Watch On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), Story, Stars, Reviews & All You Want To Know About A Great Movie
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)
James Bond woos a mob boss’ daughter and goes undercover to uncover the true reason for Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s allergy research in the Swiss Alps involving beautiful women from around the world.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is a 1969 spy film and the sixth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions. It is based on the 1963 novel by Ian Fleming. Following Sean Connery’s decision to retire from the role after You Only Live Twice, Eon Productions selected George Lazenby, a model with no prior acting credits, to play the part of James Bond. During the making of the film, Lazenby announced that he would play the role of Bond only once.
In the film, Bond faces Blofeld (Telly Savalas), who is planning to hold the world to ransom by a threat to render all food plants and livestock infertile through the actions of a group of brainwashed “angels of death”. Along the way Bond meets, falls in love with, and eventually marries Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg).
It is the only Bond film to have been directed by Peter R. Hunt (with this serving as his directorial debut), who had served as a film editor and second unit director on previous films in the series. Hunt, along with producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, decided to produce a more realistic film that would follow the novel closely. It was shot in Switzerland, England, and Portugal from October 1968 to May 1969.
Although its cinema release was not as lucrative as its predecessor You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was still one of the top-performing films of the year.[4] Critical reviews upon release were mixed, but the film’s reputation has improved greatly over time and is now regarded as one of the strongest entries in the series as well as one of the most faithful adaptations of a Fleming novel.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)Â Trailer
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)Â Reviews
“On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” deals with 007’s continuing pursuit of the villainous Ernst Stavro Blofeld, one that stretched through several of the earlier movies. The role was always played by a different actor in a radically different tone; occasionally bald and consistently fond of white cats. This particular head of S.P.E.C.T.R.E., as played by TV’s “Kojak”, Telly Savalas, is not the sinister creep with the unseen face of earlier movies, but rather a megalomaniac Goldfinger-inspired type who seems to have directly influenced the creation of Mike Myers’ Dr. Evil.He wants the world to pay a ransom or else he will spread a virus capable of destroying its crops, with the assistance of a team of unwitting beauties of all races (in what looks like the cast of a 1960s Miss Universe pageant). As Bond becomes involved with the complex Tracy Draco (Diana Rigg), he’ll unwillingly involve her in the action, resulting in two of the series’ most unexpected outcomes.
To make up for the lack of Connery, the script goes out of its way to provide Lazenby with plenty of lines to remind us that his Bond isn’t very different from the original. More than ever, he seems to be the ultimate expert on alcoholic beverages, gourmet foods and the use of witty lines in tense situations (Draco: “I didn’t think you’d accept a formal invitation.” Bond: “There’s always something formal about the point of a pistol!”).
It’s also no surprise that Lazenby’s Bond turns out to be an expert knife-thrower as well as an Olympic-caliber skier the very first time he hits the slopes in the series. What is a little harder to digest is that this Blofeld turns out to be just about as good in the latter talent. “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” is a relatively gadget-free 007 entry but it’s striking how Q Branch always comes up with just the perfect contraption for each mission.
If Bond needs to crack a safety deposit box and copy the documents inside, Q will come up with the world’s first safe opener to ever include a Xerox photocopier!
The series here reaches the point of becoming self-aware, with Lazenby addressing the camera and saying “This never happened to the other fellow” as he first fails to land his leading lady and, should his presence confuse anybody on whether this an actual 007 movie, there’s a credits scene that displays the greatest moments from previous entries, a janitor whistling the theme from “Goldfinger” and a sequence where Bond can be seen in his office, admiring mementos from past adventures.
The film fares reasonably well with Lazenby in the role. Its biggest problem can be summarized by what Roger always used to say: “Bond films are only as good as their villains”. This particular Blofeld’ and his “Angels of death” scheme are much campier than sinister, and too far-fetched to generate any kind of suspense.
The infiltration of Blofeld’s clinic in the Swiss Alps by Bond and associates feels much too routine thanks to one of those typical battles we’ve seen time and time again, where the teams of good guys and bad guys launch grenades at one another while wearing opposite bright-toned suits for the sake of easy differentiation. Additionally, henchwoman Irma Blunt, an obvious Rosa Klebb wannabe, is nowhere near her predecessor’s sinisterly league.
She looks like the moody matron at an all-girls dormitory more than anything else. There’s also the matter of having assigned Bond with a sidekick and sacrificial lamb Campbell (Bernard Horsefall) who’s only there as an excuse for Bond to become enraged with the villains once they inevitably dispatch him. It’s hard to become too attached with a character who doesn’t speak more than 20 words in the movie and exchanges no dialogue whatsoever with Lazenby.
The movie also has its share of the usual absurdities. In order to pass undercover in Blofeld’s clinic Bond takes the place of genealogist Sir Hillary Bray and to make his cover more convincing, the filmmakers decided to dub George Lazenby with the voice of the snobbish herald (as played by George Baker). This makes very little sense, all the less considering that Bond and Blofeld had previously met in the latter’s volcano lair in “You Only Live Twice”, so having him speaking with somebody else’s voice isn’t going to make much of a difference.Besides, listening to Bond sound like a nerdish snob for a good deal of the movie (while wearing a traditional Scottish kilt) is terribly distracting. “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” is also one of the most dated looking Bond films. The sets at the casino in Portugal and the look of Blofeld’s “Angels of death” would both make it appear as if the filmmakers were trying to satirize an Austin Powers movie.There’s also the odd fact that the one movie where Bond ends up getting married happens to be the same where he acts the most promiscuous. Perhaps the filmmakers should have avoided showing him blatantly admiring (and even stealing) a Playboy centerfold from the very man whose office he’s secretly broken into (if there’s an object whose absence could make the guy suspicious, that would probably be it).
I also don’t think it was the best idea to have him sleeping with as many of the clinic’s beauties as he humanly can during his courtship of Tracy. This makes him look like a creep and hints at the fact that he wouldn’t have made a very good husband.
Despite all of these faults, the film does have a larger share of virtues than the typical Bond entry. That’s what makes it so highly regarded among the series’ followers. For the first time in a while, Bond actually does some spying as opposed to solving every crisis by simply pushing the buttons on the most recent gadget (prime example: his handling of the “Little Nellie” helicopter in “You Only Live Twice”).
His escape from Blofeld’s clinic displays some of the best and most dangerous stunts in the series and, for a change, there seems to be a feeling of vulnerability to the character. The movie includes what’s surely the best and most exciting of the soundtracks written by John Barry for the series, with a main theme so good that without the classic Monty Norman (an authorship disputed by Barry) this could have made a pretty good substitute.
What makes the film most memorable, however, is Diana Rigg’s performance as Tracy, the daughter of underworld figure Draco and Bond’s short-lived bride, one of the first three-dimensional characters in the Bond series. What’s amazing is that it wasn’t until some three decades and then a dozen entries later (some remarkably good nonetheless) that the Bond films again displayed some semblance of genuine human traits in their protagonist (see “Casino Royale” and “Skyfall”). 3It’s no coincidence that along with “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”, these are the features that have provided the series with its most satisfying conclusions.Perhaps even more transcendent has been the influence of John Glen’s editing techniques on countless action films to follow (for better, and certainly for worse). “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” is the first feature in memory to use quick cut edits in some of its action scenes. This approach consists of pasting several short bits of film together to make these impossible moves by the characters seem feasible.
Bond punches an enemy who flies across the room (literally), his enemies rise from the floor in one single move that lasts milliseconds, and so on. There are even echo sound effects added to these sequences for greater effect. The end results are somewhat mixed: the scenes do become more exciting, but our minds can only absorb so much information in such a short time period.
And we have “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” to thank for future things like “Armageddon” (1998), where this is done to a point where we come out of the theater feeling nauseated. In fairness, some other cases fared much better as it has allowed later action stars like Matt Damon (Jason Bourne), Angelina Jolie (Evelyn Salt) and Liam Neeson (the “Taken” series) to give the impression that they can actually trade blows as if possessed.
At any rate, this turned out to be an interesting experiment but I don’t think any of the hand-to-hand battles here are remotely as exciting as the pinnacle achievement from the time and the series, the fights between Sean Connery and Robert Shaw in “From Russia with Love”, done the old fashioned way.
I’ve always seen “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” as a rather uneven Bond, one with a great story but a few too many problems, belonging somewhere in the middle section of the series’ canon. It is also one of the most underrated Bond movies, perhaps because some viewers tend to skip it once they run into a mostly unrecognizable 007. It’s fair to say that if Lazenby had done a few more Bonds, audiences would have likely ended up accepting him.
After all, every actor who’s played the part has been raw the first time around to some degree. At any rate, the film works remarkably well when considering this is the sixth entry in the series (how often does that happen?) and, having one of the best stories in the franchise, it is often mentioned as a prime candidate for a future remake. I am against the very idea of ever doing that with any Bond film, but if there was ever to be one, the unfulfilled potentially of “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” could make it the sole exception.
- Gerardo Valero  –  Roger Ebert
- Gerardo Valero is lives in Mexico City with his wife Monica. Since 2011 he’s been writing a daily blog about film clichés and flubs (in Spanish) on Mexico’s Cine-Premiere Magazine. His contributions to “Ebert’s Little Movie Glossary” were included in the last twelve editions of “Roger Ebert’s Movie Yearbook.”
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On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)Â Credits
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)Â Plot
James Bond saves a woman on the beach from committing suicide by drowning, and later meets her again in a casino. The woman, Contessa Teresa “Tracy” di Vicenzo, invites Bond to her hotel room to thank him, but when Bond arrives he is attacked by an unidentified man. After subduing the man, Bond returns to his own room and finds Tracy there; she claims she was unaware of the attacker’s presence.
The next morning, Bond is kidnapped by several men, including the one he fought, who take him to meet Marc-Ange Draco, the head of the European crime syndicate Unione Corse. Draco reveals that Tracy is his only daughter and tells Bond of her troubled past, offering Bond one million pounds if he will marry her. Bond refuses, but agrees to continue romancing Tracy if Draco helps him track down Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE.
Upon returning to London, M relieves Bond of his mission to assassinate Blofeld. Furious, Bond dictates a letter of resignation to Moneypenny, which she alters into a request for leave. Bond heads for Draco’s birthday party in Portugal. There, Bond and Tracy begin a whirlwind romance, and Draco directs the agent to a law firm in Bern, Switzerland. Bond breaks into the office of Swiss lawyer Gumbold and learns that Blofeld is corresponding with London College of Arms genealogist Sir Hilary Bray, attempting to claim the title Count Balthazar de Bleuchamp.
Posing as Bray, Bond goes to meet Blofeld, who has established a clinical allergy-research institute atop Piz Gloria in the Swiss Alps. Bond meets 12 young women (later referred to by Blofeld as his “angels of death”), who are patients at the institute’s clinic, apparently cured of various allergies.
After dinner, Bond goes to the room of one patient, Ruby, to seduce her. At midnight, while still with Ruby, Bond discovers the women go into a sleep-induced hypnotic state while Blofeld implants subliminal audio instructions. In fact, they are being brainwashed to distribute bacteriological warfare agents throughout the world.
Bond tries to trick Blofeld into leaving Switzerland so that MI6 can arrest him without violating Swiss sovereignty. Blofeld refuses and Bond is eventually caught by henchwoman Irma Bunt. Blofeld reveals that he identified Bond after his attempt to lure him out of Switzerland, and tells his henchmen to take the agent away. Bond eventually makes his escape by skiing down from Piz Gloria while Blofeld and his men give chase.
Tracy finds Bond in the village of Lauterbrunnen, and they escape Bunt and her men after a car chase. A blizzard forces them to a remote barn, where Bond professes his love to Tracy and proposes marriage to her, which she happily accepts. The next morning, as the chase continues on skis, Blofeld sets off an avalanche. Tracy is captured, while Bond is buried but manages to escape.
Back in London at M’s office, Bond is informed that Blofeld intends to hold the world at ransom by threatening to destroy its agriculture using his brainwashed women, demanding amnesty for all past crimes, and that he be recognised as the current Count de Bleuchamp. M tells 007 that the ransom will be paid and forbids him to mount a rescue mission.
Bond instead enlists Draco and his forces to attack Blofeld’s headquarters, while also rescuing Tracy from Blofeld’s captivity. The facility is destroyed, and Blofeld escapes the destruction alone in a bobsleigh, with Bond pursuing him. The chase ends when Blofeld is ensnared by tree branches.
Bond and Tracy marry in Portugal, then drive away in Bond’s Aston Martin DBS. When Bond pulls over to the roadside to remove flowers from the car, Blofeld and Bunt commit a drive-by shooting of the couple’s car. Bond survives, but Tracy is killed in the attack.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)Â Box office
The film topped the United States box office when it opened with a gross of $1.2 million for the week.[64] It was the highest-grossing film in January 1970.[65] The film closed its box-office run with £750,000 in the United Kingdom (the highest-grossing film of the year),[66] $64.6 million worldwide,[67] half of You Only Live Twice‘s total gross,[66] but still one of the highest-grossing films of 1969.
It was one of the most popular movies in France in 1969, with admissions of 1,958,172.[69] Nonetheless, this was a considerable drop from You Only Live Twice.[70] After re-releases, the total box office was $82,000,000 worldwide.
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On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)Â Critical Response
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was released on 18 December 1969[56] with its premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in London.[57] The avalanche sequence in the film had been recorded in stereo and the Odeon installed a new speaker system to highlight the effect.[58]
Lazenby appeared at the premiere with a beard, looking “very un-Bond-like”, according to the Daily Mirror.[59] Lazenby claimed the producers had tried to persuade him to shave it off to appear like Bond, but by then he had already decided not to make another Bond film and rejected the idea.[60] The beard and accompanying shoulder-length hair “strained his already fragile relationship with Saltzman and Broccoli”.[61]
Because Lazenby had informed the producers that On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was to be his only outing as Bond and because of the lack of gadgets used by Bond in the film, few items of merchandise were produced for the film, apart from the soundtrack album and a film edition of the book.
Those that were produced included a number of Corgi Toys, including Tracey’s Mercury Cougar (1969), Campbell’s Volkswagen and two versions of the bobsleigh—one with the 007 logo and one with the Piz Gloria logo.[62] On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was nominated for only one award: George Lazenby was nominated in the New Star of the Year – Actor category at the 1970 Golden Globe Award ceremony, losing out to Jon Voight.
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