James Bond 007 film-by-film thread

On Her Majesty's Secret Service is a great movie. Bonds first ski chase, first bobsled battle and first time wearing a skirt!

Lazenby did a great job coming out of nowhere to replace the #1 movie star in the world.

He was a special dude. He had never acted, sneaked his way in to play the part, was paid 1 million, and he gave it all to charity and never came back as Bond again.

But by doing that, he convinced Connery to come back as Bond, who then made his own million, and supposedly gave it all to charity too.

At least that is how the legend goes.

 

i've only seen a few clips of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. it's never intrigued me, most likely because it wasn't Connery.

 

On Her Majesty's Secret Service is certainly a unique Bond movie. With Connery gone how could the series survive?

They chose to use an unknown actor with little experience, on the basis that Bond the character was the important thing and not the actor. Various factors including the very long shooting schedule made Lazenby decide to quit part way through filming. When they ultimately couldn't agree terms for him to continue, they pretty much disowned him, with even one of the posters showing Bond as a silhouette.

So the story at the time was that it did poor box office, and that Lazenby was sacked. This meant that for years OHMSS has a poor reputation.

What they did here was to simply turn away from the growing excesses of the last three Bonds, and they went back to Fleming. This is pretty faithful to the novel, and the few changes generally improve it.

The pre-titles introduce Lazenby in similar vein to Connery. Then he is thrown into the action in a thumping fight on the beach full of wild jump cuts. This is Lazenby's strength. You really believe him throwing the punches.

As Bond, Lazenby is sometimes wooden, and his inexperience shows when he seems to lack concentration when another actor is monologuing opposite him. But Connery looked out of it at times in the last one. Lazenby is instead human, kind, physical, believable as an agent rather than a superhero, light or serious when required and really quite decent. If they had only persevered with him he could have suited this role with a little more polish and experience down the line. I'm sure many other experienced actors would have struggled a lot more in trying to compete with the memory of Connery as 007.

Diana Rigg is perfect as Tracy. Her father, Draco, is a fine ally. Bond's MI6 team offer fine support.

We get a super Bond/M scene, a love montage for Bond and Tracy, Bond gets an hour alone with a copy of Playboy, and must have worked up an appetite as he spends a lot of the second half adding notches to his overall bedpost. Oh and Bond gets married.

Piz Gloria is a perfect setting for a villainous hideaway. It looks superb on the blu ray. Here we meet Blofeld and Irma Bunt. Telly Savalas is an improvement over Pleasance by quite some distance. He is quite prepared to do his own dirty work.

When Bond gets into trouble, his ski escape is the stuff of great action movies. Bond on one ski being a highlight. Plus there is real tension as you feel Bond may be caught, and he has no gadgets to save him. The final assault on Piz Gloria is another good one, with a great ballsy moment as Bond slides down the curling pitch firing a machine gun.

The ending comes straight from the novel, and it takes something for them to stick with it rather than have Bond escape in a boat with the lady as usual.

This is all good stuff, but the soundtrack is something else. John Barry eclipses his superb work on Twice. The driving main theme is as good as the Bond theme itself. The number of ways he can rework it is stunning. Another great theme is his love theme - We Have All The Time In The World. At the start he has a great cue for the beach fight that he then adds a siren noise over it to score the bobsleigh chase at the end. It is surprising just how different they sound after only one alteration. He has a saucy "Carry On" style theme for Bond meeting Blofeld's Angels and a wonderful majestic cue for Bond's helicopter flight to Piz Gloria. This is John Barry's finest Bond score.

This movie does just about everything right. We do get just one or two moments of sped up footage and some dubbing as an afterthought. However it has a good pace with time for characters to develop in the first half before the all out chases and action in the second. The stunt work is excellent as is the cinematography. We get zippy editing and strong acting.

So this one is going to be right up there with the best. Top 3.

 

Do yourself a favour and watch it. Lois Maxwell, said it is her favourite Bond film because it is a complete,self contained story and works as an independent film or as part of the series.

There's lots of little nod's to the change of actor too. When Lazenby smacks her butt, she retorts 'Same old James..only more so'.

It's a film which is actually better the more times you watch it. Loads of great quotes and one liners and all the better for a lower key, more physical Bond with hardly any gadgets at all. It breaks the mould by being more realistic and gritty. A more grown up film than it's predecessor.

It may even help to ignore it as a Bond franchise film (if thats possible) and enjoy it a an action espionage film. Because, on that basis, it is a very fine film and Lazenby a very fine heroic lead.

Add some stunning cinematography, the best supporting cast and sublime soundtrack and it has to be one of the best Bond films, if not the best.

 

Well said dbz.

 

I’m not a Bond fan — never was, even as a kid — but it was hard to grow up in Britain in the 1970s, when we only had three television channels, without having seen at least bits of most of them.

OHMSS is the only one I would stop and watch, if I came across it again today. In fact, I did so just a couple of years ago, and it still holds up as a decent, independent spy thriller, for all the reasons stated above by @dbz. It has a level of emotional depth that I don’t recall seeing in any of the others.

I find Lazenby to be much more likeable as an actor than either Connery or Moore, and feel that I would enjoy the franchise more, if he had made the role his.

 

Thank you, there wasn't much I could add to @vzok 's excellent review.

 

There's a few other comments, some one should make and @stepeanut 's post reminded me, that that for various reasons, the film has had a few edits/cuts over the years, which have now being re-instated (probably with the advent of DVDs).

In the UK, they used to broadcast the film on ITV, with the close up shot on the beach, removed. This is where the knife is held to Tracey's throat, obviously as it was a little strong for a family film.
The other scene removed (probably for timing), was the whole safe cracking scene with the Playboy magazine, at Gumbold's office.

In the USA, (and I haven't seen it), they did a whole re-cut/re-edit for TV(ABC version). Cutting the long film into 2 parts and adding narration to explain the missing scenes.

You can read more here- OHMSS - The 1976 ABC TV Version | The James Bond 007 Dossier

The sad thing about this is, that it further damaged the films reputation for a generation of fans, in America, at least.

The most famous missing scene, is one where there was a roof top chase at the College of Arms, when Bond finds out his conversation with Hilary Bray has been overheard. Due to the film's running time, this was cut by Director Peter Hunt. The other notable one was Irma Bunt spying on Bond whilst buying the wedding ring for Tracy, again deemed superfluous.

 

OHMSS.
Is there a 4K UHD of it?

 

Fascinating!!!!!

 

iTunes has a bunch (perhaps all?) of the 007 films in 4K, including OHMSS.

 

Physical copy prefered.

 

I don't think that any of the Bonds have come out on 4k disc.

 

This mini BTS documentary doesn't feature on the OHMSS blu ray.

 

Enjoyed that!!!

 

I never knew Julie Ege was pronounced Julie Erga.

 

Yeah ..nice interview with Diana Rigg.

 

London premiere December 19,1969. Music definitely gives OHMSS the Christmas spirit.

 

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

James Bond (George Lazenby) tracks Blofeld to a Swiss ex-ski resort that has been turned into an allergy research clinic.

It's not bad but anyone claiming it's one of the best in the series are probably overcompensating for its tarnished reputation. It deviates from the standard formula in a few places, which would usually be a good thing but I don't think anyone watches Bond films wanting oddball quirks like long stretches without action and long romantic subplots. Its quirks are more of a hindrance than something to enjoy. The long opening (circa half an hour) before the traditional Bond vs evil story kicks in is unlikely to have anyone riveted with fascination. I think kids would really struggle with this film. It's overlong with quite a few scenes going on too long to the point I felt like saying, 'Okay, we get it, can we move on now.' Also some of the editing is a bit too weird. Perhaps cutting out frames in the middle of shots and speeded up footage was faddish at the time but now it just looks amateurish.

George Lazenby was okay - neither good or bad.

It was okay but its formula breaking nature doesn't do it any favours. It's an interesting film within the series but it's not a high point, in my opinion. It's not a dud but it's not a triumph either.

Above Average

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Best to worst Bond films ranked IMO:

Live and Let Die (1973)

The Living Daylights (1987)

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Licence to Kill (1989)

Goldfinger (1964)

Dr No (1962)

Thunderball (1965)

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Moonraker (1979)

The World is Not Enough (1999)

Goldeneye (1995)

Octopussy (1983)

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

Casino Royale (2006)

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Never Say Never Again (1983)

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Die Another Day (2002)

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Skyfall (2012)

Spectre (2015)

Quantum of Solace (2008)

A View to a Kill (1985)

From Russia with Love (1963)

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My 'review' of the 2012 audiobook I was given for free:

Is Ian Fleming the world's most stodgy writer? He is unreadable in my opinion. I once tried to tackle Thunderball and gave up within four or so pages. He was the master of overlong, inelegant prose that made a muddle of everything.

I thought that maybe having someone read his indigestible, tortured prose to me might make it more tolerable. It did not. I had to abandon it after about forty minutes. This was a long, long way from entertainment.

I really dislike the character of Bond in this book. The list of his meals on track eleven of the first disc was as much as I could take. Fleming's elitism as he recounts in too much detail the cars and hotels and meals of his and Bond's life is not something I wanted to know about.

Fleming was a truly appalling writer. This might have been fun, sexy, borderline pornographic, high quality escapism back in 1963 when it was published. Today I consider it to be worthless.

David Tennant was a bad reader. He half whispered everything and put on a little boy's voice that sounds like he has never as much as had an alcoholic drink in his life.

It comes on eight CDs.

1 out of 5

 

The legend is mostly wrong; yes, Lazenby essentially blagged his way into the role, but he had the moves and Cubby Broccoli wouldn't have hired him if there wasn't something there... but he wasn't paid a million for OHMSS, not nearly, it was more like $500, 000, with a contract so absurdly restrictive that it dictated what he could and couldn't do both in public and in private... down to what clothes he wore, how he styled his hair, where he could be seen in public, who he could hang out with, and even (if rumors are to be believed) what brand of toothpaste he had to use. Lazenby naturally hated the restrictions, so grew out his hair and beard, announced he was leaving the role, and acted the part of the bohemian hippie in full glare of the world's media... it was a ruse to get out of the contract, and it worked, EON blinked first and waived the more absurdly restrictive aspects of the agreement.

He was then offered a seven-film contract that would have kept him as Bond up until 1988, but his agent Ronan O'Rahilly convinced him that spy films were obsolete in the new and liberated 1970's, to do one more Bond film and get as much money as possible for it without any strings attached. EON were getting a little edgy at this point because prep work on Diamonds Are Forever had already begun, it was early 1971, and they had a hard December release date to make, so they offered Lazenby $1 million - one meeeellion dollars! - to star as Bond one more time in DAF with no further obligation, Lazenby was eager, ready, and itching to sign on the dotted line, but O'Rahilly countered the offer with a $1.5 million demand... an incensed Broccoli was then ordered by an incandescent United Artists to get back Connery no matter the cost.

Bye, George... he even had to pay EON back the substantial advance he had gotten for DAF, so sure were the latter he would ultimately sign for it... and John Gavin even got a tidy half-million dollars for doing sweet Fanny Adams because he was hired to replace Lazenby if it didn't work out, but EON paid him anyway even when Connery came back, as per the contract... nice work if you can get it!

 

George, if only.

 

Years ago it certainly was seen as a Bond failure. These days Majesty’s reputation is quite strong and especially so among Bond fans. I enjoy it regardless of its reputation and since I saw it at the cinema decades ago.

I think it is very faithful to the novel, so it is Fleming who veers from the formula. Formula in a movie series works better if on occasion we can step away from it.

I for one appreciate the movie taking time for plot and character development ahead of endless action, I can watch Fast & Furious for that. It makes the action more entertaining when it comes.

 

OHMSS reputation?
In top three Bond films ?

 

OHMSS

The cult classic of the Bond franchise with good reason.