Skip to content
Dom Robinson reviews
Special EditionDistributed by
MGM
- Cert:
- Cat.no: 16206 DVD
- Running time: 136 minutes
- Year: 1969
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)
- Chapters: 32 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English (and hard of hearing)
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Panavision)
- 16:9-enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: No
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Featurette: Inside You Only Live Twice,Silhoutettes: The James Bond titles, Storyboard: The Plane Crash Sequence,Trailers, Radio sports, Audio Commentary.
Director:
- Peter Hunt
(On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, TV: Gulliver’s Travels)
Producers:
- Albert R. Broccoli & Harry Saltzman
Screenplay:
- Richard Maibaum
Music:
- John Barry
Cast:
- James Bond: George Lazenby (The Babysitters, Emmanuelle Forever, Emmanuelle’s Love, Emmanuelle’s Revenge, Kentucky Fried Movie, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Who Saw Her Die?)
Ernst Stavro Blofeld: Telly Savalas (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, TV: Kojak)
Tracy: Diana Rigg (A Good Man in Africa, Julius Caesar, King Lear, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Parting Shots, Rebecca, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1987), Theatre of Blood, TV: The Avengers, Morecambe and Wise,The Mrs Bradley Mysteries)
Marc-Ange Draco: Gabriele Ferzetti (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service)
Irma Bunt: Ilse Steppat (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service)
M: Bernard Lee (The Battle of the River Plate, The Blue Lamp, Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Live and Let Die, The Man Upstairs, Moonraker, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,The Spy Who Loved Me, Thunderball, Whistle Down the Wind, You Only Live Twice)
On Her Majesty’s Secret Servicewas the one and only time Australian actor George Lazenby appeared onscreen assuper spy James Bond.
Blofeld (this time played by Kojak‘s Telly Savalas – here appearing a lot morethan Donald Pleasance in the previous film) is threatening the worldonce again, but this time with germ warfare weaponry, although he maintains he’s onlyproducing vaccines for any allergies. After trying to resign, because hewas pulled from Operation Bedlam – which would’ve done away with the head of theS.P.E.C.T.R.E. organisation – but not getting the chance to be given his P45, he insteadgoes undercover in the snowy alps of Switzerland.
He enlists the help of crime boss Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti) and falls for a numberof women including Irma Bunt (Ilse Steppat) (just joking!) and Draco’s daughter, the headstrongTracy (Diana Rigg).
An anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen ratio, looking quite a bit better than the two-years-olderYou Only Live Twice with print flecks onlyappearing mainly in the first half hour. The average bitrate is a so-so 5.31Mb/s,briefly peaking at 9Mb/s.
For Thunderball we were blessed with a remixedDolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, when it was originally recorded in mono. Sadly, no-one’sbothered here. My amplifier states the sound is in Dolby Surround, but it may as well bein mono for all the difference it makes as there’s little reason to suggest there’s anystereo steerage – just like You Only Live Twice.
The main Bond music appears to have been jazzed up this time round and the theme tune usedwas Louis Armstrong‘s We Have All The Time In The World.
Extras : Chapters :The usual 32 chapters for an MGM, which is an excellent amount. If only some other DVDcompanies could take a lesson from this one. Languages & Subtitles :English is the only language on the disc – in Dolby Surround – and there are subtitlesfor English (and hard of hearing). And there’s more… :MGM seem to be pulling out all the stops for their Bond collection and starting with thefirst Bond film made we have a great amount for you to sink your teeth into.
- Featurette: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (42 mins): Anotherdocumentary narrated by Patrick MacNee, this time also taking a look at the changein Bond, with interview clips from director Peter Hunt, director of photographyMichael Reed, Angela Scoular (who played Ruby Bartlett) and of courseGeorge Lazenby.
- Featurette: Inside Q’s Lab (11 mins): Narrated by Marie Clairu,you can guess what this takes a look at. Albeit a short featurette, there’s plentyof chat from the man himself, the late Douglas Llewelyn, Roger Moore and KristinaWayborn (Miss Magda in Octopussy).
- Featurette: Above It All (6 mins): a location report looking at filmingup in the Alps.
- Release Trailer (2 mins): The theatrical one.
- 5 TV Spots (3 mins): Two 60-second trailers, one in 4:3 and the other croppedto 16:9 (not anamorphic), with three more 20-second trailers.
- Radio spots & Open-Ended Interviews (30 mins): 3 brief radio adverts lastingbetween 30 seconds and a minute apiece, followed by approx. 7-minute interviews with eachof George Lazenby, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas and Peter Hunt.
- The O.H.M.S.S. Gallery: Scores of production stills and photos from severalpoints in the film.
- Audio Commentary: from director Peter Hunt and membersof the cast and crew.
Some of the content, particularly the TV spots, aren’t exactly first-ratein terms of picture quality and sound, but it adds to the nostalgic qualityand all the interviews are clear enough. Menu :A blue-tinged main menu with the new Bond music and clips of Bond racing down the mountainson skis. Another first-rate effort.The initial screen offers you the choice to start the film, select a scene,choose a language or watch the extras.
Overall, this one-time-Lazenby movie has its moments, but its lengthy running time doesdrag things out and although we have different actors playing each of the main two parts,it does seem ridiculous that they meet up pretending to be different people when they weretrying to shoot each other in the last film… and no-one’s bothered to apply anydodgy-eye make-up to Savalas for his Blofeld role.
I don’t think Lazenby can really act either, which doesn’t help matters. He just doesn’thave the right voice for the one-liners and comes across as sounding like the guy who usedto co-present a BBC1 gameshow after Neighbours in the early 90s and would uttertrite such as “You were right to disagree”… Well, either him or an excited TonyBlackburn.
There are a few more extras this time round though, plus plenty of dodgy blue-screenmoments on the ski run and quite a striking ending…
Just a shame someone so head-strong didn’t have quite a “strong head” (!)
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.