Review of On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) by John T — 25 Oct 2011

I understand that the 007 producers probably wanted to give fans a fresh, new, innovative look into the world of James Bond; with the departure of Connery after You Only Live Twice in 1967, George Lazenby had a huge challenge to fill the shoes of his predecessor. After all, the world only knew Bond as Sean Connery until 1969. With this in mind, Lazenby was likely under pressure to bring his own take to the Bond character while keeping fans happy.

Unfortunately, despite his efforts, and the efforts of the producers, On Her Majesty's Secret Service doesn't really do much for me. The action is unbelievably slow at times, and the story isn't really interesting enough to have kept me entertained throughout. It's long, irritatingly drawn-out, and no where near as appealing as the very cool, self-aware, well-paced Connery outings. The cinematography in OHMSS is bold enough to move on from the style of the films of the early 60s, which is nice in places, and quite slick, despite some unusual editing (voices and sound effects out of sync with actors, for example).

However I feel Lazenby got a bit of bad luck; as Bond he wasn't completely terrible, but the film's premise didn't lend itself very well to allow him to open up and offer anything substantial to the role. Maybe if he had taken 007 on a few more times afterwards, we would have seen some potentially great entries to the Bond series, but for me, Lazenby and OHMSS died on its feet.