Mr. Big is revealed to be the alter ego of Dr. Kananga, a corrupt Caribbean dictator, who rules San Monique, a fictional island where opium poppies are secretly farmed.

Bond is investigating the deaths of three British agents, leading him to Kananga, and he is soon trapped in a world of gangsters and voodoo as he fights to put a stop to the drug baron's scheme.

Bond meets Solitaire, a beautiful tarot reader who has the power of the Obeah and can see both the future and remote events in the present.

He has been producing heroin and is protecting the poppy fields by exploiting the San Monique locals' fear of the occult and voodoo priest Baron Samedi.

Furious at Solitaire for having sex with Bond and losing her ability to read tarot cards, Kananga turns her over to Baron Samedi to be sacrificed.

Kananga's henchmen, one-armed Tee Hee and tweed-jacketed Adam, leave Bond to be eaten by crocodilia at his farm in the Deep South backwoods.

After setting their drug laboratory on fire, he steals a speedboat and escapes, pursued by Kananga's men under Adam's order, and later Sheriff J.W.

He rescues Solitaire from the voodoo sacrifice just as the explosives destroy the fields, and whilst fighting Samedi, Bond punches him and he falls into a coffin of venomous snakes.

However, Bond escapes and forces Kananga to swallow a compressed-gas pellet used in shark guns, causing his body to over inflate and explode.

[5][6] To develop a better feel of how Voodoo was practised, Saltzman and Broccoli escorted Hamilton, Mankiewicz, and production designer Syd Cain to scout New Orleans further and then the islands of the West Indies.

[7] While searching for locations in Jamaica, the crew discovered a crocodile farm in Falmouth owned by Ross Kananga, after passing a sign warning that "trespassers will be eaten".

[3][12] Broccoli and Saltzman decided to stick to Fleming's description of a white woman and, after considering Catherine Deneuve, cast Jane Seymour, who was in the television series The Onedin Line.

[14] Madeline Smith, who played Miss Caruso, sharing Bond's bed in the film's opening, was recommended for the part by Roger Moore after he had appeared with her on television.

[19][20] For Live and Let Die, she returned for the same fee, but due to a technical error, the filming of her scenes in Bond's home at the start of the movie extended to two days, costing the production more than if they had paid the increase she requested.

Hamilton initially wanted to film in Haiti, which the fictional San Monique was modeled after, but could not because of the political instability under the regime of François "Papa Doc" Duvalier.

[27] The speedboat jump scene over the bayou, filmed with the assistance of a specially-constructed ramp, unintentionally set a Guinness World Record at the time with 110 feet (34 m) cleared.

After the agent is fatally stabbed, the band starts playing the more lively "New Second Line" (also known as "Joe Avery's Piece") penned by Milton Batiste.

[39] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times stated that Moore "has the superficial attributes for the job: The urbanity, the quizzically raised eyebrow, the calm under fire and in bed".

"[40] Richard Schickel, reviewing for Time magazine, described the film as "the most vulgar addition to a series that has long since outlived its brief historical moment — if not, alas, its profitability."

He also criticized the action sequences as excessive, but noted that "aside an allright speedboat spectacular over land and water, the film is both perfunctory and predictable—leaving the mind free to wander into the question of its overall taste.

"[41] Roger Greenspun of The New York Times praised Moore as "a handsome, suave, somewhat phlegmatic James Bond—with a tendency to throw away his throwaway quips as the minor embarrassments that, alas, they usually are."

In summary, he remarked the film was "especially well photographed and edited, and it makes clever and extensive use of its good title song, by Paul and Linda McCartney.

"[42] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times likened Moore as "a handsome and smoothly likable successor to Sean Connery as James Bond."

He further noted that the script "uses only the bare bones of Fleming's story about evil doings which link Harlem with a mysterious Caribbean island.

The Tom Mankiewicz script, faced with a real-world crisis in the villain sector, reveals that plot lines have descended further to the level of the old Saturday afternoon serial, and the treatment is more than ever like a cartoon.

He stated that "Connery and Lazenby had an air of concealed thuggishness, clenched fists at the ready, but in Moore's case a sardonic quip and a raised eyebrow are his deadliest weapons".

There are few interesting action sequences — a motorboat chase is trite enough to begin with, but the filmmakers make it worse by throwing in some stupid Louisiana cops, including pot-bellied Sheriff Pepper.

"[47] Ian Nathan of Empire wrote "This is good quality Bond, managing to reinterpret the classic moves — action, deduction, seduction — for a more modern idiom without breaking the mould.

On one side we get the use of alligators as stepping stones and the pompous pitbull of rootin' tootin' Sheriff Pepper caught up in the thrilling boat chase.

The website's critical consensus reads: "While not one of the highest-rated Bond films, Live and Let Die finds Roger Moore adding his stamp to the series with flashes of style and an improved sense of humor.