On her Majesty's Secret Service

In "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", George Lazenby took over the role of James Bond from Sean Connery. Lazenby is not bad, but he is short on charm, and there is a bit too much of the slicked-back 70s man about him.

The film is set mainly in the Swiss Alps, where the head of SPECTRE, Blofeld, is developing chemical poison gases that he intends to spread in a very ingenious way. Blofeld believes he is entitled to a noble title, which is why James Bond turns up as the heraldry and genealogy expert Sir Hilary Bray, but his identity is uncovered. Bond escapes and later returns to destroy Blofeld's chemical plant, but it is Blofeld who takes the last trick when he assassinates Bond's bride, Tracy Draco.

"On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is rather different from the previous Bond films. It offers excellent entertainment, but there are elements that jar. The humorous tone is cheekier and more forward than usual, which does not really suit the film's melancholy closing mood when Tracy dies. Her death very probably also occurs in the source novel, but one may wonder why the producers kept this element, which does not fit the light-hearted tone of the Bond films, in which Bond in fact never falls in love. A sad ending to a Bond film; it must have come as something of a shock to cinemagoers.

The running time is too long. The action sequences in the snow-covered Alps, on the other hand, are tremendously handsome. The most surprising thing about the film is its metafictional asides, especially in the dialogue. For example, when a girl runs off on him, Lazenby says: "This never happened to the other fellow." Incredible!