Mrs. Bell’s brief appearance in Live and Let Die is perfect well-timed comic relief. As a student at the Bleeker Flying School, she delivers both of her lines (especially the hilarious delivery of “Holy shit!”) with perfect bewilderment.

What makes the sequence especially effective is how naturally Roger Moore’s Bond navigates civilian interaction in a humorous way. He simply glides through the absurdity with calm charm, allowing Mrs. Bell’s confusion to carry the comedy. Moore excelled at these moments of interactions with ordinary people in all of his movies, and it’s telling that the franchise largely abandoned this style of humor after Moore. Obviously the tonal shift toward a grittier, more psychological Bond accounted for some of this, but truthfully, it’s hard to imagine Craig’s Bond in a similar scene without some awkwardness.

Moore’s humor was effortless!