Bond as Sir Hilary Bray (OHMSS)
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Posts: 5MI6 Agent
Does anyone else find it a little farfetched that Bond wearing a hat, a coat and glasses would be a convincing enough disguise for Blofeld to fall for? What is the explanation? Surely Bond would never have met face to face with Blofeld if there was any risk in him being identified, and Blofeld would have to be quite foolish not to recognise his face beneath his new persona. That is, unless, Blofeld knew it was Bond the moment he met him and was just feigning ignorance.
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Wilde
I don't think this can be right because Blofeld introduces himself to Bond in YOLT, OHMSS begins with Bond having spent 2 years trying to track him down, and DAF begins with Bond seeking Blofeld to avenge the death of Tracy (whereas Bond wasn't particularly abhorred by Blofeld in YOLT). I think they must have been chronological (YOLT>OHMSS>DAF)
Well, they are chronological YOLT to OHMSS to DAF. I just don't care very much and ignore the discrepancies.
Wilde
In the novels 007 first meets Blofeld at Piz Gloria while Bond is pretending to be Sir Hilary and Blofeld attempting to be a count. They meet again in YOLT. The films, of course, have them meeting for the first time in YOLT and then (?) pretending not to recognise each other in OHMSS - perhaps because
(a) Blofeld has had plastic surgery (this is part of the book plot) - and there was a plan (quickly dropped) to have Bond doing the same partly to explain the change of actor
(b) Blofeld is so obsessed by his thirst for a title and respectability that he doesn't look too closely at the College of Arms representative, being more interested in what he can get out of him - and the weak disguise of glasses and pipe, mild-mannered demeanour, altered voice, etc were enough to fool him (though 007 isn't wearing his glasses when he meets Blofeld!)
(c) Bond has borrowed Clark Kent's glasses
(d) The film might have used some other method to gloss over the inconsistency but director Peter Hunt insisted on keeping it close to the novel even though YOLT hadn't been
He's every bit as sexy as the Bond character, but maybe that's because he's in a prison full of looney women. But he has a certain charm, humor and sophistication about him. And Lazenby pulls the look off quite well.
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If we carry this line of thinking over to OHMSS, perhaps Blofeld does, indeed, fall for the disguise.
But, there is another possibility, if an even more unlikely one. Let's assume Blofeld knows it's Bond right from the beginning in OHMSS. What he doesn't know is Bond's game. So he plays along with it. Blofeld doesn't actually make a move until after Shaun Campbell is caught and presumably tells him everything about the mission. Only after does Blofeld reveal that he knows Bond isn't Bray, and at this point he let's Bond know that his efforts have been for not because the authorities are going to give in to his extortion because they have no choice.
If this is the case, then the mistake is on Bond's part in thinking he might be able to fool Blofeld. But given that he is essentially operating on his own to begin with and determined to get Blofeld, one could argue that to Bond, it was a risky but reasonable gambit on his part. That it backfires feeds right into the plot of the movie and isn't the first error that Bond makes, similarly to Bond in CR.
But that would make him no better than Blofeld... lol
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I personally never liked that idea and it was fluffed when Roger Moore visited Theresa's grave and Felix discussing Bond's marriage in License to Kill. I tend to be grateful it was. I do like the continuity.
About the YOLT and OHMSS controversy, the way I can justify it is that Blofeld saw Bond once, two years before OHMSS. (In Universe) It was quite cavalier of Bond but he took the chance that Blofeld wouldn't instantly remember him after two whole years and in this context. If you met someone one time, and two years passed, and you see the person again, are you always going to remember? Or maybe you'd suspect it but also rationalize to yourself you could be wrong?
Yes, I think that this is the best explanation yet.
Been watching CR'67?
I tend to rationalise it that Blofeld wouldn't know until after he has met Bond for the first time, after which he knows it's Bond but is waiting to see what Bond will do. After all, he knows Bond is incommunicado, and can hardly leave his room which in any event has been bugged, so he poses a containable threat. But he does know who Bond is: "It takes more than a few props to turn 007 into a Herald".