Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-01-04 (Saturday)

Dimensional Traveler  <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

The "let's let Connery cool down" Bond movie, "On Her Majesty's Secret
Service".  Part of the 2012 box set for the Bond 50th Anniversary.  Lots
of extras, including one on why Lazenby only did one Bond movie.  The
bits of the interview with him sounded like he knows he screwed up but
other make it clear there was a lot else going on as well.

Connery had a rotten time making You Only Live Twice, didn't like being
mobbed by fans, and was dead tired. This movie had problems, but the
cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, and Blofeld's lair, the volcano
interior, was the single largest set constructed up to that time.

Saltzman and Broccoli cast Lazenby for On Her Majesty's Secret Service
hoping to strike gold twice with a relative unknown, except Connery was
a real actor and had an extraordinary screen presence; Lazenby not so
much. He was a model.

Lazenby had a 7 picture deal, so no, Saltzman and Broccoli weren't
waiting for Connery. A couple of things happened: Charles K. Feldman had
also released Casino Royale in 1967, which is said to have hurt the box
office of OHMSS, but that's doubtful as Lazenby's movie attracted almost
as large as audience as the top Bond movies had. Feldman's movie
production was a huge mess given multiple directors and a feuding Orson
Welles and Peter Sellers but the women were absolutely gorgeous, Feldman
wouldn't pay Connery's fee and would regret it.

For whatever reason, Saltzman and Broccoli didn't interfere with
production of OHMSS and, for once, we got an entirely straight
adaptation of Fleming's novel and they finally honored their promise to
Peter R. Hunt to let him direct.

YOLT and OHMSS were filmed out of sequence due to bad weather in
Switzerland.

I say that if Connery had starred in OHMSS, we'd have gotten another
Goldfinger and not the straight adaptation (although the movie plot was
a great improvement on Fleming's plot).

Dianna Rigg was glorious.

Lazenby apparently had Jeffrey Hunter's girlfriend, who talked him out
of being typecast as James Bond and talked him out of a career.

Dude: You already had Dianna Rigg (even though she was assasinated). You
could have gotten any girl in the world as James Bond. Typecast as James
Bond? THere are worse fates.

Lazenby became The Man Who Would Not Show Up to Work. He was going to
star in Diamnds Are Forever. Saltzman even insisted that he'd honor his
contract and held up the start of production for a time.

Finally, S&B did what CKK should have done: They backed up the
trailerfull of cash to Connery's front door and he came back for one
more picture, and then would do the remake of Thunderball for Kevin
McClory.

Lazenby has never reclaimed his man card.