How realistic is the crocodile scene from the James Bond movie Live and Let Die?

when The best James Bond movie ever, “Casino Royale” Debuting in 2006, she introduced audiences to a new, stronger, and more grounded version of the iconic spy. Gone are the elaborate Q-gadgets and impossible-to-escape death traps. In fact, the character Q was removed from the films entirely. All of these Bond trademarks will find their way back into the franchise with 2012 “Skyfall” – still the biggest Bond film ever made, Although it wasn’t very good – but for ‘Casino Royale’ it was shunned in favor of cinematic realism that presented Bond’s origin in appropriately gritty terms.

But by the time Daniel Craig’s tenure as Bond came to an end, much of that restraint had been abandoned – a fact that was never more evident than when Eon Productions and director Cary Fukunaga decided to kill off Craig’s previously downed spy by a group. Full of missiles at the end of “No Time to Die”. Of course, this isn’t the first time the Bond saga has depicted something unrealistic – although it was the first time it did so with a version supposedly based on the titular spy. In fact, the film that nearly killed cinema’s most enduring franchise, Die Another Day, is still viewed as a Worst Bond movie This is largely due to its more fantastical elements, such as giant ice palaces, invisible cars, and that favorite trope of blockbuster filmmaking: giant laser beams in the sky.

But unrealistic elements and unpredictable scenarios actually have a proud history in the Bond film series, starting with Sean Connery’s 007, who came very close to having his nether regions removed by an unnecessarily slow-moving laser beam. Then came the time when Roger Moore’s Bond jumped a line of crocodiles to escape certain death. But this unexpected moment was actually more real than most people realize.

James Bond movies are not like that The most realistic spy moviesBut that’s part of the reason we love them. Bond himself is a fantasy, which author John le Carré attempts to undermine with his more realistic character, George Smiley. But while le Carré’s novels and adaptations have their own appeal (“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” is one The best spy movies of all time), Bond remains the iconic cinematic spy to this day — even with all the ice palaces and crotch lasers.

When Roger Moore was playing the character, he got into all sorts of wacky and ridiculous scenarios, from space laser battles to ice skating while with the “California Girls” for some reason. In his first outing in a tux, in the 1973 film Live and Let Die, Moore’s Bond finds himself in a classic 007 predicament when he is left on a small island in the middle of a crocodile-infested swamp. He then tries to distract the crocodiles by throwing the meat into the water before using his electromagnetic watch to lure a boat towards him. When both attempts fail and Bond is attacked by crocodiles, he simply wends his way through a line of reptilian heads to safety in a fun and entertaining ending to the entire sequence.

While this ranks somewhere at the bottom of Bond’s silliest moments, it’s still fairly unbelievable when Moore’s spy bluffs his way to freedom – like something more at home in a Disney cartoon than a spy movie. But this is one of those Bond moments that is actually more real than you might know. The scene was filmed on a real Jamaican crocodile farm owned by Ross Kananga, who, according to Moore, is behind the scenes. featureIt houses 1,500 creatures. Kananga has been performing tricks with crocodiles since he was a child, even getting his head stuck in one of the crocodile’s jaws for 20 minutes at one point. He also witnessed his father, who performed with him, being eaten by a crocodile. So, you can imagine that a man who’s been through that kind of trauma wouldn’t be entirely impressed by Bond’s daring escape over the heads of a line of crocodiles – and you’d be right. In fact, Kananga was so unfazed by the stunt that he agreed to do it himself… with real crocodiles.

For scenes involving Roger Moore and the alligators, several foam rubber animals were added to the swamp while the rest of the live alligators were removed. But once it came time for Bond’s perilous escape, Ross Kananga donned a Moore costume, complete with crocodile-skin boots, to literally leap across three live crocodiles. Also behind the scenes Screenshots In the performances, he actually had to perform the trick five times before he pulled it off, and the unused clips are downright unbelievable, with Kananga falling into the water several times as his crocodiles violently charge at him. Tom Cruise may have done six takes of the motorcycle jump in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning. But honestly, if I don’t see him jumping on three live alligators in the next Mission: Impossible movie, I won’t still be impressed.

according to Ball ecstasyKananga had at least bound the animals’ legs to make the trick less dangerous, but their jaws remained free to bite their owner as he tried to jump his way to shore. As the stuntman revealed in a 1973 interview (via BoldenTrance), “The film company kept sending more clothes to London. The crocodiles were chewing everything up when they hit the water, including the shoes. I got one hundred and ninety-three stitches on my face.” Leg and face.

However, for a man who was trapped in the jaws of a crocodile for a full 20 minutes, watched his father get eaten alive, and like actor Julius Harris in Te He. openhe had a “pet lion” patrolling his crocodile farm, and sure enough, the experience was all in one day’s work. Meanwhile, Moore was happy to watch multiple takes, while Kananga was compensated with $60,000 in damages. Sadly, he died of a heart attack five years later, but his daring efforts are immortalized in the film “Live and Let Die.”