It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
My copy of the novel has Wint & Kidd, no Gore mentioned. From Chapter 14: " 'Wint,' said Leiter flatly. 'And the other guy was Kidd. Always work together.' " Do you perhaps have a copy of DAF from another dimension?
Gun barrel sequence
Connery is back and, while it’s good, it looks very different to the ones from his other gun barrel sequences. I know it’s the same walk and drop to the knee etc. but it just looks odd. Maybe it’s the colouring.
PTS
Bland and just a quick few minutes to show that Bond is gaining revenge for the killing of his wife, which is quickly thrown out of the window and on to a new adventure. Therefore, not a great fan of this one. I do like how, when he is asked to put his hands up, he does it in a way that shows us how this movie is going to go.
Locations
Holland, South Africa and Vegas. Not shown off to their true potential unfortunately. The Vegas setting fits the movie though perfectly. Could have done without the crowds all stood watching the car chase scene being filmed.
Gadgets
Some decent gadgets on show; the fake fingerprints and the finger trap both have their obvious uses and we also see some other great gadgets used by Tiffany and Q. Have to say I love the slot machine ring that Q uses to win jackpots on the slot machines. Still, not up to the standard of some of the gadgets we’ve seen come and go.
Action
Apart from the excellent elevator fight, the action fails to live up to expectations for a Bond movie. The Vegas car chase and the moon buggy chase both have a Cannonball Run/Smoke and the Bandit /Dukes of Hazzard feel to them, which I find disappointing.
Humour
One of the points of the movie for me. Because of the style of the movie, the campiness, Vegas setting etc. there are some very funny moments, from the pts onwards.
Plot plausibility
Again, it’s a Bond movie, so what should we expect. The same as any other, it’s as credible as you want to make it.
Villain’s scheme
As always the villain’s scheme is certainly bonkers and, apart from the fact the weapons satellite he wants to build is made out of diamonds. Ok then, next!
Direction
Despite my reservations of this movie, Guy Hamilton gives Bond fans what they want. We have all the usual elements a Bond movie, generally, has and the movie is directed in a way that was of its time and fit the setting perfectly.
Opening title design
Yeah, this is ok, but I feel that it’s not up to the same standards of those before it.
Script
Apart from the humorous parts I feel the movie is let down by the script. I guess a lot of my problem could be because that we weren’t treated to a decent follow up to OHMSS but, a trick was missed here, whether we had Connery returning or not.
Cinematography
We had some decent locations here, however, they weren’t shot to their full potential. Maybe that’s the feel of the movie but I do think that more could have been done to make it look stunning.
Music
John Barry is on form once again here, with some excellent music to lift the movie. The title song is also one of the more memorable from the series.
Editing
Most of the editing done in this movie is ok but there are some glaring mistakes. One is the tyre that appears (from the right) during the moon buggy chase and there is the obvious one, during the car chase, where the car flips from one side to the other in a very tight alley. Always thought of this as a strange decision.
Costume design
Everyone looks great in the movie and the designs all fit within the setting of this movie. I will say though, that the 70’s are my least favourite decade for fashion and you can see it creeping in to this movie.
Sets
Ken Adam was on form here, once again, bringing us some excellent sets that fit the movie very well, Blofeld’s (Willard Whyte’s) apartment, the pad where Blofeld is keeping Willard Whyte captive and the hotel room that Bond and Tiffany occupy. They are all designed to fit the movie, so it’s a job well done.
In the titles we have lots of diamonds, lots of naked women and Shirley Bassey belting out one of the loveliest songs from the series. What's not to love.
Diamonds Are Forever is littered with witty one liners courtesy of Manceiwicz and Maibaum, gleefully delivered by Connery and Grey in particular.
On paper it's a film that should positively crack along as Bond tries to stay a step ahead of Wint & Kidd, but on occasions it stumbles a little with drawn out sequences at the circus and in the desert that lack any tension and bring the film to a grinding halt.
Yet when it's good, it's very good. And that's the most annoying thing about this film - so much of it is done so very well. Why does it always sit so low down on people's ranking?
Sometimes the film feels like it has been edited to fill out two hours because of a lack of material. Yet we could have halved the moon buggy nonsense, reduced the sequence where Tiffany collects the diamonds by a couple of minutes and maybe left in a better explanation for why Plenty O'Toole bought it.
Lots of 70s fashion on show, which now have a sort of quaint retro feel to them.
The 60s films bypassed the then current fashions and because of that the suits and dresses have a timeless appeal. Sadly we are now starting to slip into fashions of the day (just wait until we reach Roger Moore's flairs and Harry Hill shirt collars).
Connery wears his pink kipper tie far too short. Maybe that was why Bambi and Thumper felt the need to rough him up.
How much better did the climax look when the Bond theme started blaring out. It improved the whole sequence in a moment.
The sets, spectacularly gaudy, were in keeping with the whole feel of the film.
Unintentionally funny moment, when Willard Whyte, surrounded by fawning cronies takes charge of matters from his penthouse and Bond tries to explain the weird pointy rocket thing he saw. Whyte snaps at him "DRAW IT FOR ME!"
And the mighty James Bond, conqueror of so many SPECTRE plans scuttles off like a scolded school boy to do just that, returning a minute later with a lovely little drawing of the pointy thing.
Always makes me smile.
Guy Hamilton was a functional if unspectacular director.
He lacked Young's sense of drama, Hunt's sense of style, Gilbert's sense of epic cinema. He got so much right with Goldfinger, but now he was already showing signs of a lack of control over his material. By The Man With The Golden Gun he was positively running on fumes.
But it's a good Bond film for all that, with Connery a master of his material. Sometimes the lines are so good even Timothy Dalton may be able to cope, but equally it's the timing of them that is crucial.
"I godda brudda" says the goon with nothing much going on on top.
It's the slightest of pauses as well as the delivery of "Small world" that makes it such a funny line.
But, the rogue Bond film aside (and I positively do not count it) this was the end. The great man retired, and we would never see his like again.
I have a very early copy. I read up on it, and it turns out Fleming later changed Gore to Kidd, because his wife s cousin was called Boofy Gore.
Starting the seventies, is Diamonds Are Forever, a microcosm of the whole seventies, what with it's fantasy, macabre elements and humour.
I first watched Diamonds Are Forever on ITV's “00 Heaven Marathon”. The T.V Guide said that DAF was the most witty of Sean Connery's films. I assumed it followed on from the events in YOLT – the PTS to Diamonds has Bond in Japan, so it would seem logical. Therefore, I saw it as a witty companion to YOLT, thus I never saw Diamonds as a poor sequel to Majesty's – I never even heard of the Lazenby Bond, let alone saw it.
Some things still rankle; from the very first moments of the film it screams "sloppy", take the first piece of dubbing - "Ca-Ca-Cario!". It is as if Hamilton has given up already. Also the Guy Hamilton trio of Bond movies, that start the 70’s, seem to be devoid of any tension, any danger. Perhaps the absence of Peter Hunt has something to do with this; he filled, particularly the action scenes, with a certain dynamic energy.
Still, Sean Connery adds to lot of presence to a decidedly lightweight cast; Jill St. John is a delight - she brings dignity to the role of Tiffany Case, where none should exist and she and Connery have a delightfully mischievous chemistry; Charles Grey is a hoot – at this point in the Bond oeuvre the character of Blofeld has been shown no respect by the filmmakers, so I just go with Gray’s engaging wit; the John Barry score is a magnificent; the tacky, gaudy nature of Las Vegas contrasts nicely with Bond's world, and Tom Mankiewicz serves up some sizzling one liners.
It is so good to have Connery on point. Tom Mankiewicz said about Connery, that he “has an old graces pro” about him, mirroring that Connery is maturing in the role. He can still knock the living hell out off someone, as exemplified by the lift fight, but Connery has the air of a veteran agent about him; calm, collected and authoritative.
It is great fun to watch Connery interact with John, Gray and Bernard Lee. Seeing Connery and Lee together, for one last time locking wits and insults, is reason alone to see Diamonds again. They seemed to have settled down into a routine. Bond is satisfied with his life, seemingly content to live out his life as a secret agent until he is killed. But Bond is going to have some fun before his luck runs out. (And my, isn’t Bond lucky).
Bond’s world has changed. The 60’s are most definitely over. In comparison, the 70’s appears to be an eccentric dream. The whole of Diamonds has this dream like quality too it. Bond’s clubland values are passé. While the tourist are around Bond in their jeans and t-shirts, Bond is resplendent in his ivory dinner jacket at the casino, seeming not to care in the slightest. The world has changed. James Bond has not.
Diamonds succeeds as an entertaining comic strip Bond adventure, being fun and often quite bizarre entry into the cinematic world of Bond Yet a Bond film should aim to be much more than that.
*”Here endeth the lesson” is a line used by Mrs Whistler and is a recurring motif in The Untouchables.
Royale’s Ranking -
1. From Russia With Love
2. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
3. Dr. No
4. Goldfinger
5. Thunderball
6. You Only Live Twice
7. Diamonds Are Forever
Love that @royale65. I will almost certainly steal it at some point in the future. It's my kind of use of adjectives. ;)
Thanks @NicNac. You can pay me for the use of that particular phrase in Jaffa Cakes.
And onto...
Live and Let Die
We interrupt this potentially thrilling boat chase in order to bring you the comedy stylings of Sheriff J.W. Pepper.
Still, there is an awful lot to enjoy in Live and Let Die – the smoothness of Roger Moore; the allurement of Jane Seymour; the urbane sadism of Yaphet Kotto; the great and charismatic heavies; the cab driver’s side burns; the Voodoo atmosphere that permeates LALD; the urban feel and George Martin’s funktastic score.
*When Bond flips Rosie on to the bed in their hotel room, it is a suntman in a wig.
* Towards the end of the police car chase, before the “chicken coop” arrives, there is a suntman clad in a helmet in the final police car.
Royale’s Ranking -
1. From Russia With Love
2. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
3. Dr. No
4. Goldfinger
5. Thunderball
6. You Only Live Twice
7. Diamonds Are Forever
8. Live and Let Die
First time that DAF has got ahead of LALD in my rankings.
My ranking as it stands now, taking into account On Her Majesty's Secret Service:
Bondathon Ranking (2016-2017)
1.) From Russia With Love
2.) On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3.) Thunderball
3.) Dr. No
4.) Goldfinger
5.) You Only Live Twice
I'll take the next two days to watch Diamonds Are Forever and try to get a caught all up by Tuesday so that I can contribute to the discussions of Live & Let Die. Cheers, all!
Bond & Actor Performance
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service represents a fundamental change in every way for not only the Bond franchise, but also in Bond as a character as we see him as we never have before or since.
As the film begins, what Bond is doing and why he’s doing it is a mystery. We get introduced to him behind the wheel in a series of body shots with varying angels and shadow as he lights one up. One of the greatest images in the series has to be Bond watching with his scope as the beautiful, graceful form of Tracy goes to be claimed by the sea. There’s something so bizarre yet captivating about this scene, and once again Bond can’t resist going off to help a woman with a broken wing. This random moment in Bond’s life and his choice to intervene in the life of this suicidal woman will soon prove to be one of the greatest decisions of his own existence. Bond and Tracy came so close to never meeting, and if Bond was speeding just five miles more over the limit, Ms. Vicenzo would have died by her own volition and 007 would miss out on meeting the woman who betters them all in his eyes forever after.
This moment between Bond and Tracy, as accidental as it seems, sets the stage for one of Bond’s most fascinating and emotional hours in a film full of great moments and earth-shattering happenings. It’s hard to analyze Bond in this film in a digestible fashion or order, because the movie is just one great scene after another, and the Bond we get here is one of my all-time favorites in how he acts and what we learn about him in the film itself. I guess the best way to do this is to run through chronologically, picking out some of the most insightful moments as they come.
Following the bizarre beach brawl that Bond survives, he arrives at a hotel and sets out to make a night of gambling at the tables, when, as if by divine intervention, the mysterious Countessa Teresa barrels into his life yet again. This time it isn’t her life in danger, it’s her finances, and Bond takes it upon himself to intervene on her behalf with some of his own money to wrestle away her deficits. Their talk afterwards is brilliant, which I’ll discuss more in the Tracy section of my analyses. We learn so much about Tracy as a person in this scene, including her death wish and sense of recklessness, as well as how stricken with fascination Bond is by this woman. Lazenby plays it wonderfully here, and on his face you can see a mix of both concern and interest as Tracy speaks to him. One of the greatest lines in the series is when Tracy tells Bond, “People who want to stay alive play it safe,” to which he responds, “Please stay alive.”
This moment carries into the rollicking fight Bond has with Che Che, one of Draco’s right hand chaps, which shows off Lazenby’s real knack for this sort of thing. He had the perfect make-up for a stuntman, with the fitness such a performer would require and a history with certain fighting styles that made these sequences believable and fierce. I love the finisher as Bond sends his attacker into the decoration of the hotel room, and how Che Che thinks to get up again, but can’t muster the energy. Bond sneaking some caviar is a nice finishing touch.
Afterward Bond returns to his hotel to find Tracy there, holding him at gunpoint. It’s a great moment, ripe with tension between the two as Bond quite forcefully takes his gun back. Both Lazenby and Rigg are doing overtime here, and I love how the latter turns her face away as the former slaps her, playing it as if her character been through this sort of thing before and wants to run through the motions fast. There’s a chemistry between the performers that is apparent from the start, no matter the stories we hear about their tumultuous relationship on set, and moments like this seal it. Bond confronts Tracy on the balcony, confessing how fascinating he finds her, while she is eager to get their exchange over with (more on this later). I love how Lazenby positions himself on the balcony furniture, postured like he is attentively listening to Tracy and captivated by her words. He sells just how alluring and mysterious this woman is to Bond, and how eager he is to discover her more.
In the morning after Bond is left with but a rose from the mysterious countess, and makes his way downstairs, golf bag in hand, to meet the points of many guns (most formal) in the form of more Draco muscle. I love how smug Lazenby plays this entire section of the film. Bond knows he’s being escorted to a roughing-up, but makes a joke amongst his new company about creating a golfing foursome so they can hit the fairways together, and he even thanks the man pointing a gun at his center of mass for opening the door for him. He’s all at ease here, even with Che Che’s knife nearly jamming into his stomach. As he is taken inside a front of Draco’s organization, Bond is pushed forward many times by the muscle, which Bond counters by swinging a door deliberately into the men trailing behind him, a nice blink-and-you-miss-it moment that shows he’s done playing games.
This leads into the splendid fight that provides Bond with a throwing knife, which he nearly guts Draco with as he closes the door behind his tour guides. The film only gets more interesting after this point as we find out just why Bond is being escorted to this location, and what relevancy Tracy has in it all. We also see how adamant Bond is at getting to Blofeld in any manner he can, doing whatever is necessary in order to find out where he’s hiding out. We learn even more about Tracy’s background and personality here from Draco’s perspective, and the agreement he and Bond come to is interesting. Bond is reluctant to accept it, as he has a “bachelor’s taste for freedom” and knows his work doesn’t befit a married man, but he wants to know where Blofeld is to finish him off once and for all.
Draco and Bond’s meeting carries into 007 returning to London to face M. He thinks his agreement with Draco and his deal to get information on Blofeld will win him the favor and respect of his boss, but finds much the opposite as M says he’s taking him off the operation permanently, getting visibly irate at the agent’s continued pleading. It’s a great moment where M makes it apparent how much he respects Bond and his considerable skills, but points out that two years of tailing Blofeld have amounted to nothing and there are other pressing operations developing. Bond responds by resigning in a private moment with Moneypenny, calling M a “monument” (ouch) before storming off to his office. I would have killed to see this moment with Sean as Bond, because he was already established with Bernard Lee’s M and the movie as a whole represented more of the kind of movie he’d have wanted to make with a greater focus on character after the over-the-top You Only Live Twice.
While reminiscing about old memorabilia from past missions-which again points out how weird this movie is in the canon-Bond toasts the queen with an apology for his resignation, a nice character moment for the agent. Thanks to Moneypenny’s intervention Bond is called back to M’s office after answering the phone as “007”(it’s not easy for him to give it up) and his boss gives him leave from the service, without looking him in the eye. Bond wanted to hear regret on M’s side for how he dismissed him earlier, but doesn’t get it. Or a knighthood, now that you mention it.
The Portuguese birthday celebration of Draco sets the stage for more interesting character moments for the cast to play up. Tracy knows she’s a bargaining chip between Bond and her father and wants out of it, yet Bond seems interested beyond the Blofeld job and he seems to have a growing fascination for her even after he gets the answers he needs. The fact that the scene is set against a bullfight is interesting. Like the matadors facing the bull, Bond has taken one to the stomach and is reeling. He gives chase after Tracy once she leaves in frustration, and finds her in tears. Wiping them away with his thumbs, something blooms between them.
One criticism that could be made about this film is that the Bond and Tracy love connection is rushed, and it does feel weird that we only get it in a montage. I’d like to have seen how they each got over their respective reluctances to get together and how the rough patch that had formed between them faded to actually make way for compassion, care and something resembling romance. It’s already a long film as is, but it would have been interesting and helpful to get more meat to see why Bond and Tracy are so taken by each other over a two week period and are already considering engagement. I do love the moment that unfolds as Bond is driven to Gumbold’s office with Draco sandwiched between he and Tracy in the back seat. The pair stare longingly and lovingly at each other in another moment that shows the performer’s burgeoning chemistry, while Draco awkwardly looks on, unsure what to make of the relationship forming in front of him. It’s a cute moment, and the thing that helps the sometimes questionable pacing of Bond and Tracy’s love along is the great chemistry Lazenby and Rigg have that grounds what we see in some emotional reality or truth.
One of the most interesting sections of a Bond film arrives as Bond makes a deal with Sir Hillary Bray and the College of Arms to pose as the man in Switzerland to get close to Blofeld once again under the guise of a genealogist expert. I’m of the opinion that Lazenby is at some of his best playing Bond playing Bray. He fills the role well and puts on a real performance to mask Bond behind the “character” of Bray in a rather theatrical fashion, with George Baker’s fantastic dubbing helping him along.
One of the greatest conceptions of this film is in having Bond go in disguise, and Bray is the perfect person for him to pretend to be, because the man is the very antithesis of him in every way. By playing Bray as a gun-shy man who is afraid of heights, has no athleticism to speak of, doesn’t have his wits about him around beautiful women, doesn’t like the party scene and who is modest about his accomplishments as baronet (a nice dig on Bond’s part about the ridiculousness of titles too, I wager), he is becoming all that audiences know Bond not to be to great effect. It’s fascinating and captivating to see Bond on screen for the first time performing under the guise of someone so far removed from who we know of him to be as a character.
The Piz Gloria dining scene of the film is excellent, ripe with sexual innuendo and comedic wit. Bond shows how well he knows his cover to the audience, playing up his part and acting like his focus is on academics and heraldry and not women or fun, making some of the ladies believe that his own allergy is women, rather amusingly, and they are all more than eager to cure him of it. The Angels of Death are given a great introduction in these moments as they swarm Bond and feel varying levels of attraction for him. The sighs of ecstasy Bond elicits from the women as he says, “Gold balls” is hilarious.
After the dining scene we’re taken into a rather troubling moment as Bond meets with Blofeld and somehow doesn’t get recognized for who he truly is in what may be the biggest continuity error in Bond film history. The adaptation of the Fleming source is so strong here that Bond and Blofeld are played as if they are meeting for the first time, as in the book, which is troubling considering that the pair met face-to-face in You Only Live Twice. If the film wasn’t so good this would be unforgivable, but it does muddle our understanding of the film canon, which the next film only continues to trouble, making it a difficult exercise to watch these films in any kind of order.
This all aside, Bond as Bray and Blofeld share a brilliant tête-à-tête that shows off the villain’s slimy smugness. Bond and Blofeld once again butt heads the next day as Bond attempts to rendezvous with Campbell by requesting he take the lift down to get some air at a lower altitude, which the villain shoots down, feeling he’s paying Bray to work, not relax. I love this interaction, and how fiercely Blofeld comes at Bray, making you think Bond’s disguise is quickly wearing off. I also love how, as Campbell is taken away to what we know is certain death, all Bond can do is stand there and act indifferent to him as his cover is too important to risk blowing.
As Bond attempts to meet with Ruby for the second time that night we find out that the agent’s overconfidence in his cover and facts screw him up just as they did in You Only Live Twice as he becomes exposed for who he truly is. He wakes to find Blofeld cheerily decorating a Christmas tree as the villain tells him of his devastating plan, quite sadistically at that. Blofeld is smug and slimy here and Savalas gives a wonderful performance as he proudly brags of his accomplishments, leaving Bond to think of how he’s failed amongst the gears and machinery of the lift. You really feel Bond’s desperation and self-loathing here as he realizes how stupid he’d been to let his facts slip. He eventually uses cunning to escape his position, but fails the attempt the first time, which I like, to show him acting on his feet imperfectly.
Bond on the run in skis afterward is great, and it’s one great action piece after another here as the pursuit of Blofeld and his agents heightens. There’s real danger here for Bond, and you feel it, something that Lazenby emotes well for such an inexperienced performer. Tracy returns wonderfully when Bond needs her most, and it’s not hard to fall in love with her right along with Bond. She’s sweet, capable, fun. Bond’s proposal to her in the barn is surprisingly heartfelt, with a great performance from Lazenby that feels genuine, once again displaying the great chemistry that existed between he and Diana. We see that Bond is ready to give it all up and is even willing, forever how short a time, to respect the no sex rule.
After the avalanche that wipes out Bond and nearly leaves him dead-to-rights, the set-up for the Piz Gloria raid is great as 007 and his boss once again butt heads. Bond and M are in a tough spot, the latter unsure of what to do about Blofeld’s threats as he denies his agent’s request to storm the compound. With all his options exhausted Bond knows he’s got to do it on his own, sans red tape. I love that as he calls Draco for help, he looks at the portrait of Queen Elizabeth in his office for the second time, as if to say, “Sorry again, ma’am.”
The finale is a rousing display, with Bond showing his prowess as he enters the fray. Lazenby is electric and convincing here as he slides and shoots his way to his love and his archenemy. One of the coolest shots in the film happens when Lazenby slides on his stomach down the section of Piz Gloria where the girls played curling, shooting his rifle into combatants as he goes. The face-off and chase with Blofeld is intense and satisfying as we see actual fear in the villain’s eyes as his plans become ashes between his fingertips.
The wedding that closes the film is just…special. It once again pains me that Sean didn’t get to be in this film, because I would have flat out balled my eyes out if his Bond had tossed his hat to Moneypenny, and Q lovingly called him, “my boy.” No matter how much I like Lazenby in this film, the sadness I feel watching this movie and not seeing Sean in these pivotal character moments he helped to make famous will never subside. My favorite moment in the wedding sequence is how Bond takes Draco’s envelope of money and jams it back in the man’s pocket while reciting a proverb, refusing to accept it. He has no need for millions in diamonds, rubies or gold because with Tracy by his side he knows he’s rich in other ways.
Lazenby’s acting in the final scene is powerful, flat out. How his happiness turns to loss is tragic as he realizes Tracy has been killed, and his shock is so severe he doesn’t bother giving chase after Blofeld. Lazenby’s expertly plays bereavement exceptionally well, recreating what I could best define as catatonic shock on the screen. Bond isn’t even present in the moment as he cradles Tracy’s head in his lap and digs his face into hers, letting out a whimper. He’s somewhere else, somewhere far away, and Lazenby portrays that feeling of being emotionally lost extremely capably. For Bond the motto of he and Tracy’s union, “We have all the time in the world,” the message inscribed on their love and their wedding rings, is now a cruel joke and the most ironic phrase that could ever befit such a tragedy.
All in all, I think George Lazenby was a far greater Bond than many would ever think he had the right to be. It may be the quality of everything around him speaking, like the cast, production design, action, music and cinematography, but I don’t think Lazenby’s performance sinks this film an inch, or sticks out as a dent in a finely tuned sports car. There are moments where you can see he is still trying to find his voice in the role, including some wooden deliveries in the post-production ADR where his Australian also slips through, but overall he is commendable and feels credible in the role even though he had no experience in acting and wasn’t given the coaching he needed to prepare for this film. He sells all the moments he needs to, most crucially his face-offs with Blofeld and the final moment of the film as he holds Tracy in his arms, which he does to great effect. The way he says Tracy is taking a “rest” makes me tear up every time, and his performance makes you care about Bond intensely as you share his pain.
In other areas of his performance, Lazenby also excels. He strove to do as much stunt work as he could in the film, and it adds a certain panache and punch to the film to see him in the action doing his thing. His experience in the defensive arts shows, and he performs with great credibility in a way that I don’t think Sean would have been able to in the shape that he was in at the time if he’d remained in the role, ashamed as I am to admit it. There’s a finesse to how Lazenby moves here that really sells these conflicts, and shows Bond’s training. You don’t have to wonder if he could throw a punch, because you already believed it just by watching him dance in his fights. He must have proven this in his screen tests too, because what solidified his casting was the fact that he broke the nose of the man he was staging a fight with while auditioning, which apparently drove Harry Saltzman to tell him, “We’re going with you.” Like Daniel after him he worked so hard at the stunts that he sustained an injury, a broken arm like the one the current Bond actor suffered while shooting Quantum of Solace, but he worked around it in the film while he recouped.
In conclusion, Lazenby was never going to light the world on fire following Connery’s reign as Bond that the Scot helped make a phenomenon, and maybe it wasn’t the wisest plan on EON’s part to cast a man with zero earnest acting experience to fill in for their absent and iconic star, but I think their gamble paid off more than it didn’t. Some will give Lazenby no benefit of the doubt or admit he did anything good in this film, but that would be a disingenuous, erroneous and blind contention to make as far as I am concerned. After rewatching On Her Majesty’s Secret Service I now sit wondering what could have been if Lazenby hadn’t decided to drop out of the role. I image a proper follow up to this landmark Bond film with a revenge plot placing a dangerous and reckless Bond on the path of Blofeld, where he pulls no punches and suffers no fools or traitors in his quest to avenge Tracy at all costs. I think Lazenby would have grown into a commendable Bond even more so given other films, and he would have saved us from the horrid camp that the series would go on to suffer after he dropped out, which the series has in some ways never been able to overcome. It’s sad to see that this is where it all ended, and pure Bond died on one of the series’ greatest highs with so much promise and possibility on display.
As we all know, George Lazenby was destined to only get one shot at the Bond role, hanging up his holster after this feature once his agent convinced him that the days of the suave spy were numbered, leading to him turning down a multi-picture deal and untold millions down the line. I can’t completely fault Lazenby’s judgment to cut and run from the role out of fear that the Bond franchise was going to end, because while it may seem like an ill-informed decision to make for those of us looking back with modern eyes, the actor had no idea that the series was destined to become an even greater phenomenon that would continue on for decades afterwards. In 1969 all Lazenby knew was that Sean Connery was no longer James Bond, and for that reason alone it’s not hard to imagine him thinking that without the star in the role the franchise was doomed to die an early death following the unfathomable void the Scots’ departure left behind. Now, all we can do is ponder what could have been, secure in the knowledge that our yearning for more of Lazenby’s Bond is no match for the man’s own feelings of regret for leaving the series.
Bond Girl/s & Performance
Tracy Di Vicenzo- Ah, Tracy. The “big one.” The woman before whom all must kneel in Bond’s mind. In the Bond series Tracy probably represents the most tragic character we have, a title she wins with great ease.
From the very beginning Tracy is a beautiful mystery as we watch her surrender herself to the surf of Portuguese waters. Like Bond all we want to do is help, but also like him, we don’t really know how to.
When we meet her again in the casino along with Bond in another random encounter that feels like divine intervention, Tracy’s legend continues to grow. She is veiled by a lamp shade to start, but bows down to the table, revealing her face to us and Bond in the same moment. The way Rigg says the word “carte” makes me melt. It’s also a nice detail to have Bond and Tracy meet for the second time while they are both playing a game of baccarat, a card game entirely predicated on chance, just like the random odds and luck Bond had in getting to Tracy at the perfect time on the beach, as well as the crazy chance of meeting her again at that place and time in the casino.
After bailing Tracy out for her losses Bond confronts and speaks to her. The sparse dialogue they share is magic, some of the best crafted in the series, and Tracy’s lines give us a great sense of what kind of person she is. Her statement, “Why do you persist in trying to rescue me, Mr. Bond?” outlines how destructive she is trying to be, and how frustrated she is becoming at Bond for stopping her from hurting herself. When she says, “Teresa is a saint, I’m known as Tracy,” we see how derisive she is of herself, how much she loathes the kind of person she is and how unworthy or special she feels at all. By retorting to Bond that “People who want to stay alive play it safe,” we see just how keen she is on doing herself in, and how she could soon attempt to kill herself once again. For all these reasons Tracy is so visibly a damaged and suffering character, and it’s easy to feel sympathy for her plights, though we have no idea what they are. When Bond tells her, “Please stay alive” he mirrors our own feelings as we become fascinated by this woman right alongside him.
In the novel we find out the truth behind Tracy’s suicidal tendencies that the film doesn’t even imply in the slightest, likely because it would have been too heavy. While we know that Tracy was married to a count who later died in a car accident with a woman he was cheating on her with, we don’t find out that the man also took her for much of the money she had and deserted her while she was having his child, a child who had died just months before. Weeks of grief and self-destruction then lead to Tracy breaking down and attempting to take her life on the beach as life all became too much for her to bear.
What makes Tracy such a compelling and tragic character is how well she hides and represses all this trauma and suffering under the surface. Her past is a mess too. She and her father have nothing even partly resembling a normal relationship and she lost her mother when she was young, costing her a normal home life as she was sent away to Switzerland on her own. Her acting out is less a hint towards an inherently rebellious nature and more an indicator of a woman who is acting out as a subconscious cry for help, feeling little value in herself or life in general.
When Tracy agrees to meet Bond in his room, we discover even more about her and the tragedy of how she views life. She owes Bond money back after he covered her deficit in the card game, and she goes to his room instantly thinking that the only way to pay back a man is to sleep with him. What does that say of her past? She is eager to roll around in the sheets with Bond as a “bought” sex object, a slave to his wishes, and ignores any attempts on his part to have a genuine conversation as he points out how amazing a woman she is and how much he is worried about her. This tells me Tracy has had to do this sort of routine with a man many times in the past, with those who were more interested in using her as an object of hedonistic thrills than treating her as a human being with value (value she herself even fails to see). When Bond then shows concern for her and genuinely wants to help, she blows it off as disingenuous, thinking no men could feel that way about her. After being used by her ex-husband, taken for all she had and suffering emotional trauma at his hands it’s not hard to imagine why Tracy feels this way.
When Tracy sleeps with Bond she thinks that particular problem is behind her, but she is ignorant of the deal her father has done. When she arrives to Draco’s birthday celebration she is visibly concerned when she sees Bond’s car again, as she thought her debts were paid-in full. During the lunch Tracy strikes out against her father for treating her as a bargaining chip in his deal with Bond, and storms off. Once again, it feels like Tracy is used to being treated like an object of transaction, an act that dehumanizes her and denies her true worth. What’s interesting is how she is driven to tears by it all. Maybe she had felt a hint of passion for Bond and taken an interest in him, but now thinks that he is done with her now that he has what he wants. By wiping away her tears, Bond shows he’s not giving up yet.
Throughout the rest of the film Diana Rigg as Tracy really impresses. Her talent for performance shines in literally every word she delivers, where everything feels deliberate and thought out, and through her subtle acting you see Tracy come out of her shell the more she is with Bond. Rigg also represents all the layers Tracy needed to convey in order for her to feel sympathetic, including her mystery, her tragedy, her pain, resourcefulness, wit, sophistication and grace in all forms. Rigg’s deliveries of her lines are spot on, giving Tracy a real sense of refinement and class, and she is as graceful as a ballerina in how she carries herself. She is enchanting in so many ways, a puzzle worth the effort of solving. This film wouldn’t be half as good if we didn’t believe in the performance of the actress playing Tracy and the romance developing between her and Bond, but Rigg makes sure we never have to have such worries.
Just as Bond barreled unexpectedly back into Tracy’s life when she least expected it at Draco’s party, Tracy does the same for her lover when he is in danger of being killed by Blofeld’s agents in the village below Piz Gloria following his daring escape. Rigg is an inspiration as she skates up, and I love how Tracy takes charge when she sees Bond is in trouble, telling him to stay close to her as she gets him out of danger. For once, it’s Bond who is following the Bond girl to safety. In the unfolding scenes we witness just how amazing Tracy is as she drives quite skillfully into the sights of the SPECTRE agents, getting Bond out of danger. Rigg did a lot of the driving in the rink that we see in the film, and I love the way that she bites her tongue with her teeth as she turns the car wheel; an adorable touch that gives Tracy a lot of fun personality. Moments like this really build the character up to be a substantially special woman that Bond would genuinely want to drop everything for, and because of this, it all feels believable.
As Bond proposes to Tracy in the barn Rigg’s performance again signs as she freezes up her face in a mix of disbelief and utter happiness after Bond requests Tracy’s hand in matrimony. It’s clear to us that Tracy never expected another man to want her again, and the fact that Bond is willing to do anything to be with her shows her the worth she possesses that he has allowed her to see without using her or making her feel lesser than she is.
In the finale at Piz Gloria Tracy again shows cunning as she distracts a lascivious Blofeld as her father’s forces close in, showing her intellect by reciting to him a bit of ego-boosting poetry. She doesn’t care for anything the villain could promise her, as she’s already a countess, a fact she amusingly points out. In her fight with Gunther she holds her own, again showing her capabilities and all the defensive skills she must have learned during her “scandals” abroad.
At the wedding, Tracy is utterly, utterly gorgeous, a vision to behold. Rigg looks so wonderful and pure in her beauty in the white dress, making it all the more painful to watch, knowing what is to come next.
More than any other moment in a Bond film, Tracy’s death hits hard. As Bond goes to work removing the flowers on their car, the very flowers that were so often a common motif in their relationship, she’s thanking him for giving her the greatest present of all, a future, and discusses the kids she wants to have with him before the fatal shots ring out. As Bond cradles her body, all the memories we’ve seen them share and the vows they’ve promised to keep for each other hurt all the more. In a moment that would define him forever afterward, Bond loses the one woman that made him stop and think of a greater future for himself away from the bullets, blood and duplicity, living an honest life doing honest work. With Tracy’s death all his dreams, hopes and aspirations shatter in his hands, with pure happiness just within his reach. As the final shot freezes on the image of the bullet in the windshield of the Aston we get a chilling reminder of what we and Bond have lost. Earlier in the film during a moment that foreshadows the one that closes the film, Tracy tells Draco, “Whatever happens, there will be no regrets.” As much as the loss of her hurts, I’m sure Bond would agree, and that he’d save Tracy on that beach all over again, not doing a single thing differently. Tracy got her birth in Fleming’s mind by being based on his own ex-lover Muriel Wright, a woman who was killed in a wartime air raid just as the pair were falling deeply in love. The tragedy brought Fleming to ruination in a pit of loss. When it came to writing On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the scribe knew it was time for Bond to share his pain.
In her performance as Tracy, Diana Rigg represents the heart and soul of the film, and its greatest aspect. This character and the actress playing her had to work, and Tracy had to feel like the end-all-be-all of Bond girls so that we as the audience could believe that Bond would suddenly find himself at a loss in her eyes, completely taken aback with love and compassion. This is where Rigg excels, because she was able to convey all the special and tragic things in equal measures that make Tracy such a fascinating, complex and wonderful character. Strong moments in the film really build up Tracy to be something special, which she needed to be for the film to be a success. Because of this Rigg took on the most crucial part of this movie (even more than Bond) head-on and excelled more than any could have imagined, and only someone with her sense of craft and screen presence could have managed it.
In a bit of accidental symbolism the death of Tracy is even more potent when one realizes that this film represents not only the death of the only Mrs. Bond, but also the end of the magical 60s era that remains the greatest period in Bond cinema, and the end of pure Bond as we know it. Following On Her Majesty’s Secret Service camp and general silliness would inject themselves into the Bond series, and soon the days of Dr. No and From Russia with Love were long gone, as was the magic only the 60s films could deliver.
Bond Villain/s & Performance
Ernst Stavro Blofeld- In Telly Savalas’ Ernst Stavro Blofeld we have the absolute gold standard of SPECTRE’s No. 1 operator. He’s everything a Blofeld should be in my eyes: commanding in appearance and tone, disgustingly egotistical, condescending to Bond, meticulous and cold in his acts, and a giddy sadist. This is a Blofeld that loves his job, and that’s only part of the reason why it’s unnerving to watch him dance in this film.
Before we even get introduced to Blofeld here we know only that Bond has been tracking him ever since You Only Live Twice concluded-what we’re told is a two year time frame-that his work has gone nowhere with not a lead in sight, and that the mission has been named “Operation: Bedlam” by the MI6 brass. I love this little detail, as having “bedlam” for the codeword of an operation tasked with tracking down Blofeld couldn’t be more suitable to the man and his impact; he is chaos incarnate and leaves devastation in his path with every footstep.
When Bond and he finally reunite again-forgetting the massive continuity error this represents-it’s thrilling to watch the two dance and get at each other’s egos. Blofeld is classically assured of his nobility, but Bond’s Bray is there to tell him that it takes a little something called evidence-beyond severed earlobes-to prove his right to the title. It’s a wonderful chess game of wits that was missing from the previous take on Blofeld and Savalas is both a far cry and step up in every way from Pleasance’s take on the character by embodying how we expect Blofeld to appear and sound. This is the Blofeld we were promised in From Russia with Love and Thunderball, and it’s nice to have one film at least where Blofeld feels worthy of his archenemy status. In some ways it also helps that Lazenby is Bond in scenes like this, because if it was Sean again it would be even harder to believe that Blofeld is unaware of Bond being right in front of him again, considering they met just one film prior face-to-face. With Sean in the role I think Bond would have required a much heavier disguise to sell the idea to audiences and to this Blofeld that he wasn’t 007. I think Sean would have had fun with playing a character that was the antithesis of the Bond as Bray so inherently is, since he was also annoyed with the character by this stage, and his rough Scottish accent could’ve come out to be used as Bray’s own accent. It’s certainly interesting that in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service both Bond and Blofeld are attempting to be who they aren’t, veiled by disguises. The film plays them up as two chameleons, able to slip into new skins to fit their situation and needs. Over time the film makes them feel like doppelgängers of each other in subtle ways, much like From Russia with Love strived to do with Bond and Grant.
As the film proceeds we only learn more of Blofeld’s true goal at Piz Gloria, including the hypnotism he is succumbing his “angels” to (only he would give them that label). These sequences are the very definition of creepy, and if I hear Telly Savalas tell a woman that he has taught her to love the flesh of a chicken ever again, it will be far too soon. Savalas’ booming voice, like that of a voice artist for audio books, is both comforting in sound yet unsettling in meaning as we, alongside Bond, uncover the vile plan he’s crafting that is as morally barren as it is bizarre. In moments like this, the film again strives to show audiences that Bond and Blofeld aren’t that different, though their methods vary. Bond is using his time at Piz Gloria to sneak into the rooms of women he thinks can give him details on what the villain is doing, and Blofeld is nightly hypnotizing them to do his bidding. When seducing these women Bond recites the same old tired love lines as Bray (“that was an inspiration, and so are you”) to entice the women to pour their feelings out to him just as Blofeld is using the same exact messages on audio tape to entice the women to do something altogether different. The script makes a nice and subtle effort to get us to believe that Bond and Blofeld aren’t that far apart in their methodologies as both men employ their own brand of repetitious manipulation.
Blofeld’s mind trickery only gets creepier as the yuletide hour approaches and Bond’s disguise is finally blown. In a scene even greater than their initial meeting, Bond and Blofeld come to verbal blows, popping each other’s egos with pin pricks. I adore the dialogue where Blofeld tells Bond it takes more than props for him to fall successfully into a disguise, and Bond retorts by saying it takes more than cutting off your earlobes to become a count. This is the kind of thing I expect from a Blofeld, with an actor in the role who can convincingly play an egotistical sadist that matches Bond insult for insult while still retaining the sense of gentlemanliness in his evils that are a James Bond staple. An added detail is how Blofeld is decorating a Christmas tree with what can only be described as untamed glee as he tells Bond all about his plans, and how he’s bested him. I love that he picks this specific moment to decorate, and all Bond can do is listen to him spew on. The moment caps off with Blofeld rubbing Bond’s face in his failure and leaving him to think about how he’s slipped up amongst the gears and machinery of Piz Gloria’s lift service.
As the film leads into a final confrontation between Bond and Blofeld, the latter villain takes on both literal and figurative poetry. He’d left Bond dusted in an avalanche and the spy has to work around his boss to mount a rescue to get his lady back-and save the world, naturally-by soliciting Draco’s help and considerable resources. While helicopters swarm the airspace of Piz Gloria, we have a cunning Tracy stringing Blofeld along to distract him from the oncoming assault. This is one of my favorite moments in the entire film and wider franchise, for so many reasons. Beyond showcasing Tracy as a brilliant performer and femme fatale when she needs to be, we also see a new side of Blofeld as he actively flirts up the girl and tries to sleep with her. This is the first and sole time we ever really see a cinematic Blofeld played up as a sexual being, as he’s far more commonly an asexual, scientifically cold man with love only for the greater divine plan of his own making, with 007 being the passionate one of the two.
I also adore the fact that the writers injected some Greek mythology into the script by having Blofeld compare he and Tracy to Paris and Helen of Troy, as Tracy has become yet another beautiful woman who has been whisked away from a man she is betrothed to and over whose honor a war was fought, just like the very war Bond is bringing to Blofeld’s doorstep. It’s a great detail, and once again shows Blofeld’s absolute egotism. He views himself as Paris here, a man searching after ultimate beauty that only he can possess and wrest away from a man underserving of its wonders. It’s also Paris who gives the apple of discord to Aphrodite, who secures him Helen in the myths, discord being a suitable synonym of “bedlam,” the word the film uses to exemplify Blofeld and his nasty impact. But just like Troy in the myth, Piz Gloria is soon to fall.
For this reason On Her Majesty’s Secret Service has a certain air of Greek mythology to it, as it reads like a myth viewed through a modern prism with Bond as its lead. And when you think of the plot and pare it down to essential descriptors, it does feel mythic and even medieval in its premise: A brave warrior must face his ultimate evil at the top of a high mountaintop, and this villain is surrounded by 12 women with the beauty of goddesses who are tricked with duplicity to do his bidding. In the finale of the tale the noble warrior must usurp the vile terror from his throne, who has robbed him of his betrothed and ignited a war as the hero’s forces mount an assault on the high precipice to reclaim what is theirs. And what seals On Her Majesty’s Secret Service as a piece of Bondian adventure turned Greek mythology is the devastating tragedy that marks its end as Bond holds the head of his own shattered goddess in his arms, a moment of crippling loss that the myths are now famed for. Even character names, like Draco’s assistant Olympe, drive home the mythical Greek nature of the film, as Olympa was a Greek city and the name itself seems derived from that of Mount Olympus, home of the Greek gods and goddesses.
In more instances of poetry and academia, while the sun is rising to greet Tracy and Blofeld at Piz Gloria’s highest tower, the woman recites to the man some verses from James Elroy Flecker’s play “Hassan,” which reads:
Thy dawn, O Master of the World, thy dawn;
For thee the sunlight creeps across the lawn,
For thee the ships are drawn down to the waves,
For thee the markets throng with myriad slaves,
For thee the hammer on the anvil rings,
For thee the poet of beguilement sings.
Tracy knows her audience, and by casting Blofeld as the verses’ “Master of the World” she is attending to massaging his massive ego. By speaking the words “thy dawn” she is both literally and figuratively ascribing ownership of the rising dawn itself to the man as he stares adoringly into her eyes, always happy to have someone point out just how grand and superior he is to all those around him. This is a brilliant sequence that is smart and rich with symbolism without being too put-on and pretentious, and it’s fitting that Blofeld is made synonymous with the master in the lines because it shows us as the audience the great stake he puts in his own inflated opinion of himself and how he views himself as the true master, thinking the world is only there for him to rule it, and its people to listen to his every beck and call. It’s only in a James Bond film that poetry can be recited by a beautiful woman to a sadistic villain as the pair rest on a mountaintop while certain doom awaits the latter in the form of helicopters dotting the horizon line of the sun rise beyond. It doesn’t get better than this.
In a last instance of poetry the attack on Piz Gloria is finally mounted as Draco’s forces and Bond shoot the place up to secure an entry point into the compound. On the high deck bullets whiz through windows caked in the rays of the sun as Blofeld hits the floor to dodge the spray. A moment of great beauty occurs as the camera shows us close-ups of Blofeld with his facing plowed deep into the carpeting. He looks truly fearful here as he lays prostrate on the ground, resembling the shattered visage of the monument celebrating the ruler Ozymandias that lays broken on the desert surface in Percy Shelly’s poem of the same name. Both Blofeld and his imperial counterpart are doomed to experience crumbling empires that they once had such confidence in, and their claims to power are hilariously ironical in each case as both figures lose that power at the moment where they think they have it most secured. In his ego-fever you can almost imagine Blofeld reading the inscription that appears on Ozymandias’ monument in the poem (“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;/Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”) to the United Nations as he threatens bacteriological warfare, replacing his name with the ancient ruler’s for added effect. Delicious.
Blofeld’s fear continues to cake the screen as he runs for his life from Piz Gloria, stopping to gasp in shock as it goes up in flames, with Bond in pursuit. It’s a rousing fight the pair have here while skating on louge sleds, shooting, punching and kicking their way to supremacy. The stunt work is rough and tumble, making you believe the pain both are feeling the weight of. Bond wins the day, but loses the battle as Blofeld goes one step too far and attack’s the man’s wife, making good on his threat to Tracy.
For all this and more, for the great Greek parallels that exist between Blofeld and the myths in this film and the poetry the script uses to build up his legend and characterize him as an egotist, and not least of all because of Telly Savalas’ perfect performance that exudes the slimy smugness the character must have by his very nature, this is far and away the best take on the character we have had and may ever have. Savalas gives us the Blofeld promised us by the early 60s that is a convincing threat in every facet, who takes Bond to task wit for wit and who is the ultimate arbiter of scheming terror.
In researching the production of these films I often uncover all kinds of interesting little goodies about the actors and how the filmmakers managed to perform certain cinematic feats for the screen that I like to share in my analyses. In this case it’s one of the former, involving Telly Savalas and how he ticked Bond producer Harry Saltzman off. The story apparently goes like this:
While filming for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was going on at the Piz Gloria set, the daily allowances of each member of the cast and crew were delivered in cold, hard cash. After getting his own allowance one day, Lazenby was seen carrying his payment around in a suitcase filled with green, which his fellow actor Telly Savalas caught notice of. An avid gambler that often held regular games of poker during late nights on set, Savalas strategically got Lazenby to get in on the action (likely playing to his ego), and in the course of a card game where the Bond actor was in over his head, Savalas won himself a decent chunk of the allowance in the case. While Cubby Broccoli seemed to be more annoyed than anything by Lazenby, especially since he seldom listened to anything the producer advised, Harry Saltzman seemed to have taken a real liking to George from the start. He loved him in his screen tests and really pushed for his casting. When Saltzman heard about how Savalas had relieved George of his payment, then, he went to the card game, sat down to play some hands much to the Blofeld actor’s protests, and won back all the money Lazenby had lost. He then warned Savalas not to target his “boy” in that way ever again.
Yikes.
Irma Bunt- Blofeld’s right-hench and a stone cold bitch, Irma Bunt represents one of the better minor villains in the series. The set-up for how we meet her is fascinating with a hint of unease caked on the scene as she picks up Bond-disguised as Bray-to take him to Piz Gloria. She keeps pressing Bray with questions, making you worry for Bond’s cover, and in the tour she gives of the compound she creepily points out that nobody comes up to where they’re at-ever. While showing Bond his room, she announces that he must ring just to get outside of it again. Like Dr. No’s lair with its beautiful design and many heavily sealed metal doors, Piz Gloria looks pleasant, but it is really just a glorified prison and you only leave when the count orders you to.
Bunt runs a tight ship in the mountains, and slaps down any of Bond’s attempts to get to know the angels, and the angels him beyond a bit of trivial heraldry talk. Ilse Steppat gives a great performance here, and with everything she does she adds a feeling of discomfort and guttural retort, no doubt down to her German origins. Her tone is commanding, and you believe she could keep the angels in check, and that Blofeld would pick her as a right-hand associate to keep everything and everyone whipped into shape.
Blofeld and Bunt’s dynamic isn’t really given any time at all in the film, so we are left to wonder how the two came upon each other, and what Bunt’s life was like before she was requited for this particular job. She seems in many ways to worship Blofeld, always speaking of the count’s successes and how he wants to make an impact on the world, speaking with duplicity about her master’s true intentions beyond curing allergies. If we didn’t know better, we’d think Bunt was blind to the plans Blofeld was developing for agriculture and animal species. As the angels are hypnotized it’s Bunt who seems downright giddy to hear Blofeld’s voice commanding them in secret to wreck bacteriological hell on the world. It’s disconcerting to see just how much she’s getting a kick out of all of it, and how nice she can be to the angels-like a grandmother figure, really-when she is literally driving them off to destroy the world.
Steppat gives real personality to Bunt throughout, showing her to be a sadist by nature by how much she enjoys the plan her master has brewing, and how she revels in getting at Bond once his cover is blown. She’s a great sequel to someone like Lotte Lenya’s Klebb, a rough woman who can do things as sickly and calculatingly as the boys. It’s also Bunt who fires the fatal shot at Tracy, and because Steppat unfortunately passed away after filming had commenced, we never got to see Bond properly avenge his beloved as the character was written out of the continuity along with most everything else about this movie to kick off the 70s Bond era. Still, Irma Bunt remains as the true destroyer of Bond’s happiness, the evil that got away. I think Fleming would appreciate the sharp tragedy of that, a fitting partner to match his own.
Supporting Cast Performances
M- Bernard Lee reprises his role as the MI6 head in what may be the man’s finest hour.
In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service we probably get the best sense of M as a man, and see him in some of his most interesting moments. This is a film that pits Bond and M against each other when the pair are used to being partners in all things. M strikes out against Bond’s requests to continue his pursuit of Blofeld, and Bond responds to his boss’s restrictions by calling him a “monument” and demanding his resignation be recognized forthwith. We also get to see a sweet moment with M and Moneypenny where the former thanks his secretary for helping to iron out the humps that had formed between him and his agent. In doing so Lee’s delivery of, “What would I do without you, Miss Moneypenny? Thank you!” is now an essential part of any tribute to Maxwell’s iconic character.
Just after Bond has uncovered Blofeld’s genealogy requests he returns to his home base to go to M’s home, of all things. Through just details in the setting we get a sense of M’s character, and how traditional he is. He’s got an anachronistic personal car, his front road has a cannon in the center of the drive (no doubt a souvenir from his admiralty days), and his home, like his office, is wooden in the regal English style. We also get the random character detail that he is a lepidopterist with walls covered in framed and pinned butterflies and moths. I never would have imagined Lee’s M with his stern countenance and the stiffest of upper lips to be in to such a thing, but it’s a real treat to see the closest thing to an actual hobby he may have and what his home looks like where he retreats to after a day of navigating tense international relations with other agencies. From the way Bond and M’s butler cordially regard each other we also get the sense that 007 visits often, making us imagine all the talks the two men have shared on all sorts of topics in the privacy of the estate.
Later in the film Bond and M again butt heads over how to strike against Blofeld, but M’s hands are tied by his superiors and the Prime Minster won’t hear any of what Bond has suggested. It’s a great moment, with Bond and M in his office as daylight is barely hanging on outside, both lost for words. In a subtle little moment Lee’s M looks up from his desk at an anxious and pacing Bond and tells him to please sit down, playing the father figure and trying to keep him in check and focused.
At Bond and Tracy’s wedding we get to see M at maybe his most relaxed in a setting where he doesn’t need to worry about keeping professional, a wholly unique and one-time moment in the series. He is visibly cheerful at the sight of his best agent giving himself away to matrimony, and in a fun moment he and Draco discuss a past skirmish the two had involving the theft of bullion (hard to tell if this is in reference to Goldfinger’s operation). Like the talks Bond and his enemies sometimes carry on, M wants to know how Draco bested him and was able to take a big chunk of the gold away from the scene of the crime.
With little competition, I think Lee’s best work is in both Thunderball and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service because those films actually gave him something to work with beyond looking miffed at something Bond had done from behind his desk. Each of the two films see him either defending Bond’s honor and showing their professional dynamic in a new and interesting way or see him clashing with his best agent in moments of real tension. Lee set the archetype for M and characterized him as the one man Bond bows down to, and that is on better display in this film than any other. Lee of course is brilliant with his every line, as he was brilliant in everything, and it’s nice to see some really intimate, personal moments between him, Bond and the rest of the MI6 team unfold in this film, unique for the Bond films.
Miss Moneypenny herself, Lois Maxwell once shared an interesting story about an injury Lee suffered during the five-day shoot of the wedding sequence and how the actor was able to push through it, and I thought it’d be wrong not to include it in an examination of the man’s performance. Maxwell states:
"Bernard Lee, who played M and is sadly dead now, was pretty much an alcoholic. He was drunk much of the time, but you'd never know it. There was a terrible incident during 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' in Portugal. Bernard had been drinking since about 9am. George Lazenby was on a horse and Bernard stuck a glass of wine under its nose. The poor thing reared up and kicked Bernard through some barbed wire. There was blood everywhere. The nearest thing there was to a doctor was the vet, who cut the loose flesh away with scissors and stitched Bernard's gashed leg. Yet he was still there on camera, the same day. Amazing."
Yes, amazing.
Miss Moneypenny- As with Bernard Lee’s M, Lois Maxwell gets to work with some interesting material this time around as Miss Moneypenny.
While it must have been weird adjusting to being flirty with a new James Bond, Maxwell doesn’t miss a step and is her bubbly, sassy self. In the little moment we get between her and Bond before the agent heads to his briefing we get what may be the absolute best hat toss of the entire series as Lazenby fluidly opens the door and connects with the coat rack like it’s second nature.
In a moment already discussed many times above, Moneypenny softens the tensions forming between Bond and M, and gets thanked by both her favorite 00 and her boss for her efforts, which she responds to quite sweetly.
During Bond’s wedding to Tracy, Moneypenny is visibly beside herself with emotion, and it’s interesting to ponder what may be driving her to tears. In the film she expresses interest in getting together with Bond after his current mission is over, but because so much of their relationship is predicated on playful, frivolous flirtation, it’s difficult to tell when she genuinely means what she says during their little interactions. Is Moneypenny tearful here because she feels she’s missed her chance to have more with Bond than the sweet little nothings they whisper into each other’s ears, or are the tears ones of joy for seeing him happy? Maybe a bit of both.
In one of my favorite little moments in the series, before he parts with Tracy Bond looks at the tearful Miss Moneypenny and throws her his hat, a wonderful send-off that is unbelievably sweet. I’ve said this elsewhere, but if Sean was Bond in this film and it was him that threw his hat to Moneypenny on his wedding day I would be in tears instantly. I like George in this film but this is one of those moments where I would have done anything to see Sean play this scene, because throwing the hat with Moneypenny was his thing, and I hate to see George getting all these great moments that he has no real history with developing and making iconic.
Q- While the MI6 Quartermaster is largely absent from the film in a gadget-giving capacity (beyond telling us about some rather dull radioactive lint that M is also bored at the sight of), we do get to see him at the wedding ceremonies of Bond and Tracy.
It’s great to see Bond and Q share a little moment in the proceedings and reach a common understanding, and it’s great to hear Bond say that this time, he’s got the gadgets and knows how to use them. Q also endearingly calls Bond “my boy,” patting him on the back for his good choice of mate.
Once again it pains me to see George getting these kinds of scenes with characters and performers that Sean had crafted a dynamic with over so many films. While these moments between Bond and the MI6 home team are nice, they don’t have a tenth of the impact they would if Sean had gotten to play them, as it was him who’d made us believe the M and Bond dynamic, who made the hat toss with Moneypenny iconic, and who made the Q gadget briefings a series fixture alongside Desmond.
Marc-Ange Draco- In Gabriele Ferzetti’s Marc-Ange Draco, we have one of the best representations in Bond of the overt nature of the times in which this film was made. While he means well, Draco is a man of his age who thinks the only way to tame a wily woman is through a strong masculine force. He’s also the over-protective father to end all over-protective fathers, creating an interesting butting of heads between he and Tracy as she matches him blow for blow.
Draco is fascinating in how he navigates Bond, in light of how 007 completely embarrasses his soldiers on the beach and makes a mockery of his operations with how nonchalantly he acts while being led to a private meeting with the crime boss. I like that Draco specifically seeks out Bond as Tracy’s match after seeing how much he was willing to risk to protect her-especially from herself-and how he is able to forgive any damages Bond may have caused his forces in the meantime. From the beginning, Draco and 007 bond over their interest in making sure Tracy gets the help she needs. It’s clear that in bargaining with Bond Draco’s heart is in the right place, even if his approach to helping Tracy is bent more than a little backwards. Additionally, it’s a fascinating premise to see Bond rubbing shoulders with a man who has overt criminal interests with an organization the spy might have been facing if Blofeld wasn’t taking up all his time, graying the moral line as we see just how far he is willing to go to get a lead on Blofeld’s location. In addition, it’s a nice detail that Draco and his late wife met on accident while he was off on the run in the nature of Portugal, not unlike the random fashion in which Bond and Tracy met on the beach.
At times it’s interesting to watch Draco and Tracy interact, as the latter prides herself on knowing all her father’s moves in order to counteract them out of spite-a habit of hers, we’re told-but there are moments where Draco is also overly forceful and demeaning to his daughter in moments that don’t sit right. True to his name, Draco is quite draconian when he needs to be, not afraid to be cruel to even his own daughter to do what he thinks must be done.
Draco becomes more useful in the finale of the film than many Bond allies ever get to as he is the sole reason 007 is able to storm Piz Gloria, stop Blofeld and rescue Tracy after his own government turns their back on any counter moves he has suggested. Draco proves himself to be resourceful and formidable, and ruthless to those who attack the ones he loves. It’s both interesting and melancholic that the last glimpse we get of Draco in the series is of him watching Bond and Tracy drive away from their ceremony. In a perfect world Diamonds Are Forever would have had Lazenby’s Bond tracking down Draco, who had since turned self-destructive and lost himself down the bottle following his daughter’s tragic murder and the guilt he felt in brining her to death in a story where the mens’ shared anger would bring them together to dish up some personal hell for Blofeld to choke on. I can only imagine the pain Draco must have felt in reaction to Tracy’s death, an eventuality he thought he’d remedied by fixing her up with a man capable of being her mate. For Tracy nothing was easy, however, so it’s no surprise that her road to happiness was pre-laid with spikes and oil slick. I often wonder just what the rest of Draco’s life was like after this film. Did he die of a broken heart sooner rather than later, full or guilt and regret at what he failed to do, or did too late? Did Bond keep in steady contact with him, and did the agent have the heart and stomach to break the news of his beloved’s death to his ex-father-in-law? As with many things when it comes to pondering the aftermath of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, all we have are questions, unfortunately.
In his performance as Draco, Ferzetti is suitably warm and commanding in tandem, able to embody the cold ruthlessness of a criminal boss one second and a loving father the next. David de Keyser’s dubbing adds to these aspects of his character immensely both in moments where Draco is shouting in anger or tenderly negotiating on behalf of Tracy. The voice and the performance go together naturally, and I didn’t know that Ferzetti’s voice wasn’t being used until I did this analysis because the dubbing was so convincing.
Shaun Campbell- While he plays an understated part in the larger film with its many moving parts, I have to give a brief mention towards Bernard Horsfall’s Campbell in my analysis of this film’s characters.
What makes Campbell partly so fascinating is in how the filmmakers present him, because how he is delivered has more in common with the way a Bond henchman is presented in the series. It’s far more common for Bond’s enemies to be largely mute, understated characters that let their body language do the talking, but here the quiet Campbell is actually Bond’s ally in Switzerland, on the other side of the law. It’s a nice change of pace to have a silent character cast as Bond’s associate here, instead of his arch foe.
While Campbell has little effect in the story and you often wonder what purpose he serves in the mission Bond is on, the importance he has in the narrative as a whole is clear: Blofeld intends to make a proper lesson out of Campbell, showing Bond what happens when he is crossed. One of my favorite moments occurs when Campbell is first caught after attempting a climb of Piz Gloria, and Bond must pretend that the agent is nothing but a stranger to him as he is taken away to what we know is torture and eventual death. It’s a great moment that shows us and Bond what is at stake, and presents an insurmountable obstacle for 007 to face as he knows any attempts on his part to rescue Campbell would risk shattering his cover and likely make him lose trace of Blofeld all over again after coming so close.
Ruby Bartlett-
While there are a total of twelve stunning “Angels of Death” in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service-my personal favorite being the Israeli-I would be remiss if I didn’t give a special mention to the late, great Angela Scoular’s Ruby Bartlett.
In a film that does so much right, Scoular’s Ruby continues the trend. The actress’s performance here is textbook physical comedy brilliance, and I succumb to deep laughter every time I watch her. The way she attacks a leg of chicken while keeping her eyes glued to Bond’s Bray, hungry for something more than what is on her plate. The relaxed way she uncaps her lipstick and goes to work decorating Bond’s inner thigh with the expression of a mischievous schoolgirl. The enchanted way she reacts when Bray tells her about his “Gold balls.” My favorite moment, however, comes after Bond is whisked away to Blofeld’s office and Ruby looks endearingly after him as he goes, cutely saying “bezents.” Suffice it to say, in the dictionary next to the word “adorable,” you will find a picture of Angela Scoular in this film.
She’s such a fun source of physical wit, comedic timing and sexual innuendo in the film who really livens up the sections at Piz Gloria that may have sagged without her influence. It’s a tragedy that in her own life Scoular dealt with so much pain and sorrow, because in this movie she is a radiating light that will always endure.
Gun Barrel Sequence-
The gun barrel for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is a great opening sequence that slyly plays with the tried and tested design in subtle ways.
We see the producer credits before the gun barrel itself is introduced, a first since Dr. No at the very beginning of the series. Lazenby comes into frame dressed similarly to how Connery would be in a nice suit and matching hat. In a swift, fluid movement Lazenby drops to one knee and draws his gun to take a shot, exemplifying the great feeling of kinetic energy he brought to the role in his fight scenes. An important detail that has been pointed out to me recently is that for the only time in a Bond gun barrel 007 drops to one knee, which he also symbolically does in his proposal of marriage to Tracy in the film itself.
John Barry’s great synthesized Bond theme carries the sequence out as blood drips over the screen, and for the only time in the series the red entirely erases 007 from sight as the film kicks off. This is a nice, subtle detail because at the beginning of the film nobody at MI6 knows exactly where Bond is. Following the gun barrel he has literally and metaphorically disappeared.
Pre-Title Sequence-
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service delivers us one of the all-time greatest opening sequences in Bond. Immediately following the gun barrel sequence we find out from London that 007 is out on his own and hasn’t phoned in. There’s a mystery to where he is, what he may be doing, and what is being set up for us as viewers of the movie. In a similar way to how Sean was debuted in Dr. No, Lazenby is “announced” as Bond in a series of shots that focus on just parts of him in close-up. He’s kept in endless shadow until the moment that he races to save Tracy and introduces himself to her and us in tandem on the shore. As I’ve said elsewhere, there’s something so hauntingly beautiful about watching Rigg’s Tracy walking off to be claimed by the sea. It feels like something out of a mythic tale depicting a forlorn woman allowing nature to take her away forever, and the many questions we have for why this enchanting woman is doing this to herself persist until we meet her again.
We then get some rousing fisticuffs where Lazenby shows off his ability to really make the punches feel real-some of them may have been!-as Bond tussles in the storm of spraying waters. I particularly love the way he beats his opponent into the sand and rests his knee on the man’s head to drown him in the low levels of water rising around them before going on to face his next opponent. It’s a snappy sequence that always keeps moving, and Glen’s editing really gives it panache like Hunt’s early edits did.
While I could do without the ill-advised “other fella” line and the fourth wall bursting that happens after it as Lazenby stares directly into the camera, the sequence both treats us to some opening thrills that engage us for the rest of the film and most importantly of all, introduces us to the enigma that is Tracy di Vicenzo.
Locations-
As the only Bond film to be both set and filmed entirely in Europe, you had better believe that On Her Majesty’s Secret Service has some rousing location shooting.
From the warm beaches of Portugal and wet streets of Bern to the monolithic hills of the Swiss Alps, this movie is a visual feast for the eyes. And because On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is the quintessential Christmas Bond film, the locations in the second half of the film really deliver in creating a yuletide mood that makes it perfect watching for over the holiday season.
In this movie the filmmakers were able to do what You Only Live Twice failed to do in some respects by ensuring that going bigger didn’t mean shooting themselves in the foot. The previous film really lost sense of Bond as a character and became silly and overblown at moments by trying to outdo Thunderball’s already bombastic presentation through taking Bond to space, which ultimately made it suffer in quality. In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service it’s clear that the team wanted to revisit the Young era to continue to build on what worked so well there while ramping it up in ambition in ways that were impressive, but never too exaggerated or over-the-top, much like Thunderball managed to balance. The location work in this film partly helped the team realize that. The tracking shots we get of Switzerland and the high mountain range atop which Piz Gloria sits beautifully transmit the scale of Bond’s mission and just what he is up against. He seems like a speck in Blofeld’s scheme, and when he is eventually outed as a faux Bray and is forced to escape down the mountain on just his skis, the massive, steep and winding hills again punch you in the gut with their sheer magnitude. While You Only Live Twice tried to make Bond bigger and more “out there” in plot and idea, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service used nature as a tool to do the same thing better, again making Bond a focus of the story as he is put right in the middle of the firing line as he races to sanctuary any place he can find it while darting through the wilderness of the Alps. The locations here really transmit that feeling of man vs. nature beautifully, giving Bond even more to contend with on top of Blofeld and his agents giving chase.
On the cinematography side, both the first and second units do dazzling work bringing out the color and mood of the locations as action takes to the slopes. The whites of the snow pop as Bond races down the mountains, with specks visible as they trail just behind him, popping shots at him with their rifles. Glen and his team played beautifully with scale to really make Bond and his pursuers feel miniscule in the nature, and many of the shot compositions play with perspective by showing Bond in the far background of the frame while Blofeld and his agents remain in the foreground speeding after him, creating high drama as the filmmakers cleverly play with the space of the camera’s picture box.
The location shooting in some of the Swiss villages best capture a Christmas feeling, and make me Dr.warm in the heart as I am reviewing this movie at the fitting start of December. These areas are well filled out with crowds as Bond tries to dodge his pursuers, and the action only continues to thrill as Tracy gets him out of danger.
All the locations of the film come together to create a red hot and frigid blue Bond adventure that dances between climates wonderfully. The disparate locations we get, with the warmth of the first half and cold of the second add a special something to the movie that sees Bond mastering any climate or temperature while on a mission to stop Blofeld. The movie then becomes a real journey, making you feel like Bond has really faced it all by the end of it.
Gadgets-
In many ways On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is the Terence Young Bond film not directed by Terence Young, and one of the areas that this contention holds most true is in the lack of gadgets the film uses.
It was nice to see the series step back to the essentials once again after You Only Live Twice gave us helicopters carrying giant magnets, gyrocopters with the weaponry of a small tank and a volcano lair with full rocket launching capabilities. Because of this approach to presentation, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service feels like a return to Young and how that director and his team downplayed the gadgetry in order to make espionage and Bond the features of the action. Dr. No, From Russia with Love and Thunderball all have Bond using his wits above all with little to no gadgets at his disposal while facing the threats of each adventure, and this movie continues that great trend.
Beyond the embarrassingly dull radioactive lint-sorry, Q-a safe cracking device is the “biggest” gadget of the film. Bond’s sly entrance into Gumbold’s office to get at his correspondence papers is thrilling, and the sequence feels like a real caper out of a heist picture. Unlike later movies that would introduce gadgets in the Q briefings that Bond would only be able to use in very situational moments of distress that shoddily foreshadowed the finales of each film as Bond luckily faced exactly those aforementioned moments of distress, here he uses a very run of the mill gadget that doesn’t try to impress you with its strangeness or gimmickry. It’s simply a tool he needs to use to get at what he wants, nothing more, and I really like that the movie has this approach to gadgets that is more real world than over-blown.
In the rest of the film Bond is only using his wits to get him out of trouble as in the Young films, an aspect of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service that really works in its favor immensely. Later entries in the franchise starting off horridly in the 70s made gadgets too much of a focus of each film, almost presenting Bond as nothing but a fool who just so happened to have the most specific utility belt of tools you’d ever seen that could solve all his problems for him. In this movie and in the Young films Bond must think on his feet and use his cunning to sniff out danger and incapacitate it before he’s doomed to oblivion. This is one of the many reasons why I think this movie was the last pure Bond movie produced for nearly twenty years.
Action-
In a film full of massive positives, the action is yet another element where On Her Majesty’s Secret Service both succeeds and exceeds.
At the heart of these many great sequences is Lazenby, who really impresses as he gets in there and does as much as humanly possible in the film’s action moments (sans any skiing by Cubby’s orders). Lazenby’s experience in the defensive arts makes his onscreen fights feel all the more real, which we see shining evidence of throughout. The beach fight is rip-roaring and messy, accentuated by the fast and loose editing. Bond is sprayed with heaps of water as he and his opponent toss each other into the sand, creating a nice surge of sound as we hear every punch, kick and crack.
Lazenby dazzles once again in the hotel fight with Che Che, one of Draco’s goons. The fight is extremely thrilling to watch, aided in credibility by the fact that the actors are really going at it in front of us. The cuts here are even more fast and loose than in the beach fight, and the camera is mounted at spots where the visuals best captivate us, including one shot that makes it seem like the camera is glued to the ceiling. The bout creates a nice destruction of the hotel set, ending with Bond throwing Che Che through the decorative gate that the man exhaustively tries to free himself from before giving up the effort.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is also filled with what may be best described as little vignettes of action that feature Bond tussling with foes in moments that aren’t long enough to be classed as full-on action sequences. These include his brilliant disposal of Draco’s goons as he introduces himself to the man with throwing knife in hand, the amusing punch-up in Piz Gloria’s lobby that kicks off when a guard goes to check why nobody has come out of the elevator and the short but sweet slap-down Bond gives two goons in a wood shed full of bells that creates a scrappy bout punctuated by the heavy ringing of the environment Bond is knocked into as he battles for his life.
When it comes to action on the slopes, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service presents what has to be the cream of the crop of skiing action. Everything about these sequences is amazing, from the choreography of the action to how each sequence is artfully shot by Glen and his amazing second-unit team. It becomes easy to see why For Your Eyes Only is a great successor in skiing action to this film, with Glen finding himself in the director’s chair that time around. Watching the skiing sequences of this film it becomes even more apparent, as is the case with every Bond film one studies, that EON had a knack for finding the absolute best in the field to work on these cinematic masterpieces. The best moment of skiing amongst the many for me occurs after Bond has one of his skis shot to pieces, forcing him to get down the mountain using just one leg while navigating with the other. It’s such fantastic stuntwork, a staple of vintage Bond, and how the sequences were shot is even more jaw-dropping. While there were many cameramen who were skiing down the hill with the stunt crew shooting the action with handhelds, others like Johnny Jordan-who shot the helicopter battle with Little Nellie in You Only Live Twice-used a system that dangled him from a helicopter by an eighteen foot harness rig so that he could get shots of all sorts from a more interesting position at any angle above and around the unfolding drama.
In shooting the avalanche sequences the second-unit relied on shots of a real avalanche they created at a remote location, as well as stock footage, interesting special effects using salt as a fill-in for snow and later, optical effects to place the stuntmen into the action that had been pre-filmed. For their time these sequences are great, and you feel intense fear as Bond is left buried by the heaps of snow that have wiped him and his beloved out cold.
In the driving sequence at the ice rink the team built a makeshift set over an unused track meant for airplanes, which they kept nice and sleek by constantly showering it with water and snow. Lazenby and Rigg are said to have done a majority of the demanded driving here because of the many close-ups that were required to be shot by the film crew.
One of the defining moments of the film, the storming of Piz Gloria caps off the great action of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in wonderful fashion. While this sequence isn’t as daring in its presentation or in the face of logistical nightmares of the sort that You Only Live Twice’s finale overcame, it is still a rousing piece of action that is no less amazing to experience. The sequence starts with the approaching helicopters full of Draco’s agents spraying the fortifications of Piz Gloria with offensive rounds, making the finale feel like the wild offspring of a Vietnam war movie and a frigid survival adventure in the Alps. Blofeld’s agents are blasted with grenades that burst shrapnel in their faces and, in a shot that was the last minute idea of director Peter Hunt, Lazenby skids down the ice on his stomach while firing his rifle at oncoming enemies. The whole sequence is tense and keeps a strong momentum as Bond fights his fight and Tracy hers until the pair are reunited once again. When Bond and Blofeld finally face off, the tension only compounds. A great cat and mouse game unfolds between the two as Bond gives chase, firing his gun in the gusts of wind Blofeld is leaving behind as he races for his life.
To shoot the final louge chase and battle between Bond and Blofeld the second-unit counted on the assistance of Olympic athletes in the sport to help them create a thrilling sequence. While the crew were shooting the fight the athletes suffered some mishaps, like when a stuntman playing Bond fell from the sled, which the filmmakers then wrote into the script to add some more tension to the sequence as Bond holds on for dear life while Blofeld’s sled drags him over top the ice.
When taken as a whole, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is a perfectly balanced Bond film in every way, especially when it comes to its action. The stunts are crafted with genius, showcasing the amazing problem solving the Bond crew is known for. Lazenby also shines in his fights, and it adds a certain something to the film to know he is in so much of the action. It’s hard to tell whether the rumors are true that a steady stream of action was put in the film in order to distract from what the production team saw as bad acting on the part of Lazenby, but what resulted is some of the best action choreography in a Bond film, hands down.
Humor-
In an era known for its smart humor, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service doesn’t disappoint, feeling more like early Connery than anything.
While the film doesn’t make a habit of interjecting too much humor, there is plenty to enjoy despite its return to a more earnest plot. The scenes at Piz Gloria with Bond and the Angels of Death are a particular delight, as there are an endless stream of lines caked in innuendo and double-entendre to enjoy. As I mentioned previously, this is where Angela Scoular shines, bringing something special to the movie through her part in it.
Other moments that I get a kick out of aren’t even meant to be funny, but nonetheless succeed in being so. Little moments like Bond and Blofeld’s verbal chess game amuse me to no end, just as I grin when, during the chase following Bond escape of Piz Gloria, Rigg cutely bites her tongue while navigating the red Cougar through the throng of cars partaking in the race she’s suddenly intruded upon.
Lazenby shows his chops for comedic timing throughout as well, using just expressions to induce laughter. He’s great playing up Bray’s imperfections as Bond tries his hardest to overplay the man’s meek tendencies to create a disguise “big” enough to mask his own identity, and in scenes like those when Bond is being escorted to Draco’s Lazenby plays it with a smugness that is fun to watch.
One of the many things On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is lauded for is its balance, and in its use of comedy, this is also true. Like the Young films it gives time for smart comedy, but never enters parody and always balances the humor perfectly to give time to the drama of the picture as well without either element feeling weird in their juxtaposition. It is one of the best and most successful examples of this delicate tonal balance that we have in the series.
Plot Plausibility-
It’s interesting to note that for a film full of such tragic and earnest moments On Her Majesty’s Secret Service employs more than a bit of the bizarre in its plot. At times the levels of disbelief that must be suspended to enjoy it can lead to questions regarding the plausibility of what we are seeing.
Much of this strain comes when we enter Piz Gloria and find out how Blofeld is using hypnotism to get his “Angels of Death” to release their respective items of bacteriological warfare under the guise of their allergy treatment. Blofeld states that he’s using both psychological treatment and vaccines to help the women, which holds up enough to accept. He’s clearly using proper vaccines to cure the women to create good-will between he and them-and to ensure they trust his medical services enough to stay with him at the clinic-and is using the psychological manipulation on the side to make his real plan take form in the minds of the women while he likely reverse-engineers the vaccines to turn the solutions into active items of warfare. Some of this is truly bizarre, but for a Bond film it’s not the craziest thing we’ve had to suspend our disbelief to face in the history of the series.
What is far more illogical or hard to swallow is just how Blofeld got to the position he is at in the film, the most difficult to accept beyond one last development that I’ll mention next. Only two years have passed since the end of You Only Live Twice, where Bond and Blofeld were forced to delay their face-off as the villain’s volcano lair underwent an attack and decimation. Bond has seemingly spent most of the time since then tracking the villain, and in the same time Blofeld must have been able to:
*Get all the necessary papers he’d need to convince people he could be a real heir to the title of a Bleuchamp count.
*Get plastic surgery to alter not only his appearance as we know of him in You Only Live Twice, but to also sever his earlobes in order to appear like a descendant of the Bleuchamps.
*Make a reputable name for himself with his newfound alias in the medical field, Purchase Piz Gloria under the guise of a medical professional (naming the institute after a surname he hasn’t even been able to legally verify to anyone) and turn the base into a running clinic.
*Pick a sizeable team of scientists who would agree to make both vaccines and viruses for him that he would need to keep delicate track of around the facility so as not to cross-mix them.
*Assemble a client list of allergy sufferers to invite to his clinic and cure these patients in order to attract positive attention to his work, driving even more women to seek his medical expertise.
*Select and treat a specific set of female patients from around the world with allergies specific to the crops he will be threatening to destroy if the United Nations fail to meet his demands of amnesty.
Blofeld would have to do all this and who knows how much more in addition to balancing all the other interests SPECTRE has as an ongoing criminal organization, which is a helluva lot to take, even for a Bond film and even for a villain built up to be as mythically powerful as Blofeld is.
It’s also impossible to overlook the fact that somehow Blofeld is unable to recognize that James Bond is standing right in front of him underneath the guise of Sir Hillary Bray, even though 007 is wearing nothing that properly hides the distinct features of his face. I guess we are to assume that Bond’s disguise is so good that it hides him skillfully enough, which would have been helped immensely if he wore some fake facial hair and altered his posture to at least try to act different beyond putting on a pretentious accent. The filmmakers were almost going to address in the script that Bond had undergone plastic surgery to disguise himself from his enemies since the last film, but ultimately thought against the idea. It’s hard to know what of the past continuity holds up in this movie, which this section of the film helps to muddle considerably.
When it comes to implausible of leaps of logic we must be fair and balanced, and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service does have more than a few moments that are puzzling or hard to swallow, especially when what we see in this film canonically fails to mesh with what came before. If the movie wasn’t as good as it was, these issues would add up to be quite subtracting of its value, but because so many other elements are so beyond the standard in it, much of this is easy to accept or forgive with varying degrees. Double standard? Maybe, but what are you going to do about it?
Villain's Scheme-
As examined above, Blofeld’s overall scheme is filled with more than its fair share of leaps in logic, but when this can be suppressed to consumable levels, his plan is an interesting one.
I appreciate the mythic sounding nature of the film’s plot when you pare it down to just the details, a point I made earlier when arguing that this movie is actively trying to be a Greek myth told as a Bond film. The mountaintop base in the clouds Blofeld calls home, the dozen goddess-like beauties he is tricking to do his deeds, and the god-like control he is able to exert over all before him each carry a certain mythology, and Blofeld doesn’t feel too far removed from the kind of figure you’d read about in legend whose hubris eventually makes him vulnerable to failure.
And because Blofeld has successfully treated these womens’ allergies in order to manipulate them we know that the villain has the capability to use his resources to cure other ills in the world, which he seemingly refuses to do, either out of complete indifference or tactful strategy. Savalas’ Blofeld reminds me a lot of Lex Luthor in this way-a comics character that the actor’s portrayal in this film helped inspire in later interpretations of Superman’s greatest foe-because in some books Luthor has found cures for diseases that he is only interested in giving to people by insuring they pay top dollar for his treatment, netting him billions in return. This adds a new layer of slime to Blofeld.
The hypnosis the villain is imposing on the women is also bizarre and unbelievably unnerving, with Savalas’ voice carrying a particular note of spectral doom while being almost soothing in the same breath. How the actor manages this balance, I haven’t a clue, but I guess that’s why we’re discussing his performance here so favorably: he knew what he was doing and gave Blofeld just the right levels of charisma, smugness, fire and evil.
Direction-
For editor extraordinaire Peter Hunt, all his past work on the Bond films had led to this moment, his directorial debut in the franchise. And thanks to his previous catalogue of work, including cutting Dr. No, From Russia with Love and Goldfinger while working on Thunderball and You Only Live Twice as both the second unit director and supervising editor (on the latter), he had shown enough expertise to be trusted to helm the next Bond adventure down the pipeline in the form of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Hunt had flirted with directing before, nearly getting the job for You Only Live Twice, but just missing his shot at the coveted seat.
At the end of the 60s in the last film of the greatest Bond era, it was crucial to cap it off well, and with Terence Young out of the picture, Hunt was the second best option available. He had worked on the series in every film from the very start wearing many hats, and had seen the movies develop from espionage thrillers to larger than life bombastic blockbusters over time, often being disappointed by the developments he saw the series undergoing in movies like Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice. A man after Young’s heart, Hunt knew the magic was in stripping the movies back down, cutting back on silly gadgets that’d gotten too familiar in the series and taking everything back to the basics with Bond back in the center of a plot that wasn’t seeped in ridiculousness or threatening self-parody. What resulted was one of the best Bond movies we have, and Hunt’s last contribution to Bond’s cinematic legacy.
When it came time to shoot On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Hunt and the team were up against it, with the odds stacked nowhere near their favor. The series had ballooned out of the stratosphere in formula and changed in feeling so much since 1962 that there must have been a fear of missing the mark with audiences by stripping the film back and telling a uniquely human story with James Bond in a movie where the suave spy passes up a life of no-strings-attached sex to settle down. Worse yet, when production started the team was without their star, Sean Connery, left instead with a ruggedly handsome Aussie with little to no proper acting experience. Even still, Hunt sucked it up and made the best of the situation. And, contrary to popular belief (and Lazenby himself) it is said that the director did his best to work with the new James Bond to aid him in crafting an engaging screen performance. Having Diana Rigg, a seasoned professional in the craft on set was an added plus for Hunt as Lazenby was given any pointers he’d take by the actress.
It was also Hunt’s decision to make Bond propose to Tracy instead of vice versa as in the script, knowing that the weight of the decision was more powerful in Bond’s hands given his bachelor’s lifestyle that made the character famous, just as it was his genius that suggested Bond should bid adieu to Moneypenny by throwing his hat to her one last time, leaving her tearful but enamored.
In a fun story from the set, Hunt also used some slight provocation to get the drained and emotional performance out of Lazenby that he knew would be crucial to sell the scene to audiences. When it came time to shoot Tracy’s death scene and Bond’s reaction to it on the day, Hunt strategically made Lazenby rehearse the scene from eight in the morning clear until five o’clock that evening, until he was absolutely out of it and wanted no more of it. It was at this time that Hunt finally called for filming to commence, and the exhaustion of the actor during the rehearsals came through in Lazenby’s final performance, giving his last moment as Bond an emotional weight and turmoil that hits all the right notes as the character has an out-of-body experience punctuated by devastating loss right before our eyes.
In light of his work as the director of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and in his contributions elsewhere in the franchise, it’s clear that Hunt was far and away a solid and worthy choice to end the 60s era of Bond on a high note full of iconic filmmaking. He knew Bond like the back of his hand, and was innately attuned to what elements made the films sing. He and Terence Young were great partners on the early films as they and their team created the “Bond essence” out of nothing, and in Young’s absence following Thunderball Hunt was able to make On Her Majesty’s Secret Service feel like a deserving and spiritual successor to his friend’s three classic Bond films that came before. From the very start Hunt was intentionally keeping the gadgets to a minimum while making the action feel raw and untamed, striving to make Bond the heart of the film once again as we follow him on his most human journey of the series. In the man’s own words, "I wanted it to be different than any other Bond film would be. It was my film, not anyone else's.”
For all this and more, Peter Hunt’s genius changed Bond forever, and as the 70s took hold and the Bond series once again adapted away from the kind of films he expected the franchise to produce, his absence was felt with resounding sighs and lamentations.
Opening Title Design-
On the whole, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service represents one of title designer Maurice Binder’s most uninspired efforts. There’s some interesting aspects to this particular design, like how the pre-title sequence carries right into the design with Bond’s silhouette running with Tracy’s shoes nearly out of frame, in addition to the motif of a spinning clock face and some interesting female silhouettes that morph into shape on the screen. All these pluses considered, however, what we have beyond them is largely unimaginative. Images from the past Bond films are projected through the outline of what seems to be a martini glass, but this aspect of the design poses its own issue.
The flashing images we get of the past films and their Bond villains and women are very counter-intuitive, because by reminding us of these parts of the cinematic Bond’s past on the big screen we are also reminded that this isn’t a Sean Connery Bond film but instead a different beast entirely. I’m sure that in its day this sequence was even more puzzling to people because of how much the design was focusing on films the new guy wasn’t even in. Up to the release of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service the filmmakers had used every opportunity they had to try and make audiences forget that Bond had been recast, even going so far as to promote it with images that showed 007 with a blank face, making it all the stranger why they chose to so openly pull images from the Connery films. This design choice ultimately forces comparison, and naturally it suffers for it because of how much of a hit Sean had been in the role. Amongst the images that recap all the past Connery films Blofeld is kept absent from the montage, likely so that audiences weren’t confused when the unassuming and meek looking Pleasance morphed into the quite formidable Savalas.
John Barry’s wondrous synthesized Bond theme is the saving grace of the titles, at least providing us with something nice to listen to for a couple of minutes while we wait for the film to kick in again. Overall this design represents a missed opportunity on Binder’s part to create another original sequence that played like a piece of art in its own right instead of a barely glorified digital photo album of Bond’s past with the Connery films. The title of the film alone produces images of England, which Binder could have accentuated by using motifs like the Union Jack, English architecture and even certain aspects of some British coat of arms designs to foreshadow the heraldry present in this adventure. When brought together these elements could have produced a design that was distinctly British in look and mood, pulling on images of cultural Britannia to create a piece worthy of standing on its own as a sequence with its own identity.
Script-
For a script that is largely golden, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is a narrative mixed bag in some ways with gradations from intellectual brilliance to misguided self-reference.
First the good, which outweighs any of the lesser. After sitting out writing duties on You Only Live Twice, an absence that was a large part of why that filmed failed to meet expectation, maestro scribe Richard Maibaum returns to give us the script for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service with a little help along the way from Simon Raven, who added in the wonderful dialogue Tracy and Blofeld share, during which the former recites the symbolic poetry I praised earlier in my analysis.
During the shooting of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service the marching orders were simple: stick to Fleming. After You Only Live Twice was as out there as, well, outer space, the producers and filmmaking team knew that it would be importance to return to the more character and plot based films like From Russia with Love, making Bond contend with forces that were grounded yet thrilling to watch him battle against. Maibaum ensured that all the story beats covered in the novel made their way into his script, and Peter Hunt was said to have carried around an annotated copy of Fleming’s text every day on set in order to guarantee the words of the master were being respected.
In many ways, by following Fleming’s novel so closely the script for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service reads like an experimental piece of writing. Because the films had grown so separated from Fleming’s work and literally taken Bond to space just one film previously, a faithful adaption of the book made James Bond and his world feel grounded again and far more engaging because it wasn’t suffocating in its own misguided ambition.
Because of all these circumstances and the contend of this particular Bond film, the script is best viewed as a deconstruction of James Bond the man in every way, striving to examine who he is and who he isn’t while having him face the tragedy that would live inside him for the rest of his days. In a film so different from any other Bond adventure to this day, Bond fights with his trusted boss and nearly quits his job as a 00 agent, agrees to marry a woman that he son begins to feel true love for, investigates his family’s roots at the College of Arms, disguises himself as a genealogist who is designed to be the antithesis of him in every facet of his personality, and finally, ends with him leaving his old life behind to start a new one with the only woman who’s made him dream of something beyond all he’s ever known. As Bond investigates his roots in genealogy, the Bond franchise itself examines its own, stepping back to tell a more human story that isn’t reliant on the formula and often strives to subvert what these films are meant to portray. Instead of sleeping with Tracy and leaving her for the next fling, Bond is stalled by her and mesmerized by her unique mystery. When he is outed by Blofeld and trapped amongst the gears of the lift’s machinery atop Piz Gloria, Bond continually fails to escape several times, showing him struggling to make it out alive. Even after he thinks he’s invaded his pursuers, Bond is left sitting on a bench as Blofeld’s agents close in just before Tracy shows up to save him and not the other way around. Throughout the script makes flowers a common motif of Bond and Tracy’s blooming love, whose petals are present when they first make love and present when their union is shattered by a hail of gunfire. Bond also has a habit of wiping Tracy’s tears away in the film, the first time to spark their relationship and the second to cement them as Mr. and Mrs. Bond.
With all the good, there are some issues, of course. Firstly, the “other fellow” line the script demanded for Lazenby to deliver at the conclusion of the pre-titles sequence while looking right into the camera is groan inducing. It’s a moment that represents a common problem with this film: it’s constantly pointing out to you that there were films before this with a better actor as James Bond that defined the role, making Lazenby a wide open target for criticism as he fails to live up to the memories of Connery moments like this remind them of.
In a moment guilty of the same sin, when Bond returns to his office following his nasty row with M, he takes to cleaning out his drawers of memorabilia from his past missions, including Honey Ryder’s belt and sheath from Dr. No, Donald Grant’s garrote wire watch featured in From Russia with Love and the underwater re-breather used in the deep sea action of Thunderball. This section of the film again points out the very strange choices that were sometimes made in presenting a new Bond to audiences. In three knock-out strikes, the film fails to move on past Connery. First the pre-titles sequences paints the words, “I’m not Sean Connery” in neon calligraphy on poor George’s head, followed by an opening title design that openly rips pictures from Sean’s previous movies, again pointing to the fact that he’s not there anymore. And finally the knock out punch of them all sees Lazenby looking at the objects only associated with Sean’s Bond, thrice reminding audiences that their big star is absent. These decisions are quite confounding and counter-intuitive to me in every way. The filmmakers didn’t want to make a big deal out of Connery’s re-casting, causing them to under promote Lazenby in the hopes that the public would forget about it, but then they went on to film the first movie post-Connery that constantly gets in your face and points out to you time and time again that their James Bond isn’t around any longer.
In addition to these issues of self-reference, the film also has a few too many moments where instances of great tension are broken up by badly placed or worded one-liners, the sin that the Bond series would grow to proudly take ownership of in the quality drop known as the Roger Moore era. After I see Bond coldly pummel goons into dust I don’t want to hear him reference the fact that Sean Connery is no longer Bond, nor do I want him to remark that the man he’s just beaten near Death’s door should’ve been gift wrapped. And following a deadly face off with his greatest archenemy in the series, I most certainly don’t want to see a random shot where Bond is kissed by a St. Bernard, a St. Bernard he then asks to fetch him some brandy. Each of these moments in the film feature a rousing piece of action or tension that the aforementioned one-liners soil at the finish in a most unpleasant fashion directly afterwards. Because the film strives to stick so close to Fleming, these random attempts at levity that lack the sharp sarcasm or cold black comedy of the Connery films’ scripts create a tonal inconsistency as the movie is caught between between the spirit of Fleming and the kind of silliness the series was attempting to abandon.
Even with these slip-ups in approach, the script of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is largely immaculate, one of the all-time best. It’s balanced in tone the majority of the time, presents characters fully-fleshed out, strives to tell a human story with Bond, is littered with endless smart wit and sharp dialogue and is bizarre without being bananas. It’s got the spirit of a Greek tragedy and myth too as I’ve lauded it for, making it read like a legend with Bond as its forlorn and noble warrior at the heart of the drama filled with manipulation, goddesses, quaking battles and intimate moments of depth and resonant humanity.
Above all On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is a message film that carries a very specific missive that both we and Bond learn together, the hard way. This is a film that teaches us through the tragically ironic Louis Armstrong song that acts as the tune and motto of Bond and Tracy’s union that we DON’T have all the time in the world. This irony and the devastating death of his beloved that teaches him his most important lesson hits hard, and the moment that concludes this film is better evidence than any as to why Bond decides to live his life the way he deems it proper to after Tracy’s murder, enjoying the time he has instead of playing it safe to prolong it, often making a conscious effort to not get attached to anyone or anything for too long. In many ways Tracy lives on, if only in Bond’s repressed anger and the irreversible numbness her passing has caused in his heart.
Cinematography-
Because the last film Peter Hunt had worked on before On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was the EON-produced adaptation of Ian Fleming’s own children’s story Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the editor turned Bond director saw fit to take some of the team from that movie and carry them over to this, his next project. One of these such members was Michael Reed, the movie’s cinematographer (as well as its editor John Glen; more on him later).
Although Reed’s experience as a cinematographer had been limited to some television work and B-movie fare up to that point in 1969, the man showed amazing skill when he got to shine on a blockbuster with the ambition and resources that On Her Majesty’s Secret Service lent him.
Peter Hunt had very specific rules that he wanted Reed to follow while framing his shots because the director’s goal was for the film to feel “simple, but glamorous” like the 1950s Hollywood pictures he loved, as well as a realistic in visual appeal, “where the sets don’t look like sets.” Hunt also requested the most interesting frames Reed could produce that would also look great once they were heavily cropped for televised showings of the picture post-release. Reed had a lot going against him as a cinematographer on the set of a Bond film that posed a brand new cinematic challenge to him with its high production demands and sets whose ceilings often prevented him from hanging the lights he needed to get the shots he wanted, but overall his work here is a shining example of some of the franchise’s best cinematography.
For starters, Reed knew how to make the vibrant colors of his surroundings pop on camera, with blues and oranges being especially pleasing to witness. In addition, Hunt’s demand for keeping the shots wider to ensure the film would be effectively cropped for TV also enabled Reed to play with scale and wide framing more than he would’ve otherwise, resulting in many great shots where the actors appear as miniscule navigators of the spaces they frequent. There’s real drama in these wide, far away shots, like in Bond’s fight with Che Che as Reed makes the viewer feel like a fly on the wall, nothing but a speck witnessing the tussle from afar. This approach to framing shots and shooting action carried over to the sequence where Piz Gloria was stormed, with visuals of the same order that ramped up tension and made the battle feel raw and real. The wide framing outside of these action pieces also gave Reed the license to let the locations of the film breathe instead of being restricted to stuffy close-ups. In this way On Her Majesty’s Secret Service again feels more in tune with the Terence Young Bond films where we get to see the actors navigating sets and locations as the camera is pulled further back, giving us the ability to take everything in because the picture box frees both the actors and the locales from feeling any claustrophobia.
Some of my favorite moments of the film come when Reed and Hunt play with light and shadow and the framing of the camera to produce a sense of mystery or drama. At the very beginning of the film we have no idea where Bond is (along with MI6), a fact that Reed takes advantage of by introducing us to Lazenby in the role through varying angles and levels of shadow in an almost piece by piece fashion until we get the full picture of him. This sequence allows us to be a part of the mystery along with MI6 as we wonder what Bond is doing and why, as well as what he’s got planned next, the kind of drama that would’ve been robbed from us if Reed had shot Lazenby in full light in a wide shot where he was instantly visible to the eye right off the bat.
As the beach fight carries into Bond’s game of baccarat at the casino, Tracy’s face is hidden from both 007 and the audience until the moment is most ripe, presenting a moment of great punch as our hero once again stumbles upon this mysterious figure of untold sorrow as if by divine planning.
Later on in the film once Bond’s cover is blown by Blofeld and he is whacked in the head the camera simulates the jarring headache 007 is having by blurring the images he sees as his point of view becomes ours and Reed makes us share his discombobulation.
And of course one of Reed’s greatest shots and by far his most haunting comes when he freezes the camera on the bullet hole in the windshield of Bond’s Aston following Tracy’s murder, forcing us as the audience to face the trauma head-on while the melody of “We Have All the Time in the World” provides an added layer of melancholia to the camerawork.
Through his cinematography for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Michael Reed successfully and honorably entered the ranks of the other highly skilled photographers of the 60s Bond era in the form of Ted Moore and Freddie Young. Together these talents make a powerfully imaginative triumvirate, with the films between them representing the gold standard for cinematography in the Bond franchise.
Music-
After having worked on every Bond film’s musical score while also being the main composer since From Russia with Love six years and fourth films previous to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the melodic maestro John Barry sensed it was time for a change.
In Barry’s work for this movie we can spot the change in the Bond series down to even its music as it developed more and more as an artistic property. So much was different this time around for the Bond team, and the music man felt it too. While Barry’s past scores had relied on heavy and booming orchestra sounds with blaring instrumental sections now synonymous with the “Bond sound,” for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service he made a conscious effort to use a variety of different sound techniques on top of his old methods with the inclusion of electrical instruments and synthesized sound for the first time in a Bond picture. These elements immediately give the film a different sound and feeling while still remaining distinctly Bondian as Barry creates a nice balance between old and new styles. This was a choice partly based on the change in lead actor that made the production feel all the more like a gamble, and when it came to using more aggressive sounds in his score Barry was quoted as saying, "I have to stick my oar in the musical area double strong to make the audience try and forget they don't have Sean... to be Bondian beyond Bondian." In an interesting detail, Barry’s original Bond theme from Dr. No with its wonderful guitar twang also has its swan song here too, as if he is bidding adieu to Sean’s iconic work in the series sans denial and again representing a departure from the Bond sound as we had known it to be in the 60s as the scores entered unexplored territory.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is often named as Barry’s magnum opus from his Bond catalogue, and while I’m not enough of a music aficionado to make such a judgment in any case, I can say quite emphatically that this score is one of my top favorites. “Ski Chase,” “Battle at Piz Gloria” and “Escape from Piz Gloria” are far and away instant Bond classics, and each uses the special synthesized Bond theme Barry crafted solely for this film. Every composition has a grandness to it, with notes that create space with sound as we literally picture Bond making his way down giant mountains of glistening snow, a dot in the wilderness as rifles take fire at him from behind. Listening to John Barry’s music for this film is like walking into a monolithic building full of walls painted with gorgeous murals that carry your echoes as you sit down in the middle of the space and take it all in, allowing its beauty to overwhelm you in its cascading swells of artistry. While listening to scores like these you feel and hear how Barry was somehow able to play with a sense of spatial dynamism in his use of notes like Ken Adam did with his sets in the Bond films, an accomplishment that should feel as impossible as tasting color or touching sound, if that makes any sense. With Barry, however, little was off limits.
Barry’s talents lay beyond just producing action music, as we quickly find out here. The amazing variety of sound that is present in all his other Bond work has also taken up residence here as he gives jazzy compositions, suspenseful spikes in sound and romantic melodies their place. “Try” sounds like Barry’s take on a noir detective theme that evokes images of smoky casinos and packed dance halls filled to the roof with femme fatales and duplicitous comrades alike. “Bond Meets the Girls,” is even more energetic in its jazziness, making the introduction of the Angels of Death feel both romantic and mysterious all the same. “Gumbold’s Safe” and “Blofeld’s Plot” are the cornerstones of tension-building music amongst Barry’s score this time around, the former creating a delicate sense of unease through its steady set of deep notes as Bond works against the clock to crack the safe, and the latter overlays an unsettling and psychedelic sound as Blofeld hypnotizes the girls of the clinic to do his malicious bidding in a moment where Barry simulates the babes’ feelings of induced catatonia for us as we listen. Suffice it to say that when it comes to creating a sense of drama, tension, wonderment and romance, Barry does it all here in spades.
Barry also lent his talents to three other pieces in the movie, including the main theme of the film suitably entitled “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” the Louis Armstrong sung “We Have All the Time in the World” that is the very backbone of his collective compositions, and the Christmas themed tune “Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?”
When it came time to plan how the opening theme of the film would be approached, the team hit a barrier. There was a worry that any song customized for the movie using the long title in its lyrics would sound odd and overdone, so Barry was tasked with simply producing an instrumental piece like those that accompanied the opening title designs of Dr. No and From Russia with Love. The stripped down, back to basics piece is far and away the best thing about the lackluster titles, and its notes serve as the foundation from which Barry plucked to produce some of his greatest compositions that we hear in this film past the film’s opening, most notably “Ski Chase” and “Escape from Piz Gloria” that both represent career highs for the composer’s genius.
“We Have All the Time in the World” was produced with lyrics by Hal David (who also wrote “Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?”) and sung by the iconic and unforgettable Louis Armstrong. This song and Barry’s instrumentals for it are the heart of the film, both literally and figuratively. It’s the well of sound Barry always returns to throughout his score to inject pieces of the song into many of his most emotionally resonant compositions in scenes that feature Bond and Tracy. Because of this creative choice the song’s melody then becomes the figurative heart of the film as it grows to be synonymous with the pair’s blooming love. It also goes on to represent the greatest and most tragic irony of the movie as its words of hope are turned hollow by the movie’s end as a mewling and melancholic variation of it plays over the aftermath of Tracy’s death to symbolically close the film. Armstrong was selected specifically by Barry to sing this song because the composer believed only “Satchmo” could deliver on both the beauty of romance its lyrics encourages as well as the tragedy they foreshadow during the film’s closing minutes. At the time of the recording Armstrong wasn’t feeling well, but was able to sing the song in just one take right out of the gate all the same. In a sad bit of symbolism that is just as ironic as its use in the film itself, “We Have All the Time in the World” was the last piece of music Armstrong ever recorded before his death just two years later. The enduring song represents the perfect mix of elements, from Hal David’s poignant lyrics and Barry’s use of romantically lush and spirited horns to Armstrong’s raspy and rough vocals that are a nice parallel to Bond and Tracy’s equally coarse road to love. The tune has become one of the most well known in Bond history because in the film itself it becomes less a symbol of Bond and Tracy’s love and the promise of their marriage, and more a hardcore, cold reminder of all we think we know of life before it shows us we still have some learning to do. Through its use in this film it’s now hard for me to properly enjoy the song on its own terms with the knowledge of what it was originally composed to represent and symbolize, which makes it all the harder to suppress the images of a beautiful Tracy in her wedding gown that its notes can only naturally conjure in my mind.
The last song that makes up On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is the aforementioned “Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?” with lyrics by Hal David and vocals by Danish songstress Nina. While this is the most underserved song in the score because of its very clear yuletide mood, it’s a wonderful addition to a film full of strong music. The tune gives the film that special Christmas feeling, the perfect piece to use during moments where Bond is out and about with citizens celebrating the holiday season in Switzerland. While the song has its corny moments this becomes part of its massive charm, and the chorus of children that bring its lyrical sections to life give it and the film by association a feeling of family. Listening to the tune and the children’s voices I can’t help but hear Diana Rigg’s sweet voice in the background saying, “first a boy, then a girl” before I become too depressed to properly enjoy the song as I think of all the children Bond and Tracy could’ve had together.
For all these reasons and more On Her Majesty’s Secret Service far and away has some of the all-time greatest selections of music in a Bond movie, where everything we hear is top of the line, all tied together by the maestro himself, Mr. John Barry. The only criticism I have of the music in the film comes at the end of the picture where a light variation of “We Have All the Time in the World” is played over Tracy’s death before out of nowhere Barry’s old Bond theme kicks in to close the film as credits appear while the screen is still frozen on the bullet hole that shattered Bond’s Aston and his wife. I don’t know if anyone else has an issue with this, but I find it to be yet another instance where the emotion or tension of a scene was undercut by a misplaced element coming right after it. Instead of a one-liner deflating the suspense or danger, however, this time it’s just a badly timed inclusion of the Bond theme that feels like a massively disrespectful thing to play just moments after our agent was seen whimpering into the corpse of his dead bride. It’s a bit like going to a funeral and forgetting to shut off your cell phone, a decision that makes you look like a right ass when you get a call just as a tender eulogy is being read to the dearly departed in the casket afar. Where’s the respect?
Editing-
As with cinematographer Michael Reed, director Peter Hunt handpicked the rising star of John Glen as his editor and second-unit director for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service off the back of the man’s work on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. From an early age Glen had become familiar with all the ins and outs of film production, making him a versatile and dependable talent to rest some expectations on.
Because Hunt needed to invest his full attention towards all areas of the production this time around following his attainment of the director’s chair, the Bond series was down it’s go-to editor. Fortunately for those involved Glen was an inspired choice because the man could brilliantly reproduce the kind of editing that made Hunt’s work a success in the earlier Bond films, something the director must have spotted from the beginning.
Thanks to Glen’s editing and his strict attention to the playbook of Hunt-with his own personal flourishes, of course-On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was able to feel like a Bond film more in touch with Dr. No and From Russia with Love than You Only Live Twice, giving the film a kinetic and messily loud and brutal feeling that well suited its roaring action and well-crafted moments of insane stunt work that pulled no punches in their presentation. It’s this kind of editing that allows Bond’s fight on the beach with Draco’s goons and his hotel bout with Che Che to feel like rousing and delirious scraps that make you feel part of the action as the camerawork and film cutting come together to create swift and engaging sequences of thrills.
This movie was John Glen’s foot in the door of the Bond franchise, an opportunity that would see him working on several more of the features before ascending from the cutting room and second-unit to the mighty director’s chair just like his friend Peter Hunt managed to do before him in the 60s era.
Costume Design-
When it comes to the fashion of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service a fascinating mixed bag of styles are on display, with suits timeless in style and those that are very much of their time and don’t work outside the period. As with many things in this film, the production team was moving past the elements and styles that had made the Bond films famous, with Barry experimenting in his music, Syd Cain being picked as production designer over Ken Adam for budgetary reasons and Anthony Sinclair being replaced by Dimi Major as the leading tailor of the film (though Lazenby did famously wear a Sinclair suit the tailor made for Connery that the actor didn’t want while shooting promotional images for this film where he is posing in front of Elizabeth Tower). Where fashion is concerned, the move away from the famously timeless fashions of Sinclair resulted in a gamble that produced clothing items that would soon grow to be outdated in style outside of that specific era while still delivering some strong Bondian looks.
While Lazenby doesn’t wear his suits with the same effortless cool as Sean, who became a style maverick through his immaculate Sinclair suits, the Aussie does an admirable job and wears the ensembles convincingly, with many nice suits seen throughout. Tailor Dimi Major took the reigns on developing Lazenby’s Bond style in this film, representing yet another example of how one designer molded a Bond actor’s style for their era, like Sinclair for Sean, and Cyril Castle for Roger Moore, who was also the man’s personal tailor outside of Bond.
The first proper suit we see Lazenby wear is a cream suit with a pink dress shirt and navy tie. While this is a somewhat odd mix of palettes that signal the coming 70s fashions of wild color clashes, the suit falls just short of being too much, and Lazenby commands it well as he makes his way through the hotel he’s booked.
When it comes time for Bond to infiltrate Gumbold’s Swiss offices to raid his safe, Lazenby is seen in a beautiful glen check suit that is far and away the most timeless look of the film, by no accident at all. The suit’s palette of gray, light blue and navy are the exact colors Sean often wore as James Bond, and the cut of the suit and how it is assembled makes it feel like a close cousin to Anthony Sinclair’s “Conduit Suit” that he tailored just for Connery to be Bond’s default style item that the spy wore frequently in every Terence Young film. Even though the series at this point had changed and was gradually moving on from the Connery days and that era’s approach to style, it was nice to have one last look at the fashion that made early Bond so stylish through this glen check suit.
When he drives to M’s private estate to share with his boss the papers on Blofeld that he’s copied, Bond is next seen in a wonderful double-breasted navy blazer. This item is one of the best in the film because beyond just being a nice ensemble, it tells us something about Bond and connects to his past work in the Royal Navy. The blazer feels like something 007 has held on to from his days in the naval service, because, according to Navy tradition, the suit coat has metal buttons and a military cut to it. In a slight departure from a commander’s uniform of the sort we see Bond wear in You Only Live Twice, the shoulders of the blazer aren’t as padded and militaristic looking as what Bond would wear on duty. The absence of these traditional elements of a navy outfit then give the blazer what is referred to as a more “civilian” look, as if Bond is injecting the naval style into his own personal look, literally taking his work on the sea home with him.
In order to disguise himself successfully as Sir Hillary Bray while at Piz Gloria, Bond is seen wearing a replica of the genealogist’s tweed three-piece suit, over which he wears a Sherlock Holmes-esque ulster coat when out in the elements. The tweed suits are some of my favorite Bond ensembles, best encapsulated by the wonderfully stylish hacking jackets Sean wears in Goldfinger and Thunderball, and here that nice flair returns. The suit feels suitably academic and stuffy as we watch Lazenby dig into playing the role of the meek Bray quite immaculately, purposely ramping up the man’s weaknesses to create a formidable caricature to hide underneath. In a nice touch, the tie Bond wears is in a Windsor knot of the sort Fleming himself despised because he thought they were the sign of a vain man, a fitting style choice for 007 to make while trying to play a rather upper crust man vastly different from himself. The change to a tie crafted in a Windsor knot from the Bond staple of a four-in-hand knot shows us how committed Bond is to crafting his disguise as well as how self-aware he is of his own personal style and how Bray’s runs counter to it.
Lazenby also wears two strong navy three-piece suits in this film, a herringbone suit at the beginning of the film that he adorns while M takes him off of Operation: Bedlam and a flannel chalk stripe which he wears near the end of the film while back in London as he tries to persuade M to mount an attack on Piz Gloria. As with the navy blazer Bond wears to M’s home, the reason I enjoy the way these three-piece suits are used in the film is because they are strong in style while also given added impact for the context in which Bond wears them. Dimi Major cut the suits similarly by design, and Bond wears navy only in moments where he and M are facing a crossroads in their professional and personal relationship. Because of this, the navy suits of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service symbolize Bond’s discontent and rebellion inside his job as he first threatens to resign from his 00 position and later goes behind M’s back to take care of Blofeld’s plot on his own with Draco’s assistance.
When it comes to casual fashion Lazenby wears two strong ensembles in the form of the skiing suit he adorns while escaping Piz Gloria, and an anorak suit to storm the compound during the film’s finale. Both ensembles are blue, a color Lazenby looks the best in. The costume team must have realized this fact from the start by purposely using style items outside of the suits to accentuate the Bond actor’s features using that specific palette. These blue hues also clash well against the orange outfits the SPECTRE agents of Piz Gloria are dressed in as both Bond and his enemies pop off the screen.
Although clothing like the garish brown and orange golf suit, the houndstooth tweed jacket and cravat and the eye-sore of a tuxedo with unsightly ruffles protruding from its dress shirt all represent ensembles more representative of the day’s fashion sense than anything resembling timeless fashion, by and large Lazenby commands a nice figure in his suits with many nice outfits to his name, finishing the film in a handsome wedding suit.
Where the rest of the film is concerned, Dimi Major went above and beyond by assembling clothes for all the rest of the male leads, including Bernard Lee, Gabriele Ferzetti and Telly Savalas. Lee looks professional as ever, dressing the part in fine suits that build M up even more as a traditionalist as he shows Bond who is boss (literally). We also get to spot his more informal style while wearing a smoking jacket at his private estate, and the ensemble he wears for Bond and Tracy’s wedding is quite becoming and adds even more warmth to Lee’s performance as we see M strip back his stiff and stern veneer to smile for a rare time in the series.
Ferzetti’s Draco looks immaculate in everything, sporting a fine navy three-piece with a romantic flower on the lapel during his meeting with Bond and an equally sophisticated lounge suit worn during the wedding of his daughter. These elements of style come together to make Draco one of the best dressed Bond allies of the series.
Savalas’ Blofeld is seen in both a masculine piece of outerwear and the now classic Nehru styled suit that had become an inseparable part of the character’s cinematic image (and later a style item exploited for parody). The latter builds him up as a cruel figure of control as in the previous film, which Savalas wears with a remarkably sinister joy.
Blofeld’s Angels of Death are each given their own unique fashions that carry slight style hints as to their countries of origin. The costume department were able to manipulate the clothing of the twelve beauties to give each their own defining personalities through just these items alone, allowing the great performers and their dialogues to do the rest to build up their respective characterizations.
And last but not least we have the absolutely gorgeous Diana Rigg in an endless stream of wonderful ensembles that build up Tracy as one of the unmatched Bond beauties. In the first dress we see Tracy in, she literally sparkles on screen as the falling sun’s rays glisten off her body as she moves magnetically forward to be swallowed by the waves, walking as if in a trance. The ensemble gives her a suitably mythological feeling, like she is a half-present ghost experiencing a moment of trauma for the nth time.
At the casino she’s dressed in a dazzling white form-hugging dress that runs counter to what she thinks of herself, wearing the pure color of white while of the opinion that she’s anything but. Arriving at Draco’s birthday party, Tracy looks quite sexy in a uniform that would make most women look like a poor man’s magician’s assistant, but Rigg’s sassy and independent performance gives it purpose. As Tracy comes to rescue Bond in the village below Piz Gloria she is next seen in outdoor wear of prominent browns, a palette that works perfectly with Rigg’s own hair color and eyes, giving her beauty an added “pop.”
And finally, in Tracy’s wedding dress at the end of the film Rigg is-to use a word from Bond’s vocabulary-an “inspiration,” every inch the definition of radiant. Everything is downplayed in this ensemble, with little make-up or jewelry on Rigg in order to accentuate her natural beauty. It’s also fitting that for the first time Tracy isn’t hiding behind her clothes or other exterior fashion items to disguise or repress herself, because she is at ease around Bond and has no need for secrets any longer. This beautiful wedding dress is also symbolic of so many things. It is a very similar style to the dress Rigg’s Tracy wears at the beginning of the film during her suicide attempt, meaning these style pieces bookend the movie. While Rigg’s features were purposefully unkempt and exhausted looking in the first dress to underscore Tracy’s tragedy and trauma, while wearing the wedding dress that is its sequel her hair is tied up and her whole appearance is vigorous and healthy as she exudes happiness, showing how much she has changed for the better since Bond stumbled into her life. Although Tracy thought she was only playing pure while wearing a white dress in the casino scene to continue her self-destructive ways, after her union to Bond she has earned the right to wear white, reborn pure in Bond’s arms. As Bond and Tracy drive away from the ceremony Mrs. Bond wraps her shawl around her face, a style choice that again accentuates Rigg’s beauty while giving the character a blinding splendor and innocence.
These ensembles and the context in which they are worn are all the stronger for Diana Rigg’s performance, which is subtle and rich in so many ways. In the movie we watch as Tracy goes from a forlorn and miserable woman contemplating a restful and pain-free death to a woman who rediscovers the joy of life in Bond’s eyes. As the film goes on and through Rigg’s masterful performance, Tracy is visibly more happy and deliriously in love in each scene, grounding the character and her fashion in an emotional truth as deep as the pair’s own love as she truly becomes reborn in every sense of the word.
For all these reasons and more, whether it’s down to Lazenby’s snappy suits, a fine set of nicely dressed supporting cast members or the amazing ensembles that make Rigg’s Tracy one of the best dressed Bond women of all time, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service has much to appreciate with it comes to fashion and style.
Sets-
After years of developing his talents both outside and inside the Bond series, first as art director on Dr. No helping Ken Adam’s team realize their set designs and then on From Russia with Love as its lead designer, Syd Cain was more than deserving when the time came for him to take the full production design reigns for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Cain had previously worked with Cubby Broccoli’s production company Warwick Films before the Bond films were even a reality on projects where he produced the very work that first got him a job on Dr. No, and his brilliance in crafting designs like the phenomenal chess set in From Russia with Love during Ken Adam’s absence proved that he could hold the weight of any pressures to create truly amazing sets. Because the budget of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was much more frugal than usual, the extravagant and expensive sets of Adam had to be forgone to save money for the rest of the production, leaving the master’s duties to Cain.
The main feature of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and the piece of production design at the heart of it is of course the now famous Piz Gloria base of Ernst Stavro Blofeld. While the Bond series has seen lairs housed in hollowed out volcanoes, space stations floating far into the depths of space and hideaways lurking below the very ocean itself, there’s something about a fortress positioned on top of a high mountain range that just feels way more interesting. The set is given added drama when Bunt mentions to Bond that their security allows no trespassers, making the location feel like a place of no return.
When it came time to realize this idea for Blofeld’s lair, the production team had to face a big hurdle. They had eyed Piz Gloria as a perfect spot to film for its location at the top of Schilthorn near the Swiss village of Mürren following weeks of location searching, but they had one big issue facing them: the space they wished to shoot at was a revolving restaurant that was still under construction and not operational in the slightest. The production loved the place so much, however, that they paid to finish the work that remained on Piz Gloria, including giving the place electricity and a running aerial lift while also re-designing the interior and assembling a helicopter pad in order to meet Cain’s expectations for what he wanted to do with the space. Even for all these costs and hurdles, it was still cheaper to fund and finish the build of Piz Gloria than to pay Adam to make another larger than life set like the previous film’s volcano lair that ended up costing more than the entire production budget of Dr. No to build. While there was some contention between the Swiss authorities and Bond team in regards to what they were and weren’t permitted to do on the mountain, the set came together with great imagination.
The design of the finished Piz Gloria manages to feel like not only a clinic and resort styled building, but is also given even more character by how it is decked out for the holidays. When it comes time for the finale of the film to take place the beautiful surroundings become the stage for even more cinematic mayhem as what the team built needed to be dirtied up a bit in a perfect example of art dying to create more art.
For the magic that the team of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service were able to perform against the odds to bring Piz Gloria to life, they have more than earned their recognition for producing one of the all-time greatest Bond design pieces that we’ve ever seen.
END OF ANALYSIS
Well done
Just a couple of things-Blofeld strikes me as having the hots for Tiffany as well, and the clips from former films in the mts are in an hourglass in my view, not a martini glass.
Roger Moore looks svelte and well groomed in his debut. He wears an overcoat and leather gloves and smokes slim cigars. A different Bond in all ways.
Moore is more or less magnificent throughout. Watch him in the climatic scenes on the island, trying to calculate how best to save Solitaire whilst waiting for midnight to strike and the poppy fields to go up in smoke. Fine, understated acting.
He has a competitive spirit though, even playing gin rummy with Solitaire (he is clearly peeved that she beats him).
Bond also has powers of observation above and beyond any normal person. After ‘Charlie’ is shot at the wheel of his limo in New York it’s a good 20 seconds before Bond realises anything is wrong. Even so he can relate to Leiter the exact description of the offending pimp-mobile and even the registration number. Good going Bond!
Solitaire is a pretty and pretty confused young lady. Her motivations are odd. She succumbs to Bond more than once yet clearly gestures to Samedi when escaping the island. Why?
And why exactly does she attack Bond at the airport? To help him escape? Must be that, I can’t think why else.
We have the lovely missing Italian agent Miss Caruso, and the rather stupid double agent Rosie Carver who appears to be no use to either side.
Quarrel junior shows up minus any discernible personality.
There’s Strutter from the CIA who sadly gets a traditional New Orleans send off.
Felix Leiter is played by David Heddison, and spends the film trying to tidy up the mess Bond makes as he ambles along on his path of destruction.
Villains. Yaphet Kotto is just on the wrong side of disappointing as Mr Big/Kananga. And when he reads out the serial number on Bond’s watch for Solitaire he says
“I gave you a better than 50/50 chance”
Excuse me? How exactly is ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ better than 50/50?
Baron Samedi and Whisper are excellent co-villains and add plenty of depth to the cast.
Finally we have Sheriff Pepper. A full blown complete version of the comedy sheriff from Diamonds Are Forever. A more tense, exciting boat chase would have been preferable, but as comedy characters go Pepper is fine, and he gets to gurn and postulate to great effect when the funniest line of the film is delivered by an unseen deputy over the radio of his smashed car. Apparently a local’s dog has gone mad
‘Seems her dog’s foaming at the mouth. Got it locked up in the shed. Wonders if you’d like to go on over and shoot it”
No matter what your op[inion of 70s Bond films you have to be pretty hard- nosed not to smile at that.
2 DN 10/10
3 FRWL 10/10
4 YOLT 7/10
5 TB 6/10
Sorry to be behind, started again, will catch up.
Doing statistics for Bond as well while watching. YOLT was very enjoyable and I actually think it's better than TB overall. Some things just are out of reach for TB against YOLT like the Volcano, the end-battle, the main villain.
My ranking is based on the overall enjoyment of the film experience. TB is just too bloody boring for 45 minutes and has, what must be the weakest end-fight ever with sped up sequences (compared to other Bond films).
Of course it's a masterpiece compared to anything outside Bond. It's criticism on the highest possible level I must say.
MI6Community Bondathon:
1.) DN
2.) GF
3.) FRWL
4.) TB
New Ranking
1. OHMSS
2. GF
3. FRWL
4. DN
5. LALD
6. TB
7. YOLT
8. DAF
Previous Ranking
1. The Spy Who Loved Me
2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3. Casino Royale
4. From Russia With Love
5. Skyfall
6. Goldfinger
7. Octopussy
8. Spectre
9. Dr No
10. The Living Daylights
11. Goldeneye
12. Live And Let Die
13. Licence To Kill
14. A View To A Kill
15. For Your Eyes Only
16. Moonraker
17. Thunderball
18. Quantum Of Solace
19. Diamonds Are Forever
20. Tomorrow Never Dies
21. You Only Live Twice
22. The Man With The Golden Gun
23. Die Another Day
24. The World Is Not Enough
Bond actor and performance
As I have mentioned above, Roger Moore is my favourite Bond of them all. I’m not saying he’s the best, but he is certainly my favourite, and has been ever since I became a Bond fan. In Live and Let Die, I think we get one of his top 3 performances as Bond. He is so calm, extremely cool and very charming. His interpretation is something completely different to what we saw with Connery and Lazenby, who were both excellent, and Moore is excellent too. His “Bond, James Bond” is my favourite from any of his movies. Taken by Mr Big’s goons, he keeps his cool and, introducing himself to Solitaire, keeps his cool. The long pause between Bond and James is brilliant and very well done. He keeps this sort of performance up through the movie and I can’t find any fault. I see people compare performances to Fleming’s Bond in this Bondathon but, unfortunately, not having read the source material, I am unable to do that.
Bond girl/s and performance
First up was the lovely Miss Caruso, played by Madeline Smith. She does what she needs to do well and she is quite a beauty. I’ve always enjoyed the fact that the first time we see Moore’s 007 he’s in the sack with a woman. The story of his tenure? Haha.
Rosie Carver – neither here nor there. Useless as an agent, useless as one of Kananga’s minions. To be fair, Gloria Hendry does a good job of portraying both.
Finally, the wonderful Jane Seymour as Solitaire. Jane Seymour is an absolutely stunning woman (the scene where Bond is sitting in her card reading chair, she stands at the doorway and the light shines through her nightie – wow!) and I love her portrayal as Solitaire. Solitaire has quite a little journey in the movie; from the start we know that she is unhappy in doing what she does, reading the cards for Kananga. During the pts, when we see the British diplomat killed, you can see the sorrow in her face as she looks in the direction of it happening. It’s a nice little show of her character. And we see that throughout, the anguish she shows while reading the cards. Then, once Bond gets his hands on her, taking away her powers, we see a while new side and, well, she turns insatiable and seems to want Bond in the sack at every opportunity, haha. I love Seymour and love the character of Solitaire.
Bond henchman and performance
Julius Harris plays one of the more memorable henchmen in the Bond series. May not be up to the standard of Jaws, but Tee Hee and his replacement metal arm makes him just as dangerous to 007. Quite excellent.
Bond villain/s and performance
Yaphet Kotto as Mr Big/Kananga is a bit of a let-down. He doesn’t have the presence to have us believe that he is a massive threat to Bond. I believe that Baron Samedi and Tee Hee do that well. One of the weaker parts of the movie for me.
Supporting cast and performances
M and Moneypenny do their thing as they always do and do it very well, despite being limited. I do enjoy the scene when Bond is making coffee for M. Good stuff.
David Hedison as Felix Leiter is wasted. Pretty much just at the other end of a phone, assisted Bond without actually doing anything. However, I do like him and he's probably my favourite Leiter of the series.
I do love Geoffrey Holder as Baron Samedi. He brings such life to the scenes he is in and, pretty much, chews them up. Excellent and I love the ending with him on the train. On another note, I always see Baron Samedi when I look at the MGM logo, just under the lion.
And, of course, we have Clifton James as Sheriff as JW Pepper. A marmite character, you love him or hate him. I think he’s great and gives us some super comedy moments. I’ve always wondered if he’s playing the same character in Superman 2.
Gun barrel sequence
Our first one with Roger Moore. Confident walk, very cool and a great turn and shot. Different also, in that we don’t see him drop to his knee. The music accompanying is also great and fitting to the movie.
PTS
Not the spectacle that we have seen before or since but it does set up the story and Bonds mission nicely.
Locations
Some lovely locations in this movie, we see Jamaica double for the fictitious San Monique, New Orleans looks great and the scenes shot in Manhattan to double as Harlem looks, from what I know about it, authentic. Perfectly fitting for the movie.
Action
Some decent action in the movie, Moore isn’t as efficient in the fight scenes but deals with them admirably. I do enjoy the boat chase scene but it does lack any real tension. Shame about the final scene with Kananga and the fight, the blowing up of the character looks poor. The final fight is with Tee Hee Is good, but not up to the other train fight we saw between Connery and Grant.
Edit: Almost forgot the bus scene. Outstanding stuff.
Humour
This is the era where we see the humour ramped up. To start with, however, in LALD we have the usual one-liners we see in any Bond movie, delivered brilliantly by Sir Rog but we also have the comical expertise of Clifton James as Jay Dubya. Always gets me laughing.
Plot plausibility
Ok, so there are voodoo elements to the plot but this is one that is quite credible for Bond standards.
Villain’s scheme
A scheme that could, easily, be relevant today. Drugs are a common theme of movies nowadays and they are a real threat to anyone who uses them. Kananga’s scheme is perfectly plausible.
During the Pre Title Sequence we have an interesting scenario in that Bond is not introduced to us. Instead we get a sequence of murders occurring across the globe.
Dawes (who apparently shares Bond’s boot maker) dies at a meeting of International Heads of State/Governors or what have you. He collapses after his ear piece is tampered with and no one bats an eyelid. That’s the problem with these meetings. If old Ernst Blofeld had run it there would have been at least a look of suitable terror on the faces of the nearest people. Instead it appears to be just another day at the office.
In one of several reminders of Dr No, Bond has all sorts of nifty gadgets to help explore his San Monique hotel room (and in true Dr No tradition he even has to deal with a darn critter that is dropped into his bathroom).
No gadget needed to escape the croc pit though. Just a nifty pair of crocodile skin shoes.
Whether it’s deliberate or not the look and feel of Live And Let Die, eg the appearance of Quarrel’s son, the idea of the villain being protected by some mythical force (voodoo, or a dragon), the snake and spider, even Tee Hee having metal hands, gives constant nods to Connery’s debut.
The action is great, plenty of it to help ease Moore into the role, a great sequence with the alligators and of course the wonderful stunt with the double decker bus.
As ever with Guy Hamilton films the music is used sparingly during the action sequences, but when it comes crashing in after the bus is decapitated, it works a treat.
The humour includes the deliberately cartoon like characters Sheriff Pepper and of course Mrs Bell but we hadn’t yet reached the point of worryingly extreme comic capers like Moonraker.
The villains plot to take over the drug market has a ring of Goldfinger about it (but then so did The World Is Not Enough and A View To A Kill).
So it seems that if it ain’t broke…
The whole plot is a little underwhelming, but then I have never been one to worry excessively about a Bond film’s plot holes. As Mr Big would say worrying about it would positively drive me out of my mind.
"Hey there, hippies! Get your butts off the road!"
:))