Could Lazenby have been the Greatest 007?

AlphaOmegaSin

If he had stayed on and completed his Seven Film Contract, do you think he could of been the greatest?

Distorted Humor

Quick answer - No

I could see "Dalton with more movies" or "PB with better scripts" or "give DC more time" but Lazenby was given one of the best bond scripts and ruined the film.

Blackleiter

Who knows - perhaps if all of the scripts were as good as OHMSS. But you have to ask yourself - how likely is that???

Moore Than

While George Lazenby was good with the physical stuff he was too inexperienced an actor. No doubt he would have improved in subsequent films. But it wasn't just his lack of acting experience, he also lacked charisma and screen presence. I don't believe he would have been popular enough to last more than a couple of films.

Nick37

Got to agree with the others here. I've said before, he nails the final scene of OHMSS, but most of the rest of his performance is just adequate, mainly due to inexperience. Some of his line readings sound just like that. Readings. He'd have been a good Bond, but even with seven films, he'd never have been out of Connery's shadow.

And let's be really honest, James Bond films are not designed to be acting showcases, certainly not the Connery-Moore's, save for OHMSS, so while Lazenby would have gotten more comfortable in the role, it's not Shakespeare, and not something that's likely going to develop you as an actor. Those that have played the role and given it deep emotional depth (Dalton, Brosnan, and Craig) were already established actors at the time, especially Dalton, who was Shakespeare-trained, so they didn't need to increase their experience playing the role, they already had it.

Not trying to knock Connery, but at the time he played the role, it was more about Bond being cool and the man everyone wanted or wanted to be, and not about the man and the poison his profession brought to his personal life. That heavily went out the window in the Moore years, and was only in spits and spurts in the Brosnan years.

davidelliott101

I think he would have grown into the part and yes, would have been one of the great Bond actors. I think for a guy with "no acting experience" he did a great job and there is a reason OHMSS ranks high on peoples 007 best of lists.

Thunderpussy

As others have said I too think He would of grown in the role. He
was good at all the physical stuff.

ausbondfan

I mentioned just a couple days ago that George would of gone all the way to 83 I believe as Bond if he took the 7 film deal. I also said he probably would of been okay to do A View To A Kill and maybe even The Living Daylights and License To Kill.

If he had done OHMSS and the 7 others I could see him as being similar to Roger Moore in terms of stature (Always ranked second best but appreciated nonetheless)

He definitely would of grown as an Actor. I could see him doing Kung Fu films and things like that between the James Bond movies and ultimately becoming a good actor. Not that the role of James Bond needs to be played by a good actor.

George isn't given enough credit though for how good he was on OHMSS. He was very green yes but the guy had done a TV Commercial and that's it. For anyone that's acted you know your first time is very nerve racking and stressful. Most start as an Extra and work their way up. He was given a major role in a major motion picture replacing arguably one of the UK's greatest actors of all time. He did very well with his limited acting experience.

Long story short do I think he could of been the greatest? No. I think people are always going to be biased towards Connery because he was the first. Could he of been viewed as great? I think so, yes.

KKwheelchair

Lazenby wasn't that good he was the bad thing about OHMSS otherwise it was a good movie i mean imagine how terrible DAF would have been with him.

Absolutely_Cart

Lazenby was a great highly underrated Bond. At least for OHMSS. That movie required a Bond that respects women and isn't too much of a tough guy to get excited at the sight of dog wanting to play with him.

I don't think he ever would've been the greatest 007, but if he were given 3-4 more films, took his job seriously and developed his character, he may have been top 3 material.

Virgil37

Lazenby was exactly the physical type they were looking for. Cary Grant looks, athletic...But that's just about it. Had the James Bond character been a 30 second commercial, he would have been the best. But these are two hour movies, and even if the action is important, the delivery is absolutely key, and he was nowehere near Connery (or anyone).

It isn't a bad performance, just unbalanced. You can tell in some scenes he was really focused and into it, in others he was probably thinking who was he going to score with that night. Not a professional actor. He didn't play a character, he thought he was James Bond, and of course he wasn't. He was an inmature 29 year old guy with a lot of growing up to do, as he himself said years later. His problems with the rest of the Bond team prove it. He couldn't have lasted more than maybe another picture.

So the answer is no, he couldn't have been the greatest. The producers made the right choice by casting Moore. Experienced, well known, professional, good looking. Just perfect.

Absolutely_Cart

Great post, Virgil. I agree.

I noticed that Lazenby's performance was imbalanced, and it felt like it was shot on a scene by scene basis. Sometimes he wanted to copy Connery. Sometimes he wanted to be the charmer. Sometimes he just wasn't into it.

Lazenby was a playboy. He didn't want to be Bond out of any artistic merit. He wanted to be Bond purely to help get him laid. He said in the Eon-2012 interview that he took a date to see Dr. No, but then she wasn't really into him. He said if he were James Bond, he would'dve got the girl. So, I agree. Young, immature. He was a man with lots of problems. He had a bit of an identity crisis when the counter-culture became popular. In his later life, he became an abusive alcoholic.

Connery had an ego and he was tough to work with as well, but Moore (and the following actors) all seemed mature and easy to work with as well.

I still thought he brought a lot to the table that other Bonds didn't. Perhaps one movie was good enough.

Lazenby isn't the worst Bond. He's the least great Bond.

The Domino Effect

The only reason that OHMSS doesn't rank amongst my favourite Bond films is because of Lazenby. Yes, he might have got better in the following films, but my gut is that he wouldn't have.

Absolutely_Cart

The Domino Effect wrote:

The only reason that OHMSS doesn't rank amongst my favourite Bond films is because of Lazenby. Yes, he might have got better in the following films, but my gut is that he wouldn't have.

That sentiment is quite common. I personally don't get it, as I liked Lazenby's acting. It was a far cry from DN/FRWL/GF, but Connery's performance in YOLT was so flat, structured and predictable, having a new actor (even if he wasn't as experienced) was a good thing.

It's kind of like the 1992 American election. I think Clinton won because he really wanted badly enough, whereas Bush Sr. ran for re-election because he was supposed to. What made Lazenby better than Connery, at that moment, was the hunger. He wanted it more.

I don't think Lazenby would've developed either. He was a one time thing.

Blackleiter

Absolutely_Cart wrote:

Connery's performance in YOLT was so flat, structured and predictable, having a new actor (even if he wasn't as experienced) was a good thing.

Even if that was true, and I don't believe it is, I'd take Connery over Lazenby any time. Call me old and out-of-touch, but I don't think Connery was quite done as Bond by the time OHMSS was made, and I believe he would have done an outstanding job.

AlphaOmegaSin

I think Connery would have done OHMSS if he read the Script, but we will never know

Absolutely_Cart

Perhaps his performance in YOLT had to do with Japan itself.

Japan was a dense country with lots of people. And there were thousands of fans who had never seen him before rushing up to get his autograph while he was trying to film a movie. Connery felt smothered, and maybe in the open space of the swiss alps, he would've fared better.

Number24

Lazenby had the looks, physicality andscreen presens to play Bond . The fact that he managed to deliver a first performance like OHMSS shows us that he had enough raw talent to develop into a more than good enough actor to play Bond for several movies.

Moore Than

Absolutely_Cart wrote:

It was a far cry from DN/FRWL/GF, but Connery's performance in YOLT was so flat, structured and predictable, having a new actor (even if he wasn't as experienced) was a good thing.

I don't see Sean Connery pulling it off in 1969, he was pretty much finished with Bond by then. However, if On Her Majesty's Secret Service had been filmed as originally scheduled in 1965 then Connery would have pulled it off convincingly, IMO.

As for George Lazenby, with the right direction and attitude he almost certainly would have improved, but not anywhere near to the extent that he would have been generally regarded as the "Greatest 007". Regardless, he chose to move on and that paved the way for Roger Moore. So, I can thank him for that.

Blackleiter

Moore Than wrote:

Regardless, he chose to move on and that paved the way for Roger Moore. So, I can thank him for that.

Just another reason I wish he had stayed on. :007)

Virgil37

Absolutely_Cart wrote:

It was a far cry from DN/FRWL/GF, but Connery's performance in YOLT was so flat, structured and predictable, having a new actor (even if he wasn't as experienced) was a good thing.

I agree with you. Also, the shape the actor is in is very important. Just by looking athletic conveys a more dynamic Bond. It's no coincidence that the best rated movies are the ones that have an actor in extremely good shape: DR,FRWL,GF,OHMSS,GE,CR.

By 1966, Connery was just mentally out of it and it shows.

Virgil37

Absolutely_Cart wrote:

Perhaps his performance in YOLT had to do with Japan itself.

Japan was a dense country with lots of people. And there were thousands of fans who had never seen him before rushing up to get his autograph while he was trying to film a movie. Connery felt smothered, and maybe in the open space of the swiss alps, he would've fared better.

What a great point! Exactly the opposite of Lazenby! he would have felt more at ease filming in a big city than isolated in a mountain. He probably made a fool of himself by trying to score with all the actresses. Very method acting, but very stressing in a film set I guess.

Absolutely_Cart

Yeah. Lazenby might have soaked up all that fanfare like a sponge. At the same time, Lazenby wasn't famous yet so there'd be no issue to begin with.

Gassy Man

Lazenby would have been the second best Bond (after Connery), perhaps up to Daniel Craig's performances. Not only would he have grown in the role, but the filmmakers would have learned how to write for him.

His performance in On Her Majesty's Secret Service is effective. He is not Connery, which was his problem. He is physical in a different way, cocky in a different way, humorous in a different way, romantic in a different way, and convincing in a different way. But he is as masculine and as believable as Bond -- had Lazenby originated the role, I'm not sure people would have been as bothered. But he had to follow the man who not only originated the film role, but made it personally tailored.

People make a big deal about how Lazenby's acting isn't very good. Really? Pay attention to this body language, his facial expressions, his gestures -- he says as much as Connery, and a lot more than Craig, but in his own way. Where it often breaks down is in the dubbing. I've always thought that On Her Majesty's Secret Service suffers because so much of it sounds like the dialogue was badly dubbed, and I'm not just talking about the Hillary Bray and Draco moments. The herky-jerky editing in the action sequences, often touted, just seem bizarre to me. The combination gives the film a slightly half-baked quality. But watch when the trickery is not used and the scenes are quiet -- at the gaming table, seducing Tracy, meeting Blofeld, interrogating Ruby, proposing in the barn -- Lazenby is wonderfully effective. I wish he'd done those other Bonds.

Roger Moore took the films in a comic direction. I don't think that would have worked as well for Lazenby, which meant the Bonds probably would have gone the other route. Meaner, more brutal. That would have fit Lazenby well.

chrisisall

Gassy Man wrote:

Roger Moore took the films in a comic direction. I don't think that would have worked as well for Lazenby, which meant the Bonds probably would have gone the other route. Meaner, more brutal. That would have fit Lazenby well.

And it might have killed the franchise. The Seventies were filled with raw s**t, but Bond could not compete with Godfather, Vanishing Point, Rollerball, etc. Bond *HAD* to go lite to survive IMO.

Gassy Man

We, yes and no. The early 70s featured a lot of programming on both sides of the pond that was harder hitting, arguably, than what followed in the later 70s and the 80s. Bond could have grown in that direction. What happened in the 70s was the studio system went away, and films became more independent and about the individual director rather than the studio. The lush, big budget films of the 1950s and 1960s gave way to smaller, more personalized films that often trafficked in violence and nudity -- two things that TV couldn't quite show -- in order to attract audiences. The camp of the 60s was largely over. The irony is that the Bond films with Moore essentially started doing what the parodies of the Connery Bonds had done in the previous era, which is rely on broad comedy to entertain. But TV shows like Callan and The Sweeney and films like Get Carter and The French Connection had already shown a market for tough, hard-edged thrillers. Of course, by the later 70s, even broader comedy was in. This was the era of T and A, and car chase movies and the like, which would have suited Moore very well. But I think Bonds under Lazenby would have pushed the edges more than the Connery ones -- we probably would have seen some nudity and more graphic violence, as the Bond films grew along with their audience. That might have evolved to the lighter films by the 1980s, though.

Moore Than

Gassy Man wrote:

Roger Moore took the films in a comic direction. I don't think that would have worked as well for Lazenby, which meant the Bonds probably would have gone the other route. Meaner, more brutal. That would have fit Lazenby well.

United Artists/Eon took the films in a comic direction after the perceived failure of On Her Majesty's Secret Service at the box office. The tone was set in Diamonds Are Forever, more humour, more action set pieces. The films were going in that direction regardless of lead actor, but you can certainly argue about the degree.

Virgil37

Gassy Man wrote:

But I think Bonds under Lazenby would have pushed the edges more than the Connery ones -- we probably would have seen some nudity and more graphic violence, as the Bond films grew along with their audience.  That might have evolved to the lighter films by the 1980s, though.

You're probably right. With Lazenby they would have gone down that route. Like Connery, only more. That would have probably killed the series in the mid 70s. With Moore they could easily evolve into more fantasy/action, lighter movies, which kept the franchise alive.

Absolutely_Cart

Connery himself opposed the technology/CGI direction the series was going in. But he did it begrudgingly.

Higgins

Cgi in the Connery age?

Have I been missing out something? ?:) ?:)

AlphaOmegaSin

I think your getting mixed up Cart ?:)