On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Name: On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller
Released: December 19, 1969
Duration: 142 min
Rating: 61
Cast: Diana Rigg, George Lazenby, Telly Savalas

1969

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 12 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 77 Ratings

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7.4

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7.4	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 77 Ratings

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On Her Majesty's Secret Service

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Movie Details & Credits

United Artists | Release Date: December 19, 1969 | PG

Starring: Diana Rigg, George Lazenby, Telly Savalas

Summary: James Bond woos a mob boss's daughter and goes undercover to uncover the true reason for Blofeld's allergy research in the Swiss Alps that involves beautiful women from around the world.

Director: Peter R. Hunt

Genre(s): Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: PG

Runtime: 142 min

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Critic Reviews

The Telegraph Marc Lee

Hunt, who served as editor on the first three Connery films, gives Lazenby’s fist fights a whipcrack intensity and the ski-jumping, stock car-racing, bobsled-sliding finale is one of the series’ best. Read full review

James Berardinelli

The film contains some of the most exhilarating action sequences ever to reach the screen, a touching love story, and a nice subplot that has agent 007 crossing (and even threatening to resign from) Her Majesty's Secret Service. The problem is with Bond himself. Following Sean Connery's departure after You Only Live Twice, the film makers had to come up with a replacement. The man they chose, a model named George Lazenby, is boring, and his ineffectualness lowers the picture's quality. Read full review

Empire William Thomas

This is the Bond flick blessed with the best plot, a genuine sense of emotion and a spirit closest to Ian Fleming’s novels. Read full review

RogerEbert.com Gerardo Valero

A rather uneven Bond, one with a great story but a few too many problems, belonging somewhere in the middle section of the series' canon. Read full review

A.H. Weiler

He's tall, dark, handsome and has a dimpled chin. But Mr. Lazenby, if not a spurious Bond, is merely a casual, pleasant, satisfactory replacement. For the record, he plays a decidedly second fiddle to an overabundance of continuous action, a soundtrack as explosive as the London Blitz, and flip dialogue and characterizations set against some authentic, truly spectacular Portuguese and Swiss scenic backgrounds, caught in eyecatching colors. Read full review

Pauline Kael

This Bond thriller-the sixth, and set mainly in Switzerland-introduces a new Bond, George Lazenby, who's quite a dull fellow, and the script, by Richard Maibaum, isn't much, either, but the movie is exciting, anyway.

Time Out London Geoff Andrew

The Bond films were bad enough even with the partially ironic performances of Connery. Here, featuring the stunning nonentity Lazenby, there are no redeeming features. Read full review

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User Reviews

philramsey

Feb 18, 2023

Brilliant film, the great days of James Bond; full of action, great storylines with beautiful women and a lot of humour.
If only the new ones were as good as the old ones!

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

killcounter

Oct 1, 2019

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. What a sad ending, Tracey died and all that, did not expect it. to me this is the saddest bond movie ending ive watched and the best one, they should at least kept Lazenby in the other movies.… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

Haydentheman

Jan 26, 2021

I really liked George Lazenby's solo outing as James Bond. It lets James Bond feel like a human and not a mindless killing machine. One of my favourite 007 movie.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

marcmyworks

Jan 26, 2020

Though George Lazenby is a one-off Bond actor, he does a good job in the interim of Sean Connery's break as the character. The story is fleshed out and the action great for the time.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

VidyaBum

Oct 22, 2021

Having watched 25 Bonds from Dr.No to Skyfall, I place this one at 9/25.

This is a movie that gets a lot of flak for having had a completely inexperienced actor replacing then-only actor of the series, Sean Connery. Let me say that it's actually quite irrelevant: while George Lazenby wasHaving watched 25 Bonds from Dr.No to Skyfall, I place this one at 9/25.

This is a movie that gets a lot of flak for having had a completely inexperienced actor replacing then-only actor of the series, Sean Connery.

Let me say that it's actually quite irrelevant: while George Lazenby was indeed inexperienced, several of the actors around him, particularly his love interest, are also perfectly poor actors that do not manage to run the movie one bit.

The biggest problem is not Lazenby's acting, it's that they're asking him to play a romance with a lady who also doesn't manage to pour any belief in the romance.

With the romance falling flat, we are left with a very dumb plot where Blofeld, who in the previous movie was a criminal mastermind holding power over many of the main villains of previous movies, now is literally inviting complete strangers into his secret lair in the Alps so he can be recognised...as a Baronet.

That's about the same as wanting people to recognise your 300$ lottery ticket by inviting them to your vault that's filled with massive stacks of heroin...

Besides the just silly plot and reasons, Lazenby does do a decent job and a lot of the more experienced actors also carry the movement, but this movie has just too many strange points. The action is almost non-violent, when Blofeld finds out that Bond is not a Baronet expert but an agent, he has him sent to the machine room. Not a dangerous death room or anything, just a...room that's a bit ugly and dirty. The fights are uncharacteristically bloodless and almost nobody dies, it feels like some sort of baby version of James Bond, and the main plot of the villain is to talk with some sort of God Voice to beautiful girls while they sleep. Because talking to them in their sleep with the God Voice somehow makes them totally subservient to his commands.

Nevermind that it totally feels like a bad sexual fantasy, it's also particularly stupid when any of the girls could just not be sleeping at the time. Also, Bond takes less than 2 minutes to escape his room/cell in the Secret Lair, of course, but how come the teenage girl in the room next to his can do the exact same, with the exact same method? When your super secret lair has security that a 19 year old can bypass, and you punish the secret agent by sending him to the corner, I think the talent of the actors is the least of the concerns to have...

Still, despite the strange sexual fantasy plot, the baby violence, the beginner actors, this is a movie that has its own flair, its originality, it dares to try a real romance with Bond, it goes for a lot of interesting ideas, it introduced a lot of good characters, it's memorable even months after seeing it, and even if it ultimately isn't that good, it still entirely deserves to be seen once.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Onlyclassicvg1

Jul 31, 2022

It's not Lazenby is a bad bond, It's just a terrible edited and written movie that does it in for me. Action scenes are ruined with constant jump cuts, The plot isn't even the least bit interesting and the pacing is crippling slow. It's one

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

GDsReviews

Jun 7, 2022

George Lazenby's only outing as Bond is spectacularly bad and not worth it even to rent.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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