After five films of Sean Connery as James Bond, George Lazenby steps in as 007 – smugly confident but not especially sparkly – for one time only.
The story gets off to a slow start with a fair bit of pottering around before the action kicks off. What is great in this film, however, is the girl Bond ends up falling for and even marrying. Unlike most of the females cast in these films, Diana Rigg is given a properly written role and a developed personality.
There are ludicrous moments, as always. The most absurd of these must be Bond walking around Blofeld’s secret base wearing a kilt and carrying a book on heraldry.
Telly Savalas is excellent as the villain: creepy but also oddly likeable. He brainwashes a bunch of young women wearing psychedelic clothes. And the action scenes – ski chase with machine guns, bobsleigh chase, car chase in stock car race track – are exciting.
The tragic ending is so un-Bond-like that it seemed genuinely shocking.
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