Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Girls, Swiss scenery, Diana Rigg, Action - the perfect Bond mix?, 28 Aug 2007
There is much to like and much to dislike about this generally underrated flick. Vilified for having the first actor to play Bond who was NOT Sean Connery (and have him be Australian, to boot), this movie was a huge success for its time, but remains the black sheep of the Bond movie family. At the very least, it generates polarised opinion.
Plotwise, it stays closer to the Ian Fleming source novel than ever before, and veers away from gadgets and highly stylised sets in favour of trying to progress the characters. However, in doing so it ventures into new territory - Bond in love. How much you accept the movie will likely hinge on how much you buy into this concept, and perhaps in tackling this along with introducing a new actor playing Bond - they bit off a bit more than they could chew ( and all the more kudos to the makers of Casino Royale for essentially achieving the same feat without too much egg on their face).
Let's start off by saying - George Lazenby is by no means the disaster he is often portrayed as. His arrogance in real life helps his on screen character, and physically he certainly moves well, looks the part, and is more believable in the action scenes than any actor to follow (bar Daniel Craig). At the very least, he proved that the character was bigger than the actor, and paved the way for all the other Bonds to follow.
The effect of the casting on the final outcome can not be underestimated - Diana Rigg perfectly cast as Bond's love interest, and Telly Savalas surprisingly and undeniably the best actor to play Blofeld.
Peter Hunt directed with a sure hand, having been editor or second unit director on all the Bond movies to date. However, another love or hate aspect of the film is its style. In the previous outing, Lewis Gilbert directed the fantastic with standard routine direction. Here, Hunt chooses to direct the down to earth, with a surreal touch. Sound effects are exaggerated, visual cues are stylised. This works for the most part, but dates the film somewhat to its '69 / 70 timeframe, when cinema was moving into a period of heightened senses and cinema as symbolism rather than naturalism. That said, there are some of the most striking cinematographic scenes on display - the first use of flashback in a Bond movie ( in the window of Bond's office, seeing Tracy dragged away from the avalanche), the spectacular skiing shots, including spectacular aerial shots, arguably the best in the whole series. The only drawback to these scenes are the inserted back projection shots establishing the actors in the frame.
John Barry had arguably his finest score here, aided by the last recorded song from Louis Armstrong, ironically `We have all the time in the world'. The Bond theme is sparingly used, but to all the greater effect when we do hear it. One highlight is the scene in Bonds office as he goes through the items in his desk and we hear the themes from previous movies.
All told, the ingredients are present and correct - Ian Fleming's source novel, John Barry score, beautiful girls, great action scenes and stunts, the best portrayal of Blofeld in the Bond series (just compare to Charles Gray in the next movie if you disagree!), and a capable Bond. It's the new ingredients which will have you choosing to love or hate - Bond gets married, and in particular that downbeat ending.
As for the Ultimate Edition, as is customary there are all the Special Edition extras including the very interesting 40 minute documentary on the history and making of the movie are here, as well as a few more period pieces of interest, including an interesting collection of interviews with George Lazenby before, during, and after his role as Bond.
Like I said, it's a love or hate thing - and maybe this is a 4 star movie, but I am going to give it 5 stars for just having so much good to say about it, despite its flaws.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bond at his best in the best of the Ultimate Editions, 12 Dec 2007
No Bond film has suffered as much historical and critical revisionism as On Her Majesty's Secret Service. A huge hit on its first release and no better or worse reviewed than any of the preceding Bonds, George Lazenby's decision to leave the series before the film was released led to a tidal wave of attacks from the press and spurned co-producer Albert R. Broccoli (who even removed Lazenby's face from the original US poster!) that cast such a dark shadow over the film that the fact it's one of the highpoints of the series slipped from the public consciousness. Instead it became the Bond that flopped (if taking more than ten times its cost can be called flopping), the Bond that everybody hated (there were plenty of rave reviews to prove otherwise) with the Bond so bad he had to be fired (the producers tried to sign him up for several more pictures but, foolishly he admits, their new star thought the series was on the way out). It didn't help that the film was subsequently heavily cut for reissues and TV, and it's only with the Ultimate Edition DVD that the film is finally available in its absolutely uncut version (even the previous DVD was missing a few shots). Over the years its reputation has gradually grown, although EON clearly still regard it as the black sheep of the series: where the producers proudly boasted in 1970 that it was the fastest Bond to recoup its cost, for the documentary here they maintain it was the slowest. It's tempting to imagine whether 2006's Casino Royale would have met with similar treatment had Daniel Craig decided to call it a day before it opened...
It's all the more mystifying considering how fresh and genuinely exciting much of the film still is today. With many of the series' regulars off making Shalako with Sean Connery (as was intended leading lady Brigitte Bardot), the film benefits greatly from new blood and new ideas while debuting director Peter Hunt's long experience as the series editor keeps it recognisably a Bond film. George Leech's stuntwork is much better than anything Bob Simmonds ever came up with, while cinematographer Michael Reed's superb work in the Swiss locations makes it one of the most visually memorable of the series. The ski chases still amaze, with Willi Bogner and Johnny Jordan going to ridiculously dangerous lengths to secure shots no-one had ever attempted before or equalled since (Bogner skiing backwards with a camera for the ground shots while Jordan was suspended from a helicopter for the aerial shots!), made all the more vivid by John Barry's superb score with its most exciting main title theme of the entire series.
Blessed with one of the strongest and certainly the most emotional of Fleming's plots, followed much more closely than the norm for the films, it also has a healthy contempt for the gadgets that keeps Bond, not the hardware centre stage: he may use a hefty gizmo to crack a safe, but he's more interested in leafing through Playboy while waiting for it to do its job. Elsewhere, he uses his wits and what's available. It's particularly gratifying to see him tear out his pockets and use them as makeshift gloves in one scene
There are odd moments of awkwardness to Lazenby's performance, but nothing truly fatal, and he grows into the role as it progresses. Indeed, as the first Bond to be asked to show real fear (in the ice rink sequence) and despair (the ending), at his best he's far more natural than his detractors give him credit and despite being intended as a Connery imitator there are plenty of moments where he makes the part his own. He's certainly the most physical Bond, not least because of Peter Hunt's determination to put him in harm's way so the camera can come in close in the vicious fight sequences. As for whether Connery would have made the film better still, it's doubtful. Had it originally followed Goldfinger as was originally planned, it's possible, but by the time the oft-rescheduled picture finally went before the camera he'd lost all interest in the part and it's hard to imagine him putting any more effort into it than he did in Diamonds Are Forever. It's certainly impossible to imagine him pulling off the film's devastating final scene by that point.
On the debit side, the pacing is slightly problematic, not least due to the deletion of an uncompleted chase through the London Underground that leaves the film with a slight sag in the middle. That continuity problem with Blofeld not recognising Bond IS irritating (OHMSS was intended to be their first meeting), the romantic montage feels like a jewellers commercial and at times Hunt's cut-to-the-bone editing style is overdone. None of which stop this being very nearly the best Bond of them all, and the one the series wouldn't come close to matching for another 37 years.
For Bond fans, this two-disc Ultimate Edition is like a brightly lit Christmas Tree on Christmas morning, with plenty of new extras to make it worth an upgrade to the two-disc edition if you already have the previous DVD. Of these, the most interesting are the interviews with Lazenby from the time of the film's release. Much criticised for his arrogance and ego in an era when stars were kept on a tight leash, now he simply seems honest and sincere and considerably more positive about the film than many of today's stars on modern press junkets. Unfortunately, while all three original 1969 making-of featurettes have been included on this issue, Shot On Ice, about the filming of the stock car sequence, has been clumsily tampered with, the extracts from the film taken from the remastered print in widescreen in away that will annoy the purists. It's also missing the alternate theatrical trailers that have appeared on the laserdisc and video releases in the past. But to go some way to compensating, the disc also includes new featurettes on casting the film and a staged press day during shooting as well as all the extras from the original release - plus that tidied up uncut version. Highly recommended, this is Bond at his best.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
James Bond is back..., 31 Jul 2006
For all fans a dream had come true, to watch the 6th Bond flick in all its surround splendor. First, it is a little tricky to set up the surround system, but at the end it was a happy choice to buy this newly remastered DVD.
Four stars instead of all five, because no new audio commentary by George Lazenby or Diana Rigg, which had been so interesting for every OHMSS buff, Lazenby had time for the Inside interviews and Making of's..., plus it seemed that Lazenby is the one and only 007, who shows up on convention a lot, just to grow his income, well no offence, but with some persuation (MONEY!!), Rigg should take this opportunity.
Well maybe in the James Bond Super Deluxe Mega Ultimate Splendid Gold Edition perhaps, who knows??
Anyway picture is perfect and the surround is not often, but anyway the score is outstanding by John Barry and this is still one of the best 007 movie ever, thanks Peter Hunt and R.I.P.
jw
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