On Her Majesty's Secret Service
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Short description
On Her Majesty's Secret Service follows James Bond as he pursues his long-standing adversary Ernst Stavro Blofeld. His path crosses that of Tracy Di Vicenzo, the daughter of a powerful crime boss, Marc-Ange Draco, and Bond becomes involved with her. In exchange for information about Blofeld, Draco pushes for a marriage between the two. Bond's search leads him to a private clinic in the Alps, where Blofeld is developing a dangerous biological weapon and training a group of young women. Tracy falls into Blofeld's hands, leaving Bond to confront both the threat to the world and his enemy.
The film was released in 1969 and marked a change in the series, with George Lazenby taking over the role of James Bond from Sean Connery. Diana Rigg plays Tracy, Telly Savalas appears as Blofeld, and Gabriele Ferzetti plays Draco. It was the first film directed by Peter R. Hunt, who had previously worked as an editor on the series; he went on to direct Gold and several other features.
Produced by EON Productions and United Artists on a budget of about 7 million dollars, the film took roughly 82 million dollars worldwide. Audiences rate it 6.7 out of 10 on IMDb and 6.6 out of 10 on TMDB, while film critics give it 7 out of 10 from 59 reviews, placing the critical response above the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- George Lazenby suggested the idea of jumping off a cliff on skis and then deploying a parachute. This idea was initially rejected due to the lack of feasibility in staging and filming such a stunt. The idea was later used at the beginning of Lewis Gilbert's (1920-2018) film "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977).
- Initially, the producers considered explaining the change of actor in the lead role by stating that Bond had undergone plastic surgery, as his “previous” face was already too well known to foreign intelligence agents and international terrorists, and he could no longer work undercover. However, it was eventually decided not to say anything about it at all, hoping to minimize audience attention to the fact that George Lazenby was now playing agent 007 instead of the familiar Sean Connery (1930-2020). Either way, just before the credits roll during a fight, Lazenby's character says: “That’s never happened to me before,”—and this phrase serves as an ironic reference to the change of actor.
- One of the most accurate and faithful adaptations of Ian Fleming (1908-1964). Practically everything described in the book is also shown in the film. Such strict adherence to the source material leads to problems with the integrity and consistency of the narrative, as films are often shot not in the order in which their literary sources were written. Here, for example, James Bond and Ernst Stavro Blofeld meet as if for the first time, although they had already confronted each other in the film version of "You Only Live Twice" (Lewis Gilbert, 1967).
- Lazenby was offered a contract for 7 Bond films, but he decided to star in only one during filming.
- During filming, the actors received daily allowances in cash each evening. Seeing George Lazenby with a whole bag of cash, Telly Savalas (1922-1994) invited him to play poker (Savalas regularly played with the crew) and soon left him penniless. Upon hearing about this, producer Harry Saltzman (1915-1994) came to the set, joined another poker game, ignoring Savalas’ protests, and won back everything Lazenby had lost. He then strictly forbade Savalas from “messing with the kid,” meaning Lazenby.
- George Lazenby wanted to perform almost all of his own stunts, but he wasn't allowed to. During the filming of one of the stunts, Lazenby broke his arm, which led to delays in filming scenes with his participation. When Bond was escorted to Blofeld’s laboratory in the mountains, the actor had a broken arm, but a coat was draped over that arm to hide it from the audience. This coat was taken by one of Blofeld’s guards, played by Yuri Borienko (Lazenby accidentally broke his nose during a scripted fight scene during the audition process).
- Having acquired a suit that Sean Connery had ordered but never picked up, buying the same Rolex watch as him, and getting the same hairstyle, George Lazenby went all out – he arranged a meeting with producers Albert R. Broccoli (1909-1996) and Harry Saltzman, and director Peter R. Hunt (1925-2002), and spun them a tale about having already played many roles, and also persuaded them to audition him. Only later did he admit to Hunt that he had made it all up and that he wasn’t an actor at all. Hunt laughed and said, “You came here and bamboozled two of the most ruthless bastards in the film industry. That means you’re an actor.”
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