Review of On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) by William B — 27 Jan 2009

What this movie gets right, it gets really right. What it gets wrong, though... In the plus column, the movie starts out perfectly, all shadows and sexiness. The attempts to assure viewers that this is the same character they've been enjoying-- the musical cues that callback to previous movies, the game of chemin de fer, and the scenes from previous films during the opening title sequence-- are well done.

Lazenby himself is a nice cross between Connery's man of action and Moore's man of smarm. On the other hand, Telly Savalas has absolutely no sense of charisma or menace (oddly enough, though Blofeld is Bond's most famous nemesis, he's actually one of the least interesting, once they drag him out of the shadows and reveal him-- none of the actors to play the revealed Blofeld lived up to the sense of malice hinted at by the mysterious, cat-stroking hand in his earliest appearances).

The costuming and the all-girl assassin squad is downright silly (it's the only time the Bond films really feel "Austin Powers-ish"), but the very end is surprisingly touching. Not one of the better Bond films, but you get a sense that Lazenby might have found his footing eventually, had he continued in the role.