Question about the end of OHMSS

Slowpoke

Sorry if this topic has been addressed before, but I did not see it in search & it is a bit too specific for Google to answer.


At the end of OHMSS Bond and Blofield are engaged in a bobsled fight which ends with Blofield being trapped, and presumably knocked out, by a low-hanging tree branch. Shortly after, Bond escapes from the runaway bobsled before it flies off a ledge, and is rescued by a very affectionate Saint Bernard who he instructs to bring him expensive bourbon.

Bond cannot be more than a few hundred feet from Blofield at this point and he's clearly in good enough shape to apprehend him since he is joking around with a dog, so how is it that Blofield escapes? It's pretty much implied that he is captured up until the point that he drives by in the car at the end that kills Bond's wife.

I thought it was a fantastic movie but this was a large oversight. Is it explained better in the novel? I haven't read the books but to my understanding OHMSS follows the novel closely. Did they just edit out the scene where he escapes to make the ending more surprising? I must have closure!

thesecretagent

It's been a long time since I read OHMSS, and most of the novels have sort of merged into one so I'm not entirely sure. I'm certainly not happy by the end of the film version, it really feels like they forgot to tie up the loose ends, or finished filming and had the idea of adding on at the end. It's a good Bond film and could have done with a tidier ending IMO.

Fatsnbul

Maybe Bond thought Blofeld was dead. Went off with the dog to get authorities and when they came back, Blofeld was gone. (movie explanation only)

I have read the book twice but can't remember the official explanation.

Dalkowski110

Well, someone finally did it. Congratulations, dear sir (apologies if ma'am), for you've just identified what my beef with OHMSS is. With all the unfair press that Lazenby got up until the 1980's and 1990's and conversely all the re-examining of the film and concluding it was in fact one of the best Bond films, I think a few parts of the film itself common to any Bond film were overlooked. For example, one of the things I hear often as a criticism/plot hole in GF (one of the true greats) is that the prop guys never really determined the weight of the gold. Although Oddjob would, for example, be able to sustain a gold bar thrown at him simply because he's a trademark Bond Villain Henchman, I've often seen the question: "but how would the normal, human Bond throw the gold bar as if it were a tennis ball in the first place?" Also abounding are the criticisms of the suspensions of the Lincoln Continental (due to the weight of the gold) and Ford Falcon Ranchero (due to the weight of the crushed Lincoln Continental) being destroyed before they moved an inch. If such comparatively minor details as these get ragged on, why did we never get a satisfactory explanation of why Blofeld, who HAD to have been in worse shape than Bond (he's wearing a neck brace...) AND was probably only several hundred feet away, ISN'T captured? Irma Bunt could not possibly have known where he'd crash, so you can scratch her as well.

Although the ending to OHMSS is generally seen as coming close to perfection, may I suggest a change? Why not simply have Bond initially knocked out, do search of the area, and Blofeld is nowhere to be found? And then during the famous driveby scene, the driver of the Mercedes-Benz 600 is Irma Bunt. In the back seat? Blofeld, with no neck brace (i.e. implying no injury), laughing sadistically as he's about to gun down Tracy (which he does). The reason this changes the emotional impact, for me, is because Irma Bunt never appears in the series again. Yet, you the viewer wanted HER to be killed. It may have been Blofeld's plan, but she pulled the trigger. Further, Blofeld, had he been able to shoulder an M16, would almost certainly have done the shooting himself. He hates Bond and would get tremendous personal satisfaction out of killing Tracy himself; certainly moreso than getting a replaceable henchwoman to do so. It would also cement the audience's hatred of Blofeld, too. Again, this is not an overt criticism of OHMSS. I really liked the film. I just think it would've been quite a bit more powerful had we seen this instead of what we did indeed see.

Granted, there was one guy whom I thought was miscast, but it's probably only because of the films I watched and grew up on before OHMSS. I was a big fan of Kojak when they re-ran that series, in which Telly Savalas played a street-smart, two-fisted cop. Most of the other films I'd Telly Savalas in...Battle of the Bulge, The Dirty Dozen, some of his TV roles (not counting The Greatest Story Ever Told, although I thought a LOT of actors were miscast in that film, most egregiously John Wayne as a Roman Centurion)...Savalas basically played a two-fisted brawler (transition from two-fisted brawler to two-fisted street-smart cop being pretty believable). Upon seeing OHMSS, he gave me the impression that he really tried, and I'll give him an A+ for effort (i.e. there weren't any moments in the film where I thought he'd answer the phone with "Who loves ya, baby?"), but he just seemed out of character for me. Granted, it didn't wreck the film (far from it), nor was he anywhere near as bad as Charles Gray, but he just personally didn't work for me. Anyway, I'm starting to go off-topic.

chrisno1

Further to the above post. Given that Irma Bunt featured in only 2 Bond novels, and YOLT had already been adapted, it would have made perfect sense for Bunt to have been killed in the exploding car at the stock car rally. Her reappearance at the finale is unnecessary. It isn't clear how she escaped from Piz Gloria (007 only chases after Blofeld). Perhaps she was never there. I agree Blofeld should definately be Tracy's killer, not just the driver.
To answer the original question, in the novel Bond never catches up with Blofeld. The grenade blows up the track infront of his sled and he is flung over the ridge of the bob-run and passes out. In the novel Irma Bunt is driving the car, although it isn't clear how she escaped from Piz Gloria then either.

Napoleon Plural

Fair point, and Irma Bunt doesn't play gooseberry when Blofeld is charming Tracy and quoting poetry at her, where is she then?

In the book Blofeld escapes by throwing a handgrenade at Bond's bob sleigh, in the film this only derails the chase momentarily but in the book, I can't recall exactly but the villain makes his escape at the other end.

I thought maybe Blofeld or Bunt was gunning for Bond at the end, but got Tracy instead. The pair are in the finale of the book, so may as well put them in at the end. Death of Bunt in stock car race makes things a bit too symetrical (you got my bird, I'll get yours!).

As for Savalas, if his voice is the main problem, he'd have been better in the foreign films, where he would be dubbed...

Higgins

fair point, but I don't consider it to be a logic flaw.

Have you ever tried to walk uphill on ice?
Have you tried to walk some distance thru 50cm. deep snow?

These would have been the alternatives for Bond to get back to Blofeld. In the meantime, one camn safely assume, that Blofeld has escaped or joined with some of his henchmen.

We also have to encounter, that Bond was pretty exhausted by the grenade explosion and all the fights before.

As a general remark: Movie plots are not logic! If it would have been logical, Blofeld may have kept Campbell alife and killed Bond instead.

These dramatic flaws don't keep me away from enjoying Bond movies!

Bleuville

Regarding Telly Savalas playing Blofeld and Kojak.

OHMSS was 1969 and Kojak came along in the 1970s afterwards, so the line "Who loves ya baby" hadn't been written yet ! It's only with hindsight that people make these associations.

Bleuville. - "He's branched off!"

Dalkowski110

" Regarding Telly Savalas playing Blofeld and Kojak.

OHMSS was 1969 and Kojak came along in the 1970s afterwards, so the line "Who loves ya baby" hadn't been written yet ! It's only with hindsight that people make these associations."

Sort of. I wasn't being literal. Whilst the line hadn't been written yet, many others in Savalas' two-fisted, completely unsophisticated style HAD been written. For example, in The Dirty Dozen, which was in existence, my father (whose opinion of Savalas as Blofeld is even lower than mine) told me that when he saw Savalas as Blofeld in the theater, he was waiting for him to deliver any number of unprintable lines. Or from the existing Battle of the Bulge, perhaps his trademark line from that film: "shut up you idiot!" delivered in a full Bronx accent (the undertones of which you CAN hear each time Savalas laughs).

To be honest, if they'd dubbed another actor's voice over Savalas', especially each time he laughed, I would have a lot fewer problems with him than I do.

Thunderpussy

One of the minor points I liked about T Savallas, was his Smoking in OHMSS. He holds the cigatette by the tips of his fingers rather like a Pointer or Pen. IMNO it adds to the character of his Bolfeld as he's different from other people and has his own rules.
I also like his voice and just as I can accept Sean Connery as a Russian Sub Commander, I have no problem with his accent. Although I do accept It might be annoying to some Americans, who can pick out the small diffrences from various areas.

Blood_Stone

Book version: Blofeld uses a grenade to distract Bond and make his escape.

Movie version: Bond probably assumed Blofeld was dead.