Movielogr

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

Directed by Peter R. Hunt

Action | Adventure

Most recently watched by sensoria, danielt, seanCduregger, noahphex

Overview

James Bond tracks his archnemesis, Ernst Blofeld, to a mountaintop retreat in the Swiss alps where he is training an army of beautiful, lethal women. Along the way, Bond falls for Italian contessa Tracy Draco, and marries her in order to get closer to Blofeld.

Rated PG | Length 142 minutes

Actors

George Lazenby | Diana Rigg | Telly Savalas | Gabriele Ferzetti | Ilse Steppat | Bernard Lee | Lois Maxwell | George Baker | Bernard Horsfall | Desmond Llewelyn | Yuri Borienko | Virginia North | Geoffrey Cheshire | Irvin Allen | Terence Mountain | James Bree | John Gay | Angela Scoular | Catherine Schell | Julie Ege | Mona Chong | Sylvana Henriques | Dani Sheridan | Joanna Lumley | Zaheera | Anouska Hempel | Ingrid Back | Helena Ronee | Jenny Hanley | Richard Graydon

Viewing History (seen 2 times)

Date ViewedDeviceFormatSourceRating
05/15/2019Movie ScreenDigitalTheater7.5 stars
08/14/2015TVBlu-rayOwned0 stars
 

Viewing Notes

In my quest to see all Bond films theatrically…

This was pretty damn cool to see on the huge *new* mega-screen at the Pickwick. Another reason why I wanted to go; haven’t been over there since they installed that mega-screen (it’s the size of a LieMAX screen, maybe bigger?). Haven’t been as interested in the other classic films that have screened in previous months (one per month) but this one definitely was ideal (also saw You Only Live Twice in this same series).

I’ve only seen this once before about 4 years ago and knew I enjoyed the movie but recalled nothing from it other than that very somber ending. So it made for a perfect movie to see this way. This is a neat James Bond film because for the majority of the movie he’s just doing his spy thing and there’s not a lot of action. Then the third act happens and it’s a full-on action thriller! I love that’s there’s not one but *two* skiing chases.

I knew I liked this movie but now I like it even more. The restored DCP looked amazing on the huge screen. Diana Rigg is insanely gorgeous and I really like Lazenby as Bond. Disappointed that he didn’t return to make more films; that ending is a perfect beat to launch the next film and I would’ve loved to see him deal with that and enact revenge. I know this was kinda sorta dealt with in the opening of For Your Eyes Only but that really was a cheap way to do it.

A lot of this including the ending reminded me of Casino Royale (mostly the relationship stuff on to the death of his wife). So it would’ve been neat to see the continuation of this story right where it leaves off a la Quantum of Solace. 

Perhaps the only weird thing here is the motivation of Blofeld using the mind control to conquer the world. His beautiful harem is sent out to do what exactly? And what happened to them? Especially since Blofeld and Irma Bunt are shown alive at the end. Maybe it’s explained somewhere but an odd loose end.

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