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Dom Robinson reviews

Special Edition

Distributed by

MGM


On Her Majesty's Secret Service was the one and only time Australian actor George Lazenby appeared onscreen as super spy James Bond.

Blofeld (this time played by Kojak's Telly Savalas - here appearing a lot more than Donald Pleasance in the previous film) is threatening the world once again, but this time with germ warfare weaponry, although he maintains he's only producing vaccines for any allergies. After trying to resign, because he was pulled from Operation Bedlam - which would've done away with the head of the S.P.E.C.T.R.E. organisation - but not getting the chance to be given his P45, he instead goes undercover in the snowy alps of Switzerland.

He enlists the help of crime boss Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti) and falls for a number of women including Irma Bunt (Ilse Steppat) (just joking!) and Draco's daughter, the headstrong Tracy (Diana Rigg).


An anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen ratio, looking quite a bit better than the two-years-older You Only Live Twice with print flecks only appearing mainly in the first half hour. The average bitrate is a so-so 5.31Mb/s, briefly peaking at 9Mb/s.

For Thunderball we were blessed with a remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, when it was originally recorded in mono. Sadly, no-one's bothered here. My amplifier states the sound is in Dolby Surround, but it may as well be in mono for all the difference it makes as there's little reason to suggest there's any stereo steerage - just like You Only Live Twice.

The main Bond music appears to have been jazzed up this time round and the theme tune used was Louis Armstrong's We Have All The Time In The World.


Extras :

Chapters :

The usual 32 chapters for an MGM, which is an excellent amount. If only some other DVD companies could take a lesson from this one.

Languages & Subtitles :

English is the only language on the disc - in Dolby Surround - and there are subtitles for English (and hard of hearing).

And there's more... :

MGM seem to be pulling out all the stops for their Bond collection and starting with the first Bond film made we have a great amount for you to sink your teeth into. Some of the content, particularly the TV spots, aren't exactly first-rate in terms of picture quality and sound, but it adds to the nostalgic quality and all the interviews are clear enough.

Menu :

A blue-tinged main menu with the new Bond music and clips of Bond racing down the mountains on skis. Another first-rate effort. The initial screen offers you the choice to start the film, select a scene, choose a language or watch the extras.


Overall, this one-time-Lazenby movie has its moments, but its lengthy running time does drag things out and although we have different actors playing each of the main two parts, it does seem ridiculous that they meet up pretending to be different people when they were trying to shoot each other in the last film... and no-one's bothered to apply any dodgy-eye make-up to Savalas for his Blofeld role.

I don't think Lazenby can really act either, which doesn't help matters. He just doesn't have the right voice for the one-liners and comes across as sounding like the guy who used to co-present a BBC1 gameshow after Neighbours in the early 90s and would utter trite such as "You were right to disagree"... Well, either him or an excited Tony Blackburn.

There are a few more extras this time round though, plus plenty of dodgy blue-screen moments on the ski run and quite a striking ending...

Just a shame someone so head-strong didn't have quite a "strong head" (!)

FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS



OVERALL

The following is a list of all the Bond films now available in production order with their dates of release, followed by the unofficial movies:

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.

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