Live and Let Die

Live and Let Die (1973)

57 mistakes - chronological order

(4 votes)

Continuity mistake: When Bond is on the small isle in the crocodile pond, one of the crocodiles begins to climb the rock. Cut to Bond and then back at the crocodile who has now turned into an alligator. In the next shot it is once again a crocodile.

Factual error: The henchman with the prosthetic arm bends Bond's gun. It would require something in the range of 1000 pounds of pressure to bend a gun like that. It would be impossible for anyone to generate that much pressure since the arm is driven only by human muscle.

Plot hole: Bond steals the ancient double decker bus, not noted for any kind of speed, and he also doesn't get much of a head start against the police, yet in later shots he's quite a distance ahead of them. Skilled driver or not, it's a bus.

GalahadFairlight

Factual error: When the camera does a close up shot of Bond in the sky in the Microlight, the fabric is far too loose for it to actually be in the sky. The fabric would be taut as the air flows over it.

GalahadFairlight

Other mistake: When Bond gets his Rolex he explains that by pulling out this button it turns it into a hyper intensified magnet, but he actually turns the bezel to activate it. Also, Bond repeats Q's claim that it can deflect the path of a bullet. Lead bullets, even with copper jackets, are not affected by magnetism.

Continuity mistake: When Bond is tied up with Solitaire and turns on his watch - only the gas bullet comes flying. But that could not be the only loose metal object in the room. Kananga's blade for example. And even if he held on to it he would feel the magnet pulling it.

Jacob La Cour

Revealing mistake: When Tee Hee and Bond are fighting in the train compartment, watch the right edge of the screen. In one of the shots the end of the set is visible as Bond shoves Tee Hee against the "wall", which wobbles. So much is revealed you can see the wooden framing.

Revealing mistake: As "Tee Hee" (the man with the claw) escorts Bond to the alligator pond at the farm, they at one point stand next to each other. You can see that Tee Hee's prosthetic arm is much longer than his real one- about as long as you might expect it to be, if the actor is really holding a prop with his actual (and perfectly good) hand.

Factual error: Clifton James' character is "Sheriff J. W. Pepper of the Louisiana State Police". A sheriff is not part of any state police organization - a sheriff is an elected COUNTY official. (Interestingly, in Louisiana, they are not called counties, they are called "parishes").

Other mistake: When Bond is sky-surfing on the back of the other agent's boat, you can see a shadow above the skysurfer. Why would there be a shadow in the sky?

Other mistake: When Tee Hee strikes Bond to supposedly knock him out, he makes contact with Bond's right shoulder blade. He doesn't strike anywhere near the neck/head region, which is where you would hit if you were trying to knock someone unconscious.

GalahadFairlight

Character mistake: When Rosie points the gun at Quarrel on his boat, she says she might have shot him. He says she might even have killed him if she had taken off the safety catch. Like most revolvers, the Model 19 .357 Magnum has no safety.

BocaDavie

Character mistake: When Rosie sticks her revolver in Bond's room and Bond flips her onto the bed, Bond incorrectly identifies the gun as a Smith and Wesson .38 which would make it a model 10 or 15. It was actually a Model 19 .357 Magnum.

BocaDavie

Other mistake: When James kills the snake in his bathroom with the flame from his cigar and the aerosol, the carpet doesn't appear even singed.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: It was a woollen carpet. Wool is fireproof.

It would still have been singed.

It does, as it turns brown.

Continuity mistake: When Bond and Kanaga falls into the shark pool, they fall apart from each other. However, when we see them from under water, they are holding onto each other.

Mortug

Revealing mistake: The snake held up to kill the agent and later Solitaire is obviously not a real snake but a fake one. Look at how stiff it looks.

Continuity mistake: During the chase scene when several men in boats are chasing Bond in a boat, one of the bad guys steals a black speedboat from the Sheriff's brother-in-law. The bottom of the black speedboat collects white scuff marks as the chase continues, but the scuffs increase and decrease erratically, indicating that the sequences were not shot in the order we see in the film.

Continuity mistake: After Bond is picked up by the taxi at the airport in New York, Whisper in the "white pimpmobile", as Felix Leiter puts it, shoots the taxi driver in the head. The car then swerves from the second-left lane on the road to the very left lane. But in the next shot of Bond's head you can see through the rear window that there is a car on the left side of the taxi, indicating that the car is still in the second-left lane. In the next shot the taxi is back in the very left lane.

Continuity mistake: On the beach, when Bond shows the card to Rosie, the way he holds it differs between shots: his fingers stand out or not, depending on the shot.

Sacha

Cab driver: Hey, you know where you're goin', man?
James Bond: Uptown, I believe?
Cab driver: Uptown? You headed into Harlem, man.
James Bond: Well you just stay on the tail of that jukebox and there's an extra twenty in it for you.
Cab driver: Hey man, for twenty bucks I'd take you to a Ku Klux Klan cookout.

More quotes from Live and Let Die

Trivia: With so many black actors, most of whom were cast as villains in the film, producers wanted to write in another character, a comedy part, to draw attention away. New York actor Clifton James was cast in the role of "Sheriff J. W. Pepper" (he was so popular that he would turn up again in the next Bond film).

More trivia for Live and Let Die

Chosen answer: One assumes that the card that 'foretold' that Rosie was a double-agent was either sent by Felix Lighter of the FBI/CIA or by Solitaire herself. But, more than likely, it was Bond's faithful sidekick Quarrel, Jr. (the fisherman/boat captain on San Monique).

CCARNI

More questions & answers from Live and Let Die

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.