I loved the Sean Connery James Bond films so much that after seeing Goldfinger, I made a point of buying.the book Thunderball as soon as it came out,and then read.l every one of Fleming's originals. When I read the book On Her Majesty's Secret Service, I believed I had found the best James Bond thriller of all with a very human 007, so I wanted badly to see Sean Connery do this one. It almost happened.
Unfortunately, Connery bowed out at this point, so vague lookalike George Lazenby was hired to play the most coveted hero role of all time.This really.hampered.my.enjoyment of the film.
The fact that. Diana Riggs, TV's Mrs. Emma Peel was.the co-star made it all the more sad.to.me that Sean would not be there to make this the masterpiece it deserved to be.
I also felt that Telly Savalas was the most lackluster Blofeld ever.
The saving graces of this movie were the action sequences, the splendid John Barry score and Louis Armstrong doing what I feel to be the very best song of Armstrong's career and the very best of this series right up there with the title song of Goldfinger.
The story is a great one with what would have been a very touching ending (which I won't give away if you have not seen it) had a better actor played the lead.
The opening gag was a clever one and the great Richard Maibaum wrote an excellent script, yet every time Lazenby came on screen, I tried to imagine Sean Connery instead. That would have been spectacular.
So while it is perhaps one of the best screenplay in the series, I would have preferred that this is the one that made a swan song for Sean Connery than the less satisfying and downright silly Diamonds Are Forever that set the stage for many of the silly Roger Moore outings.
This is why it gets only seven out of ten from me.
Unfortunately, Connery bowed out at this point, so vague lookalike George Lazenby was hired to play the most coveted hero role of all time.This really.hampered.my.enjoyment of the film.
The fact that. Diana Riggs, TV's Mrs. Emma Peel was.the co-star made it all the more sad.to.me that Sean would not be there to make this the masterpiece it deserved to be.
I also felt that Telly Savalas was the most lackluster Blofeld ever.
The saving graces of this movie were the action sequences, the splendid John Barry score and Louis Armstrong doing what I feel to be the very best song of Armstrong's career and the very best of this series right up there with the title song of Goldfinger.
The story is a great one with what would have been a very touching ending (which I won't give away if you have not seen it) had a better actor played the lead.
The opening gag was a clever one and the great Richard Maibaum wrote an excellent script, yet every time Lazenby came on screen, I tried to imagine Sean Connery instead. That would have been spectacular.
So while it is perhaps one of the best screenplay in the series, I would have preferred that this is the one that made a swan song for Sean Connery than the less satisfying and downright silly Diamonds Are Forever that set the stage for many of the silly Roger Moore outings.
This is why it gets only seven out of ten from me.