On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) * / Also For Your Eyes Only Connection

I was rather frustrated because my recording was cut off by interfering weather so I only to got to see the first hour or so. I was enjoying this more on Friday early afternoon than I had in previous attempts to watch this. I don't know what it was before but "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" always seemed to feel like a slog, as if it was just too long and uneventful. Director Peter Hunt does feel as if he is going for something different from the Sean Connery series of films before OHMSS. Lazenby is also a departure from Connery, giving more of a young arrogance (it seems from on-set gossip that he was quite difficult to like with some on the production) and that breaking of the wall early in the film would appear to signal an approach slightly different. Like Bond actually falling in love, marrying his Bond woman (Diana Rigg), and losing her in the tragic climax, but also the plot is less extravagant (oh, it still travels to all sorts of attractive locations, but it just seems as if Hunt and his producers wanted to present a stronger terrorist plot with Bond having to get clever in order to even close to Savalas' Blofeld), not as much escapist entertainment (the Swiss Alps get the rub and there is an opening fight at an ocean between two of Rigg's father's men and Bond who believes Rigg is about to drown herself as the sun seems to either be rising or going down that is quite alluring, but there is more spy and romantic drama this go-around) as this grounded spy adventure that feels rather realistic and not as far-fetched (the brainwashing of the ladies at Blofeld's compound at Piz Gloria, Switzerland to poison the food supply aside...). Savalas as Blofeld just feels like a less glamorous Blofeld (I LOVED von Sydow's brief appearance as Blofeld in the "outlier" Bond adventure, "Never Say Never Again") and more chilling, not flashy nor over the top. He's stone-cold, calculating without being as colorful and not to be taken lightly. His final act at the end of the film proves that he's as sadistic and cold-blooded as they come...not to be fucked with, Blofeld made sure James Bond remembered him.

I can't wait to watch "For Your Eyes Only" (1981) later on because I think the opening of the film (coming after the histrionic "Moonraker", a favorite of mine as a kid before I really started watching the entire series and finding real value in the Connery series) tied to "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is absolutely fascinating. Because the Blofeld of the 1969 film is treated like a serious threat, with none of the flamboyant Pleaseance mania, how "For Your Eyes Only" has him dispatched by Moore's Bond is like a middle finger to the villainous character and Savalas' portrayal of him. I can't say I didn't enjoy how that all comes about, because it is quite a blatant and blunt dismissal of Blofeld, complete with an exaggerated emphasis on Savalas' voice.

I really wanted to finish OHMSS this time because I was seriously invested unlike the past where my attention to its plot and Bond were lacking. I like that Lazenby wasn't a "perfect" Bond, showing genuine unease when in the chopper heading for Piz Gloria and severe aggravation with M (Bernard Lee) who seemed ready to grant him his resignation for taking him off the hunt (which was two years, also elaborating Bond's inefficiency in locating the terrorist mastermind of Spectre) of Blofeld. I always got a sense that while a skilled and clever spy who could defend and fight off henchmen (including those assigned by Ferzetti to fetch his daughter, Rigg), as well as, navigate around Blofeld's Piz Gloria), he had weaknesses. While that move might remove a mystique that Connery's Bond popularized, I think there is nothing wrong with outliers from the norm of the James Bond series.

For Your Eyes Only (1981) connection to OHMSS: