maybeso...I just got sick / tired, of the 
"strained" attempt(s) @ Humor of R.M.
Posted on 09/05/2009 8:15:37 PM PDT by Perdogg
George Lazenby, the one-time 007 actor who played James Bond in "On Her Majesties Secret Services" celebrates his 70th birthday today.
(Excerpt) Read more at mi6.co.uk ...
maybeso...I just got sick / tired, of the
"strained" attempt(s) @ Humor of R.M.
Best Bond?
I found Lazenby to be the weakest link in the film, however. He appeared to sleepwalk through his lines, although he wasn't the caricature that Roger Moore was.
Connery in "From Russia With Love" and "Goldfinger" was the best Bond, followed by Craig in "Casino Royale."
Hogey Carmichael
Happy Birthday, Mr. Lazenby!
Many of my friends dismiss ‘O.H.M.S.S.’ without a second thought, and that’s a shame! The franchise was in serious trouble after Sean Connery left and George Lazenby delivered a very servieable Bond revealing depth and emotions never explored before. Without all of the trade-mark gimmicks and gizmos that started to define the character instead of aid him.
The story stayed very true to what Ian Fleming had written in his novel and it did not hurt to have Diana Rigg, every male teen’s (at the time) first ever across-the-pond television crush, myself included, as the future Mrs. Bond!
Not as well executed as ‘From Russian With Love’ or ‘Goldfinger’, but certainly better than many of the franchise’s later fare.
Ironically, Roger Moore who was first slated to be Bond and was busy doing ‘The Saint’, was too pretty and smooth to be a believeable Bond when his turn came around.
Pierce Brosnan came off as too glib and slick for his own good. Timothy Dalton, to a slightly lesser degree.
Sean Connery is still the best Bond!
Jack.
The man is a paid assassin, how hot-blooded do you expect him to be.
It wasn’t until I hit my later 20s that I started to really appreciate this movie. OHMSS is in my top 3 of all Bond films, that is to say tied for first. I actually got to meet him at a DragonCon a few years back, it was great. The only Bond I’ve ever gotten to meet. Happy Birthday George.
Lynn Holly Johnson’s name in that movie was Bibi Dahl.
amen!
The movie came out when I was living in London. The British entertainment press destroyed Lazenby. They accused him of “Acting With His ‘L’ Plates On.” I thought he was horrible as well.
An L Plate was a British license plate that signified a student driver, or “Learner” behind the wheel. Don’t know if they still use them.
Yes, she was. FYEO was the first Bond film my father took me to see in the theater (when I was 7). When RM kept rebuffing Bibi, I wanted to jump out of my seat and yell, "C'mon, Rog ! Hit that like the fist of an angry God !" ;-) Of course, with those firm and muscular skater's legs, she probably could've crushed Rog (but what a way to go !).
Do I wish Rog had played it straighter ? Of course. I felt bad about him to a degree because he was saddled with a lot of bad/silly/caricatured ‘70s scripts and had to make the most of it. I think he was far better in FYEO, as they got rid of all the prior silliness (”Moonraker” being about the worst), and brought JB back down to earth. But as bad as Rog could be, Pirs Bonbons was a helluva lot worse. That George Clooneyesque smugness was insufferable.
As an actor he was a lillar of stone. I have nothing against the guy personally, but he was a better model than actor. Let me say it another way. He made Roger Morre look like an oscar winner.
Pillar
I liked Craig as the uinexperienced Bond in Casino Royale. I don’t think he’ll be around much longer. 1 more or 2 for money. Let’s get it out of the way: there is Coinnery and everyone else. Clive Owen would be my pick for Bond.
I liked Telly Savalas, but he was simply too American to be playing Blofeld. I preferred Donald Pleasance. Pleasance simply exuded evil without really having to act. Of course, the earliest Blofeld (when you never saw him, only heard the voice, in FRWL) was also quite effective and scary (having the psychotic Lotte Lenya and Vladek Sheybal react to him was great stuff).
I liked Dalton’s two outings, with his first being the one I consider to be the last genuine-feeling Bond (John Glen directed/John Barry score). LTK was good, even if it was really an overextended “Miami Vice” episode without Crockett & Tubbs (and I loved MV, but despised that execrable film made a few years ago which had zilch to do with the series - what the hell was Michael Mann thinking ?).
My point is that I believe he is simply miscast. Physically, he doesn’t have the right look, and he plays JB like a stone-cold villain. It could be argued he’d become that way after Vesper’s death, but he was hardly acting any different beforehand, nevermind after. Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, even Brosnan had some level of humanity and appeal that kept you on their side, but Craig is completely absent of that. After seeing his second outing, that just compounded my opinion of him. He ought to be working for SPECTRE. I stated my belief that Clive Owen should be playing JB, he has the right look and could play it closer to the style of Dalton/Connery.
I don’t think anyone was going to be acceptable in the press or public’s eye following Connery (I do feel it unfortunate Connery passed up doing arguably the best script in the franchise). Lazenby did about as well as could be expected in my opinion, given the shoes he had to fill. It would’ve been interesting to see how he would’ve grown into the part over time. My opinion, too, was that when Connery came back to do DAF, it was a serious letdown. He looked too tired, too old (even though he was just 40 when he filmed it, he seemed a decade older), and too out of shape. Contrast that with Rog Moore when he was 46 when he took over the part in ‘73, three years older than Connery (and 5-6 years older when he filmed it), but looked like he was in his mid 30s.
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