From Roger Moore with Love
Roger Moore makes for an appealing presence in Jack Cocker's affectionate documentary.
Image courtesy of Dartmouth Films.
This affectionate documentary biopic on the life and career of Roger Moore may be essentially traditional in its approach but it can still spring surprises. The mix involved – new interviews, archive footage and home movies – is standard yet the words most consistently featured are those of Roger Moore himself. This is so because, although Moore died in 2017 at the age of eighty-nine, Jack Cocker's film has turned to all available sources including Moore's published memoirs in order to provide the star’s own words which are now voiced very effectively by a well-known narrator.
Roger Moore was an atypical star in that his fame came first through television and only later did he become a huge name in cinema. It was not James Bond that established him but the role of Simon Templar, the titular figure of The Saint as seen on TV in the 1960s. Another TV series, The Persuaders!, in which he co-starred with Tony Curtis was a hit in the early sixties, but it was the seven movies in which he played Bond that brought him to the very peak of his popularity.
To be at ease on the big screen you need ability and that fact may mean that in his way Roger Moore was a good actor (this film suggests that he was underrated in that respect). But he is remembered for his star quality in those key roles rather than for his range and aptly enough Cocker’s film passes over those other movies in which he appeared to lesser affect. They include his movies in Hollywood in the 1950s although we see clips from Diane (1956) in which he starred opposite Lana Turner. Cocker's film also ignores 1970’s The Man Who Haunted Himself which has its admirers and which found Moore starring again on the big screen ahead of his first Bond movie Live and Let Die and it does not mention his supporting role in his last cinema film, that rather appealing piece from 2016 The Carer. But, quite apart from reminding Moore's fans of his most famous work, this documentary is notably successful in presenting Moore himself in a light that is very engaging.
In his later years Roger Moore was a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF (a role which he was encouraged to take on by Audrey Hepburn) and, if that is very much to his credit, so too is the way that he speaks of his acting career and the way in which colleagues are heard here speaking of him, among them another Bond, Pierce Brosnan. Their comments make it clear that he was always helpful to those filming with him and especially to nervous newcomers while his own remarks about his acting are quite remarkably lacking in any sense of aggrandisement. His friends (and the range of notable figures who pop up in the home movies that are incorporated here is striking and sometimes unexpected) assert that in public his manner was much the same as in private, even if he talked of creating the Roger Moore persona. Despite the fact that he was known to be a ladies’ man and married four times, he emerges as a caring and considerate person. This is memorably illustrated by the message he sent years later to his second wife, the singer Dorothy Squires, when she was dying quite regardless of the fact that she had hounded him after their break up. Later on, when looking back, Moore recognises his luck and claims that he has had a really good life.
Plenty of famous names are on hand to be interviewed (see the credits of those featured below) and there are welcome contributions from Moore’s three children, Geoffrey, Deborah and Christian. But there is also another asset that this film possesses which can never be taken for granted. Several interviewees are seen more than once but no contributions go on for too long and the mix of these scenes with film clips and generous extracts from home videos is expertly managed, all of which is a credit to Jack Cocker, director and photographer, and to his editors Noel Nelis and David G. Hill.
This is a pleasing film albeit one with an oddly chosen title. Since Roger Moore has been dead for some seven years, the film hardly comes ‘from’ him but it’s stranger than that since the title is surely a direct echo of the Bond title From Russia with Love. Roger Moore emerges as self-deprecating and, while that could be seen as a mode adopted as a defensive act, he does seem to have been a genuinely modest man. Even so, one wonders if he would have approved a title that encourages one to think of Bond as played by Sean Connery?
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Pierce Brosnan, Christopher Walken, Joan Collins, Geoffrey Moore, Deborah Moore, Christopher Moore, Jane Seymour, Gloria Hendry, Steven Berkoff, David Walliams, Dick Cavett, Nanette Newman, Stefanie Powers, Shaun von Steyn, John Glen, Annette Andre, Steve Coogan, Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli.
Dir Jack Cocker, Pro Karen Steyn, Ph Jack Cocker, Ed Noel Nelis and David G. Hill, Music Tommy Reilly and Roddy Hart.
Whynow/Dartmouth Films-Dartmouth Films.
78 mins. UK. 2024. UK Rel: 13 December 2024. Cert. 12A.
