Still On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Big Gay Longcat and Expensive Luxury Cat review James Bond: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (part two)

When James Bond wakes up it is Christmas, as we can tell when the first thing he sees is a Christmas tree. It is Blofeld's Christmas tree, and Blofeld comes in to greet him with

"Merry Christmas, 007."

so even he is getting into the spirit of the season, it seems. Blofeld didn't actually recognise Bond, he just found out about him from Campbell, who he interrogated and killed off screen. So not that much into the spirit of the season of peace on Earth and goodwill to all mannys, then.

Blofeld has a master plan and he can't wait to tell Bond all about it:

"In a few hours the United Nations will receive my Yuletide greetings - the information that I now possess the scientific means to control or destroy the economy of the whole world. If my demands are not met I shall proceed with the systematic extinction of all species of cereals and livestock all over the world."

This is every bit as stupid as his last plan - if he does all this, what noms will be left for him to nom? Bond asks Blofeld to tell him "exactly how" and only then does Blofeld think he's said too much and shuts the conversation down with

"That will remain my secret."

He has his henchmannys lock Bond up in a room, from which Bond soon escapes so that he can stealth around the base finding out more about Blofeld's plan. This is a bit like a similar scene in Goldfinger. Bond sees Blofeld hypno-eyesing the ladies into helping him carry out his master plan, although, unlike Goldfinger, Blofeld does not then kill off the ladies for no reason.

Bond then escapes from the base by stealing some skiing gear, which is handily a different colour from all the SECTRE henchmannys who chase him, thus making it easy for us to tell them apart. The title music is used as incidental music over this chase and it is fantastic.

Blofeld is giving Number One pets when he is interrupted with the news of Bond's escape, so he is not happy. Neither is Blofeld, mew.

Blofeld joins in the chase personally, and this is where the film really starts to come into its own, with the high stakes, exciting direction, and of course the brilliant music all coming together to make this one of the best chase scenes out of any of the Bond films.

Bond escapes to the village (not to be confused with the Village) at the bottom of the mountain, where the chase takes a different form, with Bond being hunted through the crowds of mannys doing their last minute Christmas shopping. There is some resemblance to the similar crowd scene in Thunderball, but this is even more suspenseful, with us really getting the sense that Bond is up against the odds. The tension builds and builds as the henchmannys, led by Irma Bunt, get ever closer, and emphasised by way of the increasingly quick cutting between Bond and his pursuers.

Eventually the tension is broken when a mystery manny skates up to Bond, and the camera pans up to reveal it is Tracy. 

This sudden releasing of the tension when Tracy appears is one of the greatest moments to be found in any Bond film, and demonstrates why Tracy is such a great character - she rescues him.

"Stay close to me, James."

she says as they run to her car and get away in it. Even in the following car chase it is Tracy that does the driving. All Bond can do is make quips such as

"Looks like we hit the rush hour."

Mew.

They escape into a snowstorm and find a barn to hide in until it passes. 

"Sorry about the accommodation, contessa."

"We should have rung ahead and booked."

Even in the arena of quips it seems that Tracy is a match for Bond. It is here in this barn that Bond proposes to Tracy. 

"I love you. I know I'll never find another girl like you. Will you marry me?"

The scene ends with them having kiffs, then transitions to the next day where we see Blofeld and his henchmannys approaching the barn. Bond and Tracy are already skiing away from it. The music shifts from romantic to the theme tune, to signal the chase has begun again. Its a really clever bit of pacing to have the quiet, romantic scene where Bond and Tracy get engaged sandwiched between two parts of what are essentially the same extended chase - and this chase is looooong enough it makes even the one from Planet of the Piders part two seem to be over quickly by comparison.

In amongst all the drama there's still time for comedic moments, and we get one of the worst best Bond quips when one of the SECTRE henchmannys falls into a big machine clearing a path through the snow:

"He had lots of guts."

Lol. It gets serious again when Blofeld deliberately causes an avalanche to join in chasing Bond and Tracy down the mountain. It catches and buries both of them. As Blofeld says:

"A grave deep enough, I think, to prevent even 007 from walking."

He thinks Bond is ded, but he sees Tracy is alive so captures her.

In the next scene Bond is all the way back in M's office in London. M says he won't let Bond go back to Blofeld's base, so Bond telephones Draco and gets him to help instead. The film is called On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but Bond spends almost all of it not on Her Majesty's Secret Service, because he is continually going against what M tells him to do and, as a result, has to apologise to the picture of Her Majesty on the wall.

In his base, Blofeld is being very friendly to Tracy for some reason. These scenes with Tracy a prisoner are quite short, but Telly Savalas and Diana Rigg have great chemistry together - this is perhaps not surprising since the last film that both of them were in prior to this one was The Assassination Bureau, which they were in together along with Oliver Reed. And the reason that Oliver Reed isn't in this film is because he belongs to a very select category of actors who are too cool for Bond - a group that consists of him, Idris Elba, and Paul Darrow. 

One thing missing from these scenes with Blofeld and Tracy is that there is no sign of Number One. The Prisoner may have asked the question "Who is Number One?" but what I want to know right now is: Where is Number One? He's hardly been in the film, and now he's missing out on getting pets from Tracy. This would be a major strike against this film if it wasn't so good otherwise, mew. And an expensive luxury mew from Expensive Luxury Cat too.

Bond and Draco fly in on helicopters, along with some henchmannys of their own - not ninjas (this time), but some of Draco's gangsters. A big climactic fight ensues, this time with the main James Bond theme music playing, as if to symbolise how Bond is now winning.

Tracy escapes from Blofeld's main henchmanny Grunther by throwing him against some spikes but, really, it was the baddys' own fault for having the place decorated with spikes in the first place. What is this, a base on loan from Warhammer 40,000? Bond sees Blofeld and it is now Bond's turn to do the chasing and Blofeld's turn to get chased.

Draco rescues Tracy and then his mannys blow the base up. We see Blofeld and Bond get out just in time, but what about Number One? I expect he would be a very grumpy cat if he had to use up one of his lives, and so this might explain why Telly Savalas never got to play Blofeld again after this film: this organisation does not tolerate failure expensive luxury cats getting blowed up.

Bond chases Blofeld down a bobsleigh ride, which would be a completely ludicrous chase sequence in a lesser film. Yet here it succeeds beautifully, because it is directed so well, is played totally straight, and is really exciting.

It ends when Blofeld gets stuck up a tree, almost as though he's the cat rather than Number One. Serves him right. Another Blofeld might have escaped with just a jump to the left...

"He's branched off."

quips Bond. This is then immediately followed up by a comedic moment where Bond meets a doggy, the film's way of letting us know the peril is all over. But is it really?

The scene then shifts to Bond and Tracy's wedding. M, Q, and Miss Moneypenny are all there, and M seems to get on well with Draco despite Draco being a sort-of-baddy. There is a callback to earlier when Miss Moneypenny cries and M paws her a hanky with the line

"Miss Moneypenny, what would you do without me?"

Meanwhile Bond quips to Q, who hasn't had much to do in this film:

"This time I've got the gadgets, and I know how to use them."

(He's talking about his cock.) Bond is obviously expecting the film to end with him getting up to naughtiness like most of his films. But when Bond and Tracy drive off their dialogue is abruptly full of ironic foreshadowing:

"Darling, now we have all the time in the world."

and

"You have given me a wedding present, the best I could have: a future."

Uh-oh.

Suddenly Blofeld and Bunt drive past and shoot Tracy, who goes

So the film ends with Bond left being very sad. Merry Christmas everybody!

"This never happened to the other fella."

Expensive Luxury Cat's rating: Very Expensive and Very Luxury