On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Dovy
Posts: 206MI6 Agent
Having never seen On Her Majesty's Secret Service before I am rather pleased with George Lazenby's role as Bond, sort of like Sean Connery without the the rough edges. I would have enjoyed him continuing the role. The escape scenes and the ski scenes are amazing. In general one can only be surprised at the level of stamina that James Bond maintains in all of this. He never gets worn out from constantly escaping, beating up his enemies, requiring so much physical strength, and yet he always still has extra stamina leftover for his romantic scenes. No real anxiety, fear, exhaustion, etc. Maybe later portrayals will show Bond to be less a superhuman character in that regard..........
I guess it was more than fortunate that not only he and Tracey are accomplished alpine skiers, but so are Blofeld and all his men - all equally with endless stamina to ski around the Alps.
Finally, I don't quite understand the involvement with Tracey, since I would think that Bond getting involved with the daughter of a leading mobster would expose MI6 to endless problems, not to mention that Bond himself would then be the son-in-law of a major international criminal. And yet M and Q attended the wedding. Last but not least, how did the Fraulein survive the exploded car and Blofeld survive being caught in the tree? I guess we'll never know!
Comments
Finally, I don't quite understand the involvement with Tracey, since I would think that Bond getting involved with the daughter of a leading mobster would expose MI6 to endless problems, not to mention that Bond himself would then be the son-in-law of a major international criminal. And yet M and Q attended the wedding. Last but not least, how did the Fraulein survive the exploded car and Blofeld survive being caught in the tree? I guess we'll never know!
It's Bond's personal life after all, the involvement of it when it comes to MI6 would be unlikely.
Bond also promised to retire from the service once he's married to Tracy, so the involvement of Unione Corse to MI6 would be highly unlikely.
M and Q attended the wedding because again, they're closest to Bond's life, and it might be the last time that they could be with Bond, because again, he's going to retire once he's married, it's like a wedding and a bachelor's party all in one.
Irma Bunt was at the backseat when that happened, so there's a high possibilty that Bunt safely escaped from the car and only her men got killed.
For Blofeld, it's Bond's fault though that he didn't checked if Blofeld's still alive or really dead, because there's a subtle hint in that tree stuck scene that Blofeld's still alive, he's not in the most severe situation, and for sure, there were other SPECTRE agents out there who might've helped him get escaped with that tree.
I’m jealous. I wish I can watch OHMSS for the first time again. My first time was as a 9-year old with the notoriously butchered version broadcast by ABC in the mid-70’s, which left me more confused than anything. I finally watched the original movie at 17 when my friend loaned me her brother’s VHS that he copied from cable. This was inbetween the releases of FYEO and OP and WOW, OHMSS was such a marvelous treat and a revelation, like an alternate reality from the Connery canon. The next time I felt that way with a Bond movie, was with TLD and then again with GE.
I was 11 years old when I saw OHMSS on its initial release in a movie theater (I can only imagine the horror of seeing the butchered version on ABC TV). At the time . I enjoyed the film but was still in the throws of being aggrieved and mortally disappointed of Connery leaving the role.
As an adult I have developed a much better appreciation for OHMSS, especially after watching the remastered / restored Blu Ray edition on my 75" HD TV with 5.1 Surround Sound system. I still don't particularly care for Lazenby. He looks like Bond and while his performance has its moments, to me he's just faking his way through it. That being said, I don't know if OHMSS would been a good fit for Connery's version of Bond but it would have been interesting as to what that film would have been like with Connery. I'd like to think that Connery was a fine enough actor to pull it off and adapt it to his Bond persona. When I try to imagine Connery in OHMSS, I use his performance in Hitchcock's "Marnie" as the template for what his performance might have been like in OHMSS.