Film no. 6 · 1969 · Lazenby era

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

George Lazenby's only outing – and the only film in which Bond marries

TMDB rating: 6.6 / 10 · View on TMDB

Plot

On the Portuguese Atlantic coast James Bond pulls a young woman out of the surf who is trying to drown herself. She disappears before he learns her name. He meets her again in the casino at Estoril: Teresa "Tracy" di Vicenzo, daughter of Corsican crime boss Marc-Ange Draco. Her father offers Bond a dowry of a million pounds if he will look after his suicidal daughter. Bond asks for a piece of information instead – the whereabouts of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, whom the service has been hunting in vain for two years.

The trail leads through a solicitor in Bern up to Piz Gloria, a research institute high above the Bernese Oberland that can only be reached by cable car. Disguised as the herald Sir Hilary Bray, Bond is to confirm a title of nobility for "Count Balthazar de Bleuchamp". In truth Blofeld is hypnotising twelve young women from around the world and sending them home as unwitting carriers of an agent that will sterilise crops and livestock. Bond's cover is blown and he escapes down the mountain on skis.

Tracy pulls him out of the chase; in a barn he proposes to her. The next morning she is captured after an avalanche. Because London would rather pay than fight, Bond attacks on his own with Draco's men: Piz Gloria is blown up and Blofeld only gets away after a chase down the bobsleigh run. Bond and Tracy marry in Portugal – hours later Irma Bunt shoots the bride in the wedding car.

Facts

James Bond: George Lazenby
Director: Peter R. Hunt
Screenplay: Richard Maibaum and Simon Raven
Producers: Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli
Music: John Barry
Title song: „On Her Majesty's Secret Service“John Barry and His Orchestra
Based on: Ian Fleming: „On Her Majesty's Secret Service“1963
Running time: 142 minutes
Budget: $7 million
Box office: $82 millionworldwide including reissues (Wikipedia en); the German Wikipedia gives $87.4 million, while Box Office Mojo lists only $22.8 million because it covers almost exclusively the North American market
Release: UK: 18 December 1969US: 19 December 1969Germany: 19 December 1969

Travel route and filming locations

Gold numbers trace Bond's journey through the story, light markers show the real filming locations. Each layer can be hidden separately.

Bond's route · 14 stops

Total distance (great-circle)≈ 8,136 km

Bond watches a car race onto the beach and pulls its driver out of the surf. After a fight with two men she drives away without a word.
Praia do Guincho near Cascais → Estoril · ≈ 7 km
In the casino Bond covers the stranger's gambling debt and learns her name: Tracy di Vicenzo. That night at the hotel Draco's men overpower him.
Estoril → Draco's estate near Zambujal · ≈ 46 km
At his birthday party Marc-Ange Draco offers Bond a million-pound dowry for his daughter. Bond asks instead for a lead on Blofeld.
Draco's estate near Zambujal → London · ≈ 1,593 km
M shuts down Operation Bedlam, Bond dictates his resignation and Moneypenny turns it into a request for leave. At the College of Arms Sir Hilary Bray lends him his cover identity.
London → Bern · ≈ 747 km
Bond breaks into solicitor Gumbold's office at night, cracks his safe and copies the correspondence with the supposed Count de Bleuchamp.
Bern → Piz Gloria, Bernese Oberland · ≈ 53 km
Fictional peak, played by the Schilthorn. Posing as Sir Hilary Bray, Bond uncovers Blofeld's clinic: twelve hypnotised women are to spread a biological agent. Campbell is killed and Bond escapes on skis at night.
Piz Gloria, Bernese Oberland → Village in the valley during the Christmas fair · ≈ 17 km
Bond hides among the market stalls and the skating rink, where Tracy of all people finds him. Filmed in the centre of Grindelwald.
Village in the valley during the Christmas fair → Lauterbrunnen · ≈ 10 km
Tracy drives Bond straight through a stock-car race on the ice in her Cougar and shakes off Blofeld's men.
Lauterbrunnen → Mountain valley below Piz Gloria · ≈ 4 km
In a barn Bond proposes to Tracy. In the morning the pursuit catches up, an avalanche set off by Blofeld buries Bond and Tracy is carried off. The scenes were shot near Heiligenschwendi and on the Susten Pass.
Mountain valley below Piz Gloria → London · ≈ 800 km
Blofeld demands an amnesty and recognition of his title. M forbids Bond to act on his own – the government intends to give in to the blackmail.
London → Lisbon, Draco's headquarters · ≈ 1,585 km
Bond goes to Draco. Father and prospective son-in-law plan the helicopter assault on Piz Gloria together.
Lisbon, Draco's headquarters → Piz Gloria, Bernese Oberland · ≈ 1,634 km
Draco's men storm the clinic, Tracy is freed and the complex is blown up. Blofeld escapes Bond on the bobsleigh run only after badly injuring himself on a tree branch.
Piz Gloria, Bernese Oberland → Draco's estate near Zambujal · ≈ 1,628 km
Bond and Tracy marry in front of M, Q and Moneypenny; Draco presses on the couple the dowry Bond once turned down.
Draco's estate near Zambujal → Coast road on the Serra da Arrábida · ≈ 12 km
While Bond takes the flowers off the car, Blofeld's getaway car drives past; Irma Bunt shoots Tracy. "We have all the time in the world."

Filming locations · 18

Pre-title sequence: Tracy's drive onto the beach, her rescue from the surf and the fistfight in the sand
The film's opening shot with Bond's Aston Martin by the citadel above the bay
Bond's hotel, the baccarat game with Tracy and the ambush by Draco's men
doubles for Draco's country house in Portugal (Portugal)
Draco's estate: the birthday party, the courtship of Tracy, the walk on the beach and the wedding at the end
Draco's office on the construction site, the drive across the 25 de Abril Bridge and the jeweller where Bond buys the wedding ring
The closing scene on the coast road in which Irma Bunt shoots Tracy
doubles for Gumbold's law office, Bern (Switzerland)
The offices of "Gebrüder Gumbold": the entrance at Bollwerk 15 and the balcony and roof terrace of the Schweizerhof, by which Bond climbs in
doubles for Piz Gloria (Switzerland)
All exteriors of Blofeld's allergy clinic, the revolving restaurant, the helicopter landing and the assault in the final act
Cable-car rides up to Piz Gloria and the shots at the cliff edge where Bond climbs down
Valley station of the Schilthorn cable car, from which Campbell and later Draco's men set out
Village shots and the specially rebuilt bobsleigh run above the village where the chase between Bond and Blofeld was filmed
The railway station, the telephone box by the old schoolhouse and the stock-car race on the frozen field south of the village
The Christmas fair and skating rink in the village centre where Bond hides, and the take-off of the assault helicopters below the First
The barn at Obers Äbnit in which Bond proposes to Tracy
The morning ski chase and the avalanche that buries Bond
doubles for M's country house "Quarterdeck" (United Kingdom)
"Quarterdeck", M's house with its butterfly cases; the riverside property was demolished in the 1990s
The heraldic authority where Bond meets Sir Hilary Bray and takes over his identity
Piz Gloria interiors including the replica of the revolving restaurant, M's office, the heraldry interiors, the bobsleigh close-ups shot against back projection and the avalanche effects

Characters and cast

Bond

James BondGeorge LazenbyAustralian model with no acting experience; his only appearance as 007

Bond girls

Villains

Ernst Stavro BlofeldTelly SavalasThe second actor in the part after Donald Pleasence, played far more physically here

Henchmen

Allies

MI6

Others

Vehicles & Gadgets

Vehicles

Bond's dark green DBS carries no gadgets at all – and becomes the car in which Tracy is shotPhoto: Sicnag · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Aston Martin DBS
Car1969
Dark green, registration GKX 8G; the first Bond Aston without any special equipment – and the car in which Tracy dies
The olive-green DBS registered GKX 8G appears only four times: chasing Tracy's Cougar along the Portuguese coast, outside the jeweller's, as the flower-decked wedding car and finally on the coast road, where Blofeld and Irma Bunt open fire from the passing Mercedes and Tracy dies in the passenger seat. Instead of an ejector seat or oil slick there is only a mounting for a telescopic-sight rifle in the glovebox. The film car now belongs to a collector in Australia; for the 50th anniversary Aston Martin built fifty DBS Superleggera in Olive Green as a tribute in 2019.
Driven by
James Bond
Specs
4.0 L DOHC straight-six, 280 bhp, 140 mph
Sources: Bond Lifestyle: 1969 Aston Martin DBS · Aston Martin: DBS (1967–1972) · Wikipedia (en): Aston Martin DBS · Bond Lifestyle: DBS Superleggera celebrates 50 years of OHMSS
Tracy drives her red Cougar XR-7 straight through a stock-car race on the ice and saves BondPhoto: Bidgee · CC BY-SA 2.5 au · Wikimedia Commons
Mercury Cougar XR-7 (1969)
Car1969
Tracy's red convertible, in which she drives Bond to safety straight through a stock-car race on ice
Tracy sweeps past Bond in the red convertible before walking into the surf at Guincho; in Switzerland she picks up the fleeing Bond at the skating rink, shakes off the pursuing Mercedes in the middle of a stock-car race on ice and parks the car in a barn where Bond proposes to her. Kneissl White Star skis ride on the roof rack. EON obtained three identical cars, prepared by Carroll Shelby with the 428 Cobra Jet and Ram Air bonnet; one was probably wrecked during filming. A surviving Cougar has been in "Bond in Motion" since 2014, another passed from a Swedish collector to the Ian Fleming Foundation and went under the hammer at Bonhams in December 2020.
Driven by
Tracy di Vicenzo
Specs
7.0 L 428 Cobra Jet V8 with Ram Air, 335 hp (SAE gross)
Sources: Bond Lifestyle: 1969 Mercury Cougar XR7 · Bond Lifestyle: Cougar XR-7 at Bonhams · Wikipedia (en): Mercury Cougar · Bond Lifestyle: Kneissl White Star skis
Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow Drophead Coupé by Mulliner Park Ward – the production type of Draco's carPhoto: Andrew Bone from Weymouth, England · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow Drophead Coupé
Car1968
Draco's Mulliner Park Ward convertible; some sources call it a Corniche, a name the model only carried from 1971
Draco's men drive the overpowered Bond across the Lisbon bridge to the syndicate boss's headquarters in the open Rolls-Royce; later Draco drops Bond off in Bern before the night-time break-in at solicitor Gumbold's office. The two-door drophead by H. J. Mulliner Park Ward was built on the Silver Shadow from 1967 and only received the Corniche name in 1971, under which some sources list it. IMCDb dates the film car to 1968.
Driven by
Marc-Ange Draco
Specs
6.2 L V8 (6,230 cc); no official output from Rolls-Royce, registration papers give 172 hp
Sources: IMCDb: 1968 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow Drophead Coupé Mulliner Park-Ward · Wikipedia (en): Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow · The James Bond Dossier: Cars of the Lazenby era
VW 1300 – the production type of Campbell's BeetlePhoto: Niels de Wit from Lunteren, The Netherlands · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Volkswagen 1300
Car1969
The car of MI6 man Campbell in Mürren; Corgi released it as one of the few toy tie-ins to the film
Campbell, Bond's MI6 contact, arrives in Mürren in the Beetle to keep an eye on Bond up at Piz Gloria; when he climbs the mountain along the cable-car line he is caught by Blofeld's guards and killed. The car is on screen only briefly but is one of the few vehicles from the film that Corgi turned into a toy. The 1300 with its 1.3-litre flat-four was the mid-range Beetle between the 1200 and 1500 from 1965.
Driven by
Campbell
Specs
1.3 L flat-four (1,285 cc), 40 PS, 78 mph
Sources: IMCDb: 1969 Volkswagen 1300 [Typ 1] · Wikipedia (en): Volkswagen Beetle · Käferblog: VW Käfer technische Daten · Wikipedia (en): On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)
Bell 206 JetRanger – the production type of the helicopter that flies Bond up to Piz GloriaPhoto: Schlurcher · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Agusta-Bell 206 JetRanger
Aircraft
Flies Bond, disguised as Sir Hilary Bray, up to the summit of Piz Gloria
The JetRanger collects Bond in his guise as heraldry expert Sir Hilary Bray and sets him down on the Piz Gloria helipad, the camera revealing the revolving restaurant on the Schilthorn for the first time. The aircraft was HB-XCF of Heliswiss, a Bell 206 built under licence by Agusta in Italy; it crashed in 1977. In 1969 the JetRanger was a brand-new type, certified only three years earlier, and it went on to appear in six more Bond films.
Driven by
Blofeld's pilot
Specs
Allison 250 turboshaft, 400 shp (206B), 140 mph
Sources: IMPDb: On Her Majesty's Secret Service · Bond Lifestyle: Bell 206 JetRanger · Wikipedia (en): Bell 206
Agusta-Bell 204B – the production type of the three Heliswiss helicopters in which Draco storms Piz GloriaPhoto: Clemens Vasters from Viersen, Germany · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Agusta-Bell AB 204B
Aircraft
Three machines disguised with Red Cross markings in which Draco's men storm Piz Gloria
For the assault on Piz Gloria, Draco and his men arrive in three helicopters disguised as Red Cross machines carrying relief supplies for flood victims; a Swiss Air Force jet intercepts them but is fobbed off by Draco's excuse. The three aircraft were HB-XBO, HB-XCG and HB-XCQ of Heliswiss, Bell 204s built under licence by Agusta. The type is the civil version of the UH-1 "Huey" made famous in the Vietnam War.
Driven by
Draco's men
Specs
Lycoming T53 turboshaft, 138 mph
Sources: IMPDb: On Her Majesty's Secret Service · Wikipedia (en): Bell 204/205
Mercedes-Benz 600 – the production type of Blofeld's limousine, from which Bond and Tracy are shot at in the endPhoto: Alexander Migl · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Mercedes-Benz 600
Car1964
Blofeld's state limousine – Irma Bunt fires on Bond's Aston Martin from it at the end
In the final scene the Mercedes 600 rolls past Bond's parked Aston Martin; Blofeld is at the wheel in a neck brace, Irma Bunt fires the submachine gun, and Tracy dies. The "Grosser Mercedes" with air suspension and hydraulically operated windows and seats was the state and celebrity limousine of its day and also serves as Blofeld's car in Diamonds Are Forever. IMCDb dates the film car to 1964, the first full year of W100 production.
Driven by
Ernst Stavro Blofeld
Specs
6.3 L fuel-injected V8, 250 PS (247 hp), 127 mph
Sources: IMCDb: 1964 Mercedes-Benz 600 [W100] · Wikipedia (en): Mercedes-Benz 600
Mercedes-Benz W111 "fintail" – here a 220 SE, outwardly identical to the henchmen's 220 SPhoto: Sicnag · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Mercedes-Benz 220 S (W111)
Car1963
The SPECTRE men's pursuit car, wrecked in the stock-car race on the ice
After Tracy picks Bond up in Lauterbrunnen, Blofeld's men give chase over the icy roads in the fintail saloon; Tracy simply turns onto the course of a stock-car race, where the Mercedes is rammed by the racers and bursts into flames. The pursuers, too, carry Kneissl skis on the roof. The 220 S of the W111 "fintail" series was Mercedes' six-cylinder executive saloon from 1959.
Driven by
Blofeld's henchmen
Specs
2.2 L straight-six, 110 PS (108 hp), 103 mph
Sources: IMCDb: 1963 Mercedes-Benz 220 S [W111] · Wikipedia (en): Mercedes-Benz W111 · Bond Lifestyle: Kneissl White Star skis
Zweierbob Bobbahn Mürren
Other
Blofeld flees down the mountain by bobsleigh with Bond in pursuit – the finale on the bob run specially rebuilt above Mürren
After the attack on Piz Gloria, Blofeld flees down the ice run by bobsleigh, Bond takes a second sled and finally leaps onto Blofeld's; the duel ends with Blofeld caught by the neck in the fork of a tree. The production rebuilt the bob run above Mürren, closed since 1937, for the sequence; Heinz Lau and Robert Zimmermann doubled for Lazenby and Savalas, and several genuine crashes by the stunt riders made it into the film. The close-ups were shot at Pinewood against back projection.
Driven by
Bond and Blofeld
Sources: Wikipedia (en): On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film) · Wikipedia (de): James Bond 007 – Im Geheimdienst Ihrer Majestät

Gadgets

Safe-cracker with built-in photocopier
A briefcase-sized Q Branch device that works out the combination of solicitor Gumbold's safe in Bern by itself and copies the documents it finds – Bond waits beside it with a Playboy magazine. The built-in copier was an early Olivetti wet-process photocopier.
Sources: Wikipedia (de): James Bond 007 – Im Geheimdienst Ihrer Majestät
Radioactive lint
Q pitches M tiny irradiated fibres to be slipped into a suspect's pocket and then tracked; M is visibly unimpressed.
Minox A III s – the spy camera Bond uses at Piz Gloria to photograph the target mapPhoto: Hustvedt · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Minox A III s
Bond uses the palm-sized subminiature camera for 8×11 mm film to photograph the map of the "angels of death" targets at Piz Gloria – holding it upside down as he does so. The A III s was built from 1955 to 1969, so the film's example is one of the last.
Sources: Bond Lifestyle: Minox A IIIs · Wikipedia (de): James Bond 007 – Im Geheimdienst Ihrer Majestät
The "angels of death" vanity case
Each of the twelve patients receives a gift set containing a disguised aerosol of the agent and a radio receiver through which Blofeld transmits his hypnotic instructions.
Sources: Wikipedia (en): On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)
Kneissl White Star skis
Bond escapes from Piz Gloria on Kneissl White Star RS, the Austrian racing skis of the day with white tops, a red star and yellow bases – the first synthetic skis with a wooden core. Tracy, Blofeld and his men ride the same skis, which also sit on the roof racks of the Cougar and the pursuing Mercedes.
Sources: Bond Lifestyle: Kneissl White Star skis

Production and trivia

Shooting ran from 21 October 1968 into June 1969 with Pinewood as the base. The mild winter in the Bernese Oberland put the production 56 days behind schedule because the crew was constantly waiting for snow.
Peter R. Hunt had edited the first five Bond films and made his directing debut here. His editing style with fast motion and exaggerated sound effects shapes the action scenes; the editor and second-unit director was John Glen, who later directed five Bond films himself.
More than 400 candidates were seen to replace Sean Connery. Australian commercials model George Lazenby got the part partly because he accidentally floored the stunt coordinator during his audition. He signed for seven films and quit after this one – his adviser had convinced him the secret agent would be obsolete in the 1970s.
The mountain-top restaurant on the Schilthorn was still a half-finished shell when shooting began. The production paid for its completion, its power supply and the helipad – the latter only because production designer Syd Cain promised the authorities it would later serve mountain rescue. Concrete was flown up by helicopter with antifreeze added, the rest of the material went up by cable car at night.
The restaurant kept its screen name: it is still called Piz Gloria and houses a Bond exhibition. The mountain itself is the Schilthorn – there is no peak called Piz Gloria.
Willy Bogner Jr. shot the ski chases himself on skis at up to 70 mph, skiing backwards and filming between his own legs. Aerial cameraman John "Johnny" Jordan hung beneath a helicopter in an 18-foot parachute harness rig; he had lost a leg filming You Only Live Twice.
The bobsleigh chase was originally to be shot on the Cresta Run at St Moritz, but there were too many spectators. Instead the production had a roughly two-mile run rebuilt above Mürren on a course closed in 1937 after fatal accidents; the ice kept melting and had to be trucked in from Bern.
The Swiss shoot took a physical toll: stuntmen Joe Powell and Eddie Stacey tore ligaments in a jump and had to be airlifted out, art director Bob Laing needed twelve stitches to the head, and Stacey broke ribs rolling a Mercedes during the stock-car sequence.
Two voices were replaced: George Baker dubbed Lazenby in every scene in which Bond impersonates the herald Sir Hilary Bray, because Hunt found the accent unconvincing. Gabriele Ferzetti's Italian-accented English was taken over by David de Keyser.
The title theme is purely instrumental. John Barry considered the film's title unsingable – it could only have been fitted in Gilbert-and-Sullivan fashion – and instead wrote a Moog-driven piece built on an Andalusian cadence.
The love theme "We Have All the Time in the World", with lyrics by Hal David, was sung by Louis Armstrong, who was so ill he could barely stand and recorded it in one take. After an advertising campaign the song reached number three in the UK charts in 1994; in 2021 it played over the closing credits of No Time to Die.
At 142 minutes this was the longest film in the series until Casino Royale overtook it in 2006. The first assembly is said to have run around 170 minutes.
The film openly plays with its own history: after Tracy drives off on the beach Bond tells the camera "This never happened to the other fellow", the titles run images from the earlier films, and his desk drawer holds Honey Ryder's knife, Grant's garrotte watch and the miniature rebreather from Thunderball.
Made for about seven million dollars, the film opened in the United States with record figures for a single day and an opening weekend and stayed at number one for four weeks, yet its overall total fell well short of You Only Live Twice. Contemporary reviews thought Lazenby miscast; today Christopher Nolan and Steven Soderbergh call it the best film in the series.
The film opened in Germany on 19 December 1969 with a 12 certificate. Gert Günther Hoffmann voiced Lazenby, Margot Leonard voiced Tracy and Martin Hirthe voiced Blofeld; Ilse Steppat dubbed herself as Irma Bunt. Missing scenes had to be re-dubbed with new voices for later complete versions.