One thing that's definitely changed in this film: Bond's outfits, and not for the better. It was 1969, I guess. "But I don't wanna be a pirate!"
My Year of Bonds, Vol. 6:
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
July 19, 2010
Two in one week? What is the world coming to?
Many people probably think of On Her Majesty's Secret Service as "the one starring George Lazenby" - or anyway I did. The Netflix sleeve says that "many consider [it] to be the finest Bond film ever made," although if this were Wikipedia a big "Who?" would appear in bracketed superscript after the first word. It's certainly a very interesting film when watching the series in order - released in December 1969, a full two and a half years after You Only Live Twice, OHMSS is very different from its predecessors, and it's not just the presence of Lazenby. Bond himself seems to have changed, though how much of that is Lazenby's performance as opposed to the script is something I'll try to figure out over the course of this review. The film just looks more modern. It lacks a title song (the last film in the series to do so, however). It's just... different. Is different good? Read on.
The film opens with a rather odd sequence in which Q is telling M that the next big thing in spy technology is miniaturization, and describes how a piece of "radioactive lint" could be placed on an enemy and used to determine their whereabouts. M comments that he's just interested in Bond's whereabouts. Why did this scene - which has nothing to do with anything - make the cut? Two theories here. One, showing familiar cast members before revealing the new Bond could have been intended as a sort of grounding for the audience. Two, perhaps the director just felt a need to give Q something to do, since he doesn't provide Bond with any gadgets in this movie.
Bond turns out to be in Portugal, where he rescues a woman from drowning, I think. Some guys (it's never made clear who) jump him on the beach and he of course beats them all up. When the woman drives Bond's car back to the road, hops in her own car and takes off - presumably rather than waiting around for sex - Lazenby smirks, "This never happened to the other fellow," and looks directly at the camera just before we fade to titles. The producers apparently toyed with writing in a plot point where Bond undergoes facial reconstructive surgery because his identity was too well known to SPECTRE, then opted against calling too much attention to it. Yet before the opening titles we get a reference to it! As if that weren't enough, said titles incorporate footage from previous Bond films (none featuring Connery, but we see Honey Ryder, Dr. No, Domino, and Goldfinger, among others). The producers were apparently terrified that the audience would think this was some sort of unrelated spy movie if they didn't provide frequent reminders early on.
One thing that's definitely changed in this film: Bond's outfits, and not for the
better. It was 1969, I guess. "But I don't wanna be a pirate!"
Bond quickly gets into the thick of things, as he saves the same woman - Tracy - from a debt at the baccarat table. In turn, she invites him up to her room. When he arrives, he is attacked by a thug. Tracy turns out to be waiting in his room instead; eventually they have sex, which the thug overhears. The next day, Bond is forced into a car and driven to the home of Marc-Ange Draco, an industrialist and crime boss who also happens to be Tracy's father. Draco tells the story with a wistful look in his eye and with a sudden music cue, and then asks Bond if he would consider marrying Tracy for a million pounds in gold. It's all curiously abrupt. Bond states he has "a bachelor's taste for freedom," which is an entertaining understatement. However, it occurs to Bond that Draco might be able to help procure information on Blofeld.
But as soon as Bond returns to London, M tells him, "You're off the case!" Bond fumes and tenders his resignation, which Moneypenny transforms into a letter merely requesting two weeks' leave. No one calls anyone a "loose cannon," but otherwise it's right out of a Dirty Harry movie or the like. Bond heads off to Draco's birthday party, where Tracy is none too pleased to see him and immediately figures out that something is going on. She tells Draco that if he doesn't give Bond the info at stake, he'll never see her again. Draco does. Tracy runs off, feeling used, but Bond convinces her to give him a chance, and we go to a dating montage as though this were some sort of romantic comedy. At this point, the film is really setting this up to be a major relationship - and it is - and yet it's here that Bond goes to Switzerland to do some actual spy work and Tracy vanishes for a full hour of the film. Nearly half its running time and she's nowhere to be found!
In what was probably a really exciting sequence in 1969, Bond breaks into a law office and makes some photocopies of information involving Blofeld. Yeah. There is an "action sequence" of several minutes that involves nothing more than Bond breaking into an office and making copies. Copies that look like garbage. I'm sure in 1969 the ability to use a relatively portable photocopier was like magic, but yawn, you know? Bond uses said copies to convince M to put him back on the case. The letter involves Blofeld's attempt to claim the title "Comte de Bleuchamp."
James! Making copies! The Bondmeister! El Bonderino!
Jaaaaaaaames.
Bond arranges to pose as the heraldry expert Sir Hilary Bray to gain access to Blofeld's Swiss retreat, where he is apparently now the head of an allergy clinic. At this point we hit the middle of the film, in which nothing much happens for a good half hour or so. Bond-as-Bray arrives at the clinic, is hit on by the young female patients, and sleeps with two of them - apparently having forgotten that at this point he's basically engaged. We only jump back into actual action when Bond returns to the first girl's room and is caught by Irma Bunt, Blofeld's right-hand woman. (Alma noted that Bond would be a much better spy if he could ever keep it in his pants for five minutes.)
Blofeld and Bond had already met twice in the film with Bond still posing as Bray, but it's only here that they have a face-to-face meeting with Bond's identity out - and it's as though they never met before, despite meeting face to face in You Only Live Twice. (Also, somehow Blofeld didn't recognize Bond on sight even though they met in the last film and Bond's face was in all the papers.) The reason for this has to do with book order; the novels' "Blofeld Trilogy" are Thunderball, then On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and finally You Only Live Twice. So this really is their first meeting... even though it's not... why they didn't just make the damn films in order I'll never know. Blofeld doesn't introduce himself to Bond in this film as he did in You Only Live Twice, although perhaps he should have since he doesn't look or sound even remotely similar. (Well, he's still bald.) He describes his evil plan, which basically involves developing a virus that will make plants and animals infertile, causing global food shortages; the girls at the clinic aren't being treated for allergies but rather indoctrinated to spread the virus on Blofeld's command. Is it me or is this sort of weird? I mean, the plan in Thunderball is to steal nuclear bombs and threaten to blow up major cities unless a ransom is paid. The plan in You Only Live Twice is to use a spaceship to get the Americans and Russians to nuke each other. The plan in OMHSS is... use twelve hot twentysomethings to make some animals sick? I mean, I'm sure it would be a very devastating plan and all, but doesn't it just sound super lame in comparison?
"Who loves ya, baby?"
Blofeld puts Bond in the gear room for the gondola; Bond naturally escapes and skis off down the mountain. Blofeld (apparently an awesome skier even though he's typically looked barely capable of walking in previous movies) and his goons give chase. Bond eventually makes it to the village below, where through a quite ridiculous coincidence he runs into Tracy. They drive off with the henchmen in pursuit, eventually losing them in a stock car race. Bond and Tracy spend the night in a barn due to heavy snow, and ski off the next morning just ahead of Blofeld and crew. (No, seriously... by like two minutes. They couldn't have left any earlier?) In one of the grosser moments in Bond deadpan-after-someone's-death history, one of Blofeld's men falls into a snow clearing machine, which starts blowing red snow. Bond yells to Tracy, "He had lots of guts!" Ew.
Blofeld eventually triggers an avalanche and captures Tracy while Bond gets away. He returns to London, where the UN is going to give Blofeld what he wanted... amnesty for past crimes and the title of Comte de Bleuchamp. Now, I realize that "amnesty for past crimes" is in many respects priceless, but this is what Blofeld has been spending years on? He developed a virus, recruited girls, trained them to wipe out the world's crops and livestock... because he wanted to be a count? Blofeld was right when he said that Bond would be amused when he found out what the demands were this time. Anyway, M won't agree to a rescue mission for Tracy, so Bond calls in Draco, who helps him attack Blofeld's mountain fortress with helicopters. Draco rescues Tracy and blows the place up, with Bond and Blofeld escaping just in time to go on a bobsled chase down the mountain. (The film features bobsledding, skiing, curling and ice skating - it's almost like the Swiss were angling to get the Winter Olympics back, after last hosting them in 1948 at St. Moritz. "See! We love winter sports! See! We've got all the infrastructure and everything!" It didn't work; Switzerland still has yet to host another Winter Games.) Blofeld ends up caught in a tree, but if you think that means he's dead, give me a break.
So Bond and Tracy get married, after four dates and a significant time apart in which Bond had sex with two other women he met literally hours earlier. Romance! Bond gives Draco back his million pounds, and the couple drive off happily after Bond gives a tearful Moneypenny an "ah, well, what are ya gonna do?" look and tosses her his hat. In the car, Bond and Tracy start talking kids, and Tracy enthuses about how now she has a future, and you're crazy if you think this will end well. Blofeld and Bunt zip past, with Bunt putting a few bullets into the car - and one into Tracy's head. Bond is allowed to almost-cry over this for a minute or two, and then we go right to the credits (along with the now rather inappropriate-sounding Bond theme).
Moneypenny tearfully watches Bond leave, and then three minutes later Tracy's dead.
Alma and I had the same thought: hired gunmen sent by Moneypenny! But I guess
it was Blofeld or something.
So, is On Her Majesty's Secret Service the best Bond movie? Well, best one so far, at least? Perhaps. It drags at times, but the action sequences are probably the best since From Russia with Love's last two, even if the skiing features a lot of goofy rear projection. The concept of Bond getting married is fresh, and even though that plot can be awkward fitting with the rest of the film at times, Lazenby and Diana Rigg have good chemistry. Really, I was impressed with Lazenby overall; you hear all this talk about how he's the worst James Bond, and he didn't have much acting experience, but this led me to expect him to be a bad actor and he's really not. He doesn't quite have the charisma of Sean Connery, but then who does? He's also tasked with handling the biggest emotional moment of the series to this point - possibly the biggest at any point - and carries it off quite well, I thought. Things would have been in fine hands had he stayed, though of course Connery returned for the next film. As to my earlier question of how much the seeming difference in Bond is Lazenby versus the script, I think you can certainly chalk a lot of it up to him - while he's still dapper, he seems a bit more serious than Connery's Bond, in spite of the similar one-liners.
Overall, as I've said, the film is quite different from its predecessors. Both Bond and Blofeld seem quite different personality-wise from the last two films. People aren't as stupid in this movie; Blofeld makes a dumb decision putting Bond in a room from which he can escape, and Bond gets too sloppy when presented with multiple horny girls at the clinic, but those are probably the only two significant groaners - and while it's not like those are small things per se, they don't pervade the movie like some of the others. I'm not sure how I feel about the plot overall - the balance between the Tracy plot and the Blofeld plot, which in spite of their meeting near the end are pretty well separate, is not always struck terribly well; Bond and Tracy's romance is sort of just assumed, though Lazenby and Rigg do play it well; an awful lot of time is spent on Blofeld's plot even though it never really feels all that menacing - but I certainly spent far less time grousing about how stupid the movie was, and given that this is the longest Bond movie, that's a good thing. It was also interesting to see the darker tone - given what I've heard about Moore, this will probably be the darkest Bond film pre-Dalton - and in some respects the more serious and subdued Lazenby was not only good in the film but perhaps better than Connery could have been without fundamentally altering his existing interpretation of the character. One does have a hard time imagining Connery's Bond in deep-cover work. (Although the two seduction scenes at the clinic smack much more of Connery's Bond than Lazenby's and feel somewhat out of place in this film.)
The best Bond movie? I'd be surprised. The most interesting Bond movie, taking into account everything else about it and its preceding films? I might just go with that. At least so far. Of course, we've got 16 more to come.