On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) | Music

It was so important to establish continuity between On Her Majesty's Secret Service and the Connery films that Maurice Binder made that a major focus of his title sequence. He drops in some silhouettes like he did in Thunderball, but they're all just standing, sitting, kneeling, or running generically to nowhere. For the most part, they're only there to create visual interest by breaking up the fairly static composition.

The one exception is the early silhouette of a man hanging from one of the hands on a giant clock face. Time is an important motif in the title sequence. Time is running out, literally, in the form of a giant hourglass that pours images from past movies from one half to the other. That not only supports the movie's assertion that yes, this is part of the same series and these are the same characters that you know and love; it also suggests that the series is ready to move on in its new direction. These images are the past. Let's treasure them, but let's also put them behind us.

And that's a big theme of the movie, too. The entire film is about Bond's moving on. Early on, in his office, he takes out and treasures relics from his past adventures. But by the end of the movie he's resigned from the Secret Service and is embarking on a new life with Tracy. It's only the final seconds of the movie that violently snaps him back to his old life. He'd been trying to reach a place where he had "All the Time in the World," but that's not possible for him. He can try to leave his line of work, but his work is never going to leave him. It's quite a feat to symbolize all that in the title sequence, but Binder does it masterfully.

For the title music, John Barry considered writing a regular song with his usual collaborator Leslie Bricusse, but decided not to, partly because it's awfully hard to fit "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" into lyrics. Barry chose instead to go back to an instrumental theme like he did with the first two Connery films. The theme for OHMSS is one of the best in the series. It's big, it's bombastic, it works great in the action scenes, and it helps viewers believe that even if Connery isn't in this one, they're still in excellent hands and are going to have a great ride.

Not that Barry abandons the official James Bond Theme from the Connery movies. In fact, he uses it more in OHMSS than he had in the last few films. A jazzy, fully orchestrated version of it appears right away in the cold open when we meet the new Bond, letting us know that this is totally the same guy. A tiny bit of it appears again when Bond is exploring his room at Piz Gloria, reminding me of similar scenes in Dr. No and From Russia With Love.

There's also a taste of it when Bond and Draco have their first meeting. Most of the music in that scene is based on "All the Time in the World," the song Barry wrote with lyricist Hal David (who wrote a lot of Burt Bacharach's stuff) as a love theme for the movie. Louis Armstrong sings the song at one point, but the music is also used a lot for softer moments, like showing that Draco has a soft side and genuinely cares about his daughter. But there's one moment in that conversation when Draco says that Tracy "needs a man to dominate her" and the Bond Theme kicks in just for a couple of seconds. I love that the two musical themes are at war with each other in that scene: the Bond Theme representing Bond's old life and "All the Time in the World" representing where he'd like it to go.

When Bond and Draco attack Piz Gloria, the Bond Theme is back in full force. It's as extended a version of that music as we've ever had in the series, lasting the full battle. Some of that is symbolism as he enjoys one last attack on a villain before hanging up his PPK. After all, the attack is as much about rescuing Tracy as it is about stopping Blofeld, so he's still moving towards his desired future. And the Theme even plays as Tracy is kicking butt inside the hotel, so for this moment, she's fully a part of this old life. Which I guess foreshadows that Bond's current and desired lives aren't as separable as he hopes they'll be.

The final use of the Bond Theme supports this idea. After Tracy's death, we get one last taste of "All the Time in the World" as Bond mourns for his wife, but as the credits roll it abruptly shifts into the Bond Theme. The old Bond is back and Blofeld better watch his.

Top Ten Theme Songs

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
2. You Only Live Twice
3. From Russia With Love (John Barry instrumental version)
4. Dr No
5. Thunderball
6. Goldfinger
7. From Russia With Love (Matt Monro vocal version)
8. TBD
9. TBD
10. TBD

Top Ten Title Sequences

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
2. Dr No
3. Thunderball
4. Goldfinger
5. From Russia With Love
6. You Only Live Twice
7. TBD
8. TBD
9. TBD
10. TBD

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) | Villains

Telly Savalas gets grief from some for being too American a Blofeld, but I love him, especially considering his competition. No actor is ever going to rival the mystery and sophisticated grandeur of the original Blofeld in From Russia With Love and Thunderball, but keeping Blofeld that way isn't a viable option. In order to be a good villain, he's eventually got to be confronted and defeated.

The challenge is having him still be a threat once he emerges from the shadows. One of the biggest problems with You Only Live Twice is that Blofeld is so laughably pitiful in it. On Her Majesty's Secret Service fixes that by making him a brute. He's no longer silky and exotic, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. After his defeat in Japan, Blofeld has reinvented himself and all for the better.

This was an intentional choice, too. Unlike Donald Pleasance, Savalas was the first choice to play Blofeld. At least, I couldn't find any evidence that there was any controversy surrounding his casting. The filmmakers knew what they were getting. It's what they wanted. And after a quick introduction with Savalas in the beige Nehru jacket with the white cat (to help the most casual viewers remember which character he is), he takes over the role and makes it his own thing. His Blofeld may not be traditional, but he is oh so cool.

His evil scheme, on the other hand, is horribly dull. And he's still not that smart a bad guy. Blofeld's always come closest to victory when he's had people like Kronsteen and Largo running the show for him. You Only Live Twice proved him to be incompetent at hands-on villainy. He's a zillion times better in OHMSS, but he still makes a ridiculous mistake after bringing an avalanche down on Bond and Tracy. Blofeld sees that Tracy is still alive and has his men dig her out of the snow. But then he just assumes that Bond is dead? He doesn't even check? That's where Blofeld loses right there. You can give him better swagger, but he's a Big Picture mastermind and still dumb about the details.



Outside of various security people, there's really only one henchman in OHMSS and that's Irma Bunt, played perfectly by Ilse Steppat. She's the character in the novel exactly. She doesn't have a lot to do except chaperone Blofeld's patients and kill Tracy, but she's still extremely memorable even just as a presence.

Top Ten Villains

1. Auric Goldfinger (Goldfinger)
2. Ernst Stavro Blofeld (From Russia With Love and Thunderball)
3. Ernst Stavro Blofeld (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
4. Doctor No (Dr. No)
5. Emilio Largo (Thunderball)
6. Rosa Klebb (From Russia With Love)
7. Kronsteen (From Russia With Love)
8. Ernst Stavro Blofeld (You Only Live Twice)
9. TBD
10. TBD

Top Ten Henchmen

1. Fiona Volpe (Thunderball)
2. Grant (From Russia With Love)
3. Oddjob (Goldfinger)
4. Irma Bunt (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
5. Miss Taro (Dr. No)
6. Professor Dent (Dr. No)
7. Morzeny (From Russia With Love)
8. Hans (You Only Live Twice)
9. Helga Brandt (You Only Live Twice)
10. Vargas (Thunderball)

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) | Women

Diana Rigg had an impossible job. Without the benefit of all the character development that Literary Bond had been through when he finally met Tracy, Rigg needed to play a character who could convince audiences that she could also convince the wise-cracking, womanizing Movie Bond to give up the only life he knew and settle down. She had some help from the script, which turned her into a much stronger character than Fleming had written. But what Rigg does with it is nothing short of unbelievable. She's beautiful yes, but she's also badass and capable of not only keeping up with Bond, but saving him and herself. When she's Blofeld's "captive" at the end of the movie, there's no sense that she's desperate for rescue. She's already working Blofeld and planning her next moves when her father and Bond show up with helicopters. There's never been another Bond character like her, before or since.

One thing I especially love about Riggs' Tracy is how she subverts the character from the novel. Where Book Tracy would tell Bond, "Whatever you say, darling" completely straight, Riggs does it with a wink and a smirk that lets you know that obeying Bond is the furthest thing from her mind. And later, at the wedding, when her dad commands her to "obey your husband in all things," her reply is, "Of course, Papa. Just as I've always obeyed you." I love this woman and it's completely natural that Bond would, too.



So, if Bond's so in love with her, why does he sleep with Ruby Bartlett and the other patients at Piz Gloria? The easy answer is that it's all for Queen and Country. There's clearly no real attraction there. Ruby is stupid and flighty and the other women are nearly as bad. But that doesn't hold water if Bond is actually already in love with Tracy. He doesn't seem to have the least bit of struggle or crisis of conscience about what to do. He just hops into bed like he always does.

The explanation is in a scene earlier on when Bond's sneaking into the office of Blofeld's lawyer and Tracy and her dad are waiting for him in the car. They talk about her and Bond and she makes it clear that while she's in love with Bond, she doesn't believe he's also in love with her. Draco offers to have a conversation with Bond about it, but Tracy says no. She wants to let the relationship happen naturally, if it's going to happen at all. The important thing for understanding Bond is that he isn't in love with Tracy yet when he gets to Piz Gloria.

We never get into Bond's head enough to know for sure what he's thinking, but my guess is that his experience with the women of Piz Gloria is the final thing he needs to understand his feelings for Tracy. Well, that and seeing her again in the village. The emptiness of sex with Ruby combines with the rush of emotion at seeing Tracy and from there he's thinking about his future until he proposes in the barn. Smartest thing he ever did.

My Favorite Bond Women

1. Tracy Bond (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
2. Paula Caplan (Thunderball)
3. Tatiana Romanova (From Russia With Love)
4. Fiona Volpe (Thunderball)
5. Domino Derval (Thunderball)
6. Honey Rider (Dr. No)
7. Sylvia Trench (Dr. No and From Russia With Love)
8. Aki (You Only Live Twice)
9. Pussy Galore (Goldfinger)
10. Tilly Masterson (Goldfinger)

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) | Bond

Actors and Allies



I'm old enough to remember when there were just three Bonds and we only acknowledged two of them. Sean Connery and Roger Moore both had long strings of Bond movies and fans identified themselves with one or the other. George Lazenby on the other hand was considered an embarrassment; a failed experiment. He was just some model they brought in to replace Sean Connery. How could they have even considered such an idea? His "performance" was considered awkward and wooden.

Boy were we ever wrong.

Fortunately, fandom has finally come around on Lazenby. First of all, he perfectly looks the part. Of all the men to play Bond so far, Lazenby is closest to Fleming's description in the novels. But more than that, Lazenby nails the attitude that the Bond films were going for at the time. He's confident, he's funny. On his first outing, he's at ease doing things it took Connery four movies to get comfortable with.

I may be overstating Lazenby's achievements somewhat, and I certainly don't mean to downplay Connery's sheer charisma, which is something Lazenby lacks. But it's remarkable what Lazenby does in one film and he deserves credit and praise for it. One thing his Bond absolutely has over Connery's is action, but that's more a feat of the directing than Lazenby's acting (though he's convincing in those scenes). So we should stop for a second and consider director Peter Hunt's contribution to the character of James Bond.

Peter Hunt had been editor on the Bond series from the beginning. When Terence Young all but walked out on the end of Thunderball's production, it was Hunt who soldiered on alone and finished putting the movie together. He was looking forward to a shot at directing and almost left the series when Lewis Gilbert was brought in for You Only Live Twice, but he stayed on for that movie as second unit director and finally got to direct with On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Hunt intentionally left his mark all over the film. That may be why Saltzman and Broccoli never asked him back, but the movie's still an artistic success. The action sequences are way more involved and exciting than the previous films, including an extended car chase and of course the skiing and bobsledding pieces. He also makes interesting choices about how to shoot things. For instance, it would have been easy just to crop Lazenby's head out of shots in the cold open to prolong the reveal of his face, but Hunt doesn't do that. He shoots the whole body, but uses the fading light on the sunset beach to obscure Lazenby's details.

Hunt also employs an early version of what we now call shaky cam and weirdly muted sound effects to give fights a feeling of instability and unease. Not everything he does works perfectly, but OHMSS is one of the most artistically directed films in the series. And even if that's not enough to praise, the action sequences are. OHMSS leaves quite a legacy for the rest of the series and Bond becomes more than just a two-fisted spy with a ruthless aim. He's now a gifted stuntman as well.

Transitioning into some of Bond's allies in this movie, let's talk about him and Moneypenny. They don't have as easy a relationship as and Connery's Bond did. That's mostly because of Connery's magnetism. Lazenby and Lois Maxwell are trying to recreate that, but it feels at times like they're trying too hard. Around Connery, Moneypenny's flirting was all play. She knew that nothing was ever going to happen between them, so she kept it light. But Lazenby keeps trying to raise the stakes with her. He actually asks her out and even gives her a sweet kiss at one point. And she appears to be caving.

One bit of criticism I've heard about OHMSS is how it treats Moneypenny at the wedding. While everyone else is shaking Bond's hand and slapping his back, she's looking on alone and crying. If you buy into the meme that Moneypenny has always hopelessly swooned over Bond, it's a sad, pathetic scene and I understand the criticism. But I like to think of Moneypenny as stronger than that, so I read her reaction to the wedding as sorrow not that he's romantically unavailable, but that he's retiring from the Service and she's losing a friend. M and Q are too stiff-upper-lippy to mourn Bond's resignation, so Moneypenny stands in for all of them. When Bond tosses his hat at her before he leaves, it's not a demeaning consolation prize; it's one last hat rack gag, because they both know he's never going to step into that office again. It's heartbreaking really, and for all the right reasons.

Bond's other big ally in the movie is Tracy's dad, Marc-Ange Draco. I've always liked these older, mentor-like characters for Bond in the movies. They're not so pleasant in the novels, but I enjoy the films when Bond meets someone who reflects what he's probably going to be like in another decade or two. In the novel, Draco is a rapist, but that's left out of the movie version of course and the character is also softened by his deep love not only for his daughter, but also for the memory of his late wife.

The final ally that needs talking about is that nameless blonde guy who helps Bond out once and follows him to Piz Gloria. When he helps Bond, he's stationed at Draco's construction site, so I used to assume he's one of Draco's men. After all, Bond is working the Blofeld investigation unofficially at that point, so why would MI6 give him support? On the other hand, the guy has a British accent, is delivering equipment that's probably too advanced for Draco's organization, and he's based on an MI6 agent from the novel, so I'm not sure what to make of him. I lean towards his being MI6, but you could create explanations for either scenario.

Best Quip



"Just a slight stiffness coming on," explaining the distracted look on his face when Rosie writes on his upper thigh under the table with her lipstick.

Worst Quip



"This never happened to the other fellow." Cute, but it totally throws me out of the movie.

Gadgets



There are very few gadgets in this movie. Two, actually, and one of those is radioactive lint that's never used; just explained by Q to M as a possible way of maybe tracking agents at some point in the future.

The gadget that does get used is the safecracker, which - like Bond's blonde ally above - can be either MI6 or Draco equipment, depending on how you want to read it. I sometime hear questions about why Bond needs such a bulky device when he uses a handheld safecracker in You Only Live Twice, but that's missing the fact that the OHMSS device also includes a scanner/printer. Makes sense to me.

Neither of these gadgets crack my Top Ten, though.

Top Ten Gadgets

1. Aston Martin DB V (Goldfinger and Thunderball)
2. Jet pack (Thunderball)
3. Little Nellie (You Only Live Twice)
4. Rocket cigarettes (You Only Live Twice)
5. Attaché case (From Russia With Love)
6. Propeller SCUBA tank with built-in spearguns (Thunderball)
7. Rebreather (Thunderball)
8. Camera-tape recorder; mostly because it reminds me of a camera my dad used to use (From Russia With Love)
9. Seagull SCUBA hat (Goldfinger)
10. Book tape-recorder (Thunderball)

Bond's Best Outfit



I dig a properly worn kilt and that jacket is killer. The only part I struggle with is the ruffled collar, but then I remember how much I like Prince and Adam Ant.

Bond's Worst Outfit



Prince would never wear an ascot like that.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) | Story

Plot Summary

Bond isn't making much headway tracking down Blofeld after You Only Live Twice until an encounter with an intriguing woman sets him on the right path. Kilts, skiing, and marriage ensue.

Influences

After putting off On Her Majesty's Secret Service a couple of times for business reasons, Saltzman and Broccoli finally got around to it just in time to lose Sean Connery as their leading man. I used to think that was lousy timing since it forced an untested actor to carry such a heavy, emotional story. But the more I watch OHMSS and compare it to both You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever, the more I think the producers dodged a bullet. Connery was so fed up with playing Bond that it's doubtful he would have brought much to the role no matter how good the script.

Speaking of which, since OHMSS had been in the works for a while, Richard Maibaum already had the script started and everyone decided to keep it as close to Fleming's novel as possible. Thanks to its following You Only Live Twice in the movie series instead of preceding it, that sets up some continuity errors that we'll talk about later, but it also makes OHMSS one of the most Fleming-like movies ever. There are some changes, but for the most part they're positive ones.

How Is the Book Different?

The biggest changes from the book are around Tracy. In the novel, she's introduced as a tragic, psychologically broken character who gets professional therapy off camera and returns for the end of the story all "fixed." If by fixed we mean that she's compliant and everything that Bond has always avoided in a romantic partner. When I read the novel, I decided that this is kind of the point; that Bond has changed over the course of the series so that now this kind of woman isn't abhorrent to him anymore. But it's still unsettling and disappointing. Not so in the movie.

I'll have more to say about this tomorrow, but a major example of the change in Tracy is how she handles her debt to Bond after he bails her out of a bad bet she's made at the casino. In the book, she's basically offering herself as a prostitute and Bond creepily takes her up on it. The movie looks like it's presenting the same situation, but there are a couple of changes starting with Bond's wanting to make it clear that she's under no obligation to him. She's weird enough that she talks him into going through with it, even though she tries to make it clear that she is doing it out of obligation. But then in the morning, she leaves him a stack of chips to pay off her debt, meaning that it was never about her owing him anything.

An even bigger change from the book though is Tracy's appearance in the last act of the film. Once she rescues him in the novel, she pretty much sits the rest of the story out until the wedding. The movie has Blofeld capture her. Which seems like a lame, damsel-in-distress situation until you actually see her in action as Blofeld's prisoner. But again, more on that tomorrow. Her being captured is just a way to keep her in the story longer and no one should complain about that, because Movie Tracy is awesome.

Moment That's Most Like Fleming



I was going to be cynical and pick all the racist food that Blofeld feeds his allergy patients. In the dinner scene, each woman has a big ole' plate full of the most offensively stereotypical cuisine from her part of the world. Reminded me a lot of Fleming's attitude in Live and Let Die.

But there's another moment that I actually like and that's when Bond is trying to escape Piz Gloria on skis and he's found by a henchman as a big group of others gets closer. He needs to overpower the henchman and keep him quiet, so Bond cuts off the guy's windpipe with a ski. It's a moment that reminded me of how brutal Fleming's stories could be.

Moment That's Least Like Fleming



There are a couple of moments, both revolving around Bond's resignation from MI6. He resigns in the novel - or at least drafts a letter - so that's not different; it's the reasons he decides to quit. One is horrible and the other is fantastic.

The horrible one is at the beginning when M removes Bond from Operation Bedlam, the code name given to the search for Blofeld. In the novel, Bond wants to quit because he feels that Bedlam is fruitless and he's tired of expending all his energy on wild goose chases. He wants back in the field where things are interesting. But in the movie, M takes Bond off of Bedlam because Bond isn't making any progress. It's M who's frustrated with Bond's performance and Bond is so hurt by it that he quits. That's a poor representation of Bond and M's relationship and a misunderstanding of Bond's character.

It's redeemed later on though when Bond quits again; for real this time. In the novel, Bond's victory over Tracy is illustrated by her giving into him. She's not happy with his life as a spy, but she's going to be a good girl and try not to complain too much. In the movie though, there's a wonderful scene where Bond tells her that "an agent can't be concerned with anyone but himself."

"I understand," she says, not actually understanding at all. "We'll just have to go on the way we are."

"No," he explains. "I'll have to find something else to do."

It's a huge moment that affects how we should read the final scenes. We never see his actual resignation, but the implication of this statement of Bond's is that when he gets married, he's not a spy anymore. We don't know what he's going to do, but he's no longer On Her Majesty's Secret Service. This is a huge improvement on Fleming's version.

Cold Open



It's nice to have Maibaum back on the script, because unlike Roald Dahl on You Only Live Twice, Maibaum knows how to write a cold open. There's a bit of a false start first though with M and Q's talking over the fact that no one knows where Bond is. It helps explain that Bond's not actually on vacation when we meet him a few seconds later - and it doubles the number of gadgets in the movie by showing us a piece of radioactive tracking lint - but it's not really necessary to anything.

Once we cut to Bond though, it's one of best cold opens so far. Director Peter Hunt keeps Bond's face hidden a good long time, building suspense around what the new Bond actor is going to be like. After Bond rescues Tracy from drowning herself (though why does she faint when he picks her up?), he's attacked by a couple of goons and it's the best fight in a Bond film since the cold open of Thunderball. (In fact, the action of On Her Majesty's Secret Service is remarkable and excellent in general, but I'll have more to say about that tonight.)

In addition to Tracy's fainting, there's another inexplicable element of the cold open, which is that the goons threaten her with a knife. It's not immediately questionable in the moment, but once you realize that they're working for her dad, threatening her life makes no sense. That's small stuff overall though. I dig the cold open; even the last line of it with as many problems as that causes (see below).

Top 10 Cold Opens

1. Thunderball
2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3. Goldfinger
4. From Russia With Love
5. You Only Live Twice
6. TBD
7. TBD
8. TBD
9. TBD
10. TBD

Movie Series Continuity



On Her Majesty's Secret Service is all about the continuity. Without Connery as James Bond, the filmmaker's had a big challenge in getting audiences to accept a new guy. Of course, the movie does acknowledge the change in the cold open with, "This never happened to the other fellow," but after that brief joke, OHMSS tries very hard to reassure the audience that this is the same hero we've come to love.

Moneypenny states the filmmaker's hopes outright at one point. "Same old James. Only more so." The movie's frantic to convince us that nothing has changed. Sometimes it doesn't work so well, like when a janitor whistles the theme to Goldfinger as Bond walks by. Other times, it's great, like when Bond is cleaning out his desk and packs Honey's knife belt from Dr. No, Grant's garrote watch from From Russia With Love, and the rebreather from Thunderball into the From Russia With Love attaché case, accompanied by iconic music from each movie.

So here's the major problem with tracking continuity from the films: It just doesn't work. I mean, I live for figuring out ways for this stuff to fit together, but Bond defies all efforts. The "other fellow" remark makes this an all-new person and supports the popular theory that "James Bond" is as much a code name as 007. So does the fact that Blofeld doesn't recognize him, even though they just met in the previous film.

The flaw in that explanation though is that OHMSS not only intends for Lazenby to be playing the same guy as Connery, it's downright desperate to prove it. Both versions have the same past memories and the events in OHMSS will also be recalled by both Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton's Bonds. Lazenby and Connery's Bonds have the same mannerisms, too. Bond is as much a know-it-all as ever. More, really, since OHMSS reveals him to be an expert on caviar, perfume, and butterflies of all things. He still takes his martinis shaken, not stirred, and he still loves throwing his hat onto Moneypenny's hat rack (not a euphemism).

Incidentally, the hat rack gag makes a couple of appearances in OHMSS. Unlike the last few movies, which have put some kind of humorous spin on the bit, OHMSS plays it straight the first time Bond does it, with the twist just being that it's not Sean Connery throwing the hat. The second time is at Bond's wedding, but I'll talk about that in the next post.

If the Bond Codename theory doesn't hold up, neither does the other, popular, even more fantastical theory that Bond is a Time Lord. That's cute, but it would mean that Bond regenerates from Connery to Lazenby and then back to Connery again (a couple of times, if we accept Never Say Never Again as canon). That's not how it usually works, right? Someone might make the case that Bond in Diamonds Are Forever just traveled there through time from before he regenerated into Lazenby, but that makes no sense when DAF Bond is taking revenge on something that happened to OHMSS Bond. He'd have to be preemptively avenging something that hadn't happened yet. I can't believe I just spent that many words talking about this.

Trying to blend all the Bond films into a cohesive continuity is a fool's game, but it's still fun to watch for recurring elements, like how the first shot of the movie is the Universal Exports sign outside MI6 HQ. That's kind of ironic since the novel has Bond muse that UE has become weakened as a cover due to overuse, but it's still a memorable part of the movie's world.

Like the novel version, the OHMSS movie also introduces Bond's family motto, "The World Is Not Enough," to the series.

And finally, a bit of discontinuity, though it's not a contradiction. Lazenby's Bond is driving an Aston Martin DBS instead of the more familiar DB5. Goldfinger suggested that Bond's Bentley and the DB5 were both government cars, so probably the DBS is, too. It also makes a brief appearance in Diamonds Are Forever.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Ian Fleming

It's been a while since we've visited Ian Fleming's Bond, so let's catch up real quick. The last time he appeared was in The Spy Who Loved Me, which offered a complex Bond. As I said at the time, the answer to the protagonist's question about him is that yes, Bond can be nice and he can be kind. He's not a shining hero and he should be nobody's "image of a man" as she put's it, but he's come a long way since Casino Royale and is becoming more human. The Spy Who Loves Me demonstrates that clearly even as it warns us that he's not quite there yet.

When I started this project, I mentioned how Casino Royale's Bond is a man whose selfishness has prevented him from ever having a meaningful relationship with a woman. I looked forward to watching him grow out of that, and knew he kind of would because I knew what would happen in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It's been fun watching him mature and become more selfless and I was eager to see him finally meet Tracy and to learn what kind of effect - if any - she would have on him.

Fleming intentionally calls back to Casino Royale many times in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, starting with the casino itself. He reveals that Bond's made an annual trip to Royale-les-Eaux to visit Vesper's grave and it's here that he meets Teresa Draco. Tracy, as she likes to be called, is clearly supposed to be the second major woman in Bond's life and there are lots of similarities between the two of them. When Bond first meets Tracy, she's clearly under a lot of stress and is emotionally manic with him, just like Vesper. Fleming's not explicit about this, but I think it's an easy connection to make that Vesper is on Bond's mind and that Tracy reminds him of her.

Even though I believe that Vesper wasn't actually Bond's first great love, I don't doubt that Bond imagines her that way. I think he cared more honestly and selflessly for Honey Rider and perhaps also Domino, but any man who makes an annual trip to the grave of a woman who betrayed him is obviously carrying a torch. Fleming doesn't show readers a lot of chemistry between Bond and Tracy, but her similarity to Vesper - especially at this location and this time of year - explains why Bond is drawn to her. Beside her being beautiful and an awesome driver, I mean.

He totally takes advantage of her at first, which is something I found creepy. It became no less disturbing and offensive the more I thought about it, but I do at least understand where Bond's mind is when he meets her. It's still very demeaning that he lets her pay off a huge debt to him by sleeping with him, but I think some of that is revenge against Vesper. Not that that's an excuse.

It's not all revenge though, and Bond clearly cares something for Tracy and wants to protect her, however imperfectly (which is very) he goes about it. Fleming has made it very clear that Bond is no hero and that's very true in the opening chapters where Tracy is concerned. He's no good for her and at one point he realizes that "for the first time in his life" he feels totally inadequate.

Bond's flaws are made even more evident when he meets Tracy's father, the head of a criminal organization in Europe. Though Draco tells stories about raping the woman who would become Tracy's mother, Bond admires and even relates to the man. He describes himself to Draco as "ruthless," and it's true. When Draco offers to pay Bond to look after Tracy, Bond's refusal isn't because he has a sense of honor. It's because he knows he won't be any good at it and doesn't especially want to try.

As the story moves away from Tracy and onto its main plot though, she doesn't leave Bond's mind. For example, back at MI6 Fleming introduces us to Bond's new secretary, Mary Goodnight. We've already met Goodnight in "The Property of a Lady," which takes place before On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but was written after it, so this is her real first appearance. Bond seems much more fond of Goodnight in OHMSS that he did in "Property," but he was already in a bad mood in "Property" and it's possible he was just taking that out on Goodnight. At any rate, he's got a playful relationship with her here, but he doesn't pursue it because he's still thinking about Tracy.

He's not all romance though and he's also doing a lot of thinking about Ernst Stavro Blofeld. It's tough to fit "Property of a Lady" anywhere in Bond's timeline than before OHMSS, but it also doesn't fit perfectly before this book either. For that matter, neither does The Spy Who Loved Me. The second chapter of OHMSS claims that Bond has been fruitlessly searching for Blofeld non-stop since the end of Thunderball and that Bond is getting tired of it to the point that he now wants to resign. The best I can do to reconcile that is to say that Bond hasn't actually been looking for Blofeld non-stop, but only feels that he has. He's had some other cases; it's just that the hunt for Blofeld now seems pointless to Bond after so many dead ends.

That changes after Bond meets Draco though. Tracy's dad gives Bond a lead on Blofeld and gets the plot moving. Apparently, Blofeld is interested in setting up a new identity for himself that includes a noble heritage, so Bond poses as a genealogist to get close to the criminal mastermind. His preparation for that role brings out a couple of interesting facts about Bond's past, including that he's from Scotland. Since OHMSS was written after the production of the movie Dr. No, that's not a coincidence. Fleming is retconning in a Scot heritage to fit Sean Connery, just like he includes Ursula Andress as a guest at Blofeld's mountain resort.

As Bond went undercover, I couldn't help but wonder how that was going to turn out. I've talked a lot about Bond as a blunt instrument and his undercover assignments have never gone very well. He gets tired and impatient with them as in Diamonds Are Forever. Surprisingly though, Blofeld brings out the best in Bond, who's able to commit to his cover remarkably well. He makes some mistakes that raise Blofeld's suspicions, but they're understandable mistakes and his cover stories for them are plausible. It's only Blofeld's extreme paranoia that makes him distrust Bond and sends Bond looking for an escape route.

(Incidentally, Bond acknowledges during this part that Universal Export has become a weak, overused cover. I think that's cool and interesting, especially in light of how it's used in the movies and how famous Bond himself becomes in the world of the movies. We'll dig into that more deeply when we discuss those films, but I like that literary Bond recognizes a bad cover when he sees one.)

When Bond does escape, there's a thrilling ski chase down the mountain. At the end of it, Bond is physically spent, but he's also worn out emotionally and psychologically. Fleming really plays up how hard Bond had it on the mountain, but that seems weird  considering so much of the suffering he's endured on other missions. Dr No especially comes to mind, but really all of them put Bond through the ringer a lot worse than hanging out at a resort with a bunch of beautiful women and then having a ski chase. It makes a little more sense though when Bond's back in England and reflecting on how nice it is to be on the job as himself. The implication is that being undercover that long took a lot out of him. More than he - or the readers - realized as it was going on.

Shortly after escaping Blofeld's resort, Bond meets Tracy again. At Bond's suggestion, Draco sent her to get professional help for her depression and it's paid off. Sort of. She's a totally different woman, but I question whether she's improved. Actually, I shouldn't question. In the context of the story, she's clearly happier and healthier. But she's also way less independent and interesting.

I imagine that Fleming saw an inverse relationship between those things; that female happiness and health are somehow in opposition to independence and uniqueness. The Tracy that rejoins Bond at the end of the novel is immature and submissive. She sobs and trembles when he proposes to her and says things like, "I suppose I've got to get used to doing what you say." She makes scenes about the dangers of his job - even using the exact same term to describe it that Le Chiffre did in Casino Royale - which is exactly what Bond's always been afraid of in relationships. He's mused many times over the course of the series about knowing that marriage wasn't for him, because he couldn't put up with that. He hates drama and Tracy is full of the stuff. She's very different in the movie, but the literary Tracy is every bit as bad as all the whiny girls whom Bond has always said he despised. I honestly couldn't understand why he liked her.

And then it hit me. The point isn't that Tracy is some kind of remarkable, new woman that Bond has never encountered before. On the contrary, she's exactly like every woman he's ever encountered before and feared. The point is that she isn't different. He is.

The Bond of Casino Royale would have had zero time for "cured" Tracy Draco. He would have been into "damaged" Tracy, but only for the sex. By the time we get to OHMSS, he's a changed man. He wants her to get well, even if that means becoming someone he's always said he hates. But he realizes, here at the end, that he doesn't hate that at all. He understands and acknowledges that her worry is a manifestation of her love. She's not a drag on him; she's someone who cares enough about him that she wants to take care of him and protect him. And he wants to do the same for her. However imperfectly.

Fleming is either very sloppy about how he communicates this or he's a genius. I like to think it's the latter. None of what I've concluded is spelled out. It's all subtext. On the surface, Bond's relationship with Tracy makes no sense. But in the context of the previous books in the series, he's been growing toward this point all along. He's always had a sappy, sentimental side to him, even back in Casino Royale. It's just that now it's unfettered by his extreme selfishness.

Which makes the last page all the more heart-breaking.

The Spy Who Loved Me by Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming once explained the oddity of The Spy Who Loved Me as his response to young readers' seeing Bond as a hero. Fleming had a different opinion of Bond, so instead of letting readers into the agent's head as usual, The Spy Who Loved Me presents him completely through the eyes of other people.

Mostly that's the first person narrator of the novel, Vivienne Michel, who's left as the sole occupant/caretaker of an isolated motor lodge in the Adirondacks. The novel takes place over the course of an evening. Vivienne spends the first part of it alone, reminiscing over her life and especially her experiences with a couple of men. Then in the middle of the novel, a couple of gangsters show up, sent to burn down the motel for the insurance money, murder Vivienne, and frame her for the "accident." In the last third of the story, Bond shows up and becomes a deadly fly in the gangsters' ointment.

When I first read The Spy Who Loved Me as a teenager, I was impatient with it. It's so different from the other Bond novels not just in structure, but in tone. The first third reads sort of like a romance novel, then the second part becomes a horror story with Bond finally bringing things home at the end. As an adult though, I found a lot to like in the shifting genres. Vivienne is a great character on her own and I enjoyed spending time with her. Fleming's attitudes about women still creep in, but he's written a beautifully complicated person whom I was able to relate to and feel for.

My fondness for Vivienne led me to feeling discouraged though when the novel was wrapping up. She'd been emotionally devastated by a couple of men in her life, so it's kind of heart-breaking to see her fall so hard for Bond who's completely incapable of having a healthy relationship with a woman. (I still don't know what happened with Domino, dang it.) She claims to understand that Bond isn't for keeping, but I despaired a little that her worship of him - because that's what it amounts to - is going to affect her ability to find happiness in future relationships.

She thinks at one point, while watching him sleep after they've had sex, "I would stay away from him and leave him to go his own road where there would be other women, countless other women, who would probably give him as much physical pleasure as he had had with me. I wouldn't care, or at least I told myself that I wouldn't care, because none of them would ever own him - own any larger piece of him than I now did. And for all my life I would be grateful to him, for everything. And I would remember him for ever as my image of a man."

Holding Bond as her image of a man is understandable after the weasels Vivienne had previously known, but it's still sad. He was kind and charming to her and they had great sex, but that's still a pretty low bar to get over. And knowing why Fleming wrote the novel, I believe that's exactly his point. He was concerned that some of his readers were like Vivienne, idolizing Bond and turning him into their image of a man.

So after Bond takes off the next morning, leaving Vivienne asleep, but with a very nice note, Fleming lets the story continue as Vivienne interacts with the police whom Bond has sent to wrap up the affair. She has a long conversation with a middle-aged captain who sees her as a daughter figure and is worried about her. He intuits that she's infatuated with Bond and warns her against romanticizing the experience. Bond, he claims, is no different from the gangsters who threatened Vivienne's life the night before. He operates on the side of the angels, but he's just as cold and just as ruthless as the people he fights.

It's impossible not to hear Fleming's voice in this speech. It's the same message he introduced back in Casino Royale when Bond was recovering from Le Chiffre's torture and struggling to differentiate himself from the villains. But all the lecturing about Bond's being "a different species" and not fit for normal human interaction is undercut by the way Bond actually acts in the novel. No, he's not going to commit to a long, meaningful relationship with Vivienne, but he's also not the same man we met in Casino Royale.

We've been tracking his growth all through the series and The Spy Who Loved Me is an important check point in that development. On the surface, Bond is bad news. The police captain believes it and even Vivienne feels it in those thoughts above. Right after she declares Bond as her image of a man, she realizes the silliness of that and adds, "He was trained to fire guns, to kill people. What was so wonderful about that? Brave, strong, ruthless with women - these were the qualities that went with his calling - what he was paid to be. He was only some kind of a spy, a spy who had loved me. Not even loved, slept with. Why should I make him my hero, swear never to forget him? I suddenly had an impulse to wake him up and ask him: 'Can you be nice? Can you be kind?'"

And yet, we've seen Bond be nice and kind. He's done it with Vivienne, but also with Honey and with Domino and with M and with Felix. Over the course of the series, he's become more human. Earlier, when Bond explains his job to Vivienne and how he just completed a mission to protect a double agent, he talks about the spy business in negative terms. He describes it as a foolish, complicated game that no one will stop playing. Vivienne concurs and says that her generation finds ideas like nationalism and power struggles to be idiotic. To which Bond replies, "As a matter of fact I agree, but don't spread your ideas too widely or I'll find myself out of a job."

There's another part where Vivienne asks Bond why he didn't kill the two gangsters when they were sitting ducks. His response is that he's never been able to kill in cold blood. I've pointed out before how that's clearly false, but it is something that Bond's been claiming for a while and he's obviously uncomfortable with killing outside the heat of battle.

The answer to Vivienne's question then is that yes, Bond can be nice and he can be kind. He's not a shining hero and he should be nobody's "image of a man," but he's getting better and The Spy Who Loves Me bears that out even as it warns us that he's not quite there yet. In that way, it's a perfect leap off spot for the next novel, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.