Finished rewatching the Bonds, something I'd undertook over the last month while doing work on the computer. Here's my final assessment, as I saved OHMSS for last:
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After completing a rewatching of all films (including NSNA) from 60s to 00s, but ending with OHMSS, I'm just left in awe. I started Bond years ago on those "13 Days of 007" airings on TBS and other channels, and immediately bought into Brosnan when he came out. Connery's movies seemed boring but the man himself was pretty charming, and George Lazenby was that "loser" who was apparently so bad that he lost the role after a single film. (This is all what I believed back then.) Dalton seemed to be too angry. And so my Bonds kind of went Brosnan > Moore > Connery > Dalton > Lazenby. Nevermind that I didn't even bother watching OHMSS back then, or Dalton's movies either, since the broadcasters liked to preempt those.
Now, after reviving my interest in Bond a few years back, reading the original novels, rewatching the movie, and completing this marathon rewatching over the last three weeks, I'm proud to have set myself straight at last. I can see Connery starting out with perfection; the series getting less serious following Goldfinger; the true charm and underrated value of Moore; the very real human grit of Dalton; the failure of Brosnan's diet; and the threads Craig is trying to use. But most important, I can see the complete genius of OHMSS and the quality of Lazenby's performance. He really makes one of the most human I've seen. Even if Bond must be understandably heartless sometimes or use women for information, Lazenby believably fell in love with Tracy here, all captured in that magical moment where he insists on following her even after Draco's given him the lead on Blofeld. One really gets a sense immediately that Bond's truly letting someone into his inner space this time. She fits the bill for matching Bond with her wild, daring spirit, and she believably makes a damn good getaway driver. And her death marks the only time a Bond film's made me lose it and cry. As collister mentioned, Lazenby has the vulnerability to make it completely, heart-wrenchingly real.
I also loved all the touching partings with the formula. Rewatching all the films has given me a sense of Bernard Lee's M as the best. He was stern, and sometimes angry, but underneath, he knew how best to play his cards, like a player who never folds under pressure. Dench, in comparison, just seems to be consistently angry. For this reason, if I saw Dench reaching out to Craig in a very human, sympathetic way, it'd seem uncharacteristic. But seeing Lee tussle with Lazenby and congratulate him at the wedding is simply seeing M off the clock. Q's congratulations are also so...satisfying. For most of the Connery films, I really sympathize with Q hating Bond's guts; I can imagine Connery can be a hell of a yob when he wants to be. (Moore and Q were more sporting in their humor.) So having Q and Lazenby come together felt like a fresh chapter in their friendship, and it's always wonderful to see 60s Llewelyn. Here were two real friends onscreen.
The film also illustrated why gadgets are sometimes hit and miss. OHMSS has some very inventive action—Bond slides across ice on his belly to gun down guards; a crane delivers a safe-cracking kit; Bond skis with only one ski; and so on. The action was innovative here, and so I didn't miss the gadgets. I now think that the gadgets are there to introduce innovative, surprising action; when they perform this role and intrigue the audience, they're successful; when they exist simply as a deus ex machina for Bond to escape death or for pure pyrotechnics, they're a failure. The action in OHMSS was good enough and didn't need technical implements, so good on the movie.
(Speaking of that crane, I loved the character of Campbell. Having another agent shadowing Bond in urban areas to have his back is a very interesting concept. Ah, and the flashbacks in the titles...loved them. Something about seeing Largo played by Celi outside Thunderball, even in clip form, is kind of awesome.)
As for Blofeld, I guess I still prefer Thunderball's. His Eurasian accent and tone of voice are just outright terrifying, and beat Pleasance's impatience, Savalas's good nature, and Gray's...ponderousness. But I liked Savalas's take, especially with his unorthodox cigarette-holding. While the use of elaborate death traps is always a hamper on the believability of any Bond (it's done well for humor in some films, of course), it was a little believable that Bond would be stashed in a mechanical closet with a 90% chance of dying upon escape. Irma Bunt felt like the new and improved Rosa Klebb, and much more dangerous.
So yeah, what a film. Lazenby is human enough to get away with his one-liners, exhibiting almost Moore-esque charm. ("Gold balls" managed to leverage the tedium of the heraldry explanation to hilarious effect.) Bond and Tracy are believable, and Ferzetti as Draco outdoes Topol at the role of mafia ally. I'm not sure if Topol's funky smile is the dealbreaker, but something about Ferzetti implies something absolutely lethal about the man. Almost like an aged, criminal Bond. It made their meeting so wonderfully rich in tension. And lastly, Piz Gloria was an excellent location. It looks at times that 1969's most glorious sunsets and dawns are captured on those film rolls. The mechanics of the place and treacherousness of its location never lost their effect. So, all glory to OHMSS. (And I suppose now, my favorite Bond ranking is Lazenby > Moore > Dalton/Connery/Craig > Brosnan. More of a problem with Brosnan's films than his acting, which I usually liked. In fact, the first part of Die Another Day, especially the Hong Kong hotel sequence, wasn't that bad...minus the surfing.) How OHMSS was followed by Diamonds Are Forever, I have yet to understand.
Edit: Oh, and the music, of course. Louis Armstrong doing a song? That is class that no other artist will ever beat. This is the song that has the power to stand above Live and Let Die as the greatest, even if not used for a title. It brings the love cohesively together musically and, in tandem with the seriousness of the film, gives the entire work an unbeatable top-shelf seal. Barry's theme is also one of the absolute best. Thinking, "how could an instrumental piece be used for the beginning of a Bond movie?" might make some worry about blandness. But Barry's OHMSS is anything but. And the synthesizer/instrumentation choice was good enough that the song doesn't even sound dated, as some of Moore's soundtracks do (but it's Moore wearing bell-bottoms and being Moore, so who could resist? Bring on the disco-kitsch!).
