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Diamonds are Forever: overreaction to ohmss or overdue recalibration?

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  • RoadphillRoadphill United Kingdom
    edited August 2020 Posts: 984
    thedove wrote: »
    It's rich that those who say Roger would have been a good Bond for OHMSS as he could pull off the emotional scenes. Slight problem is the fights! I can't picture the beach fight, or the one in the hotel being as gritty as it would require frequent cuts to stunt performers.

    I enjoy Roger movies and appreciate what he did, but he had some shortcomings that some can't seem to overlook.

    I think he could pull of the beach fight, just fine. He was much younger then. And let's not forget, that scene was edited the hell out of.

    *Apologies, I have seen this has already been stated. Don't want to hammer home a point, as nauseaum*
  • RevelatorRevelator
    edited August 2020 Posts: 2,918
    You can't create a truly good fight scene out of editing anymore than you can create a truly good (rather than merely adequate) performance out of editing. Hunt and Glen's editing style is elliptical, but it depends on cutting around an already vigorous physical performance to gain maximum speed and impact. Hunt directed Roger in two films (and an episode of The Persuaders), and while there's a big fist fight between him and Lee Marvin in Shout at the Devil, it's not on level with those in OHMSS and Marvin is plainly more impressive. Plus John Glen edited Roger in MR and TSWLM, and those fights are okay but not great. Roger simply never moved as well as Connery, Lazenby, or Craig.
  • RoadphillRoadphill United Kingdom
    Posts: 984
    Revelator wrote: »
    You can't create a truly good fight scene out of editing anymore than you can create a truly good (rather than merely adequate) performance out of editing. Hunt and Glen's editing style is elliptical, but it depends on cutting around an already vigorous physical performance to gain maximum speed and impact. Hunt directed Roger in two films (and an episode of The Persuaders), and while there's a big fist fight between him and Lee Marvin in Shout at the Devil, it's not on level with those in OHMSS and Marvin is plainly more impressive. Plus John Glen edited Roger in MR and TSWLM, and those fights are okay but not great. Roger simply never moved as well as Connery, Lazenby, or Craig.

    @Revelator I'm not saying Roger would have been as good as Lazenby in the fight scenes, but Peter Hunt would have made it work in the editing process, I'm sure.

    Anyway I like OHMSS just as it is.
  • 007InAction007InAction Australia
    Posts: 2,534
    Roadphill wrote: »
    Revelator wrote: »
    You can't create a truly good fight scene out of editing anymore than you can create a truly good (rather than merely adequate) performance out of editing. Hunt and Glen's editing style is elliptical, but it depends on cutting around an already vigorous physical performance to gain maximum speed and impact. Hunt directed Roger in two films (and an episode of The Persuaders), and while there's a big fist fight between him and Lee Marvin in Shout at the Devil, it's not on level with those in OHMSS and Marvin is plainly more impressive. Plus John Glen edited Roger in MR and TSWLM, and those fights are okay but not great. Roger simply never moved as well as Connery, Lazenby, or Craig.

    @Revelator I'm not saying Roger would have been as good as Lazenby in the fight scenes, but Peter Hunt would have made it work in the editing process, I'm sure.

    Anyway I like OHMSS just as it is.

    I agree. OHMSS is a great film and Lazenby suits the film well.
    His acting is good it's just that he wasn't born with the voice of connery and other james bond actors that turns a lot of people off his performance.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,188
    Funnily, Diana Rigg went onto say she wished either Connery or Moore has been her opposite instead of Lazenby. I don’t blame her!
  • ThunderballThunderball playing Chemin de Fer in a casino, downing Vespers
    Posts: 814
    Maybe she would’ve got on better with them, but she and Lazenby sparkle. Part of that is Diana, but part of that is George, too. He did a fine job. I’m glad he was chosen. He’s one of the big reasons OHMSS is such a wonderful film. Nobody would’ve done it better, in my book.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,188
    Lazenby is pretty disposable for me, so I would have loved to see how either Connery or Moore did it. I do think I’d ultimately prefer Connery because OHMSS feels like a film that needs an established Bond. Using this story for a newbie, especially a guy who was only 29 at the time, just feels wrong.
  • GadgetManGadgetMan Lagos, Nigeria
    Posts: 4,247
    I think Rigg felt Lazenby's casting as Bond was too meteoric, considering he wasn't an actor. And she's older than him and had already starred in Avengers and here he is, out of the blue, not just a lead man, but as James Bond. I think I also read somewhere that Rigg wanted Lazenby, but his frequent trysts with women put her off.....something like she caught him in the act or so. But still, I like his Bond and the film. I think the film needed a Bond we really had to worry for, and it worked. Connery's greatness doesn't need further explaining, but I don't know if the film would have worked with his ultra-confidence.
  • jobojobo
    Posts: 7,507
    Thunderball wrote: »
    Maybe she would’ve got on better with them, but she and Lazenby sparkle. Part of that is Diana, but part of that is George, too. He did a fine job. I’m glad he was chosen. He’s one of the big reasons OHMSS is such a wonderful film. Nobody would’ve done it better, in my book.

    Apparently Lazenby was a bit of a spoiled brat off camera and a pest to work with. It speaks of Rigg's proffesionalism that she managed to create such a chemistry between them on screen.
  • ThunderballThunderball playing Chemin de Fer in a casino, downing Vespers
    Posts: 814
    Believe me, I’m not defending his behavior on set. He had no right. If I remember right, he regretted how he acted then in an interview of him I saw. I just think he did well as Bond. Sheesh.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    edited August 2020 Posts: 8,188
    GadgetMan wrote: »
    I think Rigg felt Lazenby's casting as Bond was too meteoric, considering he wasn't an actor. And she's older than him and had already starred in Avengers and here he is, out of the blue, not just a lead man, but as James Bond. I think I also read somewhere that Rigg wanted Lazenby, but his frequent trysts with women put her off.....something like she caught him in the act or so. But still, I like his Bond and the film. I think the film needed a Bond we really had to worry for, and it worked. Connery's greatness doesn't need further explaining, but I don't know if the film would have worked with his ultra-confidence.

    That’s the key, seeing Connery’s ultra-confidence shaken after having seen him in five adventures would be a revelation. It would have felt earned to see him wearing down and becoming vulnerable to SPECTRE and Tracy.

    I never bought into the fan narrative that Connery wouldn’t have been believable in OHMSS. That always came off to me as a way of putting down Connery in order to build up Lazenby. Whether intentional or not.
  • 007InAction007InAction Australia
    edited August 2020 Posts: 2,534
    Some of the reviews of ohmss on this page are interesting.
    https://www.metacritic.com/movie/on-her-majestys-secret-service/critic-reviews

    90
    The Telegraph
    Marc Lee
    Hunt, who served as editor on the first three Connery films, gives Lazenby’s fist fights a whipcrack intensity and the ski-jumping, stock car-racing, bobsled-sliding finale is one of the series’ best. Read full review
    88
    ReelViews
    James Berardinelli
    The film contains some of the most exhilarating action sequences ever to reach the screen, a touching love story, and a nice subplot that has agent 007 crossing (and even threatening to resign from) Her Majesty's Secret Service. The problem is with Bond himself. Following Sean Connery's departure after You Only Live Twice, the film makers had to come up with a replacement. The man they chose, a model named George Lazenby, is boring, and his ineffectualness lowers the picture's quality. Read full review
    80
    Empire
    William Thomas
    This is the Bond flick blessed with the best plot, a genuine sense of emotion and a spirit closest to Ian Fleming’s novels. Read full review
    80
    Salon
    Charles Taylor
    On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is the only Bond film that gets beyond the dirty boy’s-book spirit of the series to a core of real emotion. It also has what are probably the best action sequences of any 007 adventure. Read full review
    75
    TV Guide Magazine
    Staff (Not Credited)
    Based on one of the best of Ian Fleming's Bond novels, On Her Majesty's Secret Service benefited from an extremely well-written script that finally revealed a bit more of Bond's character. Lazenby, however, had no previous acting experience, and his lackadaisical performance limits the whole production, yet it still manages to remain one of the more entertaining Bond films. Read full review
    70
    Village Voice
    Molly Haskell
    With On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Peter Hunt has directed what to my mind is the most engaging and exciting James Bond film. Read full review
    63
    RogerEbert.com
    Gerardo Valero
    A rather uneven Bond, one with a great story but a few too many problems, belonging somewhere in the middle section of the series' canon. Read full review
    60
    The New York Times
    A.H. Weiler
    He's tall, dark, handsome and has a dimpled chin. But Mr. Lazenby, if not a spurious Bond, is merely a casual, pleasant, satisfactory replacement. For the record, he plays a decidedly second fiddle to an overabundance of continuous action, a soundtrack as explosive as the London Blitz, and flip dialogue and characterizations set against some authentic, truly spectacular Portuguese and Swiss scenic backgrounds, caught in eyecatching colors. Read full review
    60
    The New Yorker
    Pauline Kael
    This Bond thriller-the sixth, and set mainly in Switzerland-introduces a new Bond, George Lazenby, who's quite a dull fellow, and the script, by Richard Maibaum, isn't much, either, but the movie is exciting, anyway.
    50
    Chicago Reader
    Don Druker
    George Lazenby has so much reserve as James Bond that he makes Sean Connery seem almost frenetic by comparison. Director Peter Hunt manages to inject some life into this 1969 exercise with a wonderful ski chase, but otherwise the film is a bore. Read full review
    40
    Variety
    Peter Debruge
    Is it an awful movie? Objectively speaking, no (although it does feature one of the worst endings ever inflicted on an audience). But as a Bond movie, it’s an abomination. Read full review
    30
    Time Out London
    Geoff Andrew
    The Bond films were bad enough even with the partially ironic performances of Connery. Here, featuring the stunning nonentity Lazenby, there are no redeeming features. Read full review
  • RoadphillRoadphill United Kingdom
    Posts: 984
    MakeshiftPython wrote: »
    GadgetMan wrote: »
    I think Rigg felt Lazenby's casting as Bond was too meteoric, considering he wasn't an actor. And she's older than him and had already starred in Avengers and here he is, out of the blue, not just a lead man, but as James Bond. I think I also read somewhere that Rigg wanted Lazenby, but his frequent trysts with women put her off.....something like she caught him in the act or so. But still, I like his Bond and the film. I think the film needed a Bond we really had to worry for, and it worked. Connery's greatness doesn't need further explaining, but I don't know if the film would have worked with his ultra-confidence.

    That’s the key, seeing Connery’s ultra-confidence shaken after having seen him in five adventures would be a revelation. It would have felt earned to see him wearing down and becoming vulnerable to SPECTRE and Tracy.

    I never bought into the fan narrative that Connery wouldn’t have been believable in OHMSS. That always came off to me as a way of putting down Connery in order to build up Lazenby. Whether intentional or not.

    I certainly didn't to disparage Sean when I said this, he was certainly a good enough actor to pull it off.

    It was more the audience expectations, and the persona he had built of Bond that may have felt jarring. That's why I feel it suited a new Bond. It would have felt the same had it been, say Moore's fourth film.
  • thedovethedove hiding in the Greek underworld
    Posts: 5,436
    Lets face it. OHMSS was supposed to be the pay-off of Connery's Bond arc. It should have mirrored the books and been done after TB. However it doesn't take away that this was Connery's Bond to make the payoff on. As a stand-alone it works okay. To see Connery emotionally devasted at the end would have been a way bigger pay-off.

    Now we have DAF being Connery's finale in the official series. I enjoy DAF for what it is but will always wonder...what if. That's a shame for OHMSS as it has a question mark over it. That's a shame for Connery who deserved a better end then DAF.
  • GadgetManGadgetMan Lagos, Nigeria
    Posts: 4,247
    MakeshiftPython wrote: »
    GadgetMan wrote: »
    I think Rigg felt Lazenby's casting as Bond was too meteoric, considering he wasn't an actor. And she's older than him and had already starred in Avengers and here he is, out of the blue, not just a lead man, but as James Bond. I think I also read somewhere that Rigg wanted Lazenby, but his frequent trysts with women put her off.....something like she caught him in the act or so. But still, I like his Bond and the film. I think the film needed a Bond we really had to worry for, and it worked. Connery's greatness doesn't need further explaining, but I don't know if the film would have worked with his ultra-confidence.

    That’s the key, seeing Connery’s ultra-confidence shaken after having seen him in five adventures would be a revelation. It would have felt earned to see him wearing down and becoming vulnerable to SPECTRE and Tracy.

    I never bought into the fan narrative that Connery wouldn’t have been believable in OHMSS. That always came off to me as a way of putting down Connery in order to build up Lazenby. Whether intentional or not.

    Yeah. Well, maybe it might have suited Connery. Even if it's hard to envisage. But I can't help but think that, had Connery starred in OHMSS, maybe Lazenby might have starred in DAF. And maybe the whole story might have been different today....maybe Lazenby starring in further Bond films.
  • Agent_OneAgent_One Ireland
    edited August 2020 Posts: 280
    Ah, but if Connery finished with OHMSS, we'd all still be talking about the missed opportunity of a revenge focused DAF...

    IMO one actor (preferably Connery) should've done the entire Blofeld Trilogy in book order.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    edited August 2020 Posts: 6,306
    Thunderball wrote: »
    Maybe she would’ve got on better with them, but she and Lazenby sparkle. Part of that is Diana, but part of that is George, too. He did a fine job. I’m glad he was chosen. He’s one of the big reasons OHMSS is such a wonderful film. Nobody would’ve done it better, in my book.

    It's hard to quantify but Lazenby and Rigg do have some sort of feral chemistry that I don't see with Moore or Connery...

    Connery would likely have gotten a different Tracy, maybe a more vulnerable one, particularly in '67.

    '69 was the right time, culturally, for a downbeat ending.

    I've also convinced myself that Savalas should also have been in DAF. Even with a different tone, I think he was strong enough as an actor to make the transition work.
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