Christmas With 007: ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE (United Artists 1969)

(Okay, so technically ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE isn’t a Christmas Movie. But neither is DIE HARD, though many consider it to be because it’s set during the holiday season. Well, so is this film, and it’s as close as you’ll get to a James Bond Christmas Movie, so I’m gonna go with that!)

ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE was the first Bond film to not star Sean Connery . Instead, newcomer George Lazenby was given the plum role of 007. Lazenby was a model whose claim to fame was a British TV commercial for a chocolate bar; despite having virtually zero acting experience, producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli offered him an audition and gave him the part. Critics of the time derided Lazenby’s performance, more due to the fact that he wasn’t Sean Connery than anything else. Looking back on the film, he isn’t bad at all; he handles the action, romance, and quips more than adequately, and makes Bond all-too human. Perhaps that’s the trouble, that they wanted their super-spy to be super, but personally I think Lazenby made a fine Bond, and wish he’d continued in the part.

(courtesy ‘Art of the Title’ website)

Along with humanizing 007, ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE gives us a back-to-basics approach, with more emphasis on plot and less gadgets and gimmicks. This is evident in the pre-credits sequence, where Bond (whose new face isn’t fully shown until around the halfway mark) saves a young woman from drowning herself in the ocean, then is attacked by and fights off some unknown assailants (and gets off the witty line “This never happened to the other fellow”). There’s no bombastic theme song; what we get instead is a montage of the previous Bond films inside a stylized martini glass, as if to state “out with the old, in with the new”!

The young woman is Contessa Teresa di Vincenzo, who prefers to be called Tracy (“Teresa was a saint; I am not”), who turns out to be the daughter of European crime boss Draco, who may have information leading to the location of Bond’s nemesis Blofeld. But Bond is taken off the Blofeld case by M (still played by Bernard Lee ), and the licenced-to-kill agent angrily submits his resignation. The loyal Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell ) arranges instead for Bond to be granted two weeks leave. Bond travels to Portugal to meet Draco, who thinks Bond would make a good match for Tracy, and uses his information as leverage.

Bond and Tracy fall in love for real, and 007 then goes back on Blofeld’s trail, disguising himself as a genealogist to infiltrate the SPECTRE chief’s Swiss Alps mountaintop lair. Blofeld is posing as a benevolent research scientist seeking to cure the world’s allergies, and his patients are twelve beautiful women – Bond’s in heaven! But heaven can wait, as he discovers Blofeld’s fiendish plan to use the girls as his “Angels of Death” and spread his deadly “Virus Omega”, which will cause infertility among all species of life on Earth and the destruction of the human race unless his demands are met…

There’s no lacking on the action front, with exciting sequences like Bond’s daring escape down the mountain on skis while pursued by Blofeld and his minions, an icy stock car race in Tracy’s Mercury Cougar XR7, Bond vs. Blofeld in a bobsled chase, and Draco’s team assault on Blofeld’s lair. First time director Peter Hunt had been an editor on several Bond films and was more than familiar with the territory. Editing chores were taken over by John Glen, who’d eventually move to the director’s chair for five Bonds (the final three with Roger Moore, two with Timothy Dalton).

Diana Rigg  was no stranger to the spy game, having spent three seasons as Mrs. Emma Peel on TV’s THE AVENGERS. Diana makes a great Bond girl as Tracy, the only woman he’d ever fallen in love with to this point, and can hold her own in the action department (*SPOILER ALERT* her death by Blofeld’s assassin after her wedding to James comes as a sad but necessary shock, as Bond must always remain a man alone). A pre-KOJAK Telly Savalas is an elegantly evil Blofeld (though my favorite is still Charles Gray ). Italian star Gabrielle Ferzetti (L’AVVENTURA, WE STILL KILL THE OLD WAY, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST) is equally elegant as the cultured crime lord Draco. Among those “Angels of Death” you’ll find Julie Ege (Hammer’s CREATURES THE WORLD FORGOT), Joanna Lumley (ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS’s Patsy), Catherine Schell (SPACE: 1999’s Maya), and Angela Scoular (the ’67 Bond spoof CASINO ROYALE).

As for George Lazenby, he marched to his own drum, and has had a varied career, including the Italian giallo WHO SAW HER DIE?, some kung-fu films for producer Raymond Chow, and the French soft-core EMMANUELLE series. His post-Bond work doesn’t amount to much, but he’s happy. We’re happy too, if only for his one appearance as Her Majesty’s Greatest Secret Agent. I’ll leave you with James & Tracy’s love theme, “We Have All the Time in the World”, sung by jazz legend Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong:

Outrageous Fortune: Vincent Price in THEATER OF BLOOD (United Artists 1973)

Vincent Price  traded in Edgar Allan Poe for William Shakespeare (and American-International for United Artists) in THEATER OF BLOOD, playing an actor’s dream role: Price not only gets to perform the Bard of Avon’s works onscreen, he gets to kill off all his critics! As you would imagine, Price has a field day with the part, serving up deliciously thick slices of ham with relish as he murders an all-star cast of British thespians in this fiendishly ingenious screenplay concocted  by Anthony Greville-Bell and directed with style by Douglas Hickox.

Edward Lionheart felt so slighted by both scathing criticism and once again being stiffed at the prestigious Critics’ Circle award, he broke up their little soiree by doing a swan dive into London’s mighty Thames. His body was never found, and everyone assumed they had seen Lionheart’s final performance, but unbeknownst to all he was fished out of the river by a band of drunken derelicts. Two years later, a series of gruesome murders based on Shakespeare’s plays begin to strike down the critics one by one, baffling Scotland Yard, until critic Peregrine Devlin puts two and two together and comes to the realization Edward Lionheart is alive and well and hell-bent on sweet revenge…

The murders get more and more ghastly as the film moves forward, as Lionheart rewrites Shakespeare to fit his bloody agenda and pick off some of England’s finest actors as the critics. His ragged followers descend on Michael Hordern ala JULIUS CAESAR, Dennis Price is speared and dragged behind a horse (TROILIUS AND CRESSIDA), Arthur Lowe is decapitated in a scene from CYMBELINE that’s reminiscent of Price’s Dr. Phibes films, Harry Andrews has a pound of flesh extracted (THE MERCHANT OF VENICE), Robert Coote’s  drowned in a vat of wine like the Duke of Clarence in RICHARD III (a part Price played in Universal’s 1939 TOWER OF LONDON, later graduating to essay Richard in Corman’s 1962 version), a neat twist on OTHELLO features Jack Hawkins and Diana Dors , Price’s future wife Coral Brown is burned to a crisp under a hairdryer in a campy take on HENRY VI, and flamboyant Robert Morley gets served his just desserts in a terrifying retelling of TITUS ANDRONICUS. Ian Hendry as Devlin is spared during a swashbuckling scene from ROMEO AND JULIET, only to have to be rescued at the finale in a nod to KING LEAR.

Price claimed THEATER OF BLOOD was one of his favorite roles, and it’s easy to understand why. Not only does he get to recite Shakespeare, he has the pleasure of offing his critics with gleeful delight! His contract with AIP had expired (though they would release the similar Amicus production MADHOUSE with Price the next year), horror films were beginning to go in a new direction, and Vincent Price was the last man standing of the classic horror era. He gives the part of Edward Lionheart his all, as he always did, playing to the balcony to deliver the gory goods his fans paid to see. THEATER OF BLOOD is the last of what horror fans consider the “Vincent Price Movie” subgenre, begun with his late 50’s William Castle shockers and continued with Roger Corman’s Poe films. It’s a fitting coda, though Price would keep making movie and TV appearances right up until his death twenty years later.

Diana Rigg gets a fun, showy role as Lionheart’s daughter/accomplice Edwina, a special effects person who aids and abets dear old dad on his murder spree. Rigg matches Price in the ham-slicing department, no small feat, and the Shakespearian trained GAME OF THRONES actress is a delight. Milo O’Shea and Eric Sykes represent the law, and Hammer veteran Madeline Smith is on hand as Devlin’s secretary. Yet everyone takes a backseat to Vincent Price at his bombastic best, making mincemeat out of his critics and making THEATER OF BLOOD a whole lot of fun for horror fans in general, and Price fans in particular.

(And don’t forget… the 4th annual “Halloween Havoc!” Horrorthon begins Tuesday, Octobrrr 1st here at Cracked Rear Viewer! 31 horror classics in 31 days!)