ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 8/25/20

 

Currently rewatching: ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1969).

This was the first Bond movie I was allowed to go see at the theater. I remember it being rated "M" (recommended for mature audiences), the forerunner to "GP" and then "PG."

George Lazenby's performance has aged well over the years, and Diana Rigg is great, especially for us "Avengers" fans. As the troubled countess Tracy, she is perhaps the best Bond girl of all, and certainly one of the best actresses ever to fill that role.

And then there's Lazenby, who had the unenviable task of stepping into Sean Connery's shoes as Bond. He used to strike me as a bit of an "aw, shucks" doofus at times, but I've learned to enjoy his approach to the character, which can go from boyish and casual to hard-edged and tense.

Lazenby also has the ability to convey not only the usual bravado but also genuine fear, which raises the stakes during some of the more suspenseful scenes.

This is especially true during the frantic chase in which Bond is almost captured by Blofeld's henchmen before being rescued by Tracy (this leads to one of the best Bond action sequences ever as the resulting car chase spills over into a stock car rally).

Oddly, however, Lazenby's at his best while under the guise of foppish, kilted genealogist Sir Hilary Bray, hired to help Blofeld trace his family roots. It's during this lengthy sequence that the actor's likability and sense of humor really shine.

The fact that the screenplay sticks closely to Ian Fleming's book makes it a tense, relatively realistic spy thriller, although it does have its share of the usual Bond movie excess--enough, in fact, to make it one of the most thrill-packed of all the Bond films.

This includes a real avalanche with tons of snow thundering down toward Bond as he skis frantically away from it, a spectacular final battle at scenic Piz Gloria, the mountaintop lair of evil mastermind Blofeld (Telly Savalas), and a hair-raising toboggan chase.

Dramatically, the story is given considerable gravitas by its portrayal of what is doubtless the most important, and ultimately devastating, event in Bond's life, and the film handles it perfectly. The ending is still powerful after all these years.