On Her Majesty's Secret Service

George Lazenby's first and only turn in the James Bond role is something of a black sheep in the series, and not just because of his presence. The movie is just weird in so many ways. It's the only one with an instrumental main theme since they started doing sung ones (It's actually a pretty good theme though). The James Bond theme is played with a weird electronic twinge. They actually overdub Lazenby's voice with someone else when he's in disguise. Peter Hunt had worked on the series previously as an editor, but he was the first person to only direct a single Bond film until 1997. You can see the only breasts I'm aware of in the series' history, when you can catch a glimpse of the Playboy centerfold Bond is looking at. He actually makes a fiction breaking joke about Sean Connery. And spoiler alert for a thirty year old movie here, but Bond gets freaking married. And not a fake marriage for the mission which he is known to do, a real one. Just a weird movie all around.

On the other hand, it's really not a bad one besides these oddities, I might have enjoyed it more than the last three Connery made. Well, maybe. There's some decent espionage stuff as he makes his way towards infiltrating Blofeld's (I'd also credit a returning villain as unique if they didn't do it again in the next movie) secret clinic in the Swiss Alps (pretty tame after a volcano lair), and some decent chases and shootouts after he gets there. Telly Savalas, recognizable by me as the crazy member of The Dirty Dozen, takes over the Blofeld role, and while his plot this time is less grand it also makes more sense, so I'll give him some credit there. I have a question though - if him getting his face constantly redone with surgery to maintain cover is the excuse for them changing actors for the part, why did the first guy to play him on screen have that big eye scar? Something so striking wouldn't help anonymity. Was that really his original face? Probably not, since his voice changes each time his face does and he easily had a higher voice than the guy who played him when they weren't showing his face. It's also odd how he acts like he doesn't recognize Bond when they meet in this movie, staying close to the source material which was written before the source of the previous film. Meh. Bond does some skiing and shooting and there's a tragic ending that leads directly to the next film. Lazenby really wasn't bad, and turning down the huge offer to stay was the biggest mistake he ever made.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"
Foreign locations: Portugal, Switzerland
Bond, James Bond: 4:35
Martini shaken, not stirred: 22:15
Ladies seduced: 3
Chases: 4
Kills: 5
Non-lethal takedowns: 7

The Dirty Dozen

I know Inglourious Basterds got to me because I keep watching old movies that are somehow related. Dozen is a popular sixties movie with a similar premise on the surface, an officer training a group of ragtag soldiers for a special purpose during World War II. In this case, Lee Marvin is given twelve soldiers condemned to hard labor, prison, or execution and what amounts to a suicide mission to kill as many Nazi officials as possible holed up in a chateau on the eve of D-Day. Most of the movie is just Marvin training the soldiers into a cohesive unit while they occasionally rebel against perceived injustices, but eventually they get to the surprisingly violent climax.

Just like the Basterds, most but not all of the Dozen get significant character development. Charles Bronson is a former officer and the old hand of the group, almost a secondary leader. It's funny how he has the hard reputation and when they do the lineup by height, he's the fourth shortest. Donald Sutherland has an early role as Pinkley, who's a bit dimwitted, but ends up being one of the more likable characters. Other ones that stick out are the big guy, the black guy, the rebellious guy, the short guy with the moustache, and the crazy one. Ernest Borgnine is also the general in charge of the operation, and he's pretty much the same dude he still is today. It takes a while, but eventually the Dirty Dozen (so named because of their refusal to bathe or shave with cold water) gel into a cohesive whole, proven when they win a training exercise through unconventional means.

Then they drop into France, and the tone shifts rather dramatically. The carefully orchestrated mission has a couple slip-ups but still stays on course until someone screws it up big time (guess who!), when things turn into a bloodbath. It's a pretty large scaled and impressive action sequence for the time, although there were a couple situations where it was less than obvious that certain characters died and I just had to assume they did later when they didn't show up. Their Plan B to take out as many Nazis as possible is surprisingly brutal for the time, and honestly made me a little uncomfortable with the whole thing. But I guess the whole point of movies like these is to show how hellish war can be. The conclusion isn't exactly satisfying, but it's what you might expect from a cynical movie like this. I was pretty impressed overall.