Louis Armstrong

The James Bond Project #7: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

~ Randy Blazak ~ 20 Comments

January 19, 2025

This series is intended to evaluate each product of the James Bond film franchise through a feminist lens, and the relevance of the Bond archetype to shifting ideas of masculinity in the 2020s.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969, directed by Peter Hunt)

James Bond got married! Eon Productions had to scramble to find a new Bond after Sean Connery quit during the making of You Only Live Twice. Potential 007s included future Bond Timothy Dalton (too young) and Superman bad guy Terrence Stamp (too creepy?). Producer Albert Broccoli and first time director Peter Hunt settled on Australian model George Lazenby after seeing him in a chocolate bar commercial. Lazenby looked like a slightly younger Connery, but lacked the acting chops. He was offered a contract for seven Bond films but agreed to do only one, believing the 007 franchise would become passé in the 1970s. 

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was the first Bond novel authored by Ian Fleming after his spy became a big screen feature and was written to leave out the heavy reliance on gadgets Hollywood Bond relied on. The primary Bond girl was Countess Tracy di Vincenzo, played by Diana Rigg. From 1965 to 1968, Rigg played Emma Peel on the popular British spy TV show, The Avengers. (Rigg joined The Avengers to replace Honor Blackman, who had left to play Pussy Galore in Goldfinger.) Emma Peel was often considered the “female James Bond,” so bringing Rigg in may have been meant to offer a new role for the Bond “girl” at the end of the decade.

The film was premiered in the United States on December 19, 1969 while the country was consumed with the details surrounding the Charles Manson murders. By January, it topped the box office on both sides of the Atlantic but received mixed reviews for veering from the blockbuster Bond formula. Overtime, the film has gained respect for remaining closer to the Fleming novel than other screen adaptations, and that was Hunt’s intent. The script even comments on previous Bond films, such as the opening scene were Lazenby’s Bond rescues Rigg from the ocean and fights some random henchmen. Lazenby breaks the fourth wall and says to the camera, “This never happened to the other fellow.” Or when Bond resigns from MI-6 and looks at some of his gadgets from previous films with a smirk of disdain while they remain in his shabby office desk.

We do get tried and true Bond tropes, including an underground lair filled with henchmen, Bond at the Baccarat table, his appetite of Beluga caviar and Dom Perignon, flirting with Moneypenny, and Blofeld (this time played by American Telly Savalas). But in one way, this is a very different Bond film, one that ends with a Mrs. James Bond.

Let’s plug it in to our feminist matrix and see where we come out.

Driver of Action – We are in full solo Bond mode in OHMSS. We have no “team” helping drive the story. (Q only makes a brief appearance at the end of the film.) There is an MI-6 agent, apparently named Shaun, who keeps an eye on James, from a distance, in Portugal and Switzerland but is killed off pretty early. And there’s Draco, the head of a Portuguese crime syndicate, who helps Bond take down Blofeld at the end of the film. But it’s pretty much just James, including when he goes rogue from MI-6 after being taken off the Blofeld case by M. We do see Blofeld (as a prequel to Kojak) leading more of the action, including slapping on a pair of skis to race down the Alps to catch Bond. There’s also a killer bobsled race between Bond and Blofeld. And, sadly, Blofeld’s cat only appears briefly.

Role of Violence – Lazenby’s Bond seemed a little more skilled in fake martial arts skills than Connery. There’s more chops and flips but the body count is reserved for the the end of the film (although, early in the film, he slaps Rigg’s character pretty hard). He sends a few henchmen on skis to their deaths as they plunge off a cliff and during the climatic assault on Blofeld’s mountaintop lair, he machine guns a bunch of henchmen and a scientist who throws a bottle of acid at him. This Bond punched harder, but used his gun a lot less. Does that make him less manly or more?

Vulnerability – OK, this is the big one. The set up is that mob boss Darco wants Bond to marry his troubled daughter, Tracy (AKA TV bad ass Emma Peel). Darco says, “What she needs is a man to dominate her” (puke) and offers James a million pounds in gold as a dowery. Bond says he doesn’t need the money and says, “I have a bachelor’s taste for freedom.” But something strange happens. It seems like Bond is falling in love with Tracy. There’s even a very 1969 montage of James and Tracy doing “falling in love” stuff, like walking on the beach and window shopping for rings, set to an original song written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David called “We Have All the Time in the World,” sung my Louis Armstrong! Is this a chick flick? Maybe it’s all part of a ruse to get Darco’s help going after Blofeld.

Nope. After Tracy rescues Bond in a Swiss town and escapes more henchmen in one of the craziest chase scenes on film, Tracy and James end up hiding in the hayloft of a barn. Instead of making his usual sex moves (like he did several times earlier in the film), he tells her, “I’m thinking about us. I love you. Will you marry me?” (I’ll take “Things I’d Never Expect to Hear in a James Bond Film” for $200, Alex.) She agrees to be “Mrs. James Bond” and we have a very different 007 flick. Instead of sealing the deal, James decides they should sleep separately. “The proper time for this is our wedding night. That’s my New Year’s resolution,” he says. “Whatever you say, my dear,” says Tracy. “And that is yours,” James quips. OK, maybe not that different.

The last Bond film of the 1960s ends like the dozens of Elvis Presley films of the 1960s, with a wedding. The proficient bedder of endless women is now wedded in holy matrimony, with M (and the rest of us) in shock that it happened and poor Miss Moneypenny in tears. But there is no happily ever after. A car driven by Blofeld pulls up next to the newlyweds and Irma Bunt, Blofeld’s henchwoman, fills Bond’s Aston Martin with machine gun fire. The final scene of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is James Bond in tears, holding his dead wife.

Sexual Potency – Before we forget, this is a James Bond film. When Tracy appears at the casino, the camera lingers on her cleavage. She ends up in Bond’s bed as a business transaction (he payed her gambling debt). The encounter is so transactional it creates doubt in the legitimacy of the “romance” that follows (enhanced by a scene at a bullfighting ring where Darco is trying to pass his daughter off to Bond.) When Bond gets into Blofeld’s lair, pretending to be a gay genealogist (don’t ask), he’s met with a dozen beautiful women (Blofeld’s “Angles of Death”) that he goes to work on, sleeping with two in one night while scheduling a third. “Work is piling up,” he snorts. He may be in love with Tracy, but Bond’s gotta Bond.

Connection – This Bond does seem to have some genuine affection for M and Moneypenny, even kissing Moneypenny on the lips. But, again, this is solo Bond in action. His connection to Tracy seems to become genuine when she rescues him from Blofeld’s henchmen, repeatedly kissing her on the cheek as she frantically drives her getaway car from their gunfire. In the end, he is alone again and viewers are told to get ready for the next chapter of our man Bond.

Toxic Masculinity Scale: 5

Summary Hunt and Lazenby’s Bond may be closer to Ian Fleming’s 007 than the formula viewers had had become used to, but there’s still plenty of sexism in OHMSS. The most obvious proponent of misogyny is Darco (played by Italian actor Gabriele Ferzetti). He just goes on and on telling Bond how his daughter needs to be manhandled and smiles at that fact that Bond got her in the sack. He even punches his daughter in the face, knocking her out, so she doesn’t try to rescue James in the gunfight. At the wedding he says to her, “Obey your husband in all things.” We also get get Bond ogling a Playboy magazine (and stealing the centerfold) and working his way through Blofeld’s scantily clad angels of death. “Just a slight stiffness coming on,” he says, sitting among them in his kilt.

Don’t expect Bond to be mourning his dead wife in the next installment, 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever. James will be back to his old tricks. But the final scene of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service gives a glimpse of a more human man than in all the previous 007 films, left to reconcile the cost of vulnerability when your job requires you to carry a license to kill.

Next: Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

The James Bond Project #6: You Only Live Twice (1967)

The James Bond Project #5: Casino Royale (1967)

The James Bond Project #4: Thunderball (1965)

The James Bond Project #3: Goldfinger (1964)

The James Bond Project #2: From Russia With Love (1963)

The James Bond Project: #1: Dr. No (1962)

Talking to Your Kid About Black History Month: First Grade Edition

~ Randy Blazak ~ Leave a comment

February 18, 2021

I have a thing about Black History Month. I really get into it but I wish it was on a longer, warmer month. June seems logical. My students are reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X right now. I try to make sure black authors are in front of their eyes each winter. There’s just a binge on learning cool stuff. Did you know that the ice cream scoop was invented by an African-American named Alfred L. Cralle? No scooped ice cream for racists!

My love of the black history binge might have had something to do with a white supremacist moment I had in 1979. In my tenth grade journalism class had an assignment to write an editorial. The title of this editorial, written by a white kid in a historic Klan town was… ready…?, “If They Have Black History Month, Why Don’t We Have White History Month?” That’s how my 15-year-old brain was processing the state of race in ’79. My teacher’s response was, “That’s a very strong opinion, Randy.” It should have been, “Every month is ‘White History Month,’ you racist twerp.” So maybe my affinity for Black History Month is a penance for that sin, or the many others.

This year’s Black History Month is a bit more meaningful, in wake of the massive BLM protests last year. But also because my daughter, Cozette, is ready to dive in herself. I was where she is, first grade, in February, 1970, which was the very first Black History Month. The closest I got to knowing that I should think about race at 6 was staring at a “Black is Beautiful” poster in a shop on an a family trip to Niagara Falls. The women in the poster was topless, with a massive afro and a clenched fist. I was transfixed. Cozy is more familiar with images of Breonna Taylor that are painted on murals in our city.

Unlike me, Cozy is growing up in a house with plenty of black heroes. MLK is on the fridge and Motown Magic is her go-to cartoon. (I did have Fat Albert but I don’t know if that undid any racial stereotypes in the 1970s. I’m looking at you, Mushmouth.) But even better, Cozy’s teacher has her first grade class on a healthy diet of Black History Month stories. She’s started her winter school days with lessons about MLK, Malcolm X, Ruby Bridges, Harriet Tubman, and Louis Armstrong, among others. 

Her school is sponsoring a Black History Month art show, in which students complete portraits of African Americans that have inspired them. Cozy’s already done portraits of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, so she chose Louis Armstrong, someone who gets a lot of play in this house. (Fun fact: Cozy’s grandma met Mr. Armstrong after winning a saxophone contest when she was 16. In awe, her main memory was that he swore like a sailor.) At 6, Cozy pretty much captured the greatness of Satchmo. She’s a true jazzbo. As much as she loves Louis’ “wrinkly” voice, she prefers Miles.

Having a teacher who explains why Black History Month matters has been a wonderful thing. How do you explain to a six-year-old the horrors of slavery? “People owned other people just because of the color of their skin.” When I asked her what slavery meant, she grew silent and talked about her black friends and how it made her sad. Kids her age are quite aware of race, especially if they are not white. Cozy’s Mexican genes are talking to her European genes, while across the street from her African-American friends and in a house where her parents are always talking about racism. It must be a lot for her brain.

To help her out, I bought her a copy of The ABC’s of Black History by Rio Cortez, brilliantly illustrated by Lauren Semmer. D is for diaspora. She fell in love with the vibrancy of it, especially the entry on George Washington Carver (she loves peanut butter) and the “M is March” section, featuring BLM posters, like the ones she made last summer. In addition, PBS has made a point of centering black history in its children’s programming. She’s been glued to a cartoon called Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum, learning about Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglas, Zora Neal Hurston, and Ella Fitzgerald. (The 1956 Ella and Louis album is now on repeat play, which is a very good thing, and Cozy has taken up scatting.)

At 6, I think Black History Month is about celebrating how African-Americans have made life so much better in America. She has an understanding of the pain caused by racism, but it’s not time yet to wade into the torture, trauma, suffering, exclusion, and dehumanization the begs us to make black lives matter every month. I can see her processing it through her peers. Generation Z kids not only have more diverse friend-groups than their elders, they themselves are more diverse. Where “mulatto” was a pejorative a hundred years ago, bi-racial+ is just the norm now. But these kids still live in world that pushes a white supremacist worldview. Despite Motown Magic, the majority of the cartoon, book, and TV characters she sees are white. And male. So while it’s certainly too soon to sit her in front of the TV for a screening of 12 Years a Slave or 13th, she can definitely start picking up on the whole unfairness of racism story and that people who look like her father benefit from it and that people who look like her friend Jaden are challenged because of it.

It’s a tricky path. What I knew about race at 6 came from horribly racist norms. People who lived in the city (i.e. black people) were savages compared to those of us (white people) outside of the city. The urban jungle was framed in contrast to “civilized” society. Cozy lives in the city with plenty of black friends, so that hateful dichotomy is gone, but the complexity of racism remains. It seems like the “primary school” agenda is simply that black culture is amazing and that our black friends have faced unfair struggles that we are committed to fixing.

I’m supposed to be an expert on this topic, but when it’s your kid, it’s a real challenge. You really want them to value everyone as fully humanized but also recognize the forces that have stood in the way of that simple truth. It’s harder than I thought. But she’s smart. I think she’s getting it, complete with the soundtrack. Thank you to all the great teachers who make February matter.