20 Things You Didn’t Know About Live And Let Die (1973)
2. Bond Doesn’t Do Drugs
After the success of Tom Mankiewicz’s debut as a Bond screenwriter on Diamonds Are Forever (1971), he was hired to write the screenplay for the next film. He suggested that Ian Fleming’s 1954 James Bond novel, Live And Let Die would be an ideal follow-up, given the rise of Black Power and the Black Panthers, not to mention the Blaxploitation films that were all the rage in the early 1970s.
Fleming’s novel followed the efforts of crime kingpin and SMERSH operative, Mr Big to sell 17th Century gold coins supposedly from Captain Morgan’s Caribbean treasure hoard to finance Soviet activities in America. This plot was considered to be outdated by the time of the film’s production and the filmmakers did not want to suggest that the Russians were the villains in the new era of détente. The plot was therefore changed to focus on a growing new problem: the rise in the use of drugs, particularly of heroin.
Regular Bond screenwriter, Richard Maibaum - who was unavailable to work on Live And Let Die - described this film as being one of his least favourite Bond films, explaining that “to process drugs in the middle of the jungle is not a Bond caper”. Ironically, Maibaum later crafted a very similar plot with producer, Michael G. Wilson for his last film in the franchise, Licence to Kill (1989).