On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is the sixth movie in the James Bond series. It marked the first time a new actor played James Bond, George Lazenby, in his first and only performance as the spy.
In this movie, Bond investigates a mysterious allergy clinic in Switzerland and discovers it is a cover for a SPECTRE plan to release a sterilizing drug on the world as a bio-weapon.
Plot (contains spoilers)
In the opening title sequence, James Bond rescues a woman who is attempting to drown herself on a beach. He is attacked by a few men who he defeats but the woman escapes. After the opening title sequence, this time it is again an instrumental song, he encounters her at a casino and learns her name: Contessa Teresa “Tracy” di Vicenzo. They play a game where she loses but has no money to pay the casino. Bond then says that they are partners and pays for her.
Tracy invites Bond to her hotel room to express her gratitude, but when he arrives, an unknown man attacks him. Bond overpowers the assailant and returns to his own room, where Tracy awaits. She claims to have no knowledge of the attacker.
The following morning, Bond is abducted by a group of men, including his attacker, and taken to meet Marc-Ange Draco, the head of the European crime syndicate Unione Corse. Draco reveals that Tracy is his daughter and tells Bond shares details of her troubled life, and offers Bond one million pounds to marry her. Bond declines this offer but agrees to court Tracy if Draco assists him in locating Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the elusive head of SPECTRE.
Back in London, M removes Bond from his mission to eliminate Blofeld. Furious, Bond dictates his resignation to Moneypenny, who cleverly changes it to a request for leave. Bond then attends Draco’s birthday party in Portugal, where he and Tracy begin a passionate romance. During the visit, Draco directs Bond to Gebrüder Gumbold, a Swiss law firm. Breaking into the firm’s office, Bond discovers Blofeld has been corresponding with Sir Hilary Bray, a genealogist at the London College of Arms, in an effort to claim the title of Count Balthazar de Bleuchamp.
Disguised as Bray, Bond visits Blofeld, who is running a clinical allergy research center atop Piz Gloria in the Swiss Alps. There, Bond meets twelve women, referred to as Blofeld’s “angels of death,” who are patients at the clinic. They are seemingly cured of allergies, but Bond soon learns Blofeld is brainwashing them during sleep with subliminal messages which are programming them to release biological weapons worldwide.
Bond attempts to lure Blofeld out of Switzerland so MI6 can arrest him without breaching Swiss sovereignty, under a ruse to get him to go with Bond to the archives to confirm his title, but Blofeld sees through the plan. Bond is eventually captured by Blofeld’s henchwoman, Irma Bunt. Blofeld reveals he identified Bond and orders his men to dispose of him, but Bond escapes by skiing down Piz Gloria while being pursued. In the nearby village of Lauterbrunnen, Tracy reunites with Bond, and they evade Blofeld’s forces in a car chase. The pursuit ends in a stock car rally where their enemies’ vehicle overturns. Forced to take refuge in a barn during a blizzard, Bond confesses his love for Tracy and proposes. She accepts.
The next morning, Blofeld triggers an avalanche to capture Tracy. Bond survives but is unable to rescue her. Returning to London, Bond learns Blofeld plans to blackmail the world by threatening global agriculture with the biological agents, demanding amnesty and recognition of his claim as Count de Bleuchamp. Despite M’s orders not to intervene, Bond teams up with Draco and his men to raid Blofeld’s alpine headquarters. During the assault, they rescue Tracy, and the facility is destroyed. Blofeld escapes in a bobsled, but Bond pursues him, ultimately trapping Blofeld in a collision with a tree branch.
Following these events, Bond and Tracy marry in Portugal and drive off in his Aston Martin DBS. While Bond pauses to remove flowers from the car, Blofeld and Bunt execute a drive-by shooting. Bond survives, but Tracy is tragically killed.
Thoughts
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is probably one of my personal favourites in the James Bond series and definitely has great importance in the series as a whole. It is the first James Bond movie where the lead actor was changed after Sean Connery’s departure, a move that would determine the success of the franchise going forward if another lead actor can take over the role or not.
In this first time that the lead role changed, Australian model and actor George Lazenby took on the role as Bond, an actor who had even less experience at acting than Sean Connery did. Contemporary reviews at the time said he was a poor replacement for Connery although later reviews have judged him far more kindly. Personally I think he plays the role overall well. He definitely has the physical style and grace to play the character and is convincing in the acting sequences.
In some of the dialogue scenes his acting yo-yo’s at times form being great to being a bit wooden and hammy. His best scene is probably the closing scene at Tracy’s murder where the pain and sorrow he feels is very well acted and is one of the most memorable moments in the series. I also noticed during the scene where he is fleeing Piz Gloria and is being pursued by SPECTRE that he genuine looks terrified in that scene. However his worst acting for me is when he is pretending to by Hilary Bray which even though the voice is dubbed it is meant to be a Scottish accent but it doesn’t sound Scottish at all.
One of the things that probably doesn’t really help matters is who Lazenby has to play against as Diana Rigg is often celebrated as one of Britain’s best actresses and her portrayal of Tracy is one of the most memorable Bond girls of the series. Tracy saves Bond on numerous occasions in the film and the fact he marries her at the end elevates her beyond the typical pretty lady Bond sleeps with at the end which makes her murder all the more shocking and impactful. In some ways the movie was ahead of its time in this quite gritty depiction of the leading lady being killed and from memory I don’t think it is done again until Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale.
The action sequences in the movie, especially the skiing and bobsleigh ones are incredible and very exciting to watch. In this day and age when so many film use CGI for these sequences seeing it being done for real gives it so much more impact and though most of them come in the second half of the movie they are very entertaining to watch.
The score of the movie is also very good. John Barry goes back to creating an instrumental theme for the title sequence which is a nice call back to the first two Sean Connery ones. Also the scenes from the previous movies and references to them within the movie, such as Bond clearing his desk and finding Honey Ryder’s belt, Red Grant’s watch and the re-breather from Thunderball adds a nice sense of continuity with those movies that this character is the same man and not a reboot of the series. The theme is also used throughout the movie as motif’s and I have to admit I think the theme is just as good as the original James Bond theme.
Also beautiful is Louis Armstrong’s romantic theme “We Have All The Time In The World” which is used very poignantly in the scenes where Bond and Tracy are courting and it is also very touching that it was Louis Armstrong’s final recording.
Overall this is a very enjoyable entry into the James Bond series and I would highly recommend giving it a watch. If you have watched this movie, let me know in the comments down below what you think of it.
