Movie Review: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

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Wikipedia:

James Bond saves a woman on the beach from an attempted suicide by drowning, and later meets her again in a casino. The woman, Contessa Teresa “Tracy” di Vicenzo, invites Bond to her hotel room to thank him, but when Bond arrives he is attacked by an unidentified man. After subduing the man, Bond returns to his own room and finds Tracy there; she claims she was unaware of the attacker’s presence. The next morning, Bond is kidnapped by several men, including the one he fought, who take him to meet Marc-Ange Draco, the head of the European crime syndicate Unione Corse. Draco reveals that Tracy is his only daughter and tells Bond of her troubled past, offering Bond one million pounds if he will marry her. Bond refuses, but agrees to continue romancing Tracy if Draco helps him track down Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE.

Upon returning to London, M relieves Bond of his mission to assassinate Blofeld. Furious, Bond dictates a letter of resignation to Moneypenny, which she alters into a request for leave. Bond heads for Draco’s birthday party in Portugal. There, Bond and Tracy begin a whirlwind romance, and Draco directs Bond to a law firm in Bern, Switzerland. Bond breaks into the office of Swiss lawyer Gebrüder Gumbold and learns that Blofeld is corresponding with London College of Arms genealogist Sir Hilary Bray, attempting to claim the title Count Balthazar de Bleuchamp.

Posing as Bray, Bond goes to meet Blofeld, who has established a clinical allergy research institute atop Piz Gloria in the Swiss Alps. Bond meets twelve young women, later referred to by Blofeld as his “angels of death”, who are patients at the institute’s clinic, apparently cured of various allergies. After dinner, Bond goes to the room of one patient, Ruby, who wrote her room number on his bare leg. At midnight, while still with Ruby, Bond discovers the women go into a sleep-induced hypnotic state while Blofeld implants subliminal audio instructions. In fact, they are being brainwashed to distribute bacteriological warfare agents throughout the world.

Bond tries to trick Blofeld into leaving Switzerland so that MI6 can arrest him without violating Swiss sovereignty. Blofeld refuses and Bond is eventually caught by henchwoman Irma Bunt. Blofeld reveals that he identified Bond after his attempt to lure him out of Switzerland, and tells his henchmen to take Bond away. Bond eventually makes his escape by skiing down from Piz Gloria while Blofeld and his men give chase. Tracy finds Bond in the village of Lauterbrunnen, and they escape Bunt and her men after a car chase, luring their pursuers into a stock car chase which results in their vehicle overturning. A blizzard forces them to a remote barn, where Bond professes his love to Tracy and proposes marriage to her, which she happily accepts. The next morning, as the chase continues on skis, Blofeld sets off an avalanche. Tracy is captured, while Bond is buried but manages to escape.

Back in London at M’s office, Bond is informed that Blofeld intends to hold the world to ransom by threatening to destroy its agriculture using his brainwashed women, demanding amnesty for all past crimes, and that he be recognised as the current Count de Bleuchamp. M tells 007 that the ransom will be paid and forbids him to mount a rescue mission. Bond instead enlists Draco and his forces to attack Blofeld’s headquarters, while also rescuing Tracy from Blofeld’s captivity. The facility is destroyed, and Blofeld escapes the destruction alone in a bobsleigh, with Bond pursuing him. The chase ends when Blofeld is trapped in a collision with the branch of a tree.

Bond and Tracy marry in Portugal, then drive away in Bond’s Aston Martin DBS. When Bond pulls over to the roadside to remove flowers from the car, Blofeld and Bunt commit a drive-by shooting of the couple’s car. Bond survives, but Tracy is killed.

***

  • George had one shot and he couldn’t last.
  • The difference in this one is that Bond gets married.  It doesn’t last though
  • Then he goes back to being his old self

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