Review: "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is Still Top-Tier 007

Movie of the Week #22 celebrating its 45th anniversary

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This week’s piece was originally written in June 2013, but went completely unpublished for 10 years until appearing in my 2023 book 200 Reviews. It is presented here, with additional revisions, online for the very first time, as On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which originally opened on December 19th, 1969, celebrates its 45th anniversary.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service represents a major creative leap for the James Bond films, in just about every conceivable way. It is the most faithful adaptation of an Ian Fleming novel in the entire series, and a smarter, more engaging narrative as a result. It tells an actual love story, with three-dimensional characters on both sides of the romance – meaning not only is Bond himself more interesting than ever, but that in Dame Diana Rigg’s Tracy di Vicenzo, we get the first ‘Bond girl’ that is a real character in her own right, and perhaps the single best lead female performance in the series (only Eva Green in Casino Royale would be in that same tier). The film’s set pieces are fewer and further between, but bigger and more spectacular as a result. Even the cinematography, production design, and musical score – the most inarguably accomplished elements of the series in the films up to this point – take a notable leap forward.