This review of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) is part of a wider rewatch of the James Bond series to mark its 60th anniversary. 007 has always been my favourite movie franchise, and I wanted to see where each film ranks within the series. Please check out the main blog post for my rankings of this and the other twenty-four official films and links to the movie reviews for the rest of the franchise.
Long Review and Film Summary
OHMSS is our first and only Bond film with George Lazenby as 007, and it’s a very different film from the others. I’ve only seen bits of it in the past. Unfortunately, I paused it several times, and only finished it after three days, so not the best review already. The film starts with a woman (who we will find out is Tracy) walking into the sea to try and kill herself, and this never comes up again for some reason. Bond gets into a fight scene with some goons who we assume are after her. The fighting is jarringly edited, as most of the fight scenes in this film are. I’m not a fan; it takes away from the acting and is hard to watch. During a casino game, Tracy (played by Diana Rigg) loses and can’t pay, so Bond steps in to cover the bill. She invites him to her hotel room, where he is attacked once again. After returning to his room, he finds Tracy who says “Think of me as a woman you just bought” which is a bit problematic but we’ll see throughout this film that she is more than capable of looking after herself and it feels less sexist than some of the other Bond-girl scene in the other films but still not great. Later, her father, Draco (played by Gabriele Ferzetti) wants 007 to marry his daughter for money and info on Blofeld. We see a long and dull romantic comedy-style montage of dates that Tracy and Bond go on, which feels odd in a Bond film. Draco helps 007 to break into a safe at the Gebrüder Gumbold law office in Switzerland, he finds documents relating to Blofeld wanting to claim the title of Count Balthazar de Bleuchamp.
Bond finds out he is in contact with genealogist Sir Hilary Bray (played by George Baker) at the London College of Arms. 007 works with the college to meet with Blofeld (played by Telly Savalas) by pretending to be Sir Hilary Bray. Later, after being outed as James Bond, Blofeld reveals he has the scientific info to control and destroy the world economy. He is training his patients (who are there to be cured of allergies) to become his Angels of Death. Bond is put in the cable car engine room, he escapes and is chased down the ski slopes to the Christmas market in the village. Tracy helps him to escape by car, where they end up at a barn as the weather gets too nasty to drive in. Early the next morning, they end up in another skiing scene being pursued by Blofeld’s goons and trying to avoid getting killed in an avalanche, where Tracy is captured. Back in M’s office, 007 is informed that the UN will pay Blofeld off. Bond decides to take matters into his own hands, along with Draco, and they pose as Red Cross helicopters (which apparently would be a war crime). They land and start to shoot up the clinic, Tracy is rescued, and the institute is blown up. The final part is the wedding between Tracy and Bond, them driving off, and Blofeld doing a drive-by shooting where Tracy is killed. The romantic comedy sections of this film feel off for a Bond movie (although I do enjoy romcoms), the pacing of the film is slow, and it doesn’t get going till about midway through. Plus, there’s no real Q-scene to speak of, which is always bad in my book, and the execution of the story is a bit meh. All of these contribute to dragging down my rating of OHMSS, although George Lazenby is good in the role, and it’s a shame he only did one film.