Yes, there's that talk of how Connery found out that Dean Martin was getting paid more for his 007 spoofs than he was getting for You Only Live Twice, despite his witty acting heft helping to create the whole thing. That and the fact that working-class contemporaries like Richard Harris were movie stars in their own right, calling the shots financially, would have irked and stuff like that can prevent you showing up for work except contractually.
I do notice he's too overweight on this movie, of course he is in DAF too but that's well hidden by his suits, he never dons any kind of commando gear in that one does he. That said, in virtually all of his films he looks a bit different so it doesn't get too monotonous. I like it when you have Connery cementing his look by looking the same in his first two Bonds, same with Moore and his first two, creating that iconic pose on the posters and the Corgi toy packaging. You didn't get that with the others.
There's that funny clip from one of the commentaries with Terence Young where he was saying that even as early as FRWL I think, he was telling Sean to suck his gut in! 😂
As well as telling him off when he was doing the 'frog' face too!
While Sean Connery was one of the few really good things aboout TB, he is weaker link in stronger movie this time. Much better villain, better storytelling, better action and a fantastic set for the great final battle. I really enjoy the travelogue bit of the movie where we get to spend most of the film in 1960's japan. I know Villeneuve is good at this and fingers crossed we get to spend time with Bond in an interesting place and culture in Bond 26. Little Nellie deserves aspecial mention. What doesn't work is Bond made up to be japanese. The "Bond is dead" start of the movie doesn't work very well if you start thinking about it, but If you just let yourself be entertained ist's very enjoyable. YOLT is a big, spectacular and fun Bond film!
Yes, that seemed to start a frequent trend in the Bond series - a film would correct the faults of its predecessor, but throw in some needless faults of its own.
ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE (1969) Dir: Peter Hunt
When I first watched this in the cinema in 1969, I thought it slow moving and very talky. The scenes with Draco and Sir Hilary were very boring, there was too much love story, and I couldn’t wait to get to the ice chase scenes I knew were coming.
Watching it again now, for the umpteenth time, I can understand why young me thought that although I don’t think it anymore. The talk scenes are enjoyable and I can see that the love story, far from being extraneous, is what the whole movie’s all about. The action scenes are equal or better to any Bond action scenes before.
It’s impressive just how close this is to the book, although as with GF some changes are in fact improvements (re-ordering the scenes at the beginning, including Tracy in the action near the end) and I hope Fleming himself would have approved.
The music is top-grade Barry and quite possibly the best he ever composed for a Bond movie – or even any movie. You know the pieces as well as I do. I was utterly thrilled when the score was issued in expanded form in 2003 and even more so when the recent 2CD version was released. I can’t find enough superlatives.
The cast is excellent, with special mention to Ilse Steppat.
And now the elephant in the room: I didn’t mind him in 1969 and I don’t now. Would it have been better with Sean Connery? I don’t think it matters. This is one of the best Bond movies.
The talk scenes are enjoyable and I can see that the love story, far from being extraneous, is what the whole movie’s all about.
It is, although I can never quite give it top marks just because of that montage. If you're showing me a love affair blossoming, then show me Tracy warming to him over time: don't shortcut it by just playing a song at me.
I'm glad they made that change to the book by adding Tracy into the climax, it gives it more drive and obviously we get that excellent scene of Rigg and Savalas together. A shame that she disappears a bit, it might have been nice to give her more to do in the finale. Or even for Bond to have a moment that, when faced with some sort of choice of going after his previous obsession of Blofeld or of saving Tracy, he surprises himself by finding it's Tracy he chooses.
It's a nitpick, but otherwise generally I do really enjoy it: I'm not going to be controversial and say it's an awful film or anything! It's one of the best.
And now the elephant in the room: I didn’t mind him in 1969 and I don’t now. Would it have been better with Sean Connery? I don’t think it matters.
For me that's never the question: I genuinely believe this is the better film:
But hey, we got George and we all know the film with him now and it works well enough.
Still the one perfect Bond film, in my opinion. There isn't a thing about it that I'd change, even Lazenby. To that end, Lazenby gets better and better each time I watch the film. He only has a couple of duff moments where I wish he'd gotten another take or another chance to ADR a line better. Everything else is absolutely first rate...Best plot, best of the Blofeld actors (Telly Savalas), and best Bond girl (Diana Rigg). Also possibly my favorite of the Aston Martin cars with the DBS (it's tied with the V8 Vantage from TLD). Great John Barry score too. Love it to death.
I've long championed Lazenby. He's unjustly taken a pounding for his work in OHMSS for the simple fact that 'he wasn't Connery'. It's a tragedy that he got such bad, bad managerial advice and didn't continue on with the franchise for at least 3 more films.
Also, I think Lazenby was the best fighter of all of the Bond actors. His physicality and just overall thuggish presence was palpable.
Additional thoughts now:
I love the way that Lazenby walks. He has this certain glide of pure confidence that is really, really palpable. I'm sure that came from his years as a male model but whatever, it really works great. In general, he just carries himself really well in this film and feels fully and completely capable of all of the actions required by the narrative, something that Moore and especially Brosnan really failed at.
And the John Barry score is really something. I still say that MOONRAKER is his masterpiece but I wouldn't begrudge anyone saying that OHMSS took the top spot.
I really doubt RM would've made OHMSS a better film. He was great in the movies he was in, but OHMSS isn't his type of film. Maybe a young Dalton could've done it?
I think it would suit him very well. The opening on the beach/casino is basically just an episode of The Saint; he'd have been able to play the comedy Sir Hilary bits where George adds nothing; just like his co-star Pat Macnee of a few films I'm sure he'd have worked really well onscreen with Diana Rigg; and in terms of the romantic plot he is one of the more human Bonds - think of him with Lisl or Stacy or Octopussy: he's much more of a romantic than Connery's 007 ever was. I think he would have been the best fit for it.
I struggle to see Dalton in it. One thing that George did get right which I'd say Dalton didn't, was that he remembered how swaggering and self-assured Bond is - probably because he wasn't really acting when he acted like that! And I agree with @HarryCanyon that he was a very good screen fighter.
To be honest I've never before tried to imagine Moore in OHMSS before. I've pictured Connery and Dalton ion the movie, but never him. the argument against Connery in OHMSS is that he wouldn't bring the vulnerability lazanby showed in the right scenes. They may be right. I do think Dalton showed the confidence and swagger needed for the role: Also think Lazenby did the jokes well. I question if Moore could've done some of the colder scenes in OHMSS such as drwning the henchman in the PTS or strangling blofeld's henchman in the ski scene: He may have, but I doubt he would've been as convincing in those scenes as Connery,or Dalton would, or as well as Lazenby was. Another scene I question if Moore could 've done well enough is the final scene in the movie after Tracy's death. But I do agree he could've done the gambling scene, the womanizing on Piz Gloria and the jkes very well.
I wouldn't say he's the full package: he does look good and fight well, and he does have that swagger; but I'd say he's a pretty dreadful actor otherwise, has zero screen presence and looks pretty lost half the time. He does better than a lot of non-actors you'd see leading films around this time, like Hong Kong leads hired for their martial arts skills, handsome blokes making spy films out in Italy, or brothers of actors who played famous spies(!), but he's still just not a film star at all.
If we watch Connery doing, say, the golf scene in Goldfinger, or Moore doing the Rosie hotel room scene in LALD, they're constantly communicating with the audience through every gesture and intonation. Lazenby isn't doing that, and as a result it's actually pretty hard to tell what Bond is thinking for most of this film. I think of when that lab guy throws the bottle of acid at Bond at the end, it hits some glass and melts it, and George just sort of blankly looks at it... twice(!). I have no idea what Bond is thinking at this point; no sense of relief, panic, wryness, disgust, pleasure... nothing: he's just sort of staring like a robot. There's a disconnect with the audience you get when someone isn't a capable lead actor. Imagine him doing the golf scene- it would be dead. All of the sly, stylish knowing comedy just drained out of it by someone simply saying the lines and nothing more.
I don't want to be too harsh: it was a tough job to do and he did better than an awful lot of people would, but I'm glad they got real film actors from here on.
I get that, but I also think that a spy should be an enigma. He should always have a poker face for anything that may come his way. Lazenby nailed that. So did Craig and, to a certain extent, Dalton. It made those three more believable 'spies in the field'.
To be honest I think that's a large part of what makes Craig so impressive: you're right that he had a bit of a 'poker face'- he wasn't pulling faces all the time like Pierce or, bless him, Roger would do some of the time, because that does ring true for a professional spy to not do that; and yet I still knew what he was thinking or feeling. Because he's a really good actor.
I'm not criticising Pierce or Roger incidentally: they just have a different style.
Funnily enough when I read Fleming I do find the image of Lazenby will pop into my head. He does look about right, I think his being in vaguely the right period helps, but I think mainly it's because he doesn't have very strong a personality in the film, it's easy to project book Bond onto him. I can't really imagine Connery as the book Bond because he's too much his own thing, he's got too powerful a persona.
I think Lazenby's reaction to the bottle of acid was a good one, but these things are often in the eye of the beholder. Lazenby wasn't a trained actor and there are scenes where it shows. But he had several natural abilities and that worked to his advantage in the movie. As well as being a trained actor Moore also had natural abilities such as humor and charm. What wasn't as natural for him were action/physical acting, fighting, cruel/ cold scenes and the most dramatic scenes. All of these were needed in OHMSS.
In spite of his acting training I'm not sure Moore would've done the final scene as well as Lazenby did with raw emotion.
I must admit I'm really not blown away by him in that final scene; he basically hides his face from the camera. He does enough, but I don't think it's an amazing performance, and I tend to think any of the other Bonds would have been more effective.
It appears that I'm trolling Barbel - or have too much time on my hands - but I think the music is just awful. And this is coming from someone who owns both Herb Albert's Casino Royale and Dusty's The Look of Love as singles. And, alright, from someone who does have too much time on his hands.
The Casino Royale theme is a proper choon, I'll give you that - but in the film it just sounds cringey. It seems to be setting the audience up for laughs and hi-jinks that never really come, at least not for the first 45 mins or so. In some ways it almost resembles the Magical Mystery Tour from the film of the same year: 'Roll up! Roll up!' when the film is 'all mystery and no magic' as one critic said. It doesn't have that slinky, sexy, groovy feel of the 1960s, it does something quite horrible - it conjures up the sex appeal of the generation before. The sound would fit in quite well for a 1950s Frank Sinatra comedy, when sex was all about 'making whoopee' and women were broads or dames. It''s music like the Beatles never happened. The same goes for that awful sax that accompanies so many scenes, in particular Coop's seduction of all those women, I mean, it ought to be funny, it might be funny... but it aint funny. It's sex as done by the previous generation, and that never ever goes well.
The incidental music required I guess is the Carry On stuff, in fact that team could have made some of it quite funny, of course they'd done it before with Carry On Spying, but that was in black and white. Of course, the Carry Ons never made it across the Atlantic, they attempted it that year with Carry On Follow That Camel (just Follow That Camel) but it wasn't a big hit. You can't imagine Sellers or Niven wanting to rub shoulders with the Carry On team of course, though the British comedy Venn diagram might have allowed Sellers to tolerate some of them - Sid James, perhaps. There is a problem here among many in that its American humour transposed to Britain.
The joke is that Niven plays Bond as a stuttering, effete, priggish Englishman - in contrast to the manly Connery character we know. It could be funny, but instead each time I think, okay, you have Fleming's first choice for Bond and you make him a fool, why is this any good? A zippy pre-credits with Niven made to look younger and dashing and Bond-like, on a Commando mission or something, might have set the thing up better, so post-credits we get the joke of what he has become, and pick up on the promise that he won't be like that for the whole wretched movie.
Of course, that brief Woody Allen scene at the firing squad is a gem, from a different movie really. It's futile to criticise this when Peter Sellers had a breakdown and went off set, of course that wrecked his movie career for a good few years.
The Look of Love is a great song and though it's easy listening, it's like the Beatles did happen - but it's played once I think and needs a better film, which it got of course, with Austin Powers. You could say that Casino Royale fell flat on its face so Austin Powers could run... that said, I think Powers could have done with a touch more of the expensive chic look that Casino Royale occasionally exhibits.
Those scenes set around the Scottish castle with Deborah Kerr are just awful and go on and on and on. That said, I watch it with a kind of masochistic fascination - I saw more of this than I did OHMSS, but heresy though it may be to say it, there is just something in common with the two. I'd happily book my seat at London's Prince Charles cinema if OHMSS was on next week, but on the telly, it feels flat to me, tonally a bit off, and some of the corny scenes in Piz Gloria with the women chomping their way through their allergies, and Barry's sax on the soundtrack, also give me the creeps. Oddly, with both films, I don't find any of the women attractive really, despite being showcased as top totty.
Cubby, Harry, Barry, Maibaum and Young are all justly recognised as being the main people who influenced the rise of the movie James Bond. They are joined by Peter Hunt. Of all those six he was the one who, above all the others, “got” James Bond the most. His editing made the early movies fast and exciting, so much that we overlooked some of the inconsistencies. He was granted his directional debut on this movie and his love for James Bond shines through from the first frame to the last. Aided by the lush photography of Michael Reed and Richard Maibaum’s script he takes us on an exciting and emotive adventure which draws the viewer in and never let’s go. George Lazenby gives a stunning performance as the film Bond falls in love for the first time. At first he is confident and then as the film progresses he becomes fragile, as only a man deeply in love can be. Lazenby nails his performance perfectly, his lack of acting experience actually helping in the latter stages. The final scene is of a man completely shattered, his life which finally offered purpose is cruelly trashed by his greatest enemy. It’s these final scenes that elevate this to be the greatest Bond movie of all time. But before this we are treated to action like never before, ski chases that are so thrilling that they have never been surpassed, a number of brutal fights where Lazenby proves he’s the best fighter of all the Bond’s, he’s not just a fighter - he is a brawler - and of all the actors that have played Bond he is the most believable (with Connery a very close second). John Barry gives us not only his best Bond score but his best ever score. Louis Armstrong’s song is so emotive it is heart rendering. The casting is superlative, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas, Gabriele Ferzetti, Ilse Steppat are all marvellous. The Angels are a mix of being beautiful , sexy, ordinary and irritating (so very lifelike 😉).
OHMSS is the Bond that can never be forgotten, it’s like your first kiss, your first drink in a pub, the first time you see your team play live, that song that means so much to you - it’s the Bond film that you will judge against all others and will be found wanting.
OHMSS - TB - FRWL - GF - YOLT - DN
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 31,054Chief of Staff
So did I, in this review of a big screen showing in London in 2022... on pages 30-31 of "Last Bond Movie" - you need to scroll down, however. You also get Thunderball, so it's two for the price of one.
Some blast from the past stuff amidst the typos there - was Sir Keir Starmer ever popular? Also one aspect doesn't age well - the hotel manager talking of 'Bond's requirements' as if implying women, is a bit Epstein Island emails.
Fine posts from @caractacus potts and I think it's @CoolHandBond who coincidentally on this thread puts in a higly evocative post - in relation to Goldfinger - about seeing these movies on the big screen as a kid in the 1960s.
So when you guys say Lazenby gives a stunning performance, would you say he's one of the best to play the character? I feel a bit out of step with consensus here.
Not with me, you're not, emtiem. Btw love your photoshopped Moore pictures in OHMSS - he'd look a bit younger than that, however, it being 69.
I love Lazenby's depiction on the big screen but on telly, not really. Same with the film overall - but I enjoy the positive write-ups here, I see no point in contradicting them.
Might The Look of Love worked better in the movie, in particular for the romance montage? Not really, but it wouldn't have been a bad fit.
One thing I notice, we don't seem to see Rigg with her kit off in this do we. No bedroom scene in the montage, he only seems to sleep with her the once.
Well, twice: first as the 'repayment' deal in Portugal (which plays a bit awkwardly nowadays with Bond taking advantage of a suicidal woman) and then in the barn.
Glad I'm not alone on that one! Incidentally, speaking of Moore in '69, if you watch Vendetta for the Saint which came out in that year, Simon is imprisoned in the baddie's hilltop lair and has to escape to the town below, all the while evading the villains chasing him. It's not exactly filmed as well as OHMSS, but it's interesting how the two echo each other, and Roger plays the desperation rather well and it's all reasonably tense.
A sixties Roger Moore as the Saint is often very sixties Bond like, quite harsh sometimes, quite violent. It's his turn as Brett Sinclair which has the jokey air he brought to Bond. The sixties Saint version may well have had a decent stab at OHMSS, but I am an admirer of Lazenby, although I recognise both the faults and the positives, which for me even themselves out.
It is difficult to judge a movie if you’ve only seen it on a television. Even todays home mega-screens cannot do justice to a movie spectacular. You also don’t get that “shared” experience when the audience laugh or scream together. I think that plays an important part of how a movie is perceived.
What is fascinating about this thread is the wide range of opinion, it just goes to show that you can’t please everyone all the time.
I agree with @Napoleon Plural that Look Of Love would have been a decent replacement, it’s one of my favourite Bacharach songs, but it’s not as good as what we got. It’s strange, but my movie going memories of the 60’s and 70’s are far more vivid than the 80’s onwards. I rarely go nowadays but my son wants to see Project Hail Mary (as he’s read the book) so we’re going to see that when it’s released soon.
@emtiem I dream of an alternate universe where Lazenby signed his 7-picture deal and we got a proper revenge movie in DAF (Peter Hunt directing of course!). I firmly believe he would have grown into a fine actor and the Bond legacy would be shaped a lot different from what actually happened. You’re not alone in finding Lazenby less than perfect, it’s all a matter of perspective.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Comments
Yes, there's that talk of how Connery found out that Dean Martin was getting paid more for his 007 spoofs than he was getting for You Only Live Twice, despite his witty acting heft helping to create the whole thing. That and the fact that working-class contemporaries like Richard Harris were movie stars in their own right, calling the shots financially, would have irked and stuff like that can prevent you showing up for work except contractually.
I do notice he's too overweight on this movie, of course he is in DAF too but that's well hidden by his suits, he never dons any kind of commando gear in that one does he. That said, in virtually all of his films he looks a bit different so it doesn't get too monotonous. I like it when you have Connery cementing his look by looking the same in his first two Bonds, same with Moore and his first two, creating that iconic pose on the posters and the Corgi toy packaging. You didn't get that with the others.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
There's that funny clip from one of the commentaries with Terence Young where he was saying that even as early as FRWL I think, he was telling Sean to suck his gut in! 😂
As well as telling him off when he was doing the 'frog' face too!
While Sean Connery was one of the few really good things aboout TB, he is weaker link in stronger movie this time. Much better villain, better storytelling, better action and a fantastic set for the great final battle. I really enjoy the travelogue bit of the movie where we get to spend most of the film in 1960's japan. I know Villeneuve is good at this and fingers crossed we get to spend time with Bond in an interesting place and culture in Bond 26. Little Nellie deserves aspecial mention. What doesn't work is Bond made up to be japanese. The "Bond is dead" start of the movie doesn't work very well if you start thinking about it, but If you just let yourself be entertained ist's very enjoyable. YOLT is a big, spectacular and fun Bond film!
Yes, that seemed to start a frequent trend in the Bond series - a film would correct the faults of its predecessor, but throw in some needless faults of its own.
Incidentally, haven't we forgotten something?
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Since you insist, @Napoleon Plural
CASINO ROYALE (1967) Dir: Anyone passing by at the time
Well, the music’s good.
ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE (1969) Dir: Peter Hunt
When I first watched this in the cinema in 1969, I thought it slow moving and very talky. The scenes with Draco and Sir Hilary were very boring, there was too much love story, and I couldn’t wait to get to the ice chase scenes I knew were coming.
Watching it again now, for the umpteenth time, I can understand why young me thought that although I don’t think it anymore. The talk scenes are enjoyable and I can see that the love story, far from being extraneous, is what the whole movie’s all about. The action scenes are equal or better to any Bond action scenes before.
It’s impressive just how close this is to the book, although as with GF some changes are in fact improvements (re-ordering the scenes at the beginning, including Tracy in the action near the end) and I hope Fleming himself would have approved.
The music is top-grade Barry and quite possibly the best he ever composed for a Bond movie – or even any movie. You know the pieces as well as I do. I was utterly thrilled when the score was issued in expanded form in 2003 and even more so when the recent 2CD version was released. I can’t find enough superlatives.
The cast is excellent, with special mention to Ilse Steppat.
And now the elephant in the room: I didn’t mind him in 1969 and I don’t now. Would it have been better with Sean Connery? I don’t think it matters. This is one of the best Bond movies.
The talk scenes are enjoyable and I can see that the love story, far from being extraneous, is what the whole movie’s all about.
It is, although I can never quite give it top marks just because of that montage. If you're showing me a love affair blossoming, then show me Tracy warming to him over time: don't shortcut it by just playing a song at me.
I'm glad they made that change to the book by adding Tracy into the climax, it gives it more drive and obviously we get that excellent scene of Rigg and Savalas together. A shame that she disappears a bit, it might have been nice to give her more to do in the finale. Or even for Bond to have a moment that, when faced with some sort of choice of going after his previous obsession of Blofeld or of saving Tracy, he surprises himself by finding it's Tracy he chooses.
It's a nitpick, but otherwise generally I do really enjoy it: I'm not going to be controversial and say it's an awful film or anything! It's one of the best.
And now the elephant in the room: I didn’t mind him in 1969 and I don’t now. Would it have been better with Sean Connery? I don’t think it matters.
For me that's never the question: I genuinely believe this is the better film:
But hey, we got George and we all know the film with him now and it works well enough.
Copy/paste from last year's franchise rewatch:
OHMSS:
Still the one perfect Bond film, in my opinion. There isn't a thing about it that I'd change, even Lazenby. To that end, Lazenby gets better and better each time I watch the film. He only has a couple of duff moments where I wish he'd gotten another take or another chance to ADR a line better. Everything else is absolutely first rate...Best plot, best of the Blofeld actors (Telly Savalas), and best Bond girl (Diana Rigg). Also possibly my favorite of the Aston Martin cars with the DBS (it's tied with the V8 Vantage from TLD). Great John Barry score too. Love it to death.
I've long championed Lazenby. He's unjustly taken a pounding for his work in OHMSS for the simple fact that 'he wasn't Connery'. It's a tragedy that he got such bad, bad managerial advice and didn't continue on with the franchise for at least 3 more films.
Also, I think Lazenby was the best fighter of all of the Bond actors. His physicality and just overall thuggish presence was palpable.
Additional thoughts now:
I love the way that Lazenby walks. He has this certain glide of pure confidence that is really, really palpable. I'm sure that came from his years as a male model but whatever, it really works great. In general, he just carries himself really well in this film and feels fully and completely capable of all of the actions required by the narrative, something that Moore and especially Brosnan really failed at.
And the John Barry score is really something. I still say that MOONRAKER is his masterpiece but I wouldn't begrudge anyone saying that OHMSS took the top spot.
I really doubt RM would've made OHMSS a better film. He was great in the movies he was in, but OHMSS isn't his type of film. Maybe a young Dalton could've done it?
I think it would suit him very well. The opening on the beach/casino is basically just an episode of The Saint; he'd have been able to play the comedy Sir Hilary bits where George adds nothing; just like his co-star Pat Macnee of a few films I'm sure he'd have worked really well onscreen with Diana Rigg; and in terms of the romantic plot he is one of the more human Bonds - think of him with Lisl or Stacy or Octopussy: he's much more of a romantic than Connery's 007 ever was. I think he would have been the best fit for it.
I struggle to see Dalton in it. One thing that George did get right which I'd say Dalton didn't, was that he remembered how swaggering and self-assured Bond is - probably because he wasn't really acting when he acted like that! And I agree with @HarryCanyon that he was a very good screen fighter.
To be honest I've never before tried to imagine Moore in OHMSS before. I've pictured Connery and Dalton ion the movie, but never him. the argument against Connery in OHMSS is that he wouldn't bring the vulnerability lazanby showed in the right scenes. They may be right. I do think Dalton showed the confidence and swagger needed for the role: Also think Lazenby did the jokes well. I question if Moore could've done some of the colder scenes in OHMSS such as drwning the henchman in the PTS or strangling blofeld's henchman in the ski scene: He may have, but I doubt he would've been as convincing in those scenes as Connery,or Dalton would, or as well as Lazenby was. Another scene I question if Moore could 've done well enough is the final scene in the movie after Tracy's death. But I do agree he could've done the gambling scene, the womanizing on Piz Gloria and the jkes very well.
Lazenby had incredible natural swagger. It never felt like a show, it just felt like 'the way he was'.
Some poor line readings aside (which could have been easily fixed in a single ADR session), he was the full package.
I wouldn't say he's the full package: he does look good and fight well, and he does have that swagger; but I'd say he's a pretty dreadful actor otherwise, has zero screen presence and looks pretty lost half the time. He does better than a lot of non-actors you'd see leading films around this time, like Hong Kong leads hired for their martial arts skills, handsome blokes making spy films out in Italy, or brothers of actors who played famous spies(!), but he's still just not a film star at all.
If we watch Connery doing, say, the golf scene in Goldfinger, or Moore doing the Rosie hotel room scene in LALD, they're constantly communicating with the audience through every gesture and intonation. Lazenby isn't doing that, and as a result it's actually pretty hard to tell what Bond is thinking for most of this film. I think of when that lab guy throws the bottle of acid at Bond at the end, it hits some glass and melts it, and George just sort of blankly looks at it... twice(!). I have no idea what Bond is thinking at this point; no sense of relief, panic, wryness, disgust, pleasure... nothing: he's just sort of staring like a robot. There's a disconnect with the audience you get when someone isn't a capable lead actor. Imagine him doing the golf scene- it would be dead. All of the sly, stylish knowing comedy just drained out of it by someone simply saying the lines and nothing more.
I don't want to be too harsh: it was a tough job to do and he did better than an awful lot of people would, but I'm glad they got real film actors from here on.
I get that, but I also think that a spy should be an enigma. He should always have a poker face for anything that may come his way. Lazenby nailed that. So did Craig and, to a certain extent, Dalton. It made those three more believable 'spies in the field'.
To be honest I think that's a large part of what makes Craig so impressive: you're right that he had a bit of a 'poker face'- he wasn't pulling faces all the time like Pierce or, bless him, Roger would do some of the time, because that does ring true for a professional spy to not do that; and yet I still knew what he was thinking or feeling. Because he's a really good actor.
I'm not criticising Pierce or Roger incidentally: they just have a different style.
Funnily enough when I read Fleming I do find the image of Lazenby will pop into my head. He does look about right, I think his being in vaguely the right period helps, but I think mainly it's because he doesn't have very strong a personality in the film, it's easy to project book Bond onto him. I can't really imagine Connery as the book Bond because he's too much his own thing, he's got too powerful a persona.
I think Lazenby's reaction to the bottle of acid was a good one, but these things are often in the eye of the beholder. Lazenby wasn't a trained actor and there are scenes where it shows. But he had several natural abilities and that worked to his advantage in the movie. As well as being a trained actor Moore also had natural abilities such as humor and charm. What wasn't as natural for him were action/physical acting, fighting, cruel/ cold scenes and the most dramatic scenes. All of these were needed in OHMSS.
In spite of his acting training I'm not sure Moore would've done the final scene as well as Lazenby did with raw emotion.
I don't know if Olivier in his prime could have done that final scene any better than Lazenby did.
I must admit I'm really not blown away by him in that final scene; he basically hides his face from the camera. He does enough, but I don't think it's an amazing performance, and I tend to think any of the other Bonds would have been more effective.
It appears that I'm trolling Barbel - or have too much time on my hands - but I think the music is just awful. And this is coming from someone who owns both Herb Albert's Casino Royale and Dusty's The Look of Love as singles. And, alright, from someone who does have too much time on his hands.
The Casino Royale theme is a proper choon, I'll give you that - but in the film it just sounds cringey. It seems to be setting the audience up for laughs and hi-jinks that never really come, at least not for the first 45 mins or so. In some ways it almost resembles the Magical Mystery Tour from the film of the same year: 'Roll up! Roll up!' when the film is 'all mystery and no magic' as one critic said. It doesn't have that slinky, sexy, groovy feel of the 1960s, it does something quite horrible - it conjures up the sex appeal of the generation before. The sound would fit in quite well for a 1950s Frank Sinatra comedy, when sex was all about 'making whoopee' and women were broads or dames. It''s music like the Beatles never happened. The same goes for that awful sax that accompanies so many scenes, in particular Coop's seduction of all those women, I mean, it ought to be funny, it might be funny... but it aint funny. It's sex as done by the previous generation, and that never ever goes well.
The incidental music required I guess is the Carry On stuff, in fact that team could have made some of it quite funny, of course they'd done it before with Carry On Spying, but that was in black and white. Of course, the Carry Ons never made it across the Atlantic, they attempted it that year with Carry On Follow That Camel (just Follow That Camel) but it wasn't a big hit. You can't imagine Sellers or Niven wanting to rub shoulders with the Carry On team of course, though the British comedy Venn diagram might have allowed Sellers to tolerate some of them - Sid James, perhaps. There is a problem here among many in that its American humour transposed to Britain.
The joke is that Niven plays Bond as a stuttering, effete, priggish Englishman - in contrast to the manly Connery character we know. It could be funny, but instead each time I think, okay, you have Fleming's first choice for Bond and you make him a fool, why is this any good? A zippy pre-credits with Niven made to look younger and dashing and Bond-like, on a Commando mission or something, might have set the thing up better, so post-credits we get the joke of what he has become, and pick up on the promise that he won't be like that for the whole wretched movie.
Of course, that brief Woody Allen scene at the firing squad is a gem, from a different movie really. It's futile to criticise this when Peter Sellers had a breakdown and went off set, of course that wrecked his movie career for a good few years.
The Look of Love is a great song and though it's easy listening, it's like the Beatles did happen - but it's played once I think and needs a better film, which it got of course, with Austin Powers. You could say that Casino Royale fell flat on its face so Austin Powers could run... that said, I think Powers could have done with a touch more of the expensive chic look that Casino Royale occasionally exhibits.
Those scenes set around the Scottish castle with Deborah Kerr are just awful and go on and on and on. That said, I watch it with a kind of masochistic fascination - I saw more of this than I did OHMSS, but heresy though it may be to say it, there is just something in common with the two. I'd happily book my seat at London's Prince Charles cinema if OHMSS was on next week, but on the telly, it feels flat to me, tonally a bit off, and some of the corny scenes in Piz Gloria with the women chomping their way through their allergies, and Barry's sax on the soundtrack, also give me the creeps. Oddly, with both films, I don't find any of the women attractive really, despite being showcased as top totty.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE (1969)
Cubby, Harry, Barry, Maibaum and Young are all justly recognised as being the main people who influenced the rise of the movie James Bond. They are joined by Peter Hunt. Of all those six he was the one who, above all the others, “got” James Bond the most. His editing made the early movies fast and exciting, so much that we overlooked some of the inconsistencies. He was granted his directional debut on this movie and his love for James Bond shines through from the first frame to the last. Aided by the lush photography of Michael Reed and Richard Maibaum’s script he takes us on an exciting and emotive adventure which draws the viewer in and never let’s go. George Lazenby gives a stunning performance as the film Bond falls in love for the first time. At first he is confident and then as the film progresses he becomes fragile, as only a man deeply in love can be. Lazenby nails his performance perfectly, his lack of acting experience actually helping in the latter stages. The final scene is of a man completely shattered, his life which finally offered purpose is cruelly trashed by his greatest enemy. It’s these final scenes that elevate this to be the greatest Bond movie of all time. But before this we are treated to action like never before, ski chases that are so thrilling that they have never been surpassed, a number of brutal fights where Lazenby proves he’s the best fighter of all the Bond’s, he’s not just a fighter - he is a brawler - and of all the actors that have played Bond he is the most believable (with Connery a very close second). John Barry gives us not only his best Bond score but his best ever score. Louis Armstrong’s song is so emotive it is heart rendering. The casting is superlative, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas, Gabriele Ferzetti, Ilse Steppat are all marvellous. The Angels are a mix of being beautiful , sexy, ordinary and irritating (so very lifelike 😉).
OHMSS is the Bond that can never be forgotten, it’s like your first kiss, your first drink in a pub, the first time you see your team play live, that song that means so much to you - it’s the Bond film that you will judge against all others and will be found wanting.
OHMSS - TB - FRWL - GF - YOLT - DN
How the hell did you get into my head??? 😮🤨
This is the perfect post - I think we can close this site down now 🤗
I take it you liked OHMSS then...
So did I, in this review of a big screen showing in London in 2022... on pages 30-31 of "Last Bond Movie" - you need to scroll down, however. You also get Thunderball, so it's two for the price of one.
https://www.ajb007.co.uk/discussion/49302/last-bond-movie-you-watched/p30?
Some blast from the past stuff amidst the typos there - was Sir Keir Starmer ever popular? Also one aspect doesn't age well - the hotel manager talking of 'Bond's requirements' as if implying women, is a bit Epstein Island emails.
Fine posts from @caractacus potts and I think it's @CoolHandBond who coincidentally on this thread puts in a higly evocative post - in relation to Goldfinger - about seeing these movies on the big screen as a kid in the 1960s.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Can't argue with that incredibly positive review of OHMSS. As I've stated before, it's the perfect Bond film.
So when you guys say Lazenby gives a stunning performance, would you say he's one of the best to play the character? I feel a bit out of step with consensus here.
Not with me, you're not, emtiem. Btw love your photoshopped Moore pictures in OHMSS - he'd look a bit younger than that, however, it being 69.
I love Lazenby's depiction on the big screen but on telly, not really. Same with the film overall - but I enjoy the positive write-ups here, I see no point in contradicting them.
Might The Look of Love worked better in the movie, in particular for the romance montage? Not really, but it wouldn't have been a bad fit.
One thing I notice, we don't seem to see Rigg with her kit off in this do we. No bedroom scene in the montage, he only seems to sleep with her the once.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Well, twice: first as the 'repayment' deal in Portugal (which plays a bit awkwardly nowadays with Bond taking advantage of a suicidal woman) and then in the barn.
Glad I'm not alone on that one! Incidentally, speaking of Moore in '69, if you watch Vendetta for the Saint which came out in that year, Simon is imprisoned in the baddie's hilltop lair and has to escape to the town below, all the while evading the villains chasing him. It's not exactly filmed as well as OHMSS, but it's interesting how the two echo each other, and Roger plays the desperation rather well and it's all reasonably tense.
A sixties Roger Moore as the Saint is often very sixties Bond like, quite harsh sometimes, quite violent. It's his turn as Brett Sinclair which has the jokey air he brought to Bond. The sixties Saint version may well have had a decent stab at OHMSS, but I am an admirer of Lazenby, although I recognise both the faults and the positives, which for me even themselves out.
OHMSS is always in my top 3.
It is difficult to judge a movie if you’ve only seen it on a television. Even todays home mega-screens cannot do justice to a movie spectacular. You also don’t get that “shared” experience when the audience laugh or scream together. I think that plays an important part of how a movie is perceived.
What is fascinating about this thread is the wide range of opinion, it just goes to show that you can’t please everyone all the time.
I agree with @Napoleon Plural that Look Of Love would have been a decent replacement, it’s one of my favourite Bacharach songs, but it’s not as good as what we got. It’s strange, but my movie going memories of the 60’s and 70’s are far more vivid than the 80’s onwards. I rarely go nowadays but my son wants to see Project Hail Mary (as he’s read the book) so we’re going to see that when it’s released soon.
@emtiem I dream of an alternate universe where Lazenby signed his 7-picture deal and we got a proper revenge movie in DAF (Peter Hunt directing of course!). I firmly believe he would have grown into a fine actor and the Bond legacy would be shaped a lot different from what actually happened. You’re not alone in finding Lazenby less than perfect, it’s all a matter of perspective.