Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

A Masterpiece!

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

This was the sixth Bond film, and the only one starring George Lazenby as Bond. He was surprisingly good, despite a pair of outwardly jutting bat ears and a slight edge of goofiness. Lazenby had been an unknown male model before winning this role, then he ridiculously declined to ever act as Bond again, a decision he later publicly regretted.So, its stand-alone nature makes it unique in the Bond catalog, but on its own merits, it's one of the very best films of the entire series, with a sinister Telly Savalas bringing actual physically threatening demeanor to the role of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and Diana Rigg as a captivating heroine, a Bond girl with evident brains, guts and ample self-determination. It features a taut, no-nonsense script, with a tongue-in-cheek opening teaser sequence. ("This never happened to the other fellow," the other fellow being Sean Connery, who had walked away from the franchise after "You Only Live Twice," then returned in one later last official performance, "Diamonds Are Forever.")Savalas was menacing and smoothly evil, this time Blofeld is threatening global destruction of major foodstuffs crops as the means of an enormous extortion scheme, biological warfare to be delivered by a cadre of brainwashed beauties, Blofeld's Angels of Death. The flick boasts rich location settings in Portugal and Switzerland, plus some of the best alpine action scenes ever filmed in the entire Bond series, capped by that wicked fight during the long, long bobsled run. The score by John Barry was excellent, as was Peter Hunt's direction.Critics at the time found Lazenby merely passable, but I found him to be droll, emotive and athletic in the proper proportions, big ears or not. Savalas and Rigg brought their late 60s star power to bear, and the result both shakes and stirs, especially with the shocking ending. This film is among those few in the Bond series that is worthy of repeated viewing, it's right up there with "Goldfinger, From Russia With Love, Diamonds Are Forever, The Spy Who Loved Me, Tomorrow Never Dies, and Skyfall." (Note that I refuse to designate one of the two droning, spiritless Timothy Dalton Bond entries as among the best.)

If this weren't a James Bond 007 film, it might rate a notch higher. But no more than that. This is an interesting plot, and the film has some of the usual great scenery and camera work. An unusually higher caliber of cast (Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas) raise it a level. But it has a few things against it. The biggest minus is that it drags in several places. It has short bursts of boredom with little action or interest. The second problem is George Lazenby as James Bond. Again, if he wasn't James Bond but someone else, it would be OK. But, he doesn't have the Bond persona. George is a nice guy, a gentleman, even a little down to earth and humble. But he's not a very good actor. His fight scenes have the slightest pause in them, so they seem contrived or staged. James Bond, on the other hand, is supposed to be tough and macho. He's an overly self-confident, even a little conceited character. That's James Bond, but not George Lazenby. And the third thing wrong with this plot is Bond getting married. I don't think any fans were ready for that at that stage of the Bond character. Again, if the hero was anyone other than Bond, it would be OK for a film. But not here. And Diana Rigg's warming up to him after a while just isn't very convincing. Lazenby didn't go over back then, and the search was on for another actor to play James Bond. We would see Sean Connery return two more times. This was Lazenby's first starring role after just appearing in a TV series. He has stayed in the movies and on TV, but couldn't hold up in leading man roles.

"On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is an odd "Bond" movie to assess, namely because it's the first film without Sean Connery, but also because some other actors were replaced, including Telly Savalas supplanting Donald Pleasance as Blofeld, while other key roles (Q, M, Moneypenny) remained the same. This quasi-reinvention warrants a level of comparison to the previous five "Bond" films, but can also be assessed as its own "one- off" edition.Australian George Lazenby is a handsome, charismatic charmer, and it's clear to see why he won Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman's admiration and reportedly a 7-film deal. If he would've gotten a chance to grow into James Bond, he would have earned a lot more fans and would not generally have been ranked as the least of the six Bonds. He's a definitely a younger, pluckier interpretation of the character as opposed to Connery's mature, gentlemanly wiles. Still, he's easy to root for — the "Bond" films are a formula and he fits nicely into his end of the equation.What's nice about "OHMSS" is how it dials back from the silliness and larger-than-life nature of "You Only Live Twice," which is probably the result of it being a direct interpretation of an Ian Fleming novel. The bulk of the action stays at Blofeld's Switzerland hideaway, where Bond is getting close to his foe to find out the truth behind his "allergy research, so there's more isolation that world-traipsing, while the ski chases give the movie that big "Bond" energy without resulting to spaceships and nuclear war. The stakes are Bond's survival — and his love for Tracy (Diana Rigg).Seeing Bond in love, even though his romance with Tracy bookends the film and there's a little sexual mischief in the middle, definitely adds a bit more depth to James and a lot more emotion to points of the film. "OHMSS" isn't dramatic or deeply touching, but there's a real human element we haven't necessarily seen at play and won't see at play much until the Daniel Craig era.At 142 minutes, "OHMSS" hold the title of the longest of all the early "Bond" entries, and it's 30 minutes too long to be sure. Parts of the film drag — the first act feels especially pointless — and most of the payoff comes in the final 45 minutes. Other than a few sneak attacks on Bond in his hotel room(s) there is not a lot of intermediary action to hold our attention. The entertainment is supposed to come from the suspense of Bond's deception while in Blofeld's clutches.Director Peter Hunt turned out to be a one-off as well and maybe that was for the best. His style calls a lot more attention to itself than Terence Young or Guy Hamilton's with a little more brute action and a tone of rapid-fire editing in the action sequences. It gets a bit dizzying and he turns to camera effects way more than was status quo for these films. So in some ways it's a more visceral, visually interesting take, and in some ways he oversteps. Regardless, he gets things going when they need to get going, keeping "OHMSS" from becoming a total slog. It's just a lot of peaks and valleys."On Her Majesty's Secret Service" has a lot of the elements you want in a "Bond" film, providing a safe playground for Lazenby to fill Bond's shoes. If the film doesn't end up as a one-off blip and the Lazenby Bond storyline is continued, the conversation around "OHMSS" changes. Instead, it's a solid if not overly long "Bond" entry of little consequence.~Steven CThanks for reading! Visit Movie Muse Reviews for more

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.