Video: 'Live and Let Die' trailer

(Wednesday, June 27, 1973, 10:00 a.m. EDT) — Live and Let Die, the eighth spy film in the James Bond series to be produced by Eon Productions, and the first to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond, opened this morning at the Rivoli Theatre, located at the north end of Times Square on Broadway between 49th and 50th Streets in Manhattan, a borough of New York City.

Although the producers had approached Sean Connery to return to the role as James Bond after Diamonds Are Forever (1971), he declined and a search for a new actor led to Moore being signed.

Directed by Guy Hamilton, the film also stars Yaphet Kotto, Jane Seymour, David Hedison, and Bernard Lee.

Video: 'Live and Let Die (1973) title sequence'

The film’s title song, written by Paul and Linda McCartney and performed by their band Wings, was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

The film is based on Ian Fleming’s 1954 novel of the same name.

The storyline involves a Harlem drug lord known as Mr. Big who plans to distribute two tons of heroin for free to put rival drug barons out of business and then become a monopoly supplier.

Video: 'Live and Let Die (1973) - Movie' (10 clips)

Mr. Big is revealed to be the alter ego of Dr. Kananga, a corrupt Caribbean dictator, who rules San Monique, a fictional island where opium poppies are secretly farmed.

Bond is investigating the deaths of three British agents, leading him to Kananga, and he is soon trapped in a world of gangsters and voodoo as he fights to put a stop to the drug baron’s scheme.

The formal world premiere of the film would held July 6, 1973, at Odeon Leicester Square in London.