1973: Time calls 007 a `racist pig’

We got curious about what other James Bond movie reviews are available on Time magazine’s Web site. There was one we remembered and, sure enough, it was as harsh as we recalled.

Richard Schickel, who over the years has worked on various documentaries about the movies, did not like Live And Let Die. He especially didn’t care for new Bond Roger Moore opposing black villains.

There is a new James Bond — Roger Moore of Sainted TV memory — and a new angle to his latest adventure. In this incarnation, 007 is the Great White Hope. He goes about beating up black men who are doing a little heroin smuggling to finance a Caribbean dictatorship and, perhaps, take over the U.S. after they’ve turned it into a nation of junkies with their free-sample program.

Later, he opined:

As for Bond’s new character as a racist pig, there is a dubious rationale for it. Through the years he has kicked and chopped his way through most of the other races of man, so it could be argued that it is just a matter of equal rights to let blacks have their chance to play masochists to his pseudo-suave sadist. Not surprisingly, this strained justification fails to relieve the queasiness Live and Let Die induces. Why are all the blacks either stupid brutes or primitives deep into the occult and voodooism? Why is miscegenation so often used as a turn-on? Why do such questions even arise in what is supposed to be pure entertainment?

To read the entire review, JUST CLICK HERE.