RIP Sir Roger Moore

[JKL2000]

Being reported by BBC.

Moneypenny!!!

[Rarebird]

Just read it.

Don't forget The Persuaders.

[Vic2012]

RIP. Funny guy in the Bond films.

[Obscured]

"Live And Let Die" was my favorite 007 flick.
R.I.P.

[mozo-pg]

RIP

[Scrotum Scissor]

While their stylistic approach donning slapstick cartoon comedy, overt dandy sexism and outrageous narratives (Moonraker, anyone?) set Moore's Bond pictures apart, he was my third fave purveyor of the character after Connery and Craig. These were unpretentious yet fully entertaining adventure films, little more.

He had other fine roles too, although honestly I never saw him much as a "technical" or artistic actor. One of his better known and acknowledged action roles, for instance, was that in The Wild Geese - which featured Richard Burton and Richard Harris at their respectively worst, and still they totally outplayed the bewildered Moore.

But I liked him all the same! Godspeed to his eternal legacy.

[Sputnik]

RIP Roger. I remember going to all his Bond films with my parents when they came out in the 70s. It was a big deal for us. They got a little silly toward the end of his run, but we always had fun. Good times. Live and Let die, however, remains a favorite of mine.

Bill

[Jerjo]

Live and Let Die was the first Bond movie I ever saw in the theater so Moore will always hold a special place in my Bond pantheon. And it should be noted that he spent countless hours working for UNICEF which I believe is what earned him his knighthood. RIP Sir Roger.

[walt]

This is where i first saw Roger Moore.I loved this series,and the opening music.RIP Roger Moore.

[Supersonic Scientist]

This is where i first saw Roger Moore.I loved this series,and the opening music.RIP Roger Moore.

Word !!!

RIP Roger Moore

[aith01]

Sad to hear. I always liked him, even if he wasn't my favorite Bond.

[iguana]

each generation has its bond. this is mine. at 89 a life lived to the max. thank you for the entertaining and thrilling hours.

[mozo-pg]

Live and Let Die was the first Bond movie I ever saw in the theater so Moore will always hold a special place in my Bond pantheon. And it should be noted that he spent countless hours working for UNICEF which I believe is what earned him his knighthood. RIP Sir Roger.

Roger's work with UNICEF holds a lot of water - as a wealthy man he could have just lived a relaxed/comfortable life without helping others.

[GuitarGeek]

He was great in Cannonball Run, playing a wealthy eccentric who thinks he's Roger Moore. So he drives around in an Aston Martin (kitted out with all the extras just like Bond's), has lots of beautiful flocking around him, etc. He makes reference to The Saint in one scene.

Another good movie I saw him in had him and Michael Caine both playing dual roles as nuclear physicists who are preparing to sell out to the baddies and as look-a-like con-men who have been hired by the government to stop the sale of state secrets from happening. Can't remember the title, but I recall there's a running gag about the con-men not being able to quite their voices right, only every time someone says "The voice isn't quite right" or "keep working on the voice", they're actually talking to one of the physicists. There's also a great scene where one of them grabs an elderly man as a hostage, but the old man easily defeats the bad guy, before declaring, "I was a captain in the Israeli army for 30 years! I don't need to put with this crap anymore!".

re UNICEF, I saw him on, I think, the Letterman show back in the 80's, promoting his UNICEF work. He said that we don't actually own this planet, it actually belongs to our children and "They're going to be very cross if we give it back to them in the condition it's in".

[Plasmatopia]

RIP, Roger.

I just happened to start watching the first 20 minutes or so of Moonraker a couple of weeks ago. I think I saw it at the drive-in when it came out. I couldn't get the wife to watch it with me for some reason.

[spellbound]

Rest in peace, Roger Moore.

[Staun]

I to enjoy the Saint. Never cared much for the Bond movies but since I love westerns, I like seeing him in the Maverick series. RIP Sir Roger.

[GuitarGeek]

OK, after a little Wikiing (is that even a word?!), I found the Moore/Caine picture with them playing dual roles is called Bullseye.

Another movie I was reminded of that I liked, is North Sea Hijack, aka ffolkes, aka Assault Force. Moore himself he had lost track of all the title changes, but "everyone seems to like the character I play". He apparently liked that one better than any of the Bond pictures. He plays a misogynist, cat loving counter-terrorism expert who has to stop Anthony Perkins, who has rigged an oil refinery, it's drilling station and a supply to blow up if the oil company doesn't provide him with 25 million quid.

In theory, the movie was a gambit by both Perkins and Moore to avoid typecasting, though I don't think either is really playing a role that's that different from what they usually do. Perkins still comes off as a wingnut, and if Moore shaved the beard and traded the cats for some Playboy Mansion escapees, Rufus Excalibur ffolkes would come off as being a lot like Bond. I think things like Bullseye! and in Perkins case, something like The Black Hole, were more successful in that regard, though I suppose it's a moot point, since none of these three movies were very successful.

I also liked Moore in Escape To Athena. The cast reads like a Love Boat episode, but it's a relatively enjoyable picture. Moore plays a German POW camp commandant who ends colluding with his prisoners to deal with the local SS brigade in the Greek Islands.

[Kai]

Another movie I was reminded of that I liked, is North Sea Hijack, aka ffolkes, aka Assault Force. Moore himself he had lost track of all the title changes, but "everyone seems to like the character I play". He apparently liked that one better than any of the Bond pictures. He plays a misogynist, cat loving counter-terrorism expert who has to stop Anthony Perkins, who has rigged an oil refinery, it's drilling station and a supply to blow up if the oil company doesn't provide him with 25 million quid.

In theory, the movie was a gambit by both Perkins and Moore to avoid typecasting, though I don't think either is really playing a role that's that different from what they usually do. Perkins still comes off as a wingnut, and if Moore shaved the beard and traded the cats for some Playboy Mansion escapees, Rufus Excalibur ffolkes would come off as being a lot like Bond. I think things like Bullseye! and in Perkins case, something like The Black Hole, were more successful in that regard, though I suppose it's a moot point, since none of these three movies were very successful.

I also liked Moore in Escape To Athena. The cast reads like a Love Boat episode, but it's a relatively enjoyable picture. Moore plays a German POW camp commandant who ends colluding with his prisoners to deal with the local SS brigade in the Greek Islands.

ffolkes and Escape to Athena are both very enjoyable, and in both films it's fun to watch Moore (and probably enjoayble for him to play) playing roles that seem to be pitched as opposites of 007, yet really are not. Or perhaps it's just his mannerism and the strength with which I at least tended to identify him with the Bond role at the time, that you seem to be seeing just another version of Her Majesty's licensed playboy-hitman. ffolkes also has a great score by Michael J. Lewis.

RIP.

[the ferret]

Qoute from GuitarGeek

"Another good movie I saw him in had him and Michael Caine both playing dual roles as nuclear physicists who are preparing to sell out to the baddies and as look-a-like con-men who have been hired by the government to stop the sale of state secrets from happening. Can't remember the title, but I recall there's a running gag about the con-men not being able to quite their voices right, only every time someone says "The voice isn't quite right" or "keep working on the voice", they're actually talking to one of the physicists. There's also a great scene where one of them grabs an elderly man as a hostage, but the old man easily defeats the bad guy, before declaring, "I was a captain in the Israeli army for 30 years! I don't need to put with this crap anymore!".


This is Bullseye, directed by Michael Winner. It's often placed highly in lists of worst films ever made but I agree that if you unchain your brain & watch it in the manner that it was intended, it's terrific fun. You know you're not getting Bergman when John Cleese appears as "man who looks like John Cleese & there's a cameo for Jim Bowen, hapless host of the 80s darts/quiz show, also called Bullseye!

For me he was the greatest Bond - his first three films are the finest of the series, I reckon - & even the later ones are much more entertaining than Daniel Craig's flaccid Bourne pastiches.

Does anyone remember him in the weird supernatural drama The Man Who Haunted Himself? It makes for oddly unsettling viewing but Sir Roger certainly proves his acting doubters wrong. He's superb in it.

[Flightwave]

RIP sir.

This is bound to upset Alan Partridge.

[nycsteve]

Bummer. Loved the Saint TV series. Moore was a very likeable personality, beneath it all ,I think, deservedly so.

[klothos]

RIP to my second fave Bond as well........ I would have tied him with Sean Connery for my Top Spot, as each had unique character traits and strengths that they brought to the Bond table, but he gets my Number 2 Spot not from any fault of his: I felt that the plots of the four movies between '77 - '83 were getting cheesy ( the two Chris Woods' movies in particular - especially Moonraker)

I am a fan, though and - like Star Trek - I still will watch any Bond flick, even at its worst (including the one Lazenby flick and the two Dalton ones)

[GuitarGeek]

RIP to my second fave Bond as well........ I would have tied him with Sean Connery for my Top Spot, as each had unique character traits and strengths that they brought to the Bond table, but he gets my Number 2 Spot not from any fault of his: I felt that the plots of the four movies between '77 - '83 were getting cheesy ( the two Chris Woods' movies in particular - especially Moonraker)

I never did see Octopussy, I don't think, but I've seen the others that preceded it. I still say those would have been decent movies, if only they had cut the blatant comedy sequences. Yeah, I know some people seem to like those, but I liked the more subtle humor in the Connery era films, with the witty dialog and such. The sort of slapstick chase sequence and especially the redneck sheriff who appears in Live And Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun were going too far, in my opinion. That's what let those movies down, the need to go all Get Smart every so often.

As for Moonraker, for me, that movie kinda fell apart with Jaws falling in love (?) and then switching sides (??) at the end. I think the EON team must have realized how much people liked Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me and decided he couldn't be "just a baddie" or whatever.

But in general, I find all of them preferable to the Daniel Craig pictures (which seem to take themselves way too seriously).

[Big Ears]

Between The Saint and The Persuaders, Roger Moore made a film with Basil Dearden called The Man Who Haunted Himself. It is rather unsettling and very underrated. Gold, a pretty good Bond-like thriller, was made with Peter Hunt who earlier directed On Her Majesty's Secret Service.