THE BOOK
ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE
Year: 1963
Author: Ian Fleming
THE PLOT
James Bond woos a mob boss' daughter and goes undercover to uncover the true reason for Ernst Stavro Blofeld's allergy research in the Swiss Alps involving beautiful women from around Britain and Ireland.
THE COMMENTARY
Oh, for the days when Bond books opened with scorpions or sociopathic Russian assassins! This time we have Bond reminiscing on a French beach about his childhood. Middle-aged men falling into nostalgic reverie over lost youth isn't why I read Bond books.
Bond is watching the Contessa Teresa "Tracy" di Vicenzo, whom he's met before, assuming she's going to try to commit suicide. When she tries to drown herself he stops her, only for both to be kidnapped by professional henchmen of unknown provenance and intent. Bond mentally goes over his first meeting with Tracy — which is all new to the reader — looking for clues as to what is happening. I bring this up because it's an awkward story construction, especially since the flashback is interrupted a couple of times. But by the time the thugs take Bond to meet Tracy's father, we know all we need to about Tracy (and about all we ever will).
That is actually not a complaint. For me to believe that Bond will fall in love and marry a woman, it's better that I don't know her all that well. That way I can imagine for myself what Bond finds so appealing about her, rather than Fleming giving me reasons I might or might not swallow. Instead, we only learn about her through her actions, which demonstrate intelligence and resourcefullness, and Bond's reactions to her, which seem heartfelt.
And what a surprise to find a sentimental guy inside the stone-cold Bond exterior. He visits graves, he falls in love.
This in contradistinction to some of the most cold-blooded spy stuff I can remember Bond doing. For one, he deliberately seduces various women for information, despite being engaged. Apparently he can dis-engage that part of his brain when necessary. He also doesn't bat an eye when a captured Swiss agent begs for his help, so as not to blow his own cover. This makes perfect sense; if Bond were to be revealed, they would simply both be killed. But it's one thing to rationalize, another to witness. Bond preserves the mission, while the Swiss agent is murdered, and one can't help but feel a chill.
Has he done either of these things before? l guess you could say Bond seduced Pussy Galore to get her "on side," as it were. But he also had the hots for her. I dunno. This feels different.
Also, I don't remember Bond creating so elaborate a cover story before. "Sir Hilary Bray" is genuine espionage, instead of the above-board police work Bond often does.
Further, once Bond has discovered the information he was sent to retrieve, he immediately reports back to his superiors so they can act on it. This is the sort of professional behavior I would expect, and have complained before when Bond fails to do it. (In Goldfinger, for example.)
In the course of this we learn that Bond has a Swiss mother, and Bond learns that other Bond families have the motto "The World Is Not Enough," which he says he will adopt. File that away.
On Piz Gloria, Bond meets Blofeld face to face for the first time. He's had surgery, so he doesn't look like he was described in Thunderball. He's still the same old murderous megalomaniac, though.
The novel proceeds on two tracks.
One is Bond vs. Blofeld. It's all good stuff, from the bobsled run to the avalanche to the Unione Corse assault to the car chase. Not only is it a great "red Indians" thrill ride, as Fleming would call it, but both Bond and Blofeld come off as unnervingly mortal. Bond seems actually afraid and at the end of his rope at the winter festival.
And that is the other track: Tracy. She rescues him at the festival, at his lowest point, where he is in dire need of rescuing. She demonstrates herself to be a perfect partner, reassuring the reader that Bond's infatuation has good cause. Her other scenes aren't nearly as effective, but Fleming keeps the romance moving along smartly as the action elsewhere reaches its climax.
Which is what makes the end such a shock. That, and how abrupt it is. What did readers think about that in 1963?
STRAY BULLETS
- Bond wonders "why it was that French girls had more prominent navels than any others. Was it that French surgeons sought to add, even in this minute respect, to the future sex-appeal of girl babies?" I think I'm speechless.
- World War II connection: Draco has been awarded for serving in the Resistance. As sometimes happens in Fleming books, we are introduced to a criminal who has an admirable code of ethics, and becomes Bond's ally (See: "Risico"). Being on the Allied side in WWII is usually a clue that the guy is OK.
- Bond visits Vesper Lind's grave in this book, which I don't believe happens in the movie. However, Bond visits Tracy's grave in For Your Eyes Only.
- M reacts explosively to "crackers" on the table at Christmas dinner. I know that in England scones are what we call biscuits, biscuits are cookies, crisps are chips and chips are French fries. But I don't know what "crackers" are, or why they should set M off like that.
- Ursula Andress get a mention (although not in context of her playing Honey Ryder in Dr. No). So does Nero Wolfe. It's funny, but these books are so locked into "the past" in my mind that it seems odd to consider that Fleming lived through more than 10 years of his life during this period, and was keeping up with pop culture. So much so that he drops "contemporary" references in this book that were somewhat contemporary with me. (Whereas the early books were published before I was born.)
SUMMARY
This is one of the best Bond books yet. Bond is an actual secret agent here, one who behaves professionally and ingeniously. He's also a human being, showing sentiment, fear and even love. I mentioned some negatives — the opening, for example — but they are far outweighed by the positives.
THE MOVIE
Year: 1969
Director: Peter R. Hunt
Writers: Simon Raven, Richard Maibaum
Starring: George Lazenby (James Bond), Diana Rigg (Tracy), Telly Savalas (Blofeld), Gabriele Ferzetti (Draco), Ilse Steppat (Irma Bunt), Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny), George Baker (Sir Hilary Bray), Bernard Lee (M), Bernard Horsfall (Campbell), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Yuri Borienko (Grunther), Virginia North (Olympe), Geoffrey Cheshire (Toussaint), Irvin Allen (Che Che), Terence Mountain (Raphael), James Bree (Herr Gumbold), John Gay (Hammond), Angela Scoular (Ruby)
Significant Music: John Barry composed the instrumental "On Her Majesty's Secret Service Theme." It's built around a "lament bass," WIki tells me, indicating the movie is a tragedy. That's all well and good, but when it was used as a substitute for the "James Bond Theme" in action sequences, which it was a lot, I found it distractingly athematic. Barry also composed "All the Time in the World," sung by Louis Armstrong.
THE PLOT
James Bond woos a mob boss' daughter and goes undercover to uncover the true reason for Ernst Stavro Blofeld's allergy research in the Swiss Alps involving beautiful women from around the world.
THE COMMENTARY
As mentioned above, the book opens with Bond and Tracy taken by hoods to meet Tracy's father, with Bond doing flashbacks to when he first met Tracy on the road and in Casino Royale des Eaux. The movie rearranges these two scenes into a linear narrative. It is an improvement.
There are some other things that are rearranged — like the avalanche scene being postponed until after Bond and Tracy escape together. And sometimes information arrives in dialogue that came through investigation or other means in the book. (For example, Blofeld explains his scheme to Bond in the movie, which Bond discovers on his own in the book — which kinda makes Bond look a little dim, IMHO.) But mostly the movie shows splendid fidelity to the book.
And in some ways the movie improves a bit on the book. In addition to the opening sequence, for example, the movie gives us a Bond and Tracy falling-in-love montage. (In the book Bond falls in love surprisingly fast.) And Tracy's father attacking Blofeld had tissue-thin motivation in the book, whereas in the movie he's helping to rescue his daughter.
Tracy's father, as you'd expect, is pretty old school on gender issues. "She needs a man to dominate her," he tells Bond about Tracy. Later he says to her, "You must promise me to obey your husband in all things." I think the 1969 audience was supposed to agree with Tracy, who basically laughed him off.
Speaking of Tracy, Diana Rigg wasn't A-list. But my perception of her will always be colored by The Avengers. I loved her in that as a kid — her performance informed my childhood idea of what a sexy, sophisticated woman was like — and I will always be in love with her. Even in Game of Thrones!
Bond stealing the Playboy centerfold is a bit beneath him. Or should be. Besides, he's freshly engaged to Tracy at that point, which is not a time to be fantasizing about other women. It's a cheap laugh they should have resisted.
I wondered at Bond's support agent having eye-catching yellow hair. Not blond, yellow. And curly. It was like a clown wig. Not very practical for an undercover spy! But then I realized the wig was to catch the viewer's eye, so that we would always notice him, and understand the significance when Blofeld caught him.
In the books, this is Bond's first face-to-face meeting with Blofeld. In the movies, it's the second (following You Only Live Twice). Blofeld had also appeared in two other Bond movies, From Russia with Love and Thunderball, but had not met Bond in the flesh. They would meet again in Diamonds Are Forever, and an unnamed Blofeld appears in For Your Eyes Only. SPECTRE was referenced in Dr. No, but I don't recall if there was any mention in Goldfinger. As a kid, I had the impression Blofeld was in all the Bond movies, forever being killed and resurrected.
The girls at Blofeld's institute in the movie are from a variety of nations. We get names for Ruby (English) and Nancy (unknown), but the others are listed in the credits as The Scandinavian Girl, The Chinese Girl, The Jamaican Girl, The American Girl, The English Girl (another one), The Indian Girl, The Australian Girl, The German Girl, The Israeli Girl and The Irish Girl. In the book, IIRC, they were all from the British Isles.
I didn't really catch this on the first watch weeks ago, but Bond was apparently playing Sir Hilary Bray as gay.
- He bores the girls with heraldry talk instead of flirting. Of course, he did that in the book, too. Irma Bunt was watching. In both cases he was playing footsie under the table.
- One girl snarls, "I know what he's allergic to." I originally thought she was miffed because "Bray" spent all night talking to Ruby and not to her.
- Ruby, Bond Conquest #1, says, "You're so funny when you pretend not to like girls." But he's in bed with her when she says that.
- Nancy, Bond Conquest #2, says, "I didn't think you liked girls." But he's actively seducing her as she says that.
The point is, the dialogue may have indicated Bond was pretending to be gay, but Lazenby's performance didn't. It was only on a second watch that I put it together. In my defense, the book didn't go there, so I wasn't looking for it. Fleming's Bray was fey, but not gay. I thought Lazenby's Bray was the same.
Speaking of dialogue, "Bray" repeats hisl lines when seducing the two girls we see. Why bother coming up with a new routine when you don't have to? I think the implication is that these girls would have jumped anything with a pulse.
There was a hint of a third Bond conquest in the movie — he tells Ruby he'll meet her at 8, Nancy at 9, and a third girl at 10 — but we never see it. I ran across a photo of Lazenby embracing a brunette, so Conquest #3 may have ended up on the cutting-room floor.
"It's true!" Ruby squeals when "Bray" drops his kilt. I assume she's referring to the speculation that Scots go commando under their kilts.
Just like in the book, Bond callously seduces these girls for information without batting an eye, despite being engaged to Tracy. He also does nothing to save the life of his fellow agent, but he has less opportunity, so it doesn't seem as ruthless. Anyway, good to see both elements carry through to the film.
Funny what perspective can do. I'm sure when Telly Savalas showed up in On Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1969, nobody questioned it — he'd been in a lot of TV shows, sure, but also a lot of movies, including memorable roles in The Battle of the Bulge and The Dirty Dozen. (He would have another great role the following year in Kelly's Heroes.) But looking back at this movie from 2023, all I saw was Kojak. He did a decent job, I think, but due to my own perception I had a hard time taking him seriously. I kept expecting to end every sentence with "baby."
Bond throwing his hat to Moneypenny at the wedding came off sweeter than I would have guessed.
Finally, the movie ended just as abruptly as the book. What must audiences have thought in 1969?
STRAY BULLETS
Lazenby's Bond breaks the fourth wall nearly immediately, turning to the camera and saying, "This never happened to the other fellow." I don't much like that sort of winking in what is supposed to be a serious film, but I guess they had to address the Sean Connery-shaped hole in the movie.
Bond threatens to resign because M is going to take him off "Operation Bedlam," the search for Blofeld and SPECTRE. This is the opposite of the book, where Bond believes Blofeld is dead and he is wasting his time searching for him. In the book, Bond threatens to resign because M won't take him off "Operation Bedlam."
I thought I recognized Nancy, Bond Conquest #2, and a quick search confirmed it. She was played by Bulgarian-born Catherine Schell, who played Maya, Servant of the Guardian, on 24 episodes of Space: 1999, which is surely where I remember her from. She was also in Return of the Pink Panther, which I may or may not have remembered.
Joanna Lumley plays "The English Girl," and went on to play Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous. She was also in a couple of Pink Panther films.
Lois Maxwell and Sean Connery were contemporaries, born around the same time, making their flirty banter amusing. But George Lazenby is 12 years younger than Maxwell, meaning that in On Her Majesty's Secret Service there was a sudden age gap between the two. That made Moneypenny's flirty banter a bit sad, or maybe poignant.
SUMMARY
I'd always heard bad things about this movie, but I thought it rather good. It was strenuously faithful to the book, even when it didn't make Bond look good. And while Lazenby, Rigg and Savalas are all kind-of second tier, they do their jobs here really well. I wouldn't have minded seeing more of Lazenby and Rigg, especially.
Replies
I haven't read the book recently, but I watched the movie not too long ago. (Oh, and I read the comic strip adaptation quite recently.)
I bring this up because it's an awkward story construction...
Perhaps, but at this point in the series, Fleming is experimenting with different forms of storytelling. Needless to say, not all of them work.
This in contradistinction to some of the most cold-blooded spy stuff I can remember Bond doing.
I generally think of the later novels as being more "sophisticated."
He also doesn't bat an eye when a captured Swiss agent begs for his help
I don't remember, specifically, how this was handled in the book. I think it was handled quite well in the movie, and I was thinking about it recently because it wasn't handled at all well in the comic strip (too ambiguous).
I don't remember Bond creating so elaborate a cover story before...
...he immediately reports back to his superiors...
Which is what makes the end such a shock. That, and how abrupt it is.
All further examples of Fleming experimenting with style and form.
But I don't know what "crackers" are, or why they should set M off like that.
British Christmas "crackers"
I mentioned some negatives [of the book] but they are far outweighed by the positives.
But mostly the movie shows splendid fidelity to the book.
I'd always heard bad things about this movie, but I thought it rather good.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service is one of the strongest of the books and, had Bond been played by Sean Connery, would have been one of the strongest of the movies as well. George Lazenby is... okay, but he just doesn't have the charisma of Connery.
British Christmas "crackers"
Ah! So that's what crackers are, and why M thought them inappropriate for his table. Thanks!
I generally think of the later novels as being more "sophisticated." ... At this point in the series, Fleming is experimenting with different forms of storytelling.
Interesting insight. I agree that this is new, and I like it.
I don't remember, specifically, how this was handled in the book.
In the book, a Swiss secret service agent is caught, and is dragged into Blofeld's office while he's talking to "Sir Hilary Bray." The Swiss agent recognizes Bond and basically says, "Please help me." Bond doesn't flinch outwardly, but inwardly knows that denying the agent is a death sentence. He denies the agent.
Had Bond been played by Sean Connery, [it] would have been one of the strongest of the movies as well.
Having watched the movie twice with Lazenby, I can't see anybody but Lazenby doing it. I'm slow that way.
I still think it's pretty strong. The Connery and Craig movies are SO strong that they're in my Top 10, but this one is right up there.
Joanna Lumley plays "The English Girl," and went on to play Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous. She was also in a couple of Pink Panther films.
She also played Sapphire in Sapphire and Steel (partnered with the late David McCallum), and Purdey in The New Avengers (the reboot of The Avengers), and in the UK is now considered a genuine National Treasure™.
One of the complaints Connery made against his initial run on Bond was how all the films had similar big exposions finales. Ironically he sat out On Her Majesty's Secret Service with its very different ending only to return for Diamonds Are Forever and yet another big explosion for the close.
Lazenby was not a very good 007 but I would rank OHMSS on the whole as better than any of the Moore films.
If OHMSS had done better at the box office, would the series have continued in a more serious vein instead of the campy, lighter approach that was the rule for the next decade and a half?
Another thing to keep in mind: OHMSS is a Christmas movie. So the next time someone suggests watching It's a Wonderful Life (which isn't really a Christmas movie at all, except for the end) for the umpteeth time, remember that On Her Majesties Secret Service at least takes place during the Christmas season.