On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Red = Spoilers 

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is the sixth film in the James Bond franchise and it’s the only James Bond film starring George Lazenby. This is an alright James Bond movie. Not for any particular reason, it just doesn’t stand above the others as outstanding. Not that it’s bad. I like it. It has all of the wit and charm of James Bond that any other movie does. It’s just not the best one.  

What’s it about? So, we start off with Bond seeing some girl running into the water on the beach. And apparently, he has to save her, because he’s James Bond. She ends up stealing his car, and 40 grand off of him. Beautiful women can get away with anything. She ends up marrying Bond later in the movie, believe it or not. But just wait for that. Soon, we find Bond dressed like a Scotsman, surrounded by beautiful women, being the only man in the room, talking about genealogy. It’s amazing how he always finds himself in these situations, isn’t it? By pure coincidence? Bond discovers that the girls he’s surrounded by are hypnotically being trained to disperse chemical vaccines to the world in order to dispense Blofeld’s bioweapon. Bond chases the girls out of the mountain fortress and Blofeld down the mountain in a bobsled. He ends up getting married in the end, but Blofeld and Miss Bunt do a drive by shooting and murder her, leaving James all alone once again.    

What’s good? It has some good action sequences. The chase scenes are all good. It’s an alright script. A lot of fun little things like when he goes into the German businessman’s office and picks up the Playboy and ends up coming out with it. That’s pretty funny.  

What’s bad? The girls in the mountain scene, it seemed like he just had dinner and had sex like, three times. It seemed to drag on forever. That was kind of unnecessary. I would have been more entertained listening to a scene of Bond talking about genealogy, honestly. 

The acting? The acting’s good. There’s nothing more to ask for in a spy film. A 70s spy film, no less. It’s pretty basic for the time. You shouldn’t be surprised by anything. 

The effects? Green screen technology wasn’t exactly great back then, so you can tell when they’re using it. And a lot of the avalanche scenes are just footage of other avalanches kind of edited together and then repeated. It wasn’t even done well, really. It was almost haphazard. And the final chase sequence with Blofeld in the bobsled. What is that about? They trade places for like, no reason in the middle of fighting, and nobody’s supposed to pick up on that? Where was the editor on that one? 

George Lazenby’s James Bond isn’t nearly as promiscuous. George Lazenby’s James Bond isn’t nearly as promiscuous as the Sean Connery James Bond. Not that George Lazenby isn’t snagging women and meeting them in his room at midnight so that they can fall asleep and hypnotically tell him their secret plan. But, he’s still doing it. 

He skied with one ski. James Bond skied with one ski, on one foot, while being chased by minions down a mountain covered in snow. Now, that’s how you secret agent, right there. 

He always gives the one liner. James Bond always has the one liner for when he kills somebody. A witty remark at how they died. And On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is no exception. Only this time, he didn’t kill the guy. One of Blofeld’s minions fell into a snowblower and got shredded and Bond said “He had a lot of guts”. Still, classic Bond… 

Blofeld caused an avalanche to kill Bond. Blofeld literally caused an avalanche to kill Bond. Without a care for what was at the bottom of the mountain. He just wanted Bond dead. He was willing to cover an entire village in snow, just to kill his arch-nemesis.  

So, yeah. Go and see On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It’s a Bond film worth seeing. Most Bond films are worth seeing. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…