with the action sequences—apart from a funny stunt involving crocodiles and a fast chase in some slick powerboats— just flabby exercises in fist-flailing that don’t flex a pec next to the renowned bruisers in the Connery exploits.

The tiresome plot involves quashing a large-scale heroin ring. Locales featured are Harlem, New Orleans and Jamaica. Title tune is courtesy of Paul McCartney, it was Oscar nominated (bleh).

Decent are Jane Seymour (her debut) as ‘Solitaire’ and Julius Harris as a secondary heavy. Atrocious is the offensively stereotyped comic relief, a redneck Southern lawman, mugged by the usually superb Clifton James. Head villain Yaphet Kotto is dispatched in the most idiotic death scene in the entire series.

Written by Tom Mankiewicz. 121 minutes,with Geoffrey Holder, David Hedison, Bernard Lee, Gloria Hendry, Lois Maxwell. Around $7,000,000 was spent making it, and it brought back $161,000,000. About 30% of that came in the States, where it placed 8th in 1973.