Peter Hunt’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (OHMSS, 1969) has been considered an outlier in the James Bond canon for many reasons, but particularly for being the “experiment” after Sean Connery took a hiatus from the franchise and George Lazenby was cast in his first and only Bond role. The other feature that draws OHMSS into sharp relief from the other Bond films is the fact that this is the only one in which James Bond gets married. The “Bond Girl” who features as his love interest and eventual wife, Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo (a.k.a. Tracy), displays the kind of female wholeness that is not seen in even the most autonomous women in other Bond movies. It is no accident that this relationship lends a certain vulnerability to the Bond character, not seen again until Daniel Craig’s reinvention of him in Casino Royale (Martin Campbell 2006). Although some features of bravado notable in Connery’s interpretation of Bond are still present in OHMSS, Lazenby’s Bond seems less of a caricature and more of a human being, and this is in large part due to the role of women in the film. OHMSS arguably fits the formula of the Hollywood Golden Age “woman’s film” that disappeared at the end of the classic studio cinema in the 1960s.
Critical views of the “woman’s film” have ranged over time from the disparaging treatments of Mary Ann Doane (1987) and Molly Haskell (1987) to the more complex considerations by Jeanine Basinger (1995) and Pam Cook (1998). The films often presented contradictory images of women in plots, showing them performing powerful actions and having independent thoughts, but ultimately succumbing to the traditional societal mores of domesticity. Where Doane sees this contradiction as performing “a vital function in society’s ordering of sexual difference” (
The Desire 3), Basinger calls the woman’s film “the slyboots of genre,” arguing “how strange and ambivalent they really are. Stereotypes are presented, then undermined, and then reinforced” (7). One could argue that the woman’s film operated in much the same way as
film noir, presenting characters and narratives that undermine social mores, only to present a conventional outcome in the end. But one of the most important characteristics of the woman’s film is, as Basinger argues, “to place a woman at the center of the story universe” (13). It is this feature that sets
OHMSS apart from other Bond films.
Because of Connery’s departure, OHMSS was in an unusual position to break new ground and take risks beyond what had previously worked for the franchise. Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman knew that OHMSS could not simply move in the direction that the other films had taken. Because of its differences, the film has been both derided and praised, and much myth has surrounded it, from the rumored garlic breath wars between Rigg and Lazenby to the supposed status of the film as a box office failure (Sterling and Morecambe 187-90). Critics could not decide whether the film was a lukewarm imitation of the Connery invention or a calculated failure. Variety characterized Lazenby as “pleasant, capable and attractive” in the role of Bond, but paling in comparison to Connery’s “physique, voice and saturnine, virile looks” (¶2). In her discussion about the “public ownership” of the Bond character on film, Katharine Cox points out the challenges of “the baggage that actors bring to the part of Bond,” adding that Lazenby was the only Bond actor not “heralded for the part through the suitability of previous roles” (2). What seemed to bother critics and perhaps Bond-following filmgoers was what they perceived as his shortcomings in “virility.” The action of the film does not really bear this criticism out, as Lazenby’s Bond beds three women over the course of the film, a respectable number by Bond film standards. But his heart is not really in it—neither in the sex nor in his identity as an MI6 agent.
The unfavorable perception of Bond’s masculinity in
OHMSS is arguably reinforced by his identity crisis in the film, one that calls into question basic assumptions of the Bond character. Martin Sterling and Gary Morecambe argue that Connery’s “insouciant invincibility” may have spoiled the “essential humanity” of
OHMSS: “This is the one film where James Bond could not—and should not—be a superman” (191). While Connery’s Bond is confident and fearless, Lazenby’s Bond is adrift; he is frustrated with M for not wanting to pursue Blofeld and his removal from the assignment leads him to attempt to resign. It is the intervention of Moneypenny that arrests this drastic step; instead of drafting a resignation letter to M, she composes a request of leave letter, an act for which Bond later thanks her. The interaction between Bond and Moneypenny is also somewhat unusual in this film. True, there is the customary office flirting: after she responds to his drink invitation by musing, “If only I could trust myself,” he counters with, “Same old Moneypenny. Britain’s last line of defence.” This response hearkens back to Connery’s Bond referring to the threat of his lovemaking to Moneypenny in
Dr. No (Terence Young 1962) as “illegal use of government property.” But Tara Brabazon points out that Lazenby’s “new” Bond “claimed both a similarity and difference with the past by maintaining the Moneypenny moment. Significantly, on this occasion it was Moneypenny who rejected Bond’s advances.” (492). The body of Moneypenny represents a bulwark of protection for the realm, as her actions insure that Bond is not irrevocably separated from the service. There is a separation though—one that creates a rift in Bond’s professional identity and allows the entrance of emotion and the prospect of monogamous romantic love into his life.
It is significant that OHMSS, with the exception of the opening scene of Roger Moore’s Bond at Tracy di Vicenzo’s grave in Live and Let Die (Guy Hamilton 1973), is the only pre-Craig era Bond film with a memory. The longevity of the Bond franchise may be attributed to this lack of linear narrative—Bond persists through the decades, not only played by different actors, but without any past or progression from one mission to the next. This convention allowed Broccoli and Saltzman to continually reinvent the character as times and casting changed, but it does lend a peculiarity to the series, especially as certain actors portraying consistent characters (notably Moneypenny, Q, and M) did persist through a long period of Bond films. At the end of the opening sequence of OHMSS, Lazenby’s Bond breaks the fourth wall by facing the camera and quipping, “this never happened to the other fellow,” a move that immediately sets this Bond apart from all others. This is only one of many indications that this Bond story and character will be different, because he has a past to answer to—he does not simply appear in the action as if the story were being told for the first time. And of course these references were deliberate: to attach continuity with the persona of Bond even as the actor with which he was identified had changed, a concern that did not persist in later films once this initial acting change had occurred.
The film’s title sequence cues the viewer for such a significant shift. Shots of previous Bond films in hourglass graphics remind the viewer that this is one more in the series of Bond, while signifying the temporality of both the character and the actor portraying him. There is also an unprecedented use of British Empire imagery in the title sequence, including naked silhouettes of women facing each other under an imperial crown and the image of the Union Jack superimposed inside a martini glass. James Chapman notes that the titles of
OHMSS reinforce it as one of the most patriotic of the Bond films, replacing the cheeky mockery of the service with a more earnest sense of duty (
Licence 140-1). The emphasis on the words “her majesty” provides the mood that establishes Bond’s conflict early on in the film. If one wants to consider the role of the female in Bond films, the presence of the ultimate woman monarch in
OHMSS deserves mention, since Bond continually faces the gap between his own wishes and his obligation to her service. When Bond is essentially kidnapped to meet Draco, Tracy di Vicenzo’s father, this issue comes to light, as Draco, who wants Bond to marry his daughter, reveals that he does not know where Blofeld is, but if he did, he would not tell “her majesty’s secret service…but [he] might tell [his] future son-in-law.” This kind of familial interjection is quite foreign to the narrative of the Bond character, and it signals a shift into a more personal and vulnerable sphere for the character; will he be a human being who has family members to whom he would owe fidelity, or will he remain an orphan servant to his country, devoting his life to the eradication of national threats? Bond continues to consider this question after he believes he has resigned, when he enters his office. This is the only Bond film in which viewers will see his office, even though his office work is regularly shown in the Fleming novels. In the films, it is better suited to show Bond as essentially rootless, with no strong ties to the home or office of MI6, aside from the moments in which he is obliged to check in to M or to try out the newest gadgets with Q. In
OHMSS, not only is his office shown, but it is the locale of his thoughtfulness about his past and future.
The idea of OHMSS having a memory is demonstrated in the scene when Bond cleans out his desk. As he re-discovers various artifacts from past missions (Honey Ryder’s dagger from Dr. No, the garrote-watch from From Russia With Love [Terence Young 1963], the re-breather from Thunderball [Terence Young 1965]), the theme music from those films plays, to provide the viewer with a connection to the previous Bond chronology. This was a deliberate reinforcement of the Bond character history to aid in the transition to a new actor, but the effect provides an unintended depth to this incarnation of Bond: a sense of the past, to link to his duty and obligation to the future. During this scene, Bond drinks from a flask and directs his gaze toward a picture of Elizabeth II, commenting, “Sorry, Mum.” His face is reflected in the glass of her portrait, and the threat of his direct abdication of his allegiance is strikingly clear, along with his ambivalence toward this abandonment. Therefore, this Bond does not simply continue the solipsistic tradition of the previous Bond but instead he is subsumed with the weight of his past actions and how they will impact his present and future. The Bond of OHMSS leans toward Fleming’s Bond who, in each novel, looks back to the past, which informs his present. A significant example of this is Casino Royale (1953), in which the trauma of losing Vesper Lynd haunts Bond in successive novels, and had that story been filmed earlier on, the impact of OHMSS might have been lessened. Regardless, the fact that this past has emotional baggage aligns Lazenby’s Bond more toward the female characters in traditional women’s films, who must always contend with the gains and mistakes of previous time.
The other part of the “anti-Bond” equation is the character Tracy di Vicenzo. She is a headstrong, spoiled, and troubled woman who has no investment in plots against Bond, nor is she a henchwoman serving villains who are pursuing him. She and Bond meet by accident when he is undergoing the aforementioned struggle with his identity, and she is the locus of the realignment of his life and priorities. Initially resistant to any long-term attachment to her, particularly when he is propositioned by her father Draco, Bond finds himself inexorably drawn to her compelling combination of fearlessness, sexuality, and loyalty. Tracy di Vicenzo drives recklessly, gambles indiscriminately, and loves unabashedly. Her father’s best efforts to provide her with a structured boarding school upbringing backfired and led her down a path of rash love affairs, which culminated in a disastrous marriage to an Italian playboy count and the tragic death of her child to meningitis. As Draco puts it, his daughter is one of those people who “burn the heart out of themselves by living too greedily.” Bond meets her when she is desperately trying to destroy herself, and despite what should have been a one-night stand, Bond is attracted by a desire to save her and be enveloped by her energy. When di Vicenzo shows up in Bond’s room on the night they meet, she turns his own gun on him and dares, “Suppose I were to kill you for a thrill.” Though he does overpower her and gets his gun back, one never senses that Bond truly has the upper hand in their initial encounters: she outdrives him on the road to the sea, eludes him after he rescues her from drowning, manipulates him into paying her gambling debt, and leaves him alone in bed the next morning. The empty robe di Vicenzo leaves on the bed signifies both her destructive emptiness and search for meaning, as well as her elusiveness in response to Bond’s pursuit.
Tracy di Vicenzo’s desire for independence and her struggle to find her own identity parallels Bond’s and also recalls the typical predicament of a woman’s film heroine. Bond is continually intrigued by her mixture of strength and vulnerability. When he meets her again at Draco’s birthday party, she boldly gives Draco the ultimatum that he release Bond from his obligation or sever his connection with her. She defiantly states, “Now Mr. Bond need have no further interest in me.” At every turn in which she dares him, he becomes increasingly attracted to her, just as at every turn in which she displays her confrontational boldness, she equally displays her fragility, evident from the tears she sheds when Bond catches up to her after the above exchange with her father.
Later in the film, she will prove indispensable to Bond and perfectly able to take care of herself. Following his daring escape from Piz Gloria down the mountain and after eluding Irma Bunt and her henchmen, Bond finds himself at a Swiss Christmas carnival, looking exhausted and unsure of where to turn. This is a curious image of Bond as he sits on a bench, dazed and uncertain, watching ice skaters, and trying to blend in with the crowd. There is a cut to a shot of ice skates at his feet, the camera panning up to reveal a dazzling di Vicenzo; she says, “Stay close to me,” and her car provides the means of escape. It is not unusual for Bond to gain the aid of women, especially his sexual partners, but this usually occurs when the woman has held past allegiance to the villain or has a stake in the outcome of whatever mission Bond is pursuing. This is different, as di Vicenzo has her own agenda that has nothing to do with Bond’s mission goals. She is the one who has rescued him, and this action carries particular weight. When she is later captured by Blofeld, Bond is intent on rescuing her but this attempt does not go the way that things usually do in Bond films. For one, when she realizes, through radio transmissions, that Draco and Bond are on their way to rescue her, she slyly keeps Blofeld at arm’s length to distract him, in order to buy time for the escape. And once the raid is under way, she does not hide or passively wait to be liberated; rather, she throws a bottle at one of Blofeld’s henchmen, and breaks another bottle to use as a weapon against the other. When he catches her, she struggles and breaks free, ultimately pulling his head through a screen, after which he falls down a flight of stairs. He comes to, but she finishes him off by impaling him on decorative spikes that are anchored on a wall. Tracy di Vicenzo is neither a soldier nor a spy, unlike henchwomen in other Bond films; these actions are simply displays of her fierce independence and her refusal to be bested.
For the viewer, Tracy di Vicenzo has taken center stage in the narrative, with her story infinitely more interesting than Bond’s, whose vacillation between his own conflicting feelings matches her own. These conflicting feelings are another area in which Bond is a foreigner; it is only his separation from MI6 that justifies such contradiction and his orientation into the world of the feminine. It is not as though contradiction and ambivalence are the sole realm of the female, but in the world of Bond, to be anything less than arrogantly sure of self, in all its masculine glory, is to have breasts and a vagina. One of the characterizations of the woman’s film, according to Basinger, is the ever-present conflict regarding the proper role in life:
Should she have children or not have children? […] Should she kill the rat who ruined her life or just grin and bear it? By asking these questions, the film prepared an audience to find its own answers […] When morality has to dramatize its own opposite to make its point, the opposite takes on a life of its own. (11)
When Bond enters into his relationship with di Vicenzo, he is in such a position, freed through leave of absence from the formal constraints of the service, yet haunted by the unfinished business of the past and his enduring loyalty in the future. Tony W. Garland argues that “desire and duty are closely connected in the character of Bond. His ability to keep sex and violence separate and to take pleasure in sex but also to keep his mission objectives in perspective facilitate his consistent triumphs against repeated adversity” (180). It is this separation that becomes blurred in OHMSS, primarily because love, and not merely sex, enters the equation, at a time when his mission objectives also reside in a gray area. Bond’s attachment to various women in previous and later films ranges from frivolous to tender, but never displays the depth of commitment that he found with di Vicenzo.
One of the filmic signals of this commitment is the “courtship montage,” cut scenes of di Vicenzo and Bond engaging in various romantic activities paired with the film’s theme, “All the Time in the World,” crooned by Louis Armstrong. This technique is a singular convention of the woman’s film called the “Happy Interlude” or “Bliss Montage.” Basinger notes that this kind of sequence is “presented as visual action, but it is actually a static piece of information for the audience […] furthermore, they also grasp a secondary level of information: ‘And it isn’t going to last’” (8). Such montages condense the passage of time to evoke the quicker conclusion of the falling-in-love process, but can feel ominous, almost like a portent of doom. And if the blissful courtship can be reduced to mere seconds of screen time, one can be sure that the disaster to follow will be stretched out to long minutes of agony. In
OHMSS, it is no different, as is visible at the close of the film when tragedy strikes. The appearance of such a segment, especially with the presence of the wistfully romantic theme song, is shocking for a Bond film. Other Bond songs tend toward either a brash evocation of the power of Bond himself or his adversary (Shirley Bassey’s “Goldfinger,” Tom Jones’ “Thunderball”) or a sultry celebration of Bond’s sexuality (Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does It Better,” Rita Coolidge’s “All-Time High”). However, “All the Time in the World” is drastically different from any of these theme songs—the lyrics are unabashedly romantic (“We have all the love in the world/If that’s all we have you will find/We need nothing more”), which almost belie the melancholy melody. The song corresponds to the intent of the bliss montage—pleasure in the present, pain in the future—and seems very out of place in a Bond film. Bond’s sexual encounters with the hypnotized, would-be-assassin women at Piz Gloria almost serve as an antidote to all this romance, as Bond appears in more familiar territory, bedding multiple women in one night to serve the ends of the mission to destroy Blofeld. But just as the woman’s film often presents contradictory messages regarding the protagonist’s conflicting obligations and desires, so too does the romantic relationship with di Vicenzo counteracted with Bond’s limited romantic escapades, serve as the barometer that undermines the heretofore image of Bond as a static, single-minded, adventurer.
The most critical defining factor of
OHMSS as a “woman’s film” is Bond’s marriage. Following di Vicenzo’s rescue of him at the carnival, as they take refuge in a barn in a snowstorm, Bond proposes to her. Her car has run out of gas, and so they have reached the end of the line literally, as well as symbolically—their deep affection for one another is clear and they could very well meet an unpleasant fate together as they hide out in this elemental place. It is telling that she asks him what had happened up on the Piz Gloria mountain, and his response is reticent: “I can’t tell you; her majesty’s secret service is still my job.” However, he seems to reconsider, countering that “a man shouldn’t be concerned with anything but himself” and further concluding, “I’ll have to find something else to do.” This “something else” is apparently not something that would interfere with his being a husband, as his proposal follows, and he calls her, “Mrs. James Bond.” His vow to separate himself from his identity as an MI6 agent would have been rather surprising for a viewer, and perhaps a signal that this could have been the final Bond film. There is no future in a married James Bond, and it is not as if Lazenby’s Bond is attempting to unite these two worlds; marriage means the end of service. Haskell argues that, in contrast to the woman’s film, in the “man’s film,” “[m]arriage becomes the heavy. The implication is clear: All the excitement of life—the passion, the risk—occurs outside marriage rather than within it. Marriage is a deadly bore, made to play the role of the spoilsport, the ugly cousin one has to dance with at the ball” (156). Here, though, marriage is presented as Bond’s salvation, an antidote to his frustrating, unsatisfying, and deadly avocation.
Bond’s ambivalence, however, lingers—at the wedding he tosses his hat to Moneypenny, his final hat toss, which finds its resting place in her own hands—and there is a subtle and meaningful melancholic understanding shown between his face and hers. His ultimate fulfillment is signaled to reside with Tracy Bond, who, even though she rejoices in the prospect of domestic life and her future children, it is clear that she will maintain her independence: in response to Draco’s entreaty that she obey her husband “in all things,” she retorts, “Of course—as I’ve always obeyed you.” And in a final gesture of respect, Bond returns Draco’s “dowry” money, stating, “As the proverb said, her price is far above rubies…or even your million pounds.” It would be worth mentioning that Proverbs 31:11 goes on to say, “The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.” This is her value to Bond: a refuge of love and trust that he not only has never known, but that also positions him as an almost feminine hero, who forsakes the active ventures in life for the rewards of a home and family.
As is suggested by the “bliss montage,” the happiness of the married couple is doomed to tragedy. As Bond and his wife depart on their honeymoon, Tracy is shot and killed by Bunt, riding in a car driven by Blofeld. One might comment on the irony of the lesbian-coded Bunt assassinating the wife, and presumably potential last lover of the hyper-masculine figure of James Bond, but the more important issue is the pathos involved in this last segment of the film. Funnell calls the tragic ending “devastating” (“I Know” 457), and indeed it is—although viewers might have been trying to wrap their heads around how there could be any future Bond films, with Bond married and resigned from the service, the murder of Tracy Bond is still a shocking turn of events. Moments after Tracy tells Bond that he has given her the best wedding present she could have—“a future”—she is ruthlessly gunned down and that future cancelled out. But beyond the fact of the murder itself, it is Bond’s reaction to it that makes
OHMSS more aligned with a “woman’s picture” and less with the usual Bond formula. Stunned, he cradles Tracy in his arms, responding to the attending police officer with “It’s all right…she’s just having a rest. We’ll be going on soon. There’s no hurry, you see; we have all the time in the world.” He then kisses her ring finger, buries his head in her limp body, and cries. Of this uncharacteristic display of emotion, Garland argues that “the death of Tracy immediately after her marriage to Bond establishes an emotional vulnerability similar to the loss and despondency experienced by noir protagonists” (183). This seems an accurate interpretation, as Lazenby’s Bond has been forced entirely out of his prior element—cut loose from both the power and the restrictions of his 007 status, he is left adrift and particularly susceptible to emotional loss. And viewers are also forced out of their element—used to feeling afraid for Bond, but not sorry for him. Contemplating the overwhelming sorrow facing Bond, we almost feel as though we are watching Bette Davis in
Jezebel (William Wyler 1938) facing uncertain days ahead in a yellow fever quarantine colony, or in
Dark Victory (Edmund Goulding 1939) climbing the stairs to her brain-tumor death.
More than any other Bond film, OHMSS centralizes the role of the woman, defining Bond through the main female character of Tracy di Vicenzo/Bond, as well as the symbolic female influence of country, the locus of Bond’s professional and personal identities with which he struggles throughout the film. This definition stands in direct contrast to the other 007 films, in which women are defined by and through Bond. Robert Castle calls OHMSS “revolutionary,” and bemoans that “the counter-revolution then commenced and reclaimed the old Bond dominion” (¶15). Connery’s return and the roles of the several Bond actors that followed brought the character back to its relatively static and male-dominated origins. Although this wistful and melancholy film reveals that Bond’s genealogical heraldic motto is “Orbis non sufficit,” or “The world is not enough,” Lazenby’s Bond discovers that his world is both too small and too big, and ultimately not enough to contain his desires. From the courtship montage to the tearjerker ending, OHMSS temporarily breaks the androcentric mold of Bond movies, positioning itself as a curious anomaly and hesitant interloper into the world of the female.