On Her Majesty's Secret Service (DVD)

At the time it was released, this was the best Bond film. The cinematography is so far ahead of the previous films that it is incomparable. The film does an excellent job balancing action, romance, drama, and intrigue. Despite having a slightly lower budget than the previous Bond film, "You Only Live Twice," nearly everything in the film is better done - and it is so drastically better than the films before "You Only Live Twice" that it is shocking they are from the same franchise.George Lazenby received a lot of criticism for his portrayal of Bond, but I did not dislike it. He provides us with the most human, the most vulnerable Bond. It is instantly more relatable than Connery's Bond, and Lazenby does an excellent job making Bond interesting without gadgets. Connery is more charming, of course, but I feel like too much of the criticism was simply because Lazenby's portrayal was so different from Connery's - it is not bad acting.Speaking of the acting, this is the first time that I felt all the characters in a Bond film were well acted. There were no unconvincing characters, no unbelievable villains, no barely rehearsed side characters. The female lead, Diana Rigg, was particularly excellent. Her confidence and strength of will made her even better than the previous Bond Girls (though I did love Daniela Bianchi and Akiko Wakabayashi).The film takes Bond out of the absurd situations the Connery films were known for and into a more believable conflict. I prefer this immensely, as I was tired of rolling my eyes at the Connery films. We trade out poorly shot ridiculous situations and cheaply made sets for real locations, a convincing screenplay, and excellent camera work. It makes Bond feel "real" for the first time.The film is far from perfect, however.The movie has a tendency to drag things out. Scenes that should be brief are loaded with filler. Unimportant and uninteresting scenes are included for no reason. Scenes that should finish in five minutes instead take ten.This is most apparent in the three terrible chase scenes. We have two awful skiing chase scenes (some fool liked the first so much that they insisted on including another), and a ridiculous bobsled chase scene. All of these use obvious camera tricks the rest of the movie avoids, all of them change the distance between pursuers and attackers with no relevance to what is actually happening, and all of them actively make the movie worse. Any other choice for the escapes would have been preferable to these awful, terrible scenes.The plot itself magically "resolves" without any confirmation whatsoever from anyone. It is as if the scenes explaining the resolution were simply cut out. For a movie that spends so long building up the threat, to simply forget about it is ridiculous.Fight scenes are unfortunately haphazardly shot. The characters involved change places with each camera cut, making the scenes feel chaotic and jarring. I suspect this was deliberate since the rest of the film was so well done, but I am not a fan of this style.Finally, the ending of the movie is ridiculously poorly shot. The final minute of the movie seems as if it were done by a different director, and makes nearly every mistake it could. The camerawork is poor, the pacing is ridiculous, it is completely unfeasible given all the earlier plot developments, but it still happens. George Lazenby and Diana Rigg do a great job making sure that in spite of all this, the audience feels. To say anything else would be an unfortunate spoiler.

This is one of the better Bond movies. It is quite unique and moving.What makes it unique? Bond REALLY falls in love and gets MARRIED! This is a first for 007. And, too, the assailants (Biofeld played app;y by Telly Savalas, et al) actually get away with the murder and their nefarious schemes. Never saw this in any other Bond flick. Moving because Bond genuinely cries when his new bride ( Diana Rigg playing a convincing Italian Countess,) is murdered on the way to their honeymoon.Lazenby would have made a believable Bond in future pics had his manager convinced to avoid and future Bond roles because of cast typing. Unfortunately for Lazenby, he never made it big again; bad advice! He was due to play the part in a follow up but they had to call in one of the former Bonds to fill the part.What makes this picture stand out aside from the above information is it won the Golden Satellite Award for best classic DVD release in 2004. Lazenby was nominated by Golden Gloves for most promising newcomer male.An added treat is a cameo performance by Louis Armstrong!

Although George Lazenby is much maligned for his take on Bond (I think most people's issue with him is simply that he wasn't Sean Connery), I really like this movie. The actual love story intertwined throughout the plot as opposed to Bond's typical womanizing is very refreshing, and I very much like the action sequences. I don't love this films version of the classic villain Blofeld, but I feel the movie as a whole is much better than history treats it. If nothing else, it's a fascinating chapter in the 007 catalog that should not be missed.

Short version: Bond movies are fun, so this is alright. But it's one of the lesser films in the series. Not as bad a couple of the Brosnan flicks, but not great. And somehow it manages to both break important conventions and not be that interesting.Longer version, including some spoilers:First things first: when Sean Connery wanted too much money and Broccoli and Co. needed a new Bond, they hadn't yet figured out that they could get away with each actor being distinctly different, so they went with George Lazenby, a hilarious cookie cutter Connery knockoff. Then they compounded the problem by giving him lines specifically referencing the issue, like "this never happened to the other fellow" at the end of the pre-credits teaser. The effect is eye rolling. And by today's lights with 4 more Bonds under our belts, it's just jarring when he walks into the casino and you think "wow, they really did just go on a lookalike search, huh?" The fact that they rehired Connery afterward makes it even worse. Poor guy...it's not Lazenby's fault of course.Anyway, apart from the casting the movie has plenty of other issues. First, the driver of the plot is that Bond just goes looking for Blofeld. Come on. The way this is supposed to work is Bond goes looking into some random thing, like gold smuggling or spaceships getting eaten by bigger spaceships, and then finds out, shockingly, that it's that dastardly Blofeld again! Going out searching for the bad guy is cheating.Likewise, it's cheating to go incognito. One of the fun parts of Bondism is the ridiculousness of his very public "secret agent" schtick: "Bond. James Bond. I work for Her Majesty's Secret Service; just between you and me I've never understood why they call it that." Granted, Connery pulled the same thing with that "Peter Franks" nonsense in Diamonds are Forever, but only briefly, and that movie had a lot of redeeming qualities to get you past that. This one, less so.Not living up to his public agent persona isn't the only way he's out of character either. Why is this man wearing a kilt? Why is he pretending to be gay!?!? No, seriously, that's totally unnecessary to the subterfuge he wasn't supposed to be engaged in, and antithetical to the openly womanizing and dare we say borderline misogynistic 1960s alpha male we're looking for. And don't think this is a positive, like he's woke and better behaved...nope, he uses his fake LGBTQ card to go womanizing! And to make matters worse, he does it lazy! Every bond seduction in every other movie is cleverly tailored to the woman in question, and now we have to watch knockoff Connery use the same generic junk lines with two women one after another? Weak sauce, Lazenby; go back to your fiancee......which brings me to the worst part. He gets married. And not to a Japanese ninja secret agent as part of the job (this is a good job!), but to some mafioso's daughter who he had already run into, saved from totally unexplained bad guys, loaned 20 grand, and bedded, back in the teaser which again was simply utterly unexplained. Not only do we have to endure a stock love montage in the middle of a Bond movie, but we also get a mafioso at a wedding talkin' glory days with M about that time some of M's guys killed some of mafioso's guys. Ugh. We also get Bond saying he's quitting MI6, which is not the King and Country man we know.And finally, as if Broccoli realized his egregious mistake after they were done filming and decided to try to put things right with one more scene, they just straight knock her off. And not in some interesting Felix Leiter shark attack or something...in a drive-by shooting from knockoff Rosa Klebb, who didn't even stick around to make sure she got Bond even though she had a machine gun and he was driving home from a wedding. This is seriously Tasha Yar levels of bad. And this is how we end the movie. Not on a life raft getting laid and then rescued by airplane. Not in a spaceship getting laid in zero G. Nope, dead wife, sad Bond, cut to credits. Disaster.There are a couple of good action scenes that are worthwhile in the midst of this otherwise poor showing. The car chase that ends up in a rally race has a certain Blues Brothers quality which, while not exactly proper Bond, is still good fun. The ski chase is legitimately good, although having Blofeld personally involved is a little weird. That's probably made up for (and in fact explained by) his sinister avalanche move...killing your henchmen in front of your henchmen is pretty on-brand here. I don't want to give the impression that there's nothing worthwhile at all. But a lot of it, including a lot of the fights, the dastardly plan, and even the choice of easily-escaped imprisonment (seriously, the machine room for a gondola? You didn't realize he'd get on the gondola!?) are just phoned in.So there you have it. A Bond movie with a backwards plot and out-of-character Bond with knockoff casting, that goes off the reservation but not in interesting or fun ways. A sad showing for a vaunted series.

Obviously it's a matter of personal preference who is your favourite Bond and I have to admit that George Lazenby is rather low on the list for me. But that doesn't mean this isn't a very solid entry in the franchise.The story is decent, Telly Savalas is quite magnificent as Bond's arch enemy Blofeld and Diana Rigg is possibly the best Bond girl and certainly the only one he marries (at least to date). Also fun the villain's mountain top lair and his "harem" of alluring ladies including the young Joanna Lumley. There's an exciting ski chase down the mountain and, like him or not, Lazenby is a very athletic actor and he is great in the action scenes.Add to this the usual array of exotic locations, high production values and a nice 60s flair and you have a very entertaining film indeed. One of the better Bond films as far as I'm concerned. Certainly worth checking out for anybody who hasn't yet seen it and worth owning for any Bond fan who doesn't yet have it.The 2 DVD Ultimate Edition has a huge amount of bonus material. If you like your DVD extras, this is certainly the one to go for.

Great Bond film, after Sean C. quit. Tough act to follow. But followed up well. Clever intro gave us a new Bond slowly and effectively to pull us into acceptance. Rest came off well, with added interest boost by having Diana Rigg, (another legend of a character as Mrs. Peel on Avengers cult series) as his romance. All plays out very well.

I used to, when younger avoid this Bond film feeling it didn't have that something that other bond films had, and not liking Lazenby as Bond. However Upon recently re-watching the film my opinion has somewhat changed. Firstly with George Lazenby who could have been a great Bond if he had continnued with a few more 007 films. I would say he could even have been one of the best actors to play bond. but this was to be the only film he did so that is immaterial. The film does still to me feel somewhat different to all other bond films. Almost like a stand alone film. perhaps because it was a First for both Lazenby & Director Peter Hunt who both didn't return after this film. It is still a great film very exiting with good action. Not sure of Telly Savalas' Blofeld nothing like the creepy Donald Pleasence of You Only Live Twice & not really overly threatening. It is also a mistake to say Blofeld kills Tracy Bond as that is actually Bloefelds henchwoman Irma Bunt. An Enjoyable film and one not to avoid as I did in my younger days. Great music score too from John Barry & featuring Louis Armstrong:We have all the time in the world.

I have had this D.V.D. for a long time, having the video in that era, as well as the vinyl soundtrack. I have always liked the film and George Lazenby, plus the film, got bad press at the time of its release. But I feel its still one of the best, on a par with Sean Connery, Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig.The only thing that goes against it and dates it is the dress sense of the day, frilly shirts in the casino, mini skirts, and the colours of the day.

You know when you see Maurice Binder's title sequence together with John Barry's exciting theme, you're in for something special. To follow Sean Connery in the rôle was thought to be impossible, but George Lazenby acquits himself admirably. The commentary with director Peter Hunt & others is a fount of information which I found hugely interesting & answered many questions.The score is my personal favourite of all John Barry's Bond music. (I strongly recommend the cd soundtrack)The digital transfer is excellent & the film looks great.This is a collectors 'must have' & I'm glad I've now got it!HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.Very quick delivery!