George Lazenby Never Heard of Again
50 Years Later on, This Bail Film Should Finally Get Its Due
"On Her Majesty'south Secret Service" features emotional depth, solid action and a smart script. But it'due south oftentimes overlooked considering its star, George Lazenby, never returned as 007.
What'south the best James Bond film?
The odds are on "Goldfinger," the 1964 entry that prepare the big-screen 007 design for outsize plots, lavish sets, beautiful women, clever gadgets and frequent laughs.
But amid Bond purists, the winner is the ofttimes overlooked "On Her Majesty'south Secret Service," released l years ago this month.
"OHMSS," as it is commonly known among difficult-core fans, was a singular Bond movie. It starred George Lazenby, a first-time actor, in his but appearance as 007. Every other Bond in the official franchise overseen by EON Productions has played the role at least twice.
What sets "OHMSS" autonomously, also, is its faithfulness to the original Ian Fleming novel, virtual absenteeism of Q Co-operative gizmos and, above all, its emotional depth. Bail falls in honest-to-goodness love and marries, but to run into his helpmate, Teresa Draco (played past Diana Rigg), murdered past the supervillainous organization SPECTRE.
Non widely appreciated at starting time, "OHMSS" has won increasing respect over five decades. Devotees hail its deft, action-packed direction (by Peter Hunt), smart script (by Richard Maibaum), music both dynamic and romantic (by John Barry) and mastermind criminal scheme (brainwashed young women unwittingly conducting germ warfare).
Epitome
"Shot to shot, this movie is cute in a mode none of the other Bail films are," the director Steven Soderbergh blogged in 2013. Moreover, it is "the just Bail film with a female person character that isn't a cartoon."
In "The Complete James Bond Flick Encyclopedia," Steven Jay Rubin called it "a truly epic James Bond film with a story to friction match." Charles Helfenstein, author of "The Making of 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service,'" said, "I have always loved the pic with a passion that borders on mania."
Yet to general film fans, "OHMSS" is an outlier, even an abnormality.
Much of the explanation lies with the casting of Lazenby, an Australian player. A quondam model and car salesman, he causeless a role that Sean Connery had made famous afterwards the first five Bail movies. (Connery quit the part after "You Only Alive Twice" in 1967. But he returned later on "OHMSS" for "Diamonds Are Forever" in 1971 — and for the non-EON production "Never Say Never Over again" in 1983.)
Indeed, there was so much uncertainty about how to nowadays Lazenby to a curious and even skeptical public that in some advertisements his face was deliberately obscured. At one point, Maibaum suggested a scene in which 007 has cosmetic surgery to confuse his enemies.
"I'g told that mine was the biggest screen test in history," Lazenby, at present lxxx, said in a telephone interview from his dwelling house in Santa Monica, Calif. "I think in that location were 800 applicants and 300 screen tests. They tested me for four months. They tested me every which fashion — fights, horseback riding, swimming."
Lazenby had big shoes to fill, and some critics thought he filled them well enough. "Lazenby is pleasant, capable and attractive in the role, just he suffers in the inevitable comparison with Connery," Multifariousness wrote. Other voices were harsher. His "acting is noncommittal to the point of being minus," wrote The New York Post.
"At the fourth dimension, I thought I did a good job," Lazenby said. "Now I know I could do information technology better."
Chase personally chose Rigg, who had recently come off "The Avengers," as the principal Bond Girl. "I know why he called me," Rigg said in a telephone interview. "George was an inexperienced actor, so they decided to pair him with an experienced actress. I promise I did assist him. For someone who had never done a movie before, he was quite good."
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But the product was fraught with on-prepare troubles. "Peter Hunt never spoke to me again after the first day of shooting," Lazenby recalled. "He wouldn't even talk to me afterwards the film."
Hunt, who died in 2002, said that his easily-off approach was deliberate. "I wanted that feeling of isolation," he told Rubin. "That is Bond. He'due south a loner. George wasn't experienced enough to interpret this feeling of utter emptiness."
Interim and direction bated, Lazenby'south behavior proved problematic. "He was racing motorcycles to the set up and naturally the producers were freaking out," Helfenstein said. "That bummed Lazenby out because he's a complimentary spirit." At one point, Lazenby galloped a horse around so buoyantly that he nearly ran downwards Bernard Lee, who played his boss, 1000.
"I got into a few little scrapes hither and there," Lazenby best-selling.
Information technology has been widely reported that "OHMSS" was a box-office failure, largely because of Lazenby'due south performance. The picture did essentially underperform "Yous Only Live Twice." Simply "OHMSS" was still one of the highest-grossing films of the yr.
The Bond producers, Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, were prepared to sign Lazenby to a multipicture contract. Instead, even before the motion-picture show was released, Lazenby publicly announced he would non resume the role. It has been said he was brash to drop it by Ronan O'Rahilly, who created the offshore station Radio Caroline. The anti-establishment O'Rahilly apparently convinced Lazenby that the square-jawed, clean-cut Bond was an anachronism who wouldn't survive in the historic period of Woodstock and "Easy Rider."
"He didn't know that Bond was strong and that it would acquit on forever," Lazenby said. He was so determined to altitude himself from the Bond image that he sported long hair and a beard to the film's premiere.
"Had he non quit the series after one motion-picture show," Rubin wrote, "at that place is every reason to believe he would have established himself in the part." But that wasn't what Lazenby had in listen.
"I'm glad I didn't practise another i," he said. "I didn't desire to be known equally James Bond. The only time I had regrets was when I was broke."
In the 50 years since his brief moment in the Bond sun Lazenby has continued to human action, merely only in pocket-size roles. "I've been interim on and off all the fourth dimension," he said. "I could have done better, only I didn't want to go an role player. It was not in my blood."
"I could never understand why George behaved as he did," Rigg said, "because he was given such a glorious opportunity and he threw it all abroad. I'm sorry for him, if y'all actually desire to know. At some stage, it just went to his head."
Both Lazenby and Rigg say they haven't seen the movie in years. Nor are they in touch. "I don't think ane way or the other nearly Diana," Lazenby said.
"Oh goodness, no, he wouldn't come most me!" Rigg said.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/movies/on-her-majestys-secret-service-james-bond-lazenby.html
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