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, whose title is a derivative of the term "On Her Majesty's Service". Following Sean Connery's decision to retire from the role after You Only Live Twice, Eon selected George Lazenby, a model with no prior acting credits, to play the part of James Bond. During filming, Lazenby announced that he would play the role of Bond only once. Connery returned to portray Bond in 1971's Diamonds Are Forever.
In the film, Bond faces Blofeld (Telly Savalas), who is planning to hold the world to ransom by threatening 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).
The film marked the directorial debut of Peter R. Hunt, who had served as a film editor and second unit director on previous films in the series: it would be his only Bond film as director. 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. Critical reviews upon release were mixed, but the film's reputation has improved greatly over time and it 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.
Plot
James Bond saves a woman on the beach from an attempted 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 a leave of absence. Bond heads for Draco's birthday party in Portugal. There, Bond and Tracy begin a whirlwind romance, and Draco directs Bond to Gebrüder Gumbold, a law firm in Bern, Switzerland. Bond breaks into the office of Blofeld's lawyer 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 twelve 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, who wrote her room number on his bare leg. 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 Bond away. Bond eventually makes his escape by skiing down from Piz Gloria while Blofeld and his men give chase. Simultaneously, the "angels of death" depart Piz Gloria, escorted by Bunt. Tracy finds Bond in the village of Lauterbrunnen and helps him escape in her car. Pursued by Bunt and her men, they drive into a stock-car race to shake them off. A blizzard forces Bond and Tracy off the road and they shelter in a remote barn. Bond professes his love to Tracy and proposes marriage to her, which she happily accepts. The next morning, they set off on skis but Blofeld and his men find them and give chase. Blofeld sets off an avalanche that sweeps over Bond and Tracy. Tracy is captured, while Bond is buried but later escapes.
Back in London at M's office, Bond is informed that Blofeld intends to hold the world to ransom by threatening to destroy its agriculture using his brainwashed women. Blofeld demands amnesty for all past crimes and to 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 trapped in a collision with the branch of a tree.
Bond and Tracy marry in Portugal, then drive away in Bond's Aston Martin DBS decorated with flowers. When Bond pulls over to the roadside to remove the flowers, Blofeld and Bunt drive past and machine-gun their car. Tracy is killed and Bond cradles her dead body.
Cast
George Lazenby as James Bond, MI6 agent 007. Diana Rigg as Countess Tracy di Vicenzo, Marc-Ange Draco's daughter. Telly Savalas as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, leader of SPECTRE. Gabriele Ferzetti as Marc-Ange Draco, Head of the Unione Corse, and Tracy's father. David de Keyser provided the English dubbing. Ilse Steppat as Irma Bunt, Blofeld's henchwoman. Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny, M's secretary. George Baker as Sir Hilary Bray, Herald in the London College of Arms. When Bond impersonates Bray, Baker dubs Bond's voice. Bernard Lee as M, Head of the British Secret Service. Bernard Horsfall as Shaun Campbell, 007's colleague. Desmond Llewelyn as Q, Head of MI6's technical department. Yuri Borienko as Grunther, chief of security at Piz Gloria. Virginia North as Olympe, Draco's lover. Nikki van der Zyl provided the uncredited voice for Olympe. Geoffrey Cheshire as Toussaint, one of Draco's thugs. Irvin Allen as Che Che, Tracy's bodyguard. Terry Mountain as Raphael. James Bree as Gumbold. John Gay as Hammond. Brian Worth as Manuel (uncredited). Bessie Love as Baccarat Player (uncredited).
Blofeld's Angels of Death
The angels of death are 12 women from all over the world being brainwashed by Blofeld under the guise of allergy or phobia treatment to spread the Virus Omega. Their unwitting mission is to help Blofeld contaminate and ultimately sterilise the world's food supply. Angela Scoular as Ruby Bartlett, an English girl at the clinic suffering from an allergy to chickens, whom Bond seduces. Scoular also played Buttercup in the 1967 Bond comedy Casino Royale. Anouska Hempel as an Australian girl Catherina von Schell as Nancy, a Hungarian girl at the clinic whom Bond also beds Dani Sheridan as an American. as an Israeli. Ingrid Back as a German. Jenny Hanley as an Irish woman. Joanna Lumley as an Englishwoman. Julie Ege as Helen, a Scandinavian. Mona Chong as a Chinese woman. Sylvana Henriques as a Jamaican. Zaheera (credited as Zara) as an Indian.
Production The novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service was first published after the film series started and contains "a gentle dig at the cinematic Bond's gadgets". Broccoli and Saltzman had originally intended to make On Her Majesty's Secret Service after Goldfinger, and Richard Maibaum worked on a script at that time. Thunderball was filmed instead, after the ongoing rights dispute over the novel was settled between Fleming and Kevin McClory. On Her Majesty's Secret Service was due to follow that, but problems with a warm Swiss winter and inadequate snow cover led to Saltzman and Broccoli postponing the film again, favouring production of You Only Live Twice.
Between the resignation of Sean Connery at the beginning of filming You Only Live Twice and its release, Saltzman had planned to adapt The Man with the Golden Gun in Cambodia and use Roger Moore as the next Bond, but political instability meant the location was ruled out and Moore signed up for another series of The Saint. After You Only Live Twice was released in 1967, the producers once again picked up with On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
Peter Hunt, who had worked on the five preceding films, had impressed Broccoli and Saltzman enough to earn his directorial debut as they believed his quick cutting had set the style for the series. It was also the result of a long-standing promise from Broccoli and Saltzman for a directorial position, which they honored after Lewis Gilbert declined to direct. Hunt also asked for the position during the production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and he brought along with him many crew members, including cinematographer Michael Reed. Hunt was focused on making his mark – "I wanted it to be different than any other Bond film would be. It was my film, not anyone else's." On Her Majesty's Secret Service was the last film in the series on which Hunt worked.
Writing Screenwriter Richard Maibaum, who had worked on all the previous Bond films except for You Only Live Twice, was responsible for On Her Majesty's Secret Services script. Saltzman and Broccoli decided to drop the science fiction gadgets from the earlier films and focus more on plot, as in From Russia with Love. Peter Hunt asked Simon Raven to write some of the dialogue between Tracy and Blofeld in Piz Gloria, which was to be "sharper, better and more intellectual"; one of Raven's additions was having Tracy quoting James Elroy Flecker. When writing the script, the producers decided to make the closest adaptation of the book possible: virtually everything in the novel occurs in the film and Hunt was reported to always enter the set carrying an annotated copy of the novel.
With the script following the novel more closely than the other film adaptations of the eponymous source novels, there are several continuity errors due to the films taking place in a different sequence, such as Blofeld not recognising Bond, despite having met him face-to-face in the previous film You Only Live Twice. In the original script, Bond undergoes plastic surgery to disguise him from his enemies; the intention was to allow an unrecognisable Bond to infiltrate Blofeld's hideout and help the audience accept the new actor in the role. However, this was dropped in favour of ignoring the change in actor.
To make audiences not forget it was the same James Bond, just played by another actor, the producers inserted many references to the previous films, some as in-jokes. These include Bond breaking the fourth wall by stating "This never happened to the other fellow"; the credits sequence with images from the previous instalments; Bond visiting his office and finding objects from Dr. No, From Russia with Love, and Thunderball; and a caretaker whistling the theme from Goldfinger. Maibaum later said he thought "Lazenby was not ideal for the part" but that "it was a marvellous script."
Casting