Happy Friday Otterites! Francis here, back after a brief hiatus.
Had to finish my novel, Red Moscow, which I am pleased to say I think is finally there. The Boys, plus a couple of other qualified folks, have copies in hand and will be giving me final feedback here shortly. I’m giving Robert as much time as he needs since he’s been so gracious with detailed feedback up to this point. Plus, he’s currently working on initial edits for own his science fiction masterpiece. Martin skipped reading my last revisions, so his truancy gives him no excuses this time around. I suspect and hope he will be appropriately dazzled.
It’s no secret that we at Snakes and Otters love James Bond. The espionage/ thriller genre is a big, big winner for me – Red Moscow is firmly set there – and in many respects, it all starts with Bond.
I have all the books, a few in multiple printings, and while some authors like the late John Gardner did a spectacular job with the character in later years, the original fourteen Ian Fleming books are still the gold standard. (Perhaps I should say the ‘Goldfinger standard’, because hey, a great pun sings itself, right.)
The movies to me are a thing of beauty, especially the ones that clung tightly to Fleming’s original stories. While the Daniel Craig series is spectacular in its own right, a true reinvention that eclipsed its immediate predecessors, the early Sean Connery films still hold up as magnificent even sixty years later. (Dr. No premiered on October 5, 1962.)
And yet, if you were to ask me my favorite – if there could be only one – it would have to be 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
I discovered the character of Bond in the summer of 1979 when a buddy of mine took me to see Moonraker in the theater. (Yeah, it consistently comes in at the bottom of most lists, but for a thirteen-year-old boy, it was wowsers. Holly Goodhead indeed.)
I had actually never heard of the character – I suppose I had a sheltered childhood – but the entire concept energized me from the start. It was the natural progression from the comic book heroes I loved, moving me forward into something more adult.
These were fortunately the days of used bookstores and flea markets, so it did not take me too long to acquire and devour all the original Fleming books. The very first one I found (in the upstairs closet at my grandmother’s house actually) was, you guessed it, OHMSS, as it is abbreviated. I read the thing three times in the fall of 1979 and was enthralled. This was mature Fleming, written as the movie series was just becoming popular, so it had it all.
In the days before VHS, much less anything digital, seeing old movies was impossible at that time unless they were broadcast on TV. Fortunately, ABC had acquired the rebroadcast rights for all the Bond films, so every few months I could view the old Bonds on Sunday nights in perfect rapture. I would record them on audio, the best I could do at the time, and constantly had to gesture for folks to be quiet as direct audio feeds were still several years away. I had to wait for years for ABC to finally work through all eleven movies then in canon. Of course, OHMSS was shown close to the last, but wow what a ride it was.
OHMSS the movie has come back into ascendency in recent years. When you find one of those internet rankings of the Bond movies, it’s always top ten and often in the top five. The fact that George Lazenby was inexperienced as an actor was one of the biggest criticisms of the film for years, but today most folks have come to realize that was really just code for him not being Connery. The spectre of Connery (oops, I did it again) still overshadowed the series in 1969, partially due to the abruptness of his departure, but mostly because the series was still tied so tightly to the Sixties culture. Even though everything else on the film functioned perfectly, poor George Lazenby suffered harsh criticism for years thereafter, and quite unfairly. His performance was indeed solid.
Two years later Diamonds Are Forever served as a definite Connery finale, and by then the Seventies had arrived, so a true soft reboot was finally able to occur with Roger Moore’s arrival in 1973. (By the way, if you watch Diamonds carefully – it’s Martin’s favorite – you will notice there is no mention of or reference to the events in OHMSS. It is almost as if Connery’s Bond picks up right after the events of 1967’s You Only Live Twice and moves straight into this one. Even Cubby Broccoli wouldn’t give George a break, daggone it.)
OHMSS has all the thrills and smells of the Connery era, and boasts perhaps the best remembered female costar of the entire series in the late, great Diana Rigg. Her Tracy DiVicenzo makes a true equal partner for Bond, a strong female character in the truest sense of the word, long before such things mattered, which of course explains why he marries her in the end. Telly Savalas brings a dangerous gravitas to the villain Blofeld with none of the tongue-in-cheek silliness Charles Gray would bring to the role in 1971. (Gray’s is still the persistent image we have of the iconic villain today, which is a shame as the original character from the books is one dangerous dude.)
The winter scenes are spectacular cinematography, filmed by cameraman Johnny Jordan as he hung beneath a helicopter. This was in the days of all practical effects, long before CGI, and the series by this time had enough capital and clout to do things right. The avalanche scene, for example, was a real one created in cooperation with the Swiss Army. The Piz Gloria hideout was a rotating restaurant under construction at the time, located atop the Schilthorn near the village of Mürren in Switzerland. Eon Productions helped to finance the final stages of construction, and the restaurant is still operating today under the name of Piz Gloria, taken straight from the novel. It even has a James Bond museum attached to it. (Yep, if I ever get to Switzerland, I’m eating there.)
As I write this, a snowstorm is blowing outside my window, and for me, whenever I see snow, I think OHMSS. No, I can’t ski and never will, thank you very much, mostly because I don’t need to. I’ve escaped down the mountain from Piz Gloria a million times, both on film and in print. (Fleming entitled that chapter “Downhill Only” and rereading it even today still gives me thrills.)
Of course, no Francis posting would be complete without a movie clip, so here is George’s famous escape from Piz Gloria in all its 1080p glory:
Yep, Der Englander is ankehowen!
I sense another rewatch coming here shortly. Mrs. Francis will just have to be okay with that.
And of course, one of my favorite podcast episodes was the one we did on James Bond, represented here for your listening pleasure:
