Grade: B-
Synopsis: Secret agent James Bond (George Lazenby) falls for a mobster’s daughter while tracking down the elusive Blofeld (Telly Savalas) in the Swiss Alps.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is the sixth, and often overlooked, entry in the long-running James Bond franchise. It also marks the sole appearance by George Lazenby as Bond after the paparazzi harassment during the filming of You Only Live Twice (1967) led previous star Sean Connery to resign the role.
After deviating almost entirely from the source novel for the series’ prior installment, this film marked one of the closest adaptations of an Ian Fleming novel to date, so much so that it introduced a continuity problem as Bond and chief baddie Blofeld don’t recognize each other, despite having met face-to-face in the previous film.
Continuity problems aside, the adherence to the novel makes this the most adult Bond film to date, combining thriller, mystery, and even romance elements to tell a solid story topped off with a surprising ending, albeit one that’s followed by a very ill-fitting music cue.
As for Lazenby, he’s okay, but at only 29-years old, just a bit too young. Watching the film now, you can’t help but think how perfect Clive Owen would be in the role. Opposite Lazenby, Diana Rigg is great as his love interest, though Telly Savalas doesn’t quite work as Blofeld. Savalas straddles the line between menacing gangster and comic-book super-villain, and as a result comes off flat. He’s the right actor, but director Peter Hunt should have shaped his performance more toward straight gangster.
That said, On Her Majesty’s Secret service is still an easy film to recommend. While some fans will undoubtedly miss the comic-book adventure, the film’s adult approach to its story more than makes up for it.
3 Responses on “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)”:
Jump to Review Form | Trackback URI
-
Ronald Payne said:
Grade: A+
GEORGE LAZENBY was one of the ‘greatest 007s’ in the history of the franchise. Indeed, he was the youngest actor to ever play Ian Fleming’s James Bond, but keep in mind, Bond himself, at one time or the other, was 28 as well. When Ian Fleming was that age, he was making his way to Moscow for Reuters to report on the ‘Stalinist-Moscow Trials’ that sent many ‘engineers, intellectuals, and anyone else who was perceived as an enemy to the Kremlin to Siberia for a long and ‘frosty’ extended unpaid vacation./ As for George Lazenby’s performance in ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,’ O.F. Snelling, the great British author and Ian Fleming-Bond 007 expert, thought George Lazenby “the second best Bond in the cinema, second to none, except the original, Sean Connery.”/ Indeed, O.F. Snelling, who was Head of the Rare Book Department at Sotheby’s in London and who helped Ian Fleming research the Bond short story, “The Property of a Lady,” thought George Lazenby a more perfect Bond 007 than either “Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton or Pierce Brosnan.’ /Snelling’s take on George Lazenby was that Mr. Lazenby “was actually more like Bond than any of the other actors, who portrayed the character, including Sean Connery. It was George Lazenby’s extraordinary “athletic ability (he could both fight and shoot, once being a trained sniper in the Australian army), was virile and attractive to many beautiful women, and could do everything Bond could do–with a sort of irresistable Errol Flynn aplomb–that convinced author Snelling that the producers, Harry Saltzman and Albert R. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli picked the right man, when they chose George Lazenby to portay James Bond./ Lazenby’s performance as “007″ stands up today./ O.F. Snelling was convinced—and he was a tough critic and loved cinema—that George Lazenby, if he hadn’t accepted the advice of his short-sighted business manager, “Ronin O’Rahilly,” and continued with the role, “would have given Sean Connery a run for his money, as the greatest James Bond in the cinema of all time.”/ Cary Grant, who was offered the role of James Bond 007 by his friend, Cubby Broccoli, (Grant was Broccoli’s best man at his wedding to wife, Dana in 1959)once said, “Any actor who follows Sean Connery in the role of 007 is entering deep and dangerous waters and does so at his own peril. I wouldn’t chance it, even for $2,000,000, now that Connery has played it.”/ George Lazenby “successfully played James Bond 007″ and his rating in the role rises with every passing year as new fans discover “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”/ It should not be forgotten that George Lazenby’s “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” was the highest grossing film in the UK for 1969-70 and grossed more worldwide than either Sean Connery’s rival Bond film “Never Say Never Again,” (1983) or Timothy Dalton’s last Bond film in the ‘Official Series,’ “Licence to Kill,” worldwide./ O.F. Snelling’s believed George Lazenby’s final scene in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” where Bond holds his just murdered bride, Tracy, in his arms, “one of the finest pieces of drama ever filmed in a Bond movie.”/ To O.F. Snelling, who knew real-life spies “Peter and Helen Kroeger,” who stole ‘nuclear submarine secrets’ from Her Majesty’s Royal Navy and sold them to the KGB and who had many close friends in MI6, “George Lazenby was the perfect embodiment of a British naval commando and counter-intelligence agent, which James Bond really is…”
-
bawiseconsulting said:
Grade: B+
Frank,
Would you mind if I posted this on my site? I know George Lazenby would love your review of “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.” As well as our readers. Thank you for sharing your ‘views.’Feel free to join us at http://rottentomatoes.com/vine/j/bawiseconsulting for daily articles.
Cheers!
Brenda -
Frank Showalter said:
Brenda,
Sure, just give a link back to your source.
