On Her Majesty's Secret Service

On Her Majesty's Secret Service is a 1969 spy film and the sixth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions. It is based on the 1963 novel by Ian Fleming. Following Sean Connery's decision to retire from the role after You Only Live Twice, Eon selected George Lazenby, a model with no prior acting credits, to play the part of James Bond. During filming, Lazenby announced that he would play the role of Bond only once. Connery returned to portray Bond in 1971's Diamonds Are Forever. In the film, Bond faces Blofeld (Telly Savalas), who is planning to hold the world ransom by a threat to render all food plants and livestock infertile through the actions of a group of brainwashed "angels of death". Along the way Bond meets, falls in love with, and eventually marries Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg). It is the only Bond film to have been directed by Peter R. Hunt (with this serving as his directorial debut), who had served as a film editor and second unit director on previous films in the series. Hunt, along with producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, decided to produce a more realistic film that would follow the novel closely. It was shot in Switzerland, England, and Portugal from October 1968 to May 1969. Although its cinema release was not as lucrative as its predecessor You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service was still one of the top-performing films of the year. Critical reviews upon release were mixed, but the film's reputation has improved greatly over time and is now regarded as one of the strongest entries in the series as well as one of the most faithful adaptations of a Fleming novel. Plot James Bond saves a woman on the beach from an attempted suicide by drowning, and later meets her again in a casino. The woman, Contessa Teresa "Tracy" di Vicenzo, invites Bond to her hotel room to thank him, but when Bond arrives he is attacked by an unidentified man. After subduing the man, Bond returns to his own room and finds Tracy there; she claims she was unaware of the attacker's presence. The next morning, Bond is kidnapped by several men, including the one he fought, who take him to meet Marc-Ange Draco, the head of the European crime syndicate Unione Corse. Draco reveals that Tracy is his only daughter and tells Bond of her troubled past, offering Bond one million pounds if he will marry her.