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Rating: There is a sequence in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" that struck me deeply.
Bond has just escaped from Blofeld's base.
Spectre's henchmen are on his trail.
He is tired, sore, and still bears the marks of the recent fight on his face.
He is scared.
He is a man alone, against too many and too strong enemies for him.
Escape seems impossible.
And so he gives up, stops running.
He sits on a bench.
Cold, he raises the collar of his coat and, simply, waits for them to come and get him.
For the first time in my experience with the Bond saga, I found myself thinking: no, this time he won't make it...
Another Bond is possible.
George Lazenby, an Australian model with previous acting experience only in advertising, called to replace a thoroughly worn-out Connery (or perhaps not yet recovered from the transformation into Bondo-San), was immediately likeable to me when, at the end of the first scene, as he looks disheartened at the woman he just saved leaving him like a fool in the middle of a beach, he turns to the camera and, breaking the fourth wall, addresses the audience directly with an ironic, "This never happened to the other fellow!”.
He is a more athletic, slender Bond, with decidedly more plastic movements.
Yet no less elegant, refined in gestures, in the way he speaks.
And with a butt-shaped dimple on the tip of a resolute chin, which can always come in handy to hold the Martini straw steady.
So, another James Bond movie is possible.
A film that starts almost clumsily, even giving up one of the most appreciated trademarks of the entire series (the opening titles) and with an initial sequence (the attempted suicide), which is a bit of a mess in terms of writing, direction, and photography.
A film almost awkward in how it tries to hold onto the saga's fans, thanks to the brazen and crude flashback scene where Bond reviews the symbolic objects of past adventures, each accompanied by its related theme music.
Because it is only when it shakes off the imposing shadow of the classics that preceded it that "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" really begins to give its best.
What could have been the first chapter of a second "Golden Age" is, above all, a highly balanced film, in which all the canon components are masterfully dosed.
There is a playful, light-hearted irony (Bond attending the dinner of the beauties in kilts or finding a Playboy copy among the newspapers in the office of the irreproachable lawyer of Bern), and a hint of broad comedy (admirable is the scene where James sneaks into bed uttering the phrase "That fat cow..."). But, above all, there is a highly marked, breathtaking, adrenaline-filled action component, wisely playing with excess, without (almost) ever crossing the limit of suspension of disbelief.
Only that to these elements, all already present in the previous episodes, a new, unknown one is added: romance.
Because another Bond Girl is also possible.
Or maybe not.
Because Diana Rigg is not a poster child of a raging hormone à la Ursula Andress, she does not have the statuesque, overwhelming physique of an Honor Blackman. And, to be honest, she is not even a beauty like the icy Daniela Bianchi or the perhaps bland but still remarkable Claudine Auger.
Hers is simply one of those faces you would always want to see smiling.
Inevitably, then, that her character, Theresa Di Vincenzo, cannot be cataloged as yet another trophy, yet another notch on Mr. Bond's gun.
From the very first scenes, Tracy is presented to us as a woman tired of living, who has lost every reason to stay in the world. The first time she gives herself to Bond almost as a compulsory step of a self-destructive process she has decided to undertake.
And it's also for this reason that, as the film progresses, as the bond between her and Bond grows, one feels sincere empathy in seeing her laugh, joke, rediscover the joy of living.
And while Bond, in the final sequence, holds her for the last time, the thought returns to the scene I talked about at the beginning.
007 is alone, hunted, cold,
But most of all, scared.
He too, perhaps, fears that this time he won't make it.
It is at that moment that someone stops in front of him.
It's a woman.
It's Theresa.
She recognizes him.
She smiles at him.
She calls him by name.
With love.
And it is only at that moment that you understand that, yes, this time too he will make it.
Lazenby is right.
This would never have happened to the other fellow.
"Best Boom Bond Movies":
1) On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3) "Goldfinger";
4) "Dr. No";
5) "Thunderball";
"Best Boom Bond Pussies":
1) Daniela Bianchi – Tatiana Romanova;
2) Diana Rigg – Tracy Di Vincenzo;
3) Honor Blackman – Pussy Galore;
4) Ursula Andress – Honey Rider;
5) Claudine Auger – Dominique "Domino" Derval;
6) Mila Azuki and the other Japanese chick who dies;
BartleBond will return with "Diamonds Are Forever".
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