Oh, dear, the ‘Bond franchise’ really was in a bit of a dilemma after the departure of – arguably the best Bond – Sean Connery. On the plus side, they seemed to have a decent replacement in the form of George Lazenby, better known as ‘Who?’ to most of us, but there was still the little matter of how to bring him out from behind Connery’s massive shadow and make the role his own. What followed was a mish-mash of everything we know as ‘Bond,’ combined with some things we’d never expect from the world’s most famous secret agent. ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ is often (unfairly!) labelled as ‘the worst of all the Bond films.’ It’s not. Quite often those who finally sit down to watch it come round and see that it’s not all bad, it’s just different. And it knows it.
Right off the bat it pokes fun at itself for the change in leading man (a running joke if you look closely to certain lines of dialogue) and the does its best to carry on the story. However, George Lazenby, albeit a capable actor, is just too wacky to be taken seriously. I know Connery’s Bond was quite dark and the producers obviously felt that a ‘lighter’ touch would help go some way to distinguish the two Bonds. However, as my title suggests, it feels like more of a parody of a Bond film that ‘official’ spy movie spoofs like the original ‘Casino Royale.’ We see this new Bond playing a new role, i.e. he’s in disguise, but the disguise is so geeky that he could have been played by Kenneth Williams and no one would have noticed. Now, you may say that Sean Connery went undercover as a Japanese man and Roger Moore as a clown. However, these were for mere minutes of their respective films. Lazenby’s performance lasts a fair portion of the second act. Plus he wears a kilt and no Bond should wear a kilt!However, like I said, it’s not all bad. The action and the women are both there (even if there does seem to be an abundance of ‘jump cuts’ in every fight scene which are more noticeable than ever when watching on your typical large flatscreen TV). And, most importantly of all, this film really does try something new. It tries its hand at romance. Now, most of us would hardly consider Mr Bond, James Bond, to be the most romantic of characters. Yes, he gets the girl, but – technically – ‘romance’ is the last thing on his mind. However, here we actually see Bond fall in love. Now, I know that the modern audience may collectively cry ‘so what!’ as we’ve seen this more recently from Daniel Craig. However, back then (and after Connery’s ‘love ‘em and leave ‘em’ attitude’) it really was quite shocking. I read one review online which described the feeling pretty well. It said something about how previous Bond outings were spy/action movies, whereas this was a romance film, sprinkled with elements of action and spying. I think that’s a reasonable appraisal of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
Unfortunately, for all its new and daring moments, it just never worked. It felt everywhere and all over the place, constantly trying to give the audiences something they’d recognise while trying to establish a new face for the super-spy. Plus, if you look deeper into the trivia surrounding the making of the film, you’ll see that George Lazenby made himself notoriously unpopular with the producers and critics before he was even unleashed on the audiences. Ultimately, it seemed that the world just wasn’t ready for a new Bond. George Lazenby isn’t as dark and doesn’t have as much screen presence as Connery and couldn’t carry the wry humour that Roger Moore found so easy.
Once again, the lead villain is Blofeld and, once again, he’s being played by a new actor. Telly Savalas does his best with what’s given and is a far more physical mastermind than Bond is used to, plus the sets really do show off that funky late sixties feel, but, just because ‘Never Say Never Again’ is – technically – the Bond film that should be overlooked due to it not being part of the official franchise, this one will always remain the film most casual fans choose to skip.
5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back
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