On Her Majesty’s Secret Service ***½ (1969, George Lazenby, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas) – Classic Movie Review 991

Director Peter R Hunt’s 1969 007 movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service finds Sean Connery temporarily replaced as James Bond with an entirely adequate George Lazenby. The former male model got only one shot at 007 after some claimed that he was insufficiently expressive, though he looks the part, is reasonably likeable and looks totally credible in the action and the fights (while performing his own stunts).

He gives it all he’s got and might have made the role his own in time. At the Golden Globes, Lazenby was nominated as Most Promising Newcomer – Male.

Well we can carry on arguing about the quality of Lazenby’s contribution, but what is clearly classy and special in this sixth official Bond movie is the two co-stars, ex-Avenger Diana Rigg as Spanish contessa Teresa (she says ‘Teresa was a saint, I’m known as Tracy’) and Telly Savalas (taking over from Donald Pleasence) as super-villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Also special are the brilliantly staged, breath-taking ski chases that are the highlights of the film’s seemingly endless action and fight sequences.

And writers Richard Maibaum (screenplay) and Simon Raven (additional dialogue) have come up with a complex, quintessential Sixties plot in which the villains plan to use a virus to conquer the world and Bond (for the one and only time) falls in love and actually gets married.

While wooing Tracy, who is the daughter of Mob boss Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti), Bond goes undercover, posing as Sir Hilary Bray (George Baker), to find out the secret plan of Blofeld. He needs to uncover the true reason for Blofeld’s allergy research in the Swiss Alps, which involves beautiful women from around the world.

Continuity is helped by having Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell and Desmond Llewelyn aboard again as M, Moneypenny and Q. Despite its flaws, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is an exciting, underrated movie.

Louis Armstrong sings the haunting hit song, ‘We Have all the Time in the World’ (music by John Barry, lyrics Hal David). The music score is by John Barry. The titles are by Maurice Binder.

The second unit director is John Glen, who is also the film editor, and went on to full 007 director status with For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983), A View to a Kill (1985), The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989).

Future Avenger, Patsy and national treasure Joanna Lumley appears as a Bond girl, ‘The English Girl’. The main foreign filming locations were in Switzerland and Portugal.

Ilse Steppat, Yuri Borienko, Catherine Schell, Bessie Love, Angela Scoular, Bernard Horsfall, Virginia North, Brian Worth, Julie Ege, Anouska Hempel and Jenny Hanley also all appear.

It is number six in the official Eon Productions Bond series, followed by Diamonds Are Forever, with the return of Connery.

Diana Rigg celebrated her 80th birthday on 20 July 2018.

RIP Dame Diana Rigg, for ever Emma Peel, as well as Tracy in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969). She died of natural causes on 10 September 2020, aged 82.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 991 derekwinnert.com