Top 7 Scenes of Roger Moore's James Bond

Bang! Blood Dribbles Down: Roger Moore as James Bond 007.

Roger Moore portrayed British Secret Service agent James Bond 007 in seven motion picture films of the popular franchise. Taking over from Sean Connery in the role, Moore brought his own lighthearted approach to Bond and won over moviegoers and fans of the films with his quips and outrageous scenes as the beloved hero. Here are his top 7 scenes as James Bond.

1.       The Crocodile Farm. (Live And Let Die, 1973)

This scene from Roger’s first movie as 007 demonstrates why the series wasn’t going to die. When TeeHee takes Bond on a tour of the farm, we all know there’s an ‘amusing death’ plan in the works so the audience isn’t surprised when TeeHee starts retracting the bridge to the island, leaving Bond to face the hungry crocodiles alone. After trying to use his magnetic watch gadget to pull a nearby boat ends in failure when the boat is tied up, Bond, with the crocodiles closing in, sees only one route of escape, across a bridge of crocodile’s backs! A wonderful stunt performed by the actual owner of the Crocodile farm where the scene was shot, Ross Kananga.

2.       The Bangkok Boat Chase. (The Man With The Golden Gun, 1974)

In this scene, Bond is escaping some henchmen on a speedboat on Bangkok’s waterways when it runs out of power. A little boy selling a wooden elephant is seen jumping from a tourist ship and swimming to Bond’s boat as it passes, unsuccessfully trying to sell him the elephant, eventually Bond turns to the boy and says “I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you 20,000 baht if you can make this heap go any faster!” The boy smiles, flicks a switch which does just that and opens his arms and says “20,000 baht!” Bond, seeing the henchman catching up, knocks the kid off the boat saying “I’m afraid I’ll have to owe you!” and the boy is not happy, screaming “Bloody Tourist! 20,000 Baht!”

3.       The Austrian Ski Chase. (The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977)

For many of us Bond fans, this is one of the defining moments of the whole franchise. With the disappointing box office results of the previous film, critics were declaring the James Bond films over. That all changed the moment Bond was shown ski-ing down the Austrian Alps being chased by, as Alan Partridge described them, ‘Russian shits in black jumpsuits with lemon piping’ to Marvin Hamlisch’s delicious disco tinged ‘Bond 77’ theme. (Which so needed more cowbell) and then, after ski-ing off the end of a cliff, Bond goes into a heart stopping free fall which ends with him pulling the ripcord and opening a parachute with the British flag on it, A spectacular BASE Jump by stuntman Rick Sylvester, which caused thrilled cinema audiences to give the sequence a standing ovation.

4.       The Free Fall. (Moonraker, 1979)

The rest of the movie’s plot was pretty much James Bond goes to space but another spectacular moment in the Roger Moore Bond films was the extreme skydiving Bond did after being pushed out of a plane without a parachute by Jaws, the notorious henchman from the previous film. The Bond stunt team had to try and outdo the previous films’ thrilling title sequence and managed it rather spectacularly. Bond, seeing the first henchmen he’d pushed off the plane with a parachute, eagerly dives for him and catches up to him, they struggle in the air with Bond managing to gain the parachute and escape.

5.       The Motorbike Ski Chase. (For Your Eyes Only, 1981)

This was perhaps one of the tensest sequences in Roger Moore’s tenure as Bond. Being chased by Kristatos’ henchmen (One of whom was played by Charles Dance), Bond escapes on ski’s being hounded by a motorbike clad henchman to a Bill Conti score which evokes the ski chases of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

6.       The Palace Fight. (Octopussy, 1983)

When the villain Kamal Khan pays some local mercenaries to attack Octopussy’s palace, the ensuing fight is a brilliant action scene. Especially when Bond and Q enter the fight in a British flag hot air balloon. A perfect moment is when Bond slides down the curved stairs bannister shooting at the bad guys down below. A painful moment is avoided when Bond shoots the end of the bannister allowing him to slide off unharmed.

7.       The Golden Gate Bridge Fight. (A View To A Kill, 1985)

Roger’s final turn as our beloved hero climaxes with a thrilling fight on San Francisco’s iconic Golden Gate Bridge. Bond fights Christopher Walken’s villain Max Zorin as Bond Girl Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts) shrieks on. Roger knew this would be his final film, having tried to retire after For Your Eyes Only in 1981 but being lured back by Cubby Broccoli’s promise of more money. However, in 1985 at the age of 57, Roger knew he was too old for the filming schedule and that his Bond was looking far too long in the tooth for the leading ladies so he finally put his foot down and Cubby had two actors on standby to take over. They were Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan. Brosnan was offered the role but when producers of the NBC show Remington Steele stepped in to pull him back on board or face a lawsuit for breach of contract, Pierce had to concede the role to Timothy Dalton.