On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

User Review

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  Barneyonmovies

  9 / 10

  WHAT I LIKED: 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service,' is a very different kind of Bond film - primarily because Bond himself is portrayed as a completely different character. Whereas in Connery's films we root for him because of his underdog likeability and out-of-place brutishness in spite of his wrongs, here George Lazenby largely plays Bond as a relatively kind gentleman. That's not really true to how Ian Fleming originally wrote him of course, but it does mean we invest in everything all the more, and that's particularly successful in a film which is essentially a love story at its core.
  
  Yes, the whole narrative here pretty much revolves around Bond's relationship with the fascinating Tracy (played brilliantly by Diana Rigg), as he stumbles across her in his search for Blofeld, and, after agreeing to start a relationship with her in return for her father helping him find Blofeld, he starts to fall deeply in love. There's simply no way any father would wish for Connery's Bond to partner his daughter, but Lazenby shows a caring and gently charming Bond who slowly drops his tough-guy, gentleman's veneer as the relationship develops. That's an engaging thing to watch, and the vulnerability it gives Bond only serves to propel the action - and the drama of the plot involving Blofeld - all the more because it puts in jeopardy the relationship you've grown to care about.
  
  But it's only because the threat around them is so well executed that that it's so compelling, and there we mostly have director Peter R. Hunt to thank as he and the script not only engineer the plot such that it reveals itself to us and Bond in a way that the mystery is retained, but they also build a sense of the espionage world as brilliantly as Terrence Young did in 'From Russia With Love.' You get to understand - from the comments of Tracy's father and Bond's investigations with lawyers etc - that some semblance of a crime world exists around the confines of Blofeld and Spectre, and you eventually get a feeling from the interactions with members of the public around Blofeld's lair of just how under most people's noses everything all happening. The stakes that come with that are also furthered by some of the best action in the series (the scenes in Switzerland are particularly exciting) and when you couple that fact with the character drama at the centre, you've got yourself one of the best Bonds of all.
  
  WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: We are asked to buy into the central relationship a little quickly, as their initial romance is simply displayed in the form of an extended montage. Even the backing of that beautiful Louis Armstrong song can't fully sell it that glibly, though we do believe it as the film develops further.
  
  VERDICT: A compelling character drama about a more sensitive version of Bond falling in love surrounded by the jeaopardy of a well-executed spy story, 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service,' is one of the best Bond movies of all.

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