Heavy Bondage: On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Lazenby's voice is more suave than sexy-sinister. But he could pass for the other fellow's twin on the shady side of the casino.
- Alexander Walker in the Evening Standard (December 1969)

On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Film: 1969
Book: 1963 (11th in chronology)

Irreverent Synopsis: Bond crosses paths with a self-destructive woman named Tracy, to her father's relief; he believes Bond is exactly what she needs. He offers Bond a gift of his choice in return for courting Tracy; Bond chooses information on Blofeld, whom he has been tracking unsuccessfully ever since the end of the previous film. Blofeld, it develops, is running an allergy clinic in the Swiss Alps (no, really), which of course is the cover for a semi-diabolical scheme, albeit one with modest goals. Bond falls in love with Tracy, kicks Blofeld around, foils his scheme, and gets married ... but if you think that means a happy ending, then you have not been paying enough attention.

Major Observations: This is one of the two Bond novels containing Blofeld after the Thunderball novelization (which see). One reason I credit the influence of Kevin McClory et al for Blofeld's supervillain cartoonishness is because of the way Fleming handles him when left to his own devices. In one of them, Blofeld uses his vast powers of villainy for ... recognition of his right to the peerage and amnesty for his crimes. Sort of a step down from previous capers, eh? And in the other, he has fled to Japan and is quietly running an (admittedly somewhat bizarre) garden, committing no apparent crimes or world-conquering schemes at all. Fleming never did seem very comfortable with the idea of a supervillain; whatever his other faults, he did try to keep within the bounds of plausible reality as much as possible. Which doesn't mean he's not capable of having his characters be evil; what Blofeld does at the end of this book is possibly the worst thing that ever happens to Bond in the whole canon.

What's amazing is that circumstances allowed this book to be adapted so closely for film. Barring Thunderball, which doesn't count because the script came first, On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the most faithful to Fleming of any of the films. Other than a few minor alterations to the order of events, and a slight change or two involving Sir Hilary Bray, this film is a verbatim rendition of Fleming.

Which, to some people, is proof that Fleming can't be adapted directly into a compelling film and the filmmakers were right to take the liberties they took in all the other films. (People are saying this a great deal less often since November of 2006. The latter Casino Royale is also an extremely faithful adaptation of Fleming, and, not incidentally - re the paragraph below - the Bond film that finally beats OHMSS for running time.)

I personally like OHMSS a great deal, but I agree that its two hours and twenty minutes do take a certain patient mindset ... and it's not necessarily the mindset needed to watch other Bond films, especially not the two flash-laden ones that bookend it.

This is the Bond sleeper film; very little in the way of gadgetry, and not really much in the way of spectacle.

« "Theresa was a saint. My name is Tracy."

That said, it delivers quietly; Lazenby's taciturn Bond gets closer to Fleming's than any others, the stunts and action sequences in this film are some of the few that don't get old to me after many watchings, and Teresa di Vicenzo is possibly the most interesting female role in a Bond film ever.

This film is pretty high on the Gentleman Spy scale, but most of that is in Lazenby's bearing; this Bond wears a suit of clothes better than any until Brosnan (as befits a gent who was previously a model). But the Blunt Instrument portion is always lurking beneath the surface. Character note: A brutal fistfight - and all the fistfights in this film are pretty rough - which completely smashes a hotel room; Bond dusts himself off, exits calmly, and doesn't forget to snag a toast point full of caviar on the way out. Reads Playboy while cracking a safe. Wears nothing under his kilt. Looks good in a kilt, period.

The short answer is that if you like the way Bond is written in this film - style on the surface, tension lurking beneath - then you need to go read some Fleming books, because this is Fleming's Bond, and that includes some of the more wooden aspects of Lazenby's style. (And go see the 2006 Casino Royale, which captures that same tension.) If you don't like this, then stick with the other films.

Minor Observations: If you haven't read the books, you may not be aware that the casino in the early sequences of this film is meant to be Royale-les-Eaux, the location in Casino Royale ... and that Bond is there because he returns there once a year to visit Vesper Lynd's grave. Bond had planned to marry Vesper - a neat little bit of foreshadowing which does not get conveyed to the film.

The Bond crest and motto is not an invention of the screenwriters, but is, like almost everything else here, straight Fleming.

The world is not enough. »

Some people love the use of "We Have All the Time in the World." I do not. Nor do I like the romantic montage in the middle of the film; one of the film's two missteps. (The other is that Bond's flirtation with Blofeld's "angels of death," as Sir Hilary, goes on far too long. It's the only point in the film I find myself wanting to shout "Get on with it!")

If you're wondering what the man who dubbed both Goldfinger and Tiger Tanaka looks like, you can see Robert Rietty briefly in this film as the Chef de Jeu, one of the casino staff at the baccarat table (I don't know which one, though). Speaking of dubbing, Gabrielle Ferzetti (Draco) is dubbed by David de Keyser, and George Baker, who plays Sir Hillary, dubs Lazenby during the parts where Lazenby is pretending to be him.

Roger Moore was either offered the part of the new Bond or was in serious consideration for it, depending on who you believe, but either way, he was too well-known and/or contractually-obligated as The Saint to appear. Timothy Dalton was also either asked or discussed, but he was considered too young for the part (which, at age 25, he probably was).

Diana Rigg received over 50,000 pounds salary for the film - more than twice what Lazenby was paid.

Of course you know that one of the "angels" is Joanna Lumley. The woman who plays Ruby, Angela Scoular, appeared in the 1966 Casino Royale (didn't everybody?) as Buttercup.

The Piz Gloria location is real, as seen in the exterior shots and many of the interiors. It was being built as a restaurant on one of the peaks of the Schiltorn range in the Swiss Alps. It was unfinished at the time; Eon ponied up cash to finish the work and add some perks, such as a mechanism to rotate the restaurant and an actual helipad installation, in return for access. The $60,000 they spent on the construction work was considerably less than another Ken Adam set would have cost them. The restaurant still exists today.

This marks the first use of the brilliant ski photography from a gent named Willy Bogner, who not only developed techniques for hand-held camera mounts that could be used by a skier, but was adept enough (a former Olympic downhill racer) to be able to ski backwards while filming one of the chase sequences.

There are at least thirty minutes of extant footage floating around somewhere that were cut before release, including a long chase sequence on foot after the scene in the College of Arms.

Lazenby's refusal to do another film (he announced this midway through shooting) can only be summarized by director Peter Hunt's comment: "He had very bad advice."

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