Sainted Bond

The sun never sets on Her Majesty's Secret Service or, at least, on that redoubtable agent 007. Sean Connery has apparently dispatched his last villain as Ian Fleming's hero, and Roger Moore-best remembered for his TV role as "The Saint"-has replaced him. The latest Bond epic, Live and Let Die, is set in New Orleans and New York-with interludes in a romantic Jamaican bower and a macabre voodoo cemetery. Perennial Bond producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman (of United Artists) send the supersleuth on the trail of a Caribbean connection that pits him against the diabolical Dr. Kananga, prime minister of an island republic, site of a huge poppy-to-powder heroin operation. Kananga divines his machinations with the aid of a tarot deck dealt by the beautiful sorceress, Solitaire; needless to say, it's in the cards for Bond and Solitaire (Jane Seymour) to cross paths in the boudoir. Fate has also dealt 007 his first black inamorata, Rosie Carver (Gloria Hendry). Bond's fortunes are again fraught with an array of far-out gadgets-a Rolex watch with a magnetic field to deflect bullets and a prosthetic arm designed like a lobster claw; and with the usual chase scenes-crack-ups impacting cars into accordions and motorboats hurdling bayou sand bars. Whether on board or in bed, Connery or Moore, Bond is obviously still Bond.