The Greatest
James Bond Girls



Live and Let Die (1973)



See also Greatest Film Series Franchises: James Bond Films (illustrated)

See also James Bond Films - Summary
Greatest Bond Girls in James Bond Films
Title Screen
Film Title/Year/Director, Bond Girl (Actress)
Screenshots

Live and Let Die (1973)
d. Guy Hamilton

Miss Caruso (Madeline Smith)

The debonair, super-cool agent James Bond (Roger Moore) was called upon to investigate, summoned from his bed at 5:48 am which he shared with voluptuous Italian agent Miss Caruso (Madeline Smith) ("Beautiful Girl" in the credits) who had been involved in his recent Italian mission in Rome, but had since gone missing.

"M" (Bernard Lee) and Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell) came to Bond's apartment for an early morning visit to deliver instructions, causing Bond to quickly hide the scantily-clad woman, in a game of cat-and-mouse, while he was briefed.

Miss Moneypenny actually conspired to help Bond hide Miss Caruso in a living room closet and avoid detection by "M."

Bond was to travel to New York to investigate three suspicious killings, aided by Q's latest gadget - a bullet-deflecting Rolex watch.

After "M" and Miss Moneypenny departed, Bond used his watch's magnet to unzip the back of Miss Caruso's dress (Caruso: "Such a delicate touch." Bond: "Sheer magnetism, darling").





Live and Let Die (1973)

Solitaire (Jane Seymour)

Solitaire was a naive, sensual, virginal Tarot card-reader who worked for San Monique's Caribbean island evil foreign minister-statesman Dr. Kananga (Yaphet Kotto). Kananga also managed a chain of Fillet of Soul restaurants under his alias - as Harlem black crime lord and syndicate leader "Mr. Big."

Bond (Roger Moore) first met Kananga's psychic tarot card-soothsayer and virginal "High Priestess" Solitaire (Jane Seymour) in the back of Mr. Big's Harlem Fillet of Soul restaurant (Solitaire: "I know who you are, what you are and why you've come. You have made a mistake. You will not succeed"). After being disarmed, she had him pick a card to identify himself, and he turned over the Fool card ("You have found yourself"). After Mr. Big ordered Bond to be killed ("Y'all take this honky out and waste him, now"), Bond selected another card to foretell his future, the Lovers card, and he asked her, prophetically: "Us?"

The heroine had to remain chaste in order to retain her mystical, psychic powers and keep herself from danger, although she was beginning to have visions of making love to Bond, when she continually drew The Lovers tarot card. Her mother had also had the same power, as a disturbed and angered Kananga reminded her: "These growing signs of impertinence begin to disturb me, Solitaire, even as they did with your mother before you. She had the power and lost it, became useless to me. You will not make the same mistake."

Inside Solitaire's cliff-top island headquarters set up for her by Kananga, Bond confronted her - but she berated him for playing with her tarot cards, although he predicted: "The cards say we will be lovers." She asserted it was "impossible" and "forbidden" for her to lose her virginity through earthly love - it would mean the loss of her magical powers.

Bond tricked her to pick a card from a fixed Tarot deck (composed completely of The Lovers cards), and she slept with Bond. She was a willing lover, seeking to escape the oppressive Kananga, although she needed reassurance from Bond: "There has to be a first time for everyone." And then he confessed his duplicity in seducing her: "Darling, I have a small confession to make...The deck was slightly stacked in my favor." She replied: "The physical violation cannot be undone," and she feared Kananga's retaliation.

He promised to protect her, but first needed to know the deadly and valuable secret of what Kananga was protecting at Voodooland. But before leaving, he agreed to remain for another round of love-making (Bond: "There's no sense in going off half-cocked").

When the two were brought back together by Mr. Big, the crime lord jealously asked Bond about whether he had slept with Solitaire ("Did you mess with that?...Did you touch her?"), but agent 007 refused to answer to anyone but Kananga ("When I see Kananga"), so Mr. Big ripped off his facial disguise to reveal himself as Kananga. Solitaire tricked Kananga into believing that she still possessed her psychic powers, but then the disappointed Kananga, feeling spiteful and betrayed, revealed that he knew her secret, and he brutally slapped her. Now that she was no use to him, he decided to kill her at "the proper time."

She eventually assisted Bond in combating the evil villain and defeating his plans to seek control of the North American heroin market. But first she had to be rescued from a strange voodoo sacrificial ceremony held in Voodooland's cemetery-chapel on the island of San Monique.

She was led out for execution and her wrists were tied to stakes. Intimidating cemetery god Baron Samedi (Geoffrey Holder) with skeletal makeup, one of Kananga's associates, prepared to throw her into a casket filled with poisonous snakes. Bond cut Solitaire loose with a machete, and the two fled into Kananga's subterranean lair.

When the two were captured and lowered into Kananga's pool and served up as bait for his pet sharks, Bond cut himself free, killed Kananga in a gory death scene by an exploding shark gun CO2 pellet in his mouth, and rescued the two of them.

In the film's final scene, as they took an overnight train from New Orleans to New York and were preparing to make love in their sleeper cabin (Solitaire: "The first time in my life, I feel like a complete woman"), henchman Tee Hee (Julius W. Harris) with a pincer-hook hand and steel arm attempted to take Bond's life, without success.

She and Bond presumably proceeded to make love again, as the film ended.











Greatest Bond Girls in James Bond Films
(chronological, each Bond film a separate page)
Introduction | Dr. No (1962) | From Russia With Love (1963) | Goldfinger (1964) | Thunderball (1965)
You Only Live Twice (1967) | On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) | Diamonds are Forever (1971) | Live and Let Die (1973)
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) | The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) | Moonraker (1979) | For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Octopussy (1983) | A View to a Kill (1985) | The Living Daylights (1987) | Licence to Kill (1989)
GoldenEye (1995) | Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) | The World is Not Enough (1999) | Die Another Day (2002)
Casino Royale (2006) | Quantum of Solace (2008) | Skyfall (2012) | Spectre (2015) | No Time to Die (2021) | Unofficial Never Say Never Again (1983)

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