On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) on Netflix
M19692h 22mActionAdventureThriller
James Bond saves Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo from a suicide attempt on a beach. Her father, Marc-Ange Draco, wants Bond to keep courting her, and will help him find Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.7/10110,039 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes81%
Trailer
Plot summary
James Bond drags Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo out of the sea after she tries to drown herself, and meets her again at a casino. When he arrives at her room, an unidentified man attacks him; the next morning men seize Bond and bring him to Marc-Ange Draco, head of the Unione Corse, who says Tracy is his only daughter and offers a million pounds if Bond will marry her. Bond declines, asking instead for help tracking down Ernst Stavro Blofeld. In London, M ends Bond's mission against Blofeld, and Bond travels to Draco's birthday party in Portugal, where he and Tracy begin a romance. Draco points him to a law office in Bern; there Bond learns Blofeld is writing to the genealogist Sir Hilary Bray.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Broccoli and Hunt chose George Lazenby as Bond after seeing him in a Fry's Chocolate Cream advertisement, and his position was consolidated when he accidentally punched a professional wrestler, who was acting as stunt coordinator, in the face, impressing Broccoli with his ability to display aggression.
- Lazenby was offered a contract for seven films, but his agent Ronan O'Rahilly convinced him that the secret agent would be archaic in the liberated 1970s, and he left the series after the release of On Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1969.
- Brigitte Bardot was invited to play Tracy, but after she signed to appear in Shalako opposite Sean Connery the deal fell through, and Diana Rigg, already popular as the heroine Emma Peel in The Avengers, was cast instead.
- The avalanche scenes were due to be filmed with the Swiss army, which each year used explosions to prevent snow build-up by causing avalanches, but the area chosen for the sequence naturally avalanched just before filming.
- The location was found by production manager Hubert Fröhlich after three weeks of scouting in France and Switzerland; the restaurant was still under construction, so the producers agreed to finance the provision of electricity and the aerial lift to make filming there possible.
- John Barry composed the love song "We Have All the Time in the World", with lyrics by Hal David and sung by Louis Armstrong; Barry recalled that Armstrong was very ill but recorded the song in one take.
- The song was re-released in 1994 and reached number three during a 13-week spell in the UK charts, and it was later reused a second time for Bond, as the soundtrack for the closing credits of the 2021 film No Time to Die.
