# On Her Majestys Secret Service is the Best Bond Film **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 2, 2015, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314 "2015-10-02T22:40:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mudshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mudshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudshark)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/41 "2015-10-05T06:59:35Z")
I think Lazenby was the right Bond for the movie. With Connery it wouldn’t have worked. Moore may have been able to pull it off, but I don’t think it would have been as good. I think the movie was one of the better Bond films, even with the awkward fight scenes. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/42 "2015-10-05T08:13:41Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I think _You Only Live Twice_ might be my favourite, precisely because I don’t look for realism in Bond movies. The underground/volcano lair, the henchemen, the monorail, the control-room tannoy guy who says everything twice (including 'run away!"). You left out the televised scenes of the bad guys being dropped into the ocean. Where the hell was the camera photographing the helicopter?!? 😕 Not to mention the scenes with Sean Connery masquerading as a Japanese. _ **Nan ja** _! :dubious: :eek: ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/43 "2015-10-05T11:17:10Z")
While I rate OHMSS among the best of the Bonds, I still think _From Russia with Love_ is the overall best. I have defended OHMSS for years against Lazenby-haters. It has an awful lot going for it – it’s one of the most faithful movies to the original novel. It disdains gadgets in favor of cleverness and improvisation (a lot of people seem to miss the fact that the safecracking machine is an elaborate joke, on the order of the scene near the beginning where M says, in exasperation"Radioactive _lint?_") It features Diana Rigg, fer cryin’ out loud. And it has an ending with genuine emotion and a depth beyond the series usual, and showed us that Lazenby wasn’t just a clotheshorse – he could act, when it was necessary. One the other hand, there’s no way I could watch this with my wife or daughter, both of whom think I’m a Neanderthal in my love of James Bond. The women at the Piz Gloria chateau are such complete caricatures and male fantasy figures that it’s hard to suspend belief in them enough to watch the film. Even Rigg, for all her capability and poise, is treated slightingly by the film. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/44 "2015-10-05T13:38:01Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > While I rate OHMSS among the best of the Bonds, I still think _From Russia with Love_ is the overall best. > > I have defended OHMSS for years against Lazenby-haters. It has an awful lot going for it – it’s one of the most faithful movies to the original novel. It disdains gadgets in favor of cleverness and improvisation (a lot of people seem to miss the fact that the safecracking machine is an elaborate joke, on the order of the scene near the beginning where M says, in exasperation"Radioactive _lint?_") It features Diana Rigg, fer cryin’ out loud. And it has an ending with genuine emotion and a depth beyond the series usual, and showed us that Lazenby wasn’t just a clotheshorse – he could act, when it was necessary. > One the other hand, there’s no way I could watch this with my wife or daughter, both of whom think I’m a Neanderthal in my love of James Bond. The women at the Piz Gloria chateau are such complete caricatures and male fantasy figures that it’s hard to suspend belief in them enough to watch the film. Even Rigg, for all her capability and poise, is treated slightingly by the film. I agree with everything except the last sentence. Rigg gets to develop her character like almost no other male or female character in the Bond franchise. She gambles; she disobeys her rich criminal father; she gets some fighting. Also, if she hednt been developed deeply enough, would we have cared as much about the final scene? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/45 "2015-10-05T13:50:44Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > I agree with everything except the last sentence. Rigg gets to develop her character like almost no other male or female character in the Bond franchise. She gambles; she disobeys her rich criminal father; she gets some fighting. Also, if she hednt been developed deeply enough, would we have cared as much about the final scene? I’m not saying that she’s not developed – just that she is, despite everything, still shortchanged. “Spare the rod and spoil the child”, indeed, Mr. Draco. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/46 "2015-10-05T13:57:05Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I’m not saying that she’s not developed – just that she is, despite everything, still shortchanged. “Spare the rod and spoil the child”, indeed, Mr. Draco. Ahhh…I see. IMO its just him admitting/excusing that he spoiled her and couldnt control her. He is at least of our Grandfathers generation so I cut him some slack. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/47 "2015-10-05T14:18:41Z")
I justy rewatched my DVD copy and I still throughly enjoy it, but yeah, there are some things in the film that the best you can say is, well, I guess it was a product of the times. Random thoughts: Tracy getting casually smacked around by both her father and the guy she eventually ends up marrying? She was indeed pretty messed up. Agreed that the fight scenes are rather choppy, but the editing in general is rather choppy. Some rather strange artifacts in the sound effects too (screeching tires on sand and on ice?). As JAQ said, the fight on the beach at the beginning makes no sense whatever. If the thugs are Draco’s men, and thus presumably Tracy’s bodyguards, where were they when she tried to fling herself into the sea? Why does one of them put a knife to her throat? How did they get there, with no other vehicle in sight? The whole thing smacks of a discarded sub-plot. The sequence beginning with Bond escaping from Piz Gloria and ending with the bobsled chase remains (IMO) one of the greatest sustained action sequences in all of film, although granted, the obvious back projection in some of the skiing and bobsled scenes is pretty cheesy. My favorite bit in the whole movie is the scene where Bond has made it as far as the village where the winter festival is going on, the baddies are closing in, and he is sitting on a bench, looking miserable and waiting for the inevitable when (Yay!) Tracy suddenly skates to halt in front of him. Lazenby may not have been much of an actor, but he absolutely nailed that one. You have to hand it to Telly Savalas’ Blofeld: he’s a real hands-on manager. No leaving the dirty work to the henchmen, like so many other Bond villains. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/48 "2015-10-05T14:35:45Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > You have to hand it to Telly Savalas’ Blofeld: he’s a real hands-on manager. No leaving the dirty work to the henchmen, like so many other Bond villains. I know! I fully expected him to be on a snowmobile or something, but no, he’s skiing right along with his henchmen. Who he then proceeds to bury under an avalanche! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/49 "2015-10-05T14:40:46Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > I justy rewatched my DVD copy and I still throughly enjoy it, but yeah, there are some things in the film that the best you can say is, well, I guess it was a product of the times. Random thoughts: > Agreed that the fight scenes are rather choppy, but the editing in general is rather choppy. Some rather strange artifacts in the sound effects too (screeching tires on sand and on ice?). > > . The fight scenes seem to me very deliberately “choppy”, with rapid cuts, overdone sound effects, fast close-ups, and speeded-up motion. It makes for all the more contrast, for instance, when, after one such fight scene, Bond breaks into Draco’s office and kneels down, throwing knife at the ready, into a scene of utter quiet and calm. It’s such a sudden and complete change that you can’t help but be struck by it (and, consequently, the character of Draco). If you don’t like that sort of thing, stay away from the early Bond films. They’re filled with artificial tricks, including a lot of speeded-up motion, things filmed in reverse, and overdubbing of dialogue. It gives an aura of unreality to the film that is, I suggest, at least in part deliberate. The initial Fight on the Beach doesn’t really make a helluva lot of sense, but it fulfills the Action Movie requirements of arresting your attention, drawing you in, making you wonder what is going to happen, and moving things along. I might also add that setting the fight at dawn gives it a wonderful appearance, the characters in almost-silhouette, that, combined with the “choppy” editing gives it a surreal appearance. You couldn’t get that emotional impact from a fight scene if you filmed it at noon, in broad daylight, and without the editing techniques. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/50 "2015-10-05T22:58:04Z")
This movie has one of the coolest “lairs”. I would love to live up on a mountain peak like that. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/51 "2015-10-05T23:43:11Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > This movie has one of the coolest “lairs”. I would love to live up on a mountain peak like that. It’s a real place, and still called Piz Gloria. Its round shape is due to the revolving restaurant on top. The filmmakers found it while setting up for the movie, and used it, with permission (The interiors apparently don’t look like those in the film, apparently). The restaurant has been profiting from the publicity ever since. > **[Piz Gloria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piz_Gloria)** > > Piz Gloria is a revolving restaurant at the 2,970 m (9,740 ft)-high summit of the Schilthorn near Mürren in the Bernese Oberland, Switzerland. > The cable car station and the restaurant were designed by Bernese architect Konrad Wolf. The Piz restaurant claims to be the world's first revolving restaurant although others already existed at the time of Piz Gloria's 1969 opening, such as the "Eye of the Needle" in Seattle, Washington, United States, which opened in 1962. Given the difficult topograph... ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/52 "2015-10-06T00:25:49Z")
She does not get casually smacked around by her father. She gets forced off a soon to be blown to smithereens location when she was stupidly trying to stay… … ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/53 "2015-10-12T23:43:28Z")
So that’s _it?_ The thread just trailed off and faded away, not even one week in? [sighs] [turns to audience] This never happened to the other fella. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/54 "2015-10-13T01:27:45Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > So that’s _it?_ The thread just trailed off and faded away, not even one week in? > > [sighs] > > [turns to audience] > > This never happened to the other fella. A week isn’t that long. We have all the time in the world. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/55 "2015-10-13T03:09:34Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > A week isn’t that long. > > We have all the time in the world. You only live twice, Mr Bond! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/56 "2015-10-13T11:12:12Z")
But today is the _thirteenth,_ Commander. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/57 "2015-10-13T14:19:34Z")
Do you expect me to talk? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/58 "2015-10-13T14:54:04Z")
I love the way Savalas holds his cigaret. It’s so…twee. Was the mountain climber the same guy that loaded the safe cracking mechanism in the construction crane? ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/59 "2015-10-13T17:56:25Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Do you expect me to talk? :dubious: No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to _post!_ ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314/60 "2015-10-13T17:59:47Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I love the way Savalas holds his cigaret. It’s so…twee. > > Was the mountain climber the same guy that loaded the safe cracking mechanism in the construction crane? Yes, and he must have been mightily pissed off over Bond getting to sit around with his feet up and canoodle with the babes, while he froze his ass off outside. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-her-majestys-secret-service-is-the-best-bond-film/733314.md?page=4)