On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

In George Lazenby’s one and only outing as James Bond, he takes some vacation time to pursue Telly Savalas’s Ernst Blofeld, who is posing as a Count and has set up an allergy research clinic in the Swiss Alps. At the same time, Bond has agreed to woo the daughter of the head of a crime syndicate in exchange for help in taking down Blofeld. Since I was having fun with the Connery Bond films, I decided to extend my mini-marathon to include at least one film of each of the other actors. With just a few bumps, Lazenby transitions into the role rather admirably. The film is a bit too long and Bond pursuing an actual relationship is a strange character adjustment, but there’s a lot of entertainment to be had in this outing. With the gorgeous Swiss hideout, the aggressively German number two, many fantastic mountain chases, and the international stereotype team of female assassins, it’s hard not to be won over by the charm. It was during this installment that I realized how generic the title sequences can be with random visuals and the blandest typeface. I suppose it’s easy to just get distracted by the music and silhouettes of naked women.