Wealth & Money Quote by Julie Harris

There’s a sly double-act in Julie Harris’s line: it flatters a blockbuster while quietly puncturing it. “I liked Live and Let Die” sounds like a straightforward endorsement, the kind actors are expected to offer when asked about a famous title. Then the pivot lands: “where money was no object.” Suddenly the praise isn’t for plot, performance, or even pleasure, but for scale-for-scale’s-sake. The object she’s really admiring is the production’s sheer ability to spend.

Coming from an actress, the subtext is industry-literate. Harris is signaling the difference between “real” acting work and the carnival of a major franchise film. Bond movies in the 1970s were exercises in visible expenditure: exotic locations, spectacle set pieces, machinery and bodies arranged to look expensive. Harris’s phrasing treats that as the point, a knowing wink at how audiences are trained to read cost as quality. She’s not condemning it outright; “liked” is too warm for that. She’s admitting the seduction of excess.

It also carries a soft class critique without getting preachy. “Money was no object” is the kind of phrase you’d use about someone else’s bill. She positions herself as spectator, not owner: impressed, amused, a little incredulous at the ease with which a studio can turn cash into glamour. The humor works because it’s economical: one clean clause turns “taste” into “budget,” exposing how often the culture industry confuses the two.