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Alligators and Crocodiles in Movies |
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Live and Let Die (1973) |
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Spoiler Alert !
Some of these pictures and descriptions may give away plot details that you might not want to know before watching the film.
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This is a voodoo-blaxploitation Bond movie, with a dose of the Dukes of Hazard with a crazy Louisiana Sherriff and a speedboat chase. It's one of the old-fashioned Bonds where 007 (Roger Moore) seduces all the women and uses a lot of gadgets (including a powerful magnet watch that lets him unzip his girlfriend's dress without her knowing.) And as usual, the bad guys try again and again to kill him with sharks and crocodiles and snakes, but they're too stupid to just shoot him when they have him tied up (just like the running gag with Dr. Evil and his son in the Austin Powers movies.) There are several snake scenes and a long scene with lots of hungry crocodiles.
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The bad guys have captured Bond in Louisiana. They drive him to a waterfront dock in Louisiana where they process illegal drugs. Bond's captor, a one-armed man named Tee Hee (Julius Harris) tells him there are thousands of crocodiles in the water outside the drug warehouse. He is proud of his little nippers and tells Bond some of them live to be 200 years old (which is not true - it's rare for a captive crocodile to live longer than 100 years, though one lived to 140.) Tee Hee shows Bond how to tell an alligator from a crocodile, then he introduces him to Old Albert, the crocodile that bit his arm off. (This is why Bond joked earlier that he always tries to keep crocodiles at arms length.) Tee Hee opens a huge drum full of chicken parts and uses the powerful clippers on the end of his metal arm to pick up and throw chicken to the crocodiles. He tells Bond that feeding time is his favorite time. Then he strands Bond on a small island in the crocodile-filled water and walks away. As parting wisdom, he tells Bond there are two ways to disable a crocodile - jam a pencil in the depression hole behind its eyes, or put your hand in the crocodile's mouth and pull his teeth out. He and his henchmen laugh but Bond is not amused. Tee Hee and the men walk away leaving Bond alone to be eaten by crocodiles. They don't even leave one man to watch. They all just leave in classic cliche Bond villain style. Why don't they just shoot him! You just don't turn your back on James Bond, as they find out later.
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The crocodiles slowly start to climb up onto the island towards Bond. He adjusts his tie, which is the only sign of distress we ever see from the cool as a cucumber secret agent. He throws some chicken at the crocs coming towards him on the right, then turns to the left where he sees several crocodiles conveniently spaced out in the water like stepping stones leading to the other side. He jumps on the closest crocodile's back then he runs across the backs of the other crocs, avoiding their snapping jaws, and lands safely on the mainland. Then * Spoiler Alert * he blows up the entire warehouse along with everybody who tried to kill him. Because he's Bond. James Bond. (Cue the guitar music.) |
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In 2014 I visited Westman Reptile Gardens west of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada, a reptile zoo which has provided herps for use in many films, mostly Canadian productions. Inside, there was a display with one of the crocodiles used in Live and Let Die 41 years earlier. A sign (shown above) explained that the stunt man who performed the crocodile walk fell before he finished the stunt and was bitten badly by a crocodile, sending him to the hospital. When he got out, he did the stunt a second time. That time he got far enough that there was enough footage to use in the movie, but he still ended up in the hospital again.
There are also some good snake scenes you can see here. |
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