55 Years Ago, James Bond Rebooted With a Controversial Cult Classic
Before 1969, there had only ever been one James Bond: Sean Connery. Well, that’s not entirely true. In 1954, actor Barry Nelson played an American version of Bond in a one-off TV adaptation of Casino Royale. And then, in 1967, David Niven played a getting-too-old-for-this-sh*t silly Bond in a spoof movie, also called Casino Royale.
So, in theory, moviegoers should have been primed for a new face playing suave agent 007 in 1969. But they weren’t. Because 55 years ago, George Lazenby’s one-and-only 007 film was a shock.
While fans will continue to debate how good Lazenby’s Bond actually was, the quality of the film itself—On Her Majesty’s Secret Service—is somewhat unassailable. While flawed in several critical ways, OHMSS represented a turning point for the official Bond film franchise. Without it, the world of 007—and action films in general—would be much poorer.
Debuting on December 18, 1969, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was the sixth overall James Bond film produced by EON partners Harry Saltzman and Albert “Cubby” Broccoli. These films, which began with Dr. No in 1962, constitute the same James Bond film franchise that continues to this day; Barbara Broccoli, daughter of Cubby, still runs the family business. And yes, within the purview of that “real” Bond franchise, the one-off George Lazenby film very much does count, even if for the casual fan, he scans as an off-brand Bond.
After Connery declined to do a seventh film, the hunt was on for the next James Bond, one who would continue the character forward, but without changing any of the continuity. Keep in mind, while this kind of thing is common today, in 1969, it was a bit risky. Actors like John Richardson, and even Batman’s Adam West were considered before Lazenby got the part.
Though Sean Connery was a household name by the late 1960s when Dr. No debuted, Lazenby wasn’t. Before Bond, Lazenby was an Australian mechanic, who'd starred in a few commercials, and was virtually unknown when cast as 007, something the EON producers actually preferred. The idea with a new James Bond actor was this: the man should be anonymous enough that the audience could relate to him, but dashing and dangerous enough to be believable.
Most people will agree that Lazenby’s approach to the role just hits this mark. He’s not particularly dynamite as Bond, but he doesn’t break the illusion of being the character either. In a sense, he’s the most okay James Bond actor of all time. As Lazenby said in Mark Edlitz’s 2019 book The Many Lives of James Bond, “I did the best I could. I felt that I had to copy Sean Connery in a sense.”
Arguably, much of what makes the movie work isn’t just Lazenby himself, but the fact he was starring opposite then mega-star Diana Rigg, who was very famous to British TV watchers thanks to her role in The Avengers (not that Avengers) as the spy Mrs. Peel. Only the coolest spy on TV could play the woman who'd become Mrs. James Bond.
The decision to recast James Bond was not taken lightly, but EON had struggled to retain Sean Connery, essentially since 1964’s Goldfinger. In an interview with Playboy in 1967, on a promotional tour for You Only Live Twice, Connery was dismissive of the more farcical direction he believed the franchise had taken, saying: “What is needed now is a change of course—more attention to character and better dialogue.”
As pointed out in Ed Gross and Mark A. Altman’s James Bond 2020 oral history book Nobody Does it Better, the franchise ended up doing what Connery was demanding in the next film. It’s just that Connery himself wasn’t in it.
Taken from Ian Fleming’s 1963 novel of the same name, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is a relatively faithful adaptation of its source material, which finds James Bond matching wits with his nemesis Blofeld, but also, getting cozy with the Corsican mafia all because he’s tasked with protecting Countess Tracy di Vicenzo. By the end of the story, Bond and Tracy fall in love and get married, which results in Tracy being brutally gunned down by Blofeld. Bond has given it all up for love and, in the final moments, has his new life taken from him. For countless fans, one question about the ending has always stuck around: What if this film starred Sean Connery instead of George Lazenby? Why was a new Bond actor saddled with so much difficult and heavy material?
OHMSS is certainly not perfect, but it is one of those Bond movies that has a great beginning, a great ending, and a very weird middle. At the start, when we meet Lazenby’s Bond, he’s cool, assured, driving fast, smoking cigarettes, and throwing knives. By the end of the movie, he’s leading a mini-army to attack a base at the top of a snow peak. All of this stuff is amazing. But, in the middle, Bond is undercover as a genealogist named “Hilary Bray” and Lazenby’s real voice is dubbed over with George Baker’s making for a very strange viewing experience. If you’re looking for where Austin Powers got most of its funny ideas about how Bond dresses, the middle of OHMSS will reveal everything.
But in the final moments, Lazenby delivers the goods. When Tracy is shot, Bond is shattered and utterly in denial. She can’t admit she’s died and says, mournfully, “We have all the time in the world.” This theme was repeated several times in 2021’s No Time to Die, and uttered by Daniel Craig’s Bond, albeit in the reverse situation.
In that film, it’s Bond who dies and not his one true love. Still, the impact On Her Majesty’s Secret Service had on the franchise was clear. Several subsequent films referenced the death of Bond’s wife, and the entire Daniel Craig era ended with what is basically a remake of this 1969 film.
Whether or not Lazenby is your favorite Bond might not be the point. He clearly gave it his all and connected with the source material, which he said many times, deeply moved him. In the same 2019 interview, he said he fought with director Peter Hunt to make us see Bond’s pain.
“During the second take, I didn’t cry. But I kept the emotion.”