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Bond: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) · Fumbling Through Film

• 0:00
  Gather together from the cosmic reaches of the universe. Here in this great screening room with comfortable recliners are the most powerful forces of good ever assembled.
• 0:10
  Keith!
• 0:11
  I am as deep as the secrets of Earth.
• 0:14
  Terry! You have to understand the lore of the game to get the movie, and you need to know the movie to get the game. If you want the full picture, you gotta get both.
• 0:21
  Derek! But I, I think his family is the inventor of broccoli. And the power twins, Zap and Jordan, with their magical lemur snort dedicated Welcome back to Fumbling Their Way Through Movies, one forgotten gem at a time. This week we watch the 1969 Winter Olympics-inspired Bond, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. This is Fumbling Through Film. Cassette number 7. Great. Do you remember when you first came here, how you hated chickens, how you were sick with You even saw one. But all that is over now, for I have shown you how foolish it was, and your cure is nearly done. I have taught you to love chickens, to love their flesh, their voice. Yes, your cure is nearly done, and soon you will go home to look after the chickens which you love so much.
• 1:29
  You do love me just a little, don't you?
• 1:32
  One more thing before you go.
• 1:33
  I must teach you.
• 1:36
  How to give them special care. I will tell you what to do.
• 1:40
  Ruby, Ruby, no.
• 1:41
  I will tell you when. I will tell you how. And after you've done what I teach you, you will forget it forever.
• 1:53
  Forever.
• 1:54
  Hello and welcome to another one-of-a-kind, genre-defining, brand new episode of Fumbling Through Film, the only show that dares to bring together three dudes to talk about movies. These aren't just any movies, though.
• 2:10
  Nope.
• 2:11
  These are the ones we missed, overlooked, or feel are simply worth revisiting.
• 2:18
  Yep, exactly.
• 2:20
  Sounds right.
• 2:20
  Exactly. Any movie.
• 2:22
  It it is. Oh, no, no, no, no, not any movie. Some, not any.
• 2:29
  Just, it is, it's all, all movies are in a pool and we choose from that. It seems as if—
• 2:35
  anyway, there's a couple movies sitting on the side of the pool looking in wishing they could join, but they just can't. Sorry.
• 2:43
  Well, they can. The water's warm. Jump on in.
• 2:46
  No, I'm watching diligently as a lifeguard. They ain't coming in here.
• 2:51
  Well, my name is Derek and I'm a fumbler. That one over there that's on the side getting a suntan is the Prime Minister Fumbling in Film. His name's Keith.
• 3:04
  Hey, hey, what's up? It's KG, Fumbler Extraordinaire. And yes, I am, I'm putting on my sunscreen right now.
• 3:08
  Putting on sunscreen.
• 3:09
  Yeah, gotta be careful. I'm, you know, don't have a lot of hair left up top. I gotta make sure that I get some stuff up there. Otherwise just get really, really burnt.
• 3:17
  Yeah.
• 3:18
  Good call.
• 3:19
  Yeah. Don't want to get burnt, Keith.
• 3:20
  No, no, no, no.
• 3:21
  Not in this weather. Not in this economy.
• 3:24
  Yeah, I can't afford to heal myself if I get burnt.
• 3:27
  Yeah, another one over there getting crispy under the sun, making sure no extra movies jump into the pool, is Dr. Rave Kansas. Terry.
• 3:37
  Hey everybody, that's right. If you guys see any movies trying to run to get into the pool, that's not allowed. They need to walk. No running, no running. Yep. And make sure you rewind your movies before they get out of the pool.
• 3:47
  And all I can think of is Caddyshack. One of us needs to throw a Baby Ruth into the pool to clear them all out.
• 3:54
  All the movies will go running. Yeah, yeah.
• 3:57
  No, no, no, no.
• 4:00
  You know what makes people run?
• 4:02
  This podcast.
• 4:04
  This podcast. They run to their phones to download the latest episode.
• 4:07
  Oh, absolutely.
• 4:08
  Yeah, I agree with that.
• 4:09
  They run every Thursday morning.
• 4:12
  They're just like, ah, they have to run and manually download it.
• 4:16
  Yes, and they gotta— they turn the crank on their phone and all the bites come down one at a time.
• 4:22
  One bite at a time.
• 4:24
  A lot of cranking.
• 4:25
  Oh, so people are cranking to our podcast.
• 4:31
  Yeah, well, we have that effect on people.
• 4:35
  Let's let people know what they're cranking for.
• 4:38
  Keep on cranking, everyone.
• 4:42
  I can't believe it.
• 4:44
  Every week we watch movies, but not just any movie. Every month one of us chooses a genre, a theme, a guiding light, some sort of winter sport for us to chase one another in.
• 5:01
  Yeah, very— hey, Winter Olympics about to start, Derek.
• 5:06
  Very good. Well seen.
• 5:07
  I have Winter Olympics news when we could talk about this movie.
• 5:10
  Oh, right.
• 5:10
  So anyway, every month one of us does that, and then we each choose a movie that adheres to that Winter Olympic sport or theme, and then we watch those. On the 4th week, we watch, uh, something the wheel gives us. It's a tangentially related movie.
• 5:26
  Whatever Derek wants to watch extra.
• 5:27
  Yes, something that I choose mostly. Anyway, this is the first week of a Keith month. It's DTF, Down to Fumble. Y2M2, month 2. That means it's Keith. And Keith, what is our guiding light for this month?
• 5:45
  We're doing James Bond movies.
• 5:47
  You know what could put— I mean, it's not going to pop up today, but this month is ripe for Zardoz.
• 5:53
  We could get a Zardoz rewatch going. Maybe we'd feel differently the second time.
• 6:00
  And I— is there— okay, I know why. Do we have rules?
• 6:05
  No, no, there are no rules. Anyway, so Keith chose that.
• 6:09
  Oh, and because that one was a wheel pick and not an actual original.
• 6:12
  Oh, and I'm pretty sure it's in the Fumble Films to Fumble Before You Tumble Into the Grave.
• 6:18
  That's true. It's worthy to be revisited.
• 6:21
  And what if we both picked mistakes in life?
• 6:24
  Anyway, Keith, you chose Bond. I heard you, Terry, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna file that little notion away. I don't think Keith heard it, so we're just—
• 6:33
  I did, and, and I'm gonna have to— I'm just gonna tell I'm gonna say right now there's gonna be a vote for a respin.
• 6:39
  Hold on, hold on, we're following the notion. We'll find out what happens.
• 6:42
  We're gonna watch 3 Bond films, films, and Zardoz this month, folks. Buckle up.
• 6:52
  Yeah, and if it doesn't land on Zardoz, you know I'm using my veto too. We'll get this Zardoz going.
• 6:57
  Anyway, Keith, what did you choose as your inaugural Movie for this month?
• 7:04
  On Her Majesty's Secret Service from 1969.
• 7:08
  On Her Majesty's Secret Service from 1969. Now, before we talk about our viewing of On Her Majesty's Secret Service from 1969, or before Keith takes us closer with a deep dive to On Her Majesty's Secret Service from 1969, did any of us have any previous experience, knowledge, or anything with On Her Majesty's Secret Service from 1969.
• 7:32
  Uh, being this was my movie pick, I picked it because I— this is one I knew I had never seen of the Bond movies. I think a lot of the Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, possibly Pierce Brosnan ones, my dad took me to see a lot of those. And I know I've seen a handful of the, uh, Sean Connery ones at home watching stuff, uh, over the years. I don't think, but I know I had never seen this one before. Fair.
• 8:01
  Yeah, I'm not a big James Bond guy. I haven't watched a whole lot of them. I've seen some of the newer ones with that new guy.
• 8:09
  Daniel Craig?
• 8:09
  Yes, Daniel Craig. I've seen a couple of those, but really that's about it. So I really— yeah, I thought this was going to be the first James Bond, but it's not.
• 8:18
  I'd never seen this. I don't even know if I've heard of this one, to be honest. I'm not a huge Bond guy. I've seen probably a dozen of them over my life. I think I've seen, I've seen one or two of the Daniel Craig ones. I couldn't tell you a single thing that happens in them.
• 8:34
  Mm-hmm.
• 8:34
  I've seen a couple of the Pierce Brosnan ones. I couldn't tell you what happens. I think there's a satellite dish in one of them. Uh, I've seen some Sean Connery, some Roger Moore. I've seen some in black and white. I don't, remember a single thing about him. I do know all of like the cultural, pop culture touch points, right? Like lasers to the groin and anything that Austin Powers did, like those sorts of things. But like, I don't know, like when Keith mentioned Blofeld a couple weeks ago, that also led—
• 9:09
  that also, that also, uh, influenced my decision to watch these.
• 9:13
  Okay. Iconic Blofeld.
• 9:14
  Is Telly Savalas The tit is like he's the, the known as Blofeld guy.
• 9:21
  Uh, no, there's a couple different guys who have played him. He is not the main one. Uh, the guy who plays, um, the doctor in, uh, Halloween.
• 9:30
  Um, Loomis.
• 9:32
  Yeah, the guy who plays Dr. Loomis. Uh, I, I can't remember what his name is.
• 9:36
  He's Max von Sydow, right?
• 9:39
  That's who he is. No, no, no, no, no. That's, he plays it later on.
• 9:42
  He played Blofeld, right? Wasn't—
• 9:43
  There's like 5 different guys who played Blofeld as well. But the guy who is known most for this is that is the guy who also played Dr. Loomis in Halloween. I can't Donald Pleasence.
• 9:52
  Donald Pleasence. Yeah.
• 9:53
  Okay.
• 9:54
  Yes. And his is and his is the um his is the very best well-known version of that of that one.
• 10:01
  Yeah. I couldn't tell you. This is the only bond for this dude, right?
• 10:06
  Yes.
• 10:06
  Okay.
• 10:07
  By the way, uh Donald Pleasence was replaced as Blofeld in this um because the producer. director felt he was unsuited for the more physical side of this role in this movie.
• 10:17
  Wow.
• 10:17
  This guy was—
• 10:19
  Telly Savalas didn't do the stunts.
• 10:21
  I, I—
• 10:22
  That was quite evident.
• 10:24
  That's a different— that's a whole different question, but I'm just saying that's the trivia. That's a quick trivia that's on there.
• 10:30
  So we're gonna have to pull producer Albert R. Broccoli aside.
• 10:34
  Come on, you're spoiling stuff for me here.
• 10:37
  You're talking about the broccoli guy?
• 10:39
  Yeah. And it has to do with the vegetable, I do believe, because I think the broccoli is not like— was not like a natural— well, Keith's probably got something on the deep dive.
• 10:48
  I don't, I don't have anything on him specifically, just I was going to mention his name. I thought we'd get a couple laughs just for the name.
• 10:53
  But I, I think his family is the inventor of broccoli.
• 10:57
  What?
• 10:59
  I, I think— He invented broccoli? Yeah, because broccoli is— I don't think is a naturally occurring vegetable. At least it wasn't. And it's like this byproduct of crossbreeding various things like cauliflowers and stuff, I think, created broccoli. I'm not— don't quote me.
• 11:18
  Somebody invented broccoli?
• 11:20
  Yes. There's nobody that had the last name of Broccoli and they're hap— like, there's nobody named Banana out there, right? Like, it's— There should be.
• 11:29
  Didn't someone invent a new—
• 11:30
  okay, the family was in the vegetable business and Albert claimed one of his uncles brought the first broccoli seeds into the United States in the 1870s.
• 11:40
  There you go.
• 11:40
  Well, where did they come from?
• 11:42
  The moon. No one knows. An asteroid crashed in Italy.
• 11:47
  Broccoli is one of the more strange vegetables, I would say.
• 11:50
  Agreed. And a lot of people don't like it. I like broccoli, though.
• 11:54
  I think broccoli is pretty good. It's just, you got to like treat it right, you know?
• 12:00
  Yeah, I like raw broccoli.
• 12:02
  I like cooked broccoli. Cheese sauce on it.
• 12:03
  Cheese sauce broccoli, sautéed broccoli. I like broccoli.
• 12:06
  Oh, sautéed, in a stew, broccoli stew.
• 12:08
  Broccoli stew. I'll eat broccoli stew all day.
• 12:12
  Anyway. So I, by the way, I don't mind broccoli, giving my thoughts on that. But we have it so often around here that I, like, for a while I started like complaining about it that we were having it just too, like, it was in almost every meal. I was like, oh God, broccoli again.
• 12:28
  I saw somebody online and it makes me laugh. And I think about it every time I think of broccoli. They did like a DoorDash and they requested broccoli and they got a broccoli floret for like 4 cents.
• 12:41
  Just one broccoli?
• 12:42
  Yes. Like one little chunk of fuzzy broccoli top in a bag. That's what they got.
• 12:49
  They paid for that. And then also like $10 for the delivery.
• 12:52
  But like, Like, I, I've never been a DoorDasher and I'm sure there's lots of anxiety about the specificity of what's being requested, but no one's going to eat just a singular floret of broccoli.
• 13:05
  Maybe he accidentally ate the rest of the broccoli on the way over. Yeah.
• 13:09
  How do you accidentally eat broccoli?
• 13:11
  He just accidentally ate the broccoli, you know.
• 13:14
  He accidentally spilled the, uh, the ranch and he had to clean it up, so he used the broccoli.
• 13:20
  Yes.
• 13:20
  It's like a mop. It is nature's mop.
• 13:21
  It is.
• 13:22
  I've said that about broccoli my entire life.
• 13:24
  Yeah, first thing Derek ever told me. Hey, I ever— yes, I'm Derek.
• 13:30
  What do you think about nature's mop? I mean, Keith's like, what?
• 13:33
  Nature's mop? What, you mean broccoli, right? Yes. That's how you guys became friends. Yes. Wow.
• 13:39
  Oh boy. Well, we need to do something very important right now before we could talk about our viewing of On Her Majesty's Secret Service from 1969. Keith has got to take us closer to On Her Majesty's Secret Service from 1969 than we could ever dare dream in another edition of a patent-pending Fumbler's Deep Dive.
• 14:04
  We're going to dream a little bit bigger today.
• 14:10
  Really?
• 14:12
  Because not only are we talking about Honor, Majesty, Secret Service from 1969.
• 14:17
  Yes.
• 14:18
  Um, but I mean, we're kicking off a month of James Bond movies, and I'm—
• 14:21
  yes, we are going to talk a ton about stuff, but with everyone's favorite Bond as well. What's this guy's name again?
• 14:26
  Alfonso or something?
• 14:29
  George Lansbury. Um, he's Australian anyway. Uh, he's Australian? Yes. Oh man, there are 27 total movies, uh, James Bond movies. 25 that are official Eon Productions, um, and are all canon. Uh, this includes—
• 14:47
  wait, they're all canon?
• 14:49
  There's 25 of them that are all official.
• 14:52
  Okay, okay.
• 14:53
  Covers all the, like, the things like Derek was saying, like all the pop culture, shaken, not stirred, all the—
• 14:58
  they're official movies, not necessarily all in the same continuity.
• 15:02
  Yeah, yes, they're all officially James Bond, but okay, okay, every Bond has memories of all those movies. So Daniel Craig remembers all the events from all because he experienced them.
• 15:13
  It's like a reincarnation.
• 15:15
  Yes, it is much like that. Or Batman.
• 15:19
  Yes. Batman is a good— that's a more modern-day version of this.
• 15:25
  More modern-day than Bond? I mean, Bond movies still come out today.
• 15:28
  No, I'm talking about like— yeah, well, you know what I mean. Anyway, yeah, Batman, the first ones came out in late '80s. This came out in the late '90s.
• 15:38
  Oh, Batman's still around.
• 15:39
  Okay, moving on. These have— these 27 movies have a They had a total budget of $1.79 billion over all of them.
• 15:47
  Dang.
• 15:48
  They have made $2.29 billion domestic and $7.9 billion worldwide.
• 15:53
  Wow.
• 15:54
  Worldwide. That's a massive, massive franchise. Now, I said the 27 movies, there's 25 official ones, but then there's also Casino Royale from 1967, which is an early spy spoof that shows an aging Sir James Bond comes out of retirement to take on Smersh. Smurfs. And I don't—
• 16:13
  Smurfs.
• 16:14
  I, I don't actually— I don't fully understand the details on this one because there's a whole bunch of different people playing James Bond in this.
• 16:22
  Oh, really?
• 16:24
  It says Woody Allen plays James Bond. It says, um, uh, who's the guy who plays, uh, Inspector Clouseau?
• 16:31
  Steve Martin did at one point.
• 16:33
  No, not— no, the Panther guy. Anyway, there's like a whole bunch of different people who play him in this movie. I don't to have any idea anything else about it. It doesn't sound like it really follows anything to do with any James Bond movies. That came out in 1967. And then later on in this one—
• 16:49
  Peter Sellers?
• 16:50
  Yes, that's it.
• 16:51
  Yeah, we mentioned him before.
• 16:54
  Yeah, there's a whole bunch of different people who are, uh, Peter Sellers. There's a whole bunch of different people who somehow play Bond during this movie, whatever it has to do. But I've never seen that one. The one that's a little more confusing, I think, is in 1983, Sean Connery did Never Say Never Again. It is Sean Connery as Bond, but it's not an official Eon Production MGM Bond movie. And this one, James Bond is called upon to try and recover nuclear bombs stolen from— by Spectre, but he will have to get rid of a professional assassin hired especially to eliminate him.
• 17:27
  Oh, the anti-James Bond.
• 17:30
  Anti-Bond.
• 17:30
  Yeah. Yeah, they, they, the tuxes are just a little slightly different color there. There's apparently some legal lawsuits about being able to make other Bond movies outside of, uh, Eon Productions and, uh, MGM. And that's— this guy at least won a suit enough to make one with Sean Connery, but it doesn't count as official.
• 17:51
  Interesting.
• 17:53
  Now, uh, of the official 25 movies that make up The Eon Production versions of these. 17 of those 25 came out in just a span of 27 years between '62 and '89. Um, it was every like basically 1 to 2 years, boom, boom, boom, boom, just popping them out. Yep. Uh, from Sean Connery all the way through, uh, Timothy Dalton.
• 18:15
  Wow, that's pretty consistent.
• 18:17
  James Bond was, uh, created by Ian Fleming.
• 18:20
  Sir Ian Fleming.
• 18:21
  Yes, Sir Ian Fleming.
• 18:22
  Thank you.
• 18:23
  He was a journalist. He was later recruited into the brittle British Naval Intelligence.
• 18:27
  The brittle British Navy?
• 18:29
  Yes, yes, yes. They, they were very brittle. Uh, but he was recruited into the British Naval Intelligence just prior to World War II, eventually, uh, receiving all the way up to the rank of commander.
• 18:40
  Okay.
• 18:40
  Wow. When the war ended, he retired to Jamaica where he built a house called Goldeneye, took up writing full-time, and created a character that would make him famous. British Secret Service agent James Bond in the novel Casino Royale.
• 18:53
  That was the first novel?
• 18:55
  Yes.
• 18:56
  Yep. Overall, Ian Fleming wrote 12 novels along with 2 short story collections, uh, that include For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, and The Living Daylights are part of the short story collections. And additional writers have added to the official canon, making that there are 39 total books that you can read that are official James Bond material.
• 19:18
  That's a lot of books too. Jeez.
• 19:20
  There's a lot of books. Yeah.
• 19:22
  In addition to writing all those Bond books, Ian Fleming also at some point in time wrote the book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
• 19:29
  He wrote that?
• 19:31
  Yes. Wow.
• 19:32
  This guy's got some diverse works.
• 19:35
  We've had Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig have all played James Bond. The Bond theme song was written by Monty Norman, and he received royalties from 1962 until his death in 2022, collecting about, uh, especially in the, the heyday of '76 to '99, he collected about £600,000.
• 19:58
  Well, that's not that much.
• 19:59
  That's— yeah, I feel like I would get more for writing one of the most famous theme songs of all time. Yeah, you got ripped off.
• 20:06
  Uh, the original recording of the James Bond theme by the John Barry Seven and Orchestra, uh, it was on the United Artists label. And was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008. Each movie itself has its own theme song. For this one, John Barry of the John Barry Seven and Orchestra did an instrumental called On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
• 20:30
  From 1969.
• 20:32
  Yes, from 1969. It's the instrumental that plays with the opening credits. Now, there is another song called We Have All the Time in the World. It plays very briefly during this. It's the last thing that Louis Armstrong ever recorded. He died two years later.
• 20:48
  Wow!
• 20:48
  It's also yep. It's also the first theme song in the film franchise not to include the movie's title as part of the lyrics.
• 20:56
  I would love if he threw that in there though.
• 20:59
  Mm-hmm. Honor Majesty Secret Service.
• 21:03
  Is that your Louis Armstrong impersonation?
• 21:05
  No, no, it's not. Not at all. No. And this is usually a big thing that they you know they come out they tell you who did the song for each one of them. So John Barry technically is tied into 2 of them. Um, and then Shirley Bassey actually has done, uh, 3 different ones. She did Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever, and Moonraker.
• 21:22
  Diamonds are forever.
• 21:24
  Yeah. So she did 3, John Barry did 2, and then the rest are just, you know, different people doing, uh, each one. Tina Turner.
• 21:31
  Some of them. Adele.
• 21:32
  Oh yeah. Adele. Then who did the newest one? Uh, Billie Eilish. Billie Eilish.
• 21:37
  Yes.
• 21:38
  Yeah. Live and Let Die by Paul McCartney is a pretty good song overall.
• 21:40
  Yeah, that actually is pretty good.
• 21:42
  Yeah, so there's a bunch of it. Just you know, it seems to become a big thing every time they come out with. Not only is it hey, who's gonna play the new Bond, but then who's gonna do the song?
• 21:50
  And who's the Bond girl?
• 21:52
  Yeah.
• 21:52
  Yes.
• 21:53
  True. Yeah. All right. So that's just a quick. I won't go too much because we're gonna pick and choose three different movies here this month.
• 22:00
  We got all sorts of Bond. We'll be all up in that Bond this week.
• 22:03
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But back on December 19th, 1969, for two hours and 22 minutes. audiences got on Her Majesty's Secret Service.
• 22:12
  Oh, you said it was 2 hours and 22 minutes?
• 22:15
  Yeah, that's what I read.
• 22:17
  My DVD is 2 hours and 15 minutes long.
• 22:19
  Interesting.
• 22:20
  Maybe we got some stuff cut out of our DVDs.
• 22:23
  No, I don't think it got cut out. And we'll talk about this in a little while.
• 22:26
  Okay. This movie—
• 22:29
  Oh, I know what it is.
• 22:29
  This movie is 56 years, 1 month, and 13 days old. Makes it Gen X Sagittarius in the year of the rooster.
• 22:37
  Wow.
• 22:38
  This movie is about obviously James Bond going undercover to pursue villainous Ernest Stavro Blofeld, who is planning to hold the world to ransom.
• 22:49
  I wish that was the summary on IMDb. It's like this, actually, Secret Service from 1969. It's about James Bond. I think that's all I would need to know, to be honest.
• 23:01
  That's all you need to know.
• 23:03
  Okay, so on IMDb Is pointless.
• 23:05
  On IMDb, it says British agent James Bond goes undercover to pursue the villainous Ernest Stavro Blofeld, and I just left off British agent because I was like, that seems kind of redundant to say that.
• 23:15
  We know, we know.
• 23:16
  Yeah, yeah. This had a budget of seven million dollars.
• 23:21
  Uh huh.
• 23:21
  It made twenty two point seven four seven seven four million in US and Canada.
• 23:26
  Wow.
• 23:27
  Eighty two point eight million. Worldwide.
• 23:30
  Man, people love James Bond.
• 23:33
  Yeah. This movie is directed by Peter R. Hunt. This is Peter R. Hunt's first directing gig.
• 23:40
  Oh, cool.
• 23:41
  He started out in the film industry as a clapper boy.
• 23:44
  Wow. What?
• 23:46
  Yeah.
• 23:47
  Act 1, scene 2.
• 23:48
  Oh, the guy with the little box.
• 23:51
  Yeah, the little clapper.
• 23:52
  Yeah.
• 23:53
  He eventually worked his way all the way up to editor. And then in 1962, as editor on the first James Bond film, Dr. No, he helped create a new fast style which put its mark on action editing. From then on, he's associated with all the early Bond films, working his way up to second unit director, and then eventually made his debut, uh, with this one. He developed a style called crash cutting, uh, Dr. No in 1962. And he refused to direct a remake of Thunderball, Never Say Never Again, Because he was afraid producer Albert R. Broccoli would consider him a traitor. This movie is written by Richard Maibam. He is also known for writing Dr. No from Rush with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, Diamonds Are Forever, The Man with the Golden Gun, Spy Who Loved Me, Free Your Eyes Only Octopus If You Kill Living Daylights, License to Kill. And License to Kill is actually on this as written by, but all the rest of them he did the screenplays for.
• 24:47
  He loved Bond.
• 24:48
  Basically all he pretty much did. Because I think even like some of the other stuff that he's listed, it's like Bond video games and stuff like that that are tied. into some of the stuff.
• 24:56
  Oh, well, I think that's because he probably created characters.
• 24:58
  Yeah, that's— but it's like basically there's nothing besides Bond that was any—
• 25:02
  it's like the guys that wrote RoboCop, right? They got 50 credits and they're all RoboCop related.
• 25:07
  Yeah, this guy probably gets so many checks just Bond related every year.
• 25:11
  See, Sir Sean Connery originally meant to appear in this film, but he opted out due to the studio refusing to pay his $1.25 million fee, and they wouldn't pay him to be his own chauffeur either.
• 25:22
  Yeah.
• 25:23
  No. God. Yeah. Like, come on. This movie made what, how much? 70-something million. Just pay the man.
• 25:30
  Made, made a ton.
• 25:31
  It's gonna make its money back. Just pay him.
• 25:34
  Timothy Dalton was offered the part of James Bond, but he turned it down, feeling that at the age of 22, he was too young and relatively inexperienced to take on the role.
• 25:43
  Makes sense.
• 25:45
  Yeah. In steps Ozzy.
• 25:47
  Yep. Uh, instead comes in George Lazenby. And, uh, George Lazenby, this is his first movie.
• 25:54
  Lazenby is a very Australian last name, if you ask me.
• 25:57
  I think that sounds Australian too. Yeah.
• 26:00
  Uh, this was his very first, uh, acting gig ever.
• 26:05
  Huh.
• 26:06
  Uh, he did some commercials prior to that.
• 26:10
  Community theater, you think?
• 26:12
  Maybe. Uh, he was an auto mechanic. He was a used car salesman. He was a prestige car salesman. He even did some time as a male model. Uh, he won the role based on screen test fight scene, the strength of his interviews, fight skills, and audition footage.
• 26:27
  Fight skills, huh? He's like Napoleon Dynamite. He's got bo staff skills, nunchuck skills.
• 26:34
  Yeah.
• 26:36
  Yeah. Oh, I like that.
• 26:37
  He ran into, uh, Mr. Broccoli in a hair salon.
• 26:43
  Every time I say Mr. Broccoli, I assume he's like a guy with like a body— whole body's broccoli, his hair is just a tuft of broccoli.
• 26:50
  Do you remember like the Little Miss and Little Mister books? Like Mr. Broccoli would be like Mr. Grumpy, Mr. Happy, Mr. Broccoli.
• 26:59
  Yeah, it's just a piece of broccoli with a big smile.
• 27:01
  Yep, with a big smile on it.
• 27:03
  Yeah, and, and like what almost looks like an afro with the top part of the broccoli. Yep. Albert R. Broccoli, uh, met Leslie in a hair salon.
• 27:10
  Anytime you say that name, I giggle.
• 27:13
  Just call him Mr. B, please.
• 27:14
  Okay, so Mr. B, Albert R. Broccoli.
• 27:18
  When you say it at all, he's so official. Sir Albert R. Broccoli. Yeah.
• 27:22
  So, uh, so Mr. B met him in a hair salon. Uh, he was gonna give Lassie a shot at the role. He had made a mental note to remember him. And then Lassie went spending his, uh, very little money that he had getting a tailor suit or a tailor-made suit Uh, from Sean Connery's tailor.
• 27:39
  Okay.
• 27:40
  And they got a very Bond-looking type of Rolex watch when he showed up for the audition. So he basically was looking the part.
• 27:46
  Yeah, sure.
• 27:48
  Makes sense. Dress for the job you want.
• 27:51
  Yep. Yep. Uh, he quit the role of Bond right after this, um, citing he would, uh, get other acting roles and that his Bond contract, which was 14 pages thick, was too demanding of him.
• 28:05
  Wow.
• 28:05
  Yeah.
• 28:06
  Um, it was too demanding.
• 28:08
  Yeah, I guess.
• 28:09
  Uh, his first acting gig ever, his big break, and he's like, yeah, I can't be bothered to do it anymore.
• 28:13
  Yeah, I can't read the contract.
• 28:15
  It's too much.
• 28:16
  Dang. Okay.
• 28:17
  Uh, Lazenby had a youthful cockiness that bothered, uh, Mr. B.
• 28:22
  Okay.
• 28:24
  The tabloids were very harsh on him cuz they really just— everybody loves Sean Connery. Sure. Uh, so they were really bad and they swaying public opinion. Even before the movie was released, Diana Rigg, uh, who plays Tracy in this— we're gonna talk about her in a bit— but, um, apparently she, uh, hated Lassby so much that she would eat a bunch of garlic before any of the love scenes.
• 28:44
  Yeah.
• 28:46
  Wow, this guy's like a D-bag, huh?
• 28:49
  It had a lower box office take for this film, and while it was still a hit, recouping more than 10 times its cost, becoming the 2nd highest grossing movie of the year at the worldwide box office, It failed to match the grosses of Sean Connery films.
• 29:01
  Oh yeah, he's not Sean Connery, he's Lazenby.
• 29:03
  Exactly, exactly. Yeah, so he kind of stepped out of that, but you would think that he'd get a bunch of other, uh, acting gigs because in 1970 he became the only actor to get a Golden Globe nomination for playing James Bond. He was nominated, uh, for Most Promising Newcomer, which apparently was a thing they used to have. He lost to Jon Voight, uh, for the movie Midnight Cowboy.
• 29:26
  Oh no.
• 29:27
  Um, so he is saying so.
• 29:31
  Yeah, so he has 66 total credits. Um, a ton of them are TV movies or TV show appearances, such as things that I think we've mentioned on either this show or previous podcast. Um, BJ and the Bear.
• 29:44
  Uh-huh.
• 29:45
  And Hotel.
• 29:46
  Sure.
• 29:47
  Mentioned before. He also played Jor-El in 2 episodes of, uh, the 1990 TV show Superboy.
• 29:53
  Superboy.
• 29:55
  Yeah. Wow.
• 29:56
  I didn't know that existed.
• 29:57
  Okay.
• 29:58
  Yeah. He plays Mario in 7 TV movies in the Emmanuel series. Oh, Terry, I don't know if you're familiar with the Emmanuel series.
• 30:09
  It's no Cinemax softcore porn.
• 30:12
  I was expecting Mario, Super Mario Brothers.
• 30:15
  That's what I thought I was going to.
• 30:18
  I was like 17 Mario movies. Wow.
• 30:21
  No, he wasn't. Yeah. He's in 7 of these movies. There's 24 in total.
• 30:25
  Jeez.
• 30:26
  They were very early, uh, like HBO runs of softcore porn.
• 30:32
  Yeah.
• 30:32
  Wow. Interesting.
• 30:34
  Yeah.
• 30:35
  And so, uh, he was in 7?
• 30:37
  Yeah, he plays like the main love interest in 7 of them.
• 30:40
  Wow.
• 30:41
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:42
  Great.
• 30:43
  Uh, this guy's still alive.
• 30:46
  That's good.
• 30:47
  Keith sounds disappointed.
• 30:49
  No, because in, in, in 2025, He was in a movie called Mundije. That's M-U-N-D-I-J-E. He plays U.S. president.
• 31:01
  Oh wow.
• 31:02
  Escaping Albania's brutal regime at 14, a boy dreams of America decades later. Trained in Mundije, he battles a ruthless Mexican-American mafia to rescue the woman he vowed to protect 30 years ago. Uh, this movie is written, directed, and stars, uh, Luma Lear. I have no idea who that guy is, but also stars Eric Roberts and Michael Pare, who we talked about with Eddie and the Cruisers. Yeah, seems—
• 31:34
  Now, I guess.
• 31:35
  Yeah. You don't want to talk about Eddie and the Cruisers? He was the titular Eddie.
• 31:40
  I don't remember. He was Eddie Pare. You could, you could set any name.
• 31:46
  Uh, but in 1996, he plays a character called Chauncey in both a video game and a movie called Fox Hunt.
• 31:54
  Oh, I've never heard of this.
• 31:55
  Slacker Jack Fremont is about to be evicted for skipping the rent, but CIA recruits him due to his vast knowledge of TV shows to stop an ex-KGB spy who will nuke LA unless popular US TV shows he created incognito finally credit him.
• 32:11
  Wow.
• 32:13
  I have no idea what this is.
• 32:15
  Either do I, but I will say the TV show version, not the video game version, but the TV show version also has Gary Coleman as Murray Lipschitz Jr.
• 32:24
  Gary Coleman, huh? Arnold himself.
• 32:27
  Yeah. Showing up as Murray Lipschitz Jr. It's a TV movie.
• 32:33
  Yeah.
• 32:34
  Is it based off a game or did the game get based off the TV movie?
• 32:38
  They both came out the same year, so I couldn't tell you.
• 32:40
  Interesting. What if it's like this— somebody had this multimedia plan, like we release a game, we release a movie, we're gonna take over the world with Fox Hunt.
• 32:52
  You have to understand the lore of the game to get the movie, and you need to know the movie to get the game. Yes, yes, if you want the full picture, you gotta get both.
• 33:00
  Playing opposite of Lazenby is, uh, and playing, uh, Blofeld in this one is Telly Savalas.
• 33:07
  Oh, who loves you, baby?
• 33:08
  Exactly. Tell you, he got an Oscar nom for Best Supporting Actor in 1963 for the movie Birdman of Alcatraz, where a surly convicted murderer held in permanent isolation redeems himself when he becomes a renowned bird expert.
• 33:21
  Oh, okay, nice.
• 33:23
  I know that's what it was about.
• 33:24
  Even with that, he, you know, the start of his career, and actually the large majority of his career, is he just does a ton of like short stints on TV. Um, and then he did a lot of westerns and war films, uh, for the most part. But he's on shows such as something we recently talked about, The Equalizer.
• 33:40
  Oh, okay.
• 33:41
  Um, something we've talked about plenty of times, uh, back in a previous podcast, uh, he was in Bonanza, he was in The Red Skeleton Hour.
• 33:50
  Oh.
• 33:51
  Yeah, he's also in The Fugitive. He showed up on an episode of that.
• 33:55
  Oh man.
• 33:55
  Um, some of the other bigger movies that he's known for, Battle of the Bulge, And, uh, The Dirty Dozen, plus a few other Dirty Dozen TV movies. He's El Sleazo Tough in The Muppet Movie. Uh, he plays Jaime Kaplan in Cannonball Run 2.
• 34:09
  There's a second one?
• 34:10
  Yeah, there is. Yeah, he's the voice of Magmar in GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords.
• 34:16
  Oh my God, that's a Pokémon.
• 34:18
  It's a Rock Lord as well from the GoBot Lord. Carrie, know your GoBots. Goddamn it.
• 34:23
  Sorry, I forgot about the GoBots. Yeah, I'll have to look this up real quick.
• 34:27
  Do you know what, Terry? Do you know what GoBots are?
• 34:29
  No.
• 34:30
  That they're also ran to the Transformers.
• 34:31
  Yeah.
• 34:32
  They came out at the same time.
• 34:35
  Are they not related to each other? No.
• 34:36
  No.
• 34:37
  They hate each other.
• 34:37
  There's an evil motorcycle. His name was Cyclor, I think.
• 34:41
  I do believe this is referenced in Guardians of the Galaxy's Christmas movie. I think Drax beats up the motorcycle dude for like killing his father or something like that.
• 34:53
  I have no idea.
• 34:54
  He sees him on the street, like somebody dressed up like him in like, like Hollywood in front of like Mannstein Theater, starts beating the crap out of him, blaming him for like killing his father.
• 35:02
  So Transformers always had like intricate transformations. GoBots were basically— you had a car and if you stood them up, there was like a face underneath.
• 35:10
  Oh, so they didn't like transform? It was just like a guy under there?
• 35:14
  They transformed in the sense that, that you pretended they were like now a robot. But like they were a car and you would stand them up and there'd be a face underneath and like pull out the arms. It almost like— I don't know if you did this, Terry, but you know, like Matchbox cars, so like the doors would open up, kind of like their wings or arms. It's a lot like that.
• 35:34
  A lot less intricate, kind of just like, yeah, use your imagination.
• 35:37
  Yes.
• 35:39
  But now, uh, after the excellent things such as voicing Magmar— actually, well, that was later on, uh, but in 1973 he starred in a TV movie called The Marcus Nelson Murders. Homicide detective begins to suspect the black teenager accused of murdering two white girls is being framed by his fellow detectives, and this would be his first role as Lieutenant Theo Kojak.
• 36:02
  Kojak, the nice talker.
• 36:03
  Okay.
• 36:03
  Yeah.
• 36:04
  No, not no, not Kojak. Yeah, this is Kojak.
• 36:07
  It was a bald sucker sucking lollipop sucker guy who loves you, baby.
• 36:14
  This was like his tagline.
• 36:15
  That's what that's from. Okay, okay.
• 36:16
  Yeah. He played Kojak, uh, in 117 episodes. He got multiple Emmy nominations and even, uh, was a one-time winner for the role.
• 36:24
  Oh wow.
• 36:25
  Yep.
• 36:26
  Good for him.
• 36:27
  Emmy winner. Yep. And then he would reprise it in a series of TV movies. Uh, Kojak: The Belarus File, The Price of Justice, where he became Inspector Theo Kojak. Uh, Kojak: Ariana, Kojak: Fatal Flog, Kojak: Flowers for Maddie. Kojak, It's Always Something, and Kojak: None So Blind.
• 36:47
  Kojak, It's Always Something sounds like they're like, oh my God, we have to write another Kojak.
• 36:51
  Yes, it's always something with Kojak.
• 36:54
  Yeah, it's kind of like with Bond where it's like, this one's about Kojak.
• 36:58
  Now the last person I want to talk about here real quick is Diana Rigg. That's Tracy. Yeah, she is a 9-time Uh, a 9-time Emmy nominee.
• 37:13
  Okay.
• 37:13
  Oh, uh, she won in 1997 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Special. Um, she played Miss Danvers in something called Rebecca.
• 37:23
  Okay.
• 37:24
  Okay.
• 37:25
  Uh, 2 of those nominations, 1967, 1968. Uh, she's nominated for Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actress as the Lead Role in a Dramatic Series, where she played Emma Peel in The Avengers.
• 37:37
  Oh, yeah.
• 37:38
  It's a quirky spy show of the adventures of eccentric, suave British agent John Steele and his predominantly female partner.
• 37:46
  They made a movie about that with Uma Thurman.
• 37:49
  Ah, you're jumping ahead.
• 37:50
  And the Hulk.
• 37:51
  Yeah, no, The Avengers was a movie made in 1998, starred Uma Thurman as Emma Peel, Ralph Fiennes as John Steed, and Sir Sean Connery as Sir August D. Winter.
• 38:03
  Wow, he's in that too.
• 38:04
  2 British agents team up to stop Sir August De Winter from destroying the world with a weather-changing machine.
• 38:10
  Oh no, who would have thought the guy that's named De Winter would try to control weather?
• 38:18
  Yeah. Uh, most recently though, uh, from 2013 to 2018, she was nominated 4 different times for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series because she played, uh, Lady Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones.
• 38:32
  No way. Really?
• 38:34
  I didn't realize that was her. That's awesome.
• 38:38
  Neither did I. Um, and then—
• 38:41
  Did you just discover that information while you were reading it, or—
• 38:44
  Yeah, I didn't even— I didn't notice it when I wrote it down earlier. Um, she also played Miss Collins in 2021's Last Night in Soho. Oh yes, that's the very last credit. Um, in her career.
• 38:59
  I like that one.
• 38:59
  Uh, she also played Lady Holiday in The Great Muppet Caper.
• 39:02
  Oh, we got lots of Muppets going on here.
• 39:05
  All right, uh, some additional trivia. Like I said, Sean Connery didn't want to do this. Timothy Dalton passed on it. They went with Lazenby. The producers originally intended to explain the change of the lead actors in this movie by saying that Bond had undergone plastic surgery because his old face was now too well known by foreign spies and terrorists for him ever to go undercover.
• 39:26
  Why does it matter? They thought it mattered.
• 39:29
  Yep.
• 39:30
  Um, well, so I mean, eventually it becomes that just you get a different person playing Bond, but I think at this point they still were going forward, this was going to be just a continuation.
• 39:40
  I mean, he does address it at the beginning, kind of.
• 39:43
  Yeah, but, and they spend that whole opening thing not really showing you his face and stuff, and then yeah, he says that quick little line about this didn't happen to the other guy. Um, it's kind of just a line that's thrown in there. But like, yeah, it's— I think they were— the original idea of this, I mean, it was just going to continue on as Sean Connery being this. And so they didn't have this idea originally of just, well, why don't we just keep putting somebody different in?
• 40:06
  Yeah.
• 40:07
  Uh, this is Christopher Nolan's favorite Bond movie.
• 40:09
  Really? Oh, really?
• 40:11
  Yep.
• 40:12
  That surprises me.
• 40:14
  Uh, in the novel about this, the casino where James Bond and Tracy play baccarat is the Casino Royale. Where Bond makes annual visits, uh, to the grave of his old flame Vesper Lynd, which is nearby. They don't mention that at all in this, but—
• 40:28
  Yep, I don't know who that is.
• 40:29
  Um, many Olympic ski competitors as well as other ski experts contributed as body doubles, extras, and supporting roles for performing the necessary skiing sequences in the movie.
• 40:38
  I believe that. It's a lot of skiing, so we need to get skiers for this.
• 40:43
  So actors were not allowed to ski in the movie due to insurance regulations.
• 40:47
  My Winter Olympics fun fact is there was a Winter Olympics in 1968.
• 40:51
  Oh, so you had the cream of the crop to pick from.
• 40:55
  So they reused all the stuff.
• 40:57
  There was Olympic— Winter Olympics fever, so they rolled that over into a Bond movie.
• 41:03
  Oh, I see. They're capitalizing on it. Everybody's going nuts about the skiing in the Olympics that they're like, you know what?
• 41:09
  And bobsledding.
• 41:10
  Yeah. Oh God. Yeah. We got to put both of those into our next film.
• 41:14
  Yeah.
• 41:14
  Yes.
• 41:15
  I don't think driving race cars on an ice track is in the Olympics, but it should be.
• 41:19
  It should be. I think we can get that in there if we petition hard enough.
• 41:23
  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they add new things every year. They test it out.
• 41:27
  Yeah, the host country gets to add stuff.
• 41:29
  So yeah, maybe.
• 41:30
  I don't know who's got the next Winter Olympics. I mean, there's one happening like in a few weeks, but the one after that, well, let's see if we can get like cars on ice.
• 41:38
  We're just playing ahead.
• 41:41
  Yeah, we'll get this going.
• 41:41
  Well, I'll email like the ambassador of wherever country it's in and—
• 41:45
  Yes, just put in a good word. Uh, every year the Swiss Army dynamites mountainsides to prevent avalanches. And for the film scene, really, the crew collaborated with the army to find a location, um, but a natural avalanche occurred before filming. They ended up using stock footage, special effects, and close-ups for the scene.
• 42:05
  Yeah, special— with special effects in quotes.
• 42:09
  No, it was not. Now, while cracking open a safe in a Swiss lawyer's office, Bond finds a copy of Playboy.
• 42:19
  I forgot that happened in this movie.
• 42:21
  Yeah, that was a crazy scene.
• 42:23
  This is referencing the original story on which the film is based as it first appeared in the magazine.
• 42:29
  Okay.
• 42:29
  Oh, really?
• 42:30
  Yeah.
• 42:31
  Oh, so there was a deeper meaning to it than Bond is just horny.
• 42:34
  Yeah.
• 42:34
  So Her Majesty's Secret Service was first and He's walking around looking at his centerfold in the middle of a business office.
• 42:41
  People are walking past him and he's staring at this thing.
• 42:43
  Yeah.
• 42:43
  So apparently this is the first of Ian Fleming's Bond novels that was serialized in Playboy. So I guess every month they just put like a chapter or something.
• 42:51
  Yeah, maybe he wasn't looking at a picture. Maybe it was like the big story he just like was pulling out and reading it as he goes.
• 42:59
  The serialization of On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
• 43:03
  He's like learning what's gonna happen later.
• 43:06
  I was like, dang it, dang it, this is too early in the thing. I need the later issues so I know what happened.
• 43:13
  Yeah, I need next week's.
• 43:14
  Final fact I have here is during the filming at, uh, the Piz Gloria— that's the main area where they were, um, that's, uh, Blofeld's thing at the top of the mountain— the cast and crew received their per diems in cash. Upon seeing George Lassie with a suitcase stuffed full of cash, Telly Savalas invited him to a late-night poker game. That he regularly held with crew members and promptly relieved Lasby of having to carry so much of that extra weight. Upon hearing of this, producer Harry Saltzman visited the location, joined the game even over Savalas's protests, and won back Lasby's money. He then informed Telly Savalas in no uncertain terms that he was not to victimize his "quote boy" again. For Lasby, it's goddamn close.
• 44:03
  I figured the producer was there to like. Recoup the losses.
• 44:07
  Yeah.
• 44:08
  Just make the money back for the, for the studio.
• 44:11
  Oh, it doesn't, it doesn't say that. It doesn't say that he gave the money back to Lazenby either though.
• 44:17
  He probably just kept it. Yeah.
• 44:19
  Yeah.
• 44:20
  Well, how big was Lazenby's per diem, you think, if he had a suitcase full of cash? Usually like a per diem is like enough for a couple meals, like, like probably $100 in 1969. Would've been like a ton of money.
• 44:32
  Yeah. Maybe just had, you know, a couple days worth. I don't know.
• 44:35
  Yeah. He had a suitcase full of $1 bills, 100 $1 bills in his suitcase.
• 44:40
  I will say that the small time that I spent, uh, over in Nigeria, one of my favorite things was every month you got paid in naira.
• 44:47
  Uh-huh.
• 44:48
  And every one, uh, every US dollar was like 100 naira.
• 44:54
  Okay.
• 44:54
  And so like when they would pay you, they paid you in Paid you in cash and they'd be like, come on and get your, you know, get this month's pay. And they would just hand you like a brown paper bag just packed with, with bills, you know, just these like stacks of bills. And then, you know, go home, I open up the cabinet, start stacking 'em up. It was great.
• 45:12
  Dump it on the floor, roll it in the tub.
• 45:15
  It was, it, I mean, it was, it was, you know, it was, it was like $400, $400 I think in US. It was like 40,000 naira that they would like put in like this brown paper bag and I just kind of have to walk back to my place.
• 45:30
  That would be satisfying, like just like dumping all that out.
• 45:33
  40,000 of anything is a lot.
• 45:35
  You get, you get ready to go out on like a Friday or Saturday night, you just grab a couple stacks. Yeah, put in the pocket like, let's go, let's roll.
• 45:43
  Trying to think of things that in 40,000 chunks which would be overwhelming.
• 45:51
  Centipedes.
• 45:52
  Oh yes, they pay me for a bag of 40,000.
• 45:54
  A brown paper bag full of centipedes and gnats.
• 45:57
  Oh, 40,000 paper cuts.
• 46:02
  You get like paid— are you like working in like Frog Town where they're paying you in flies?
• 46:07
  I've worked in Frog Town for a brief stint.
• 46:11
  It's not so bad.
• 46:13
  It's not so bad, man. You go home with It's a bag full of flies.
• 46:17
  Just dump them out. They go flying around. You gotta get like, you really gotta be careful where you dump it because they'll go flying.
• 46:23
  Man, when you're Frogtown royalty, you're living large.
• 46:27
  Yeah.
• 46:28
  I wanna be the Frog Prince.
• 46:30
  I'm the, I'm the king of Frogtown, baby.
• 46:34
  Oh, you know I love flies. All right. Yes.
• 46:41
  I would love Frogtown. I can't wait. I vacation there every year. I can't wait to go back.
• 46:47
  The thing about the Frogtown is the exchange rate is amazing.
• 46:51
  Oh God, yes. Those flies go for a lot of US dollars.
• 46:56
  You get like a billion flies for $1.
• 47:00
  You're—
• 47:02
  you are king of Frogtown when you show up because those frogs don't really understand dollars. All they understand is flies.
• 47:10
  They also don't understand tourism. Like, everything blows a Frogtown resident's mind.
• 47:16
  And they don't really prepare for like visitors, like human visitors.
• 47:19
  So it's like, why is there a human here?
• 47:21
  I show up, they all just hold perfectly still and they're not making a sound as I rumble down the streets.
• 47:27
  Most of them run away when I show up.
• 47:29
  Yeah, it's like pick them up and they start peeing on me. Yes. Frogtown is just great. I go every— it's amazing.
• 47:37
  Uh, you know what's weird is that I keep getting on, on Amazon Prime, they keep pitching me a movie.
• 47:46
  It's called Frogtown?
• 47:48
  It stars, uh, Roddy Roddy Piper and is called Hell Comes to Frogtown.
• 47:56
  I'm sure it's great.
• 47:59
  It's got Roddy Roddy Piper in it.
• 48:00
  After a worldwide nuclear war where 68% of the male population was wiped out and viral men become a rarity, Sam Hell, a scavenger and highly viral man—
• 48:11
  very viral.
• 48:12
  Yeah, viral. Yes, viral.
• 48:15
  Sorry.
• 48:16
  Uh, it's assigned to help rescue, uh, is assigned to help rescue a group of fertile women kidnapped by humanoid frogs.
• 48:26
  Oh wow, that sounds like a good movie too.
• 48:28
  I think being virile or viral would be good in that situation.
• 48:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 48:35
  There, I think I gotta see you closer.
• 48:36
  Oh my God, that was so goddamn close to On Her Majesty's Secret Service from 1969.
• 48:43
  Very close.
• 48:44
  So I think we should now talk about our viewing of On Her Majesty's Secret Service from 1969.
• 48:52
  I think we should talk about it.
• 48:54
  Why not?
• 48:54
  Okay, so I think the time discrepancy— and I could be wrong. Keith, you watched on Netflix. Terry, you watched on DVD?
• 49:04
  Yes.
• 49:04
  I watched on DVD as well. Now Keith, tell me, were the fight scenes weirdly accelerated?
• 49:12
  Oddly edited, yes. Oh, okay.
• 49:16
  No, edited, one, that's, that, that's one thing. Did they feel like they were 2 to 3 times faster than they should have been?
• 49:24
  Like sped up footage?
• 49:26
  Like sped up footage. Yeah. Like, you know, like when Herman Munster would like run.
• 49:29
  Not, not, uh, not sped up, not sped up like that, but sped up to where like it seemed like they did a couple cuts that were just like, oh, here was a punch and also now I'm— there's something else.
• 49:42
  So that was the thing, right? That, that's his smash cut that he developed and whatever, right?
• 49:47
  It's terrible.
• 49:48
  But I'm talking about the footage looked like Babe Ruth running the bases.
• 49:54
  No, I didn't know. At least I didn't notice.
• 49:56
  Yeah, Terry, was yours sped up?
• 49:58
  Yep, it was.
• 49:59
  Okay, so that would explain it then.
• 50:02
  I think it's because a DVD only holds so many minutes of video. And so they, I think I maybe that they sped up chunks of it, mostly the action sequences and the fight sequences, because there's no dialogue.
• 50:24
  Mm-hmm.
• 50:25
  That's what I'm guessing, just, just from the conversation now, because at first I thought it was like, this sucks. This is a terrible, like, filmmaking choice. Why would you do this? And I, I did not like it at all. But now I think there's like the 10-minute dis— this discrepancy between the actual runtime and what the DVD runtime is. I think that's what it is.
• 50:50
  I think you're right, because I thought that was weird too, the sped up stuff.
• 50:53
  Yeah.
• 50:54
  And I will say that that smash cut action stuff, like, I want to go back and look and rewatch like a couple of the ones prior to this. Um, like Dr. No or From Russia with Love and stuff like that. Just, just, and I'm just, because I found those fight scenes, that, that style of editing to like be kind of annoying. I don't, I don't remember that being in, in other Bond movies and, and them doing that in like the early Sean Connery ones. So, but I haven't, like even Dr. No, I have probably haven't watched in like 20 years. So, um, I kind of, I'm kind of curious how, if it looked, if it just looked that bad in this movie. or if it always looks like that.
• 51:36
  I couldn't tell you. I thought, I thought the action sequences, the fight scenes, were, were poor at best. But I also— they were sped up, like they were too fast. And there's like this—
• 51:50
  there's one that I even, like, I rewound it, and my wife was watching at least the first half of this with me, and I was like, does that— did that just look weird? Because it looked like He punched somebody and like the cut, the smash cut thing, like went to like an angle that just completely didn't look like it was the follow-up scene. Yeah, like the follow-up move for it. So yeah, I don't, I don't know, not a big fan of that. And it would've looked even worse if it was sped up.
• 52:16
  There was that one smash cut when he was in the hallway of the mountaintop facility or whatever, where They cut, they— he punched and the guy's like, no, no, no. Like, they did the same no like 3 times and they punched him 3. It was really weird. It was— yeah, I mean, it was, it was an artistic choice. That's fine. I just didn't dig it.
• 52:41
  Uh, this, this whole movie's got a little bit of an artistic choice to it.
• 52:45
  Yeah, it's 1969.
• 52:47
  And it's 1969. It's a guy in his first real acting role. It— he's replacing like somebody who's already kind of iconic in the role.
• 52:57
  Uh-huh.
• 52:58
  Uh, somebody who I do believe some of these things are like already— like that kilt and every— that was made for Sean Connery. That was not—
• 53:07
  That kilt's weird. Why is he wearing that? I don't know.
• 53:11
  Uh, that's something Sean Connery probably would wear, and I kind of think maybe they had it ready to go for him, and then when they're like, oh, he's not gonna be in it This was random.
• 53:18
  Like, what is he wearing? It was a strange outfit choice.
• 53:21
  Yeah.
• 53:22
  Yeah.
• 53:23
  Well, most of the outfits that, that Bond, uh, was, was wearing were, were strange choices. In fact, I did, uh, as far as some of my notes that I put on here, I was— there's some kind of weird like brown tracksuit that he wears at one point. I'm like, Sean Connery would've never worn that shit. It looks so cheesy. Like his Bond character would never dress like that at all.
• 53:43
  I, I did not really like this guy's Bond. I thought maybe that's just the style of the James Bond movies. I don't— I haven't seen much of the Sean Connery ones either, but like, he felt too, like, first of all, too horny, which I know James Bond is always like that. But this guy, like, he— like we were talking about, he's staring at the Playboy thing, like walking down a hallway where everybody's like around. I'm like, that's just kind of creepy at that point. Too much.
• 54:06
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:07
  And then like He's kind of just annoying and he's always making like little weird, like one-liners, almost Arnold Schwarzenegger style. Yes. When he kills somebody. And I'm just like, no, I don't, I don't know. I don't really like the, like, kind of like aloofness of this guy.
• 54:20
  I don't know. I found it like, so I, I picked that opening clip because I found it's just like the overall idea that they're eventually getting to of like Blofeld having like this mind control thing. He's setting up by like helping relieve people of allergies via medicine and mind control.
• 54:42
  Yeah, psychological.
• 54:45
  It takes so long to get to like what the like what's the thing going on here?
• 54:53
  Yes, I feel like this movie makes me is assuming I know who Blofeld is, and I'm like because they're like yeah, I have to find Blofeld, and I'm like who is Blofeld? And then. We find out later, I'm like, he's a scientist? Like, what's he even doing? I don't know. Yeah, this does not set up the stakes at all.
• 55:09
  I wrote down in my notes also, like, I need to figure out what the— like, what's the best timeline to, like, follow on these? Because again, yeah, like, he has some kind of already— when we meet him in this movie, he's already got some kind of existing thing going on with Blofeld and with Spectre is the main organization that I guess Blofeld's in charge of. He references it at one point when he's talking to that other like mob guy. Yeah, even when he shows up as that dude, like, uh, Hillary guy, like, isn't Blofeld gonna know that's him right off the bat? It's like not much of a costume.
• 55:46
  It's like, yeah, he wore glasses and a kilt. Um, yeah.
• 55:51
  I'd be distracted by that kilt, to be fair.
• 55:55
  And yeah, so, and I guess eventually they're like, oh yeah, we are, you know, you know, after they, they catch himself, they're like, yeah, we already knew who you were and that you were here. I'm like, well, yeah, you guys know each other already.
• 56:06
  Yeah, I don't know.
• 56:08
  There's, there's several things in here that are, to me, are ultimately pointless, but we still have to endure them. Uh, one is the Tracy girl.
• 56:18
  She has nothing to do.
• 56:20
  But she's like the coolest character in the whole movie. You're like, okay, I dig her, but her dad wants her to marry James Bond. He wants James Bond to like seduce her, to like seduce her and— but like break her will down into marriage, right?
• 56:37
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 56:39
  And he's like, in exchange, he'll tell you where Blofeld's hiding.
• 56:44
  Yeah, so we get all that. That's like the first like 35 minutes.
• 56:48
  I thought the dad was going to be the villain. Tracy's dad should have been the villain.
• 56:52
  Yes. And then we get that weird— like, that wasn't weird. I actually enjoyed the lockpicking scene for the safe. I was like, oh cool, he's got like a— he's got like a cool piece of technology.
• 57:04
  I mean, we're big on lockpicking around here.
• 57:07
  Yeah, but I mean, he cracks safe, which is a cool thing, and then he photo— makes photostatic copies of the image of the pages, right? That's all cool. I I thought it was hilarious that he had to have his friend use a construction crane to get the box up there. I'm saying, okay, I'm gonna get rid of it. He didn't— he should just rode the thing down.
• 57:29
  That's why I was also wondering why he just didn't do that either.
• 57:32
  But so there's all that, and that takes forever to get through there.
• 57:36
  There's the, the romance montage, like, of them going on different dates and stuff, which is like kind of pointless.
• 57:43
  Like, yeah, there's that where it's like, oh, I want to be— I want to romance— I want to be romantically linked to you, blah blah. I want to do all this stuff. And then we finally get to the Alps, right? He goes—
• 57:55
  And she did. So that's like about an hour in, and we got an hour and 20-some minutes left, and she disappears for like—
• 58:01
  Yes.
• 58:01
  Like 45 minutes.
• 58:02
  Peace, I'm going to Switzerland. Yeah, so he goes there. Now Blofeld's scheme is to what? Send these women who were allergic to things that are now hypnotized to execute some sort of maniacal plot. We don't know what it is.
• 58:24
  It's something— it's like, um, a chemical warfare. Like, he's— But we don't know.
• 58:28
  We don't know.
• 58:28
  There's a germ he wants to spread. Yeah, he references something else. He goes, this is much worse. But it, it's never fully explained.
• 58:37
  It never— it's never explained, but it never materializes. Like, it just goes away. I see.
• 58:45
  It doesn't, it doesn't fully go away. There's a jump there from like when he escapes from the, the Alps the first time and he goes back.
• 58:57
  Uh-huh.
• 58:58
  And they're like, yeah, they're just gonna, they're just gonna give him what he wants, which is—
• 59:01
  But then it's done after that. It's done because they blow up his base or whatever, I guess. Yeah.
• 59:07
  Well, yes, he decides, hey, instead we're gonna go, we're gonna blow up All the mind control stuff, so that he the radio signal, so he can't contact the ladies to do what they're supposed to do.
• 59:18
  Like the people that blowing it up are the other dude who's another crime boss who owns a construction company. Yeah, because it's not even like the world's governments coming together to stop blowing up.
• 59:28
  No, because no, because they told him not to do it.
• 59:30
  The Secret Service said no.
• 59:32
  Yeah, he's just there. He's not like a hidden base.
• 59:35
  James Bond's going rogue to stop this international like. Disaster from happening. It's like, why doesn't his agency want to deal with this?
• 59:42
  Because they already decided they were— he didn't want money. He just wants, uh, he wants all of his previous crimes wiped from the books.
• 59:52
  Okay.
• 59:53
  And why not send us to Bond to go blow up the base?
• 59:56
  And he wants to be Count So-and-So. And Bond is like, well, if we just go blow up the— we'll blow up the radio thing. We don't have to bother with The whatever chemical, weird chemical warfare thing he's put together. We'll just go blow up the signals. He can't contact the ladies, and then we don't have to give him anything. Yeah. And when the— and when his people are like, yeah, we don't do that, you'll see. You know what? I know some people who will. He's— I, I'm—
• 1:00:19
  it's, it's really—
• 1:00:20
  I'm good friends with the other crime organizations.
• 1:00:22
  I'm sorry, it, it's really kind of dumb. Just dumb.
• 1:00:28
  Like, the government didn't have any other plan. It's like, yeah, just let them do it, I guess.
• 1:00:31
  Yeah.
• 1:00:31
  Yeah, but I mean, he doesn't— he doesn't— he, he hints at like, hey, here's this— like, he gives all the ladies some weird thing for them to— that they have to turn on every night. Uh, so he can continue to send radio signals, explain to them what— how they have to do it. But he never actually explains to anybody how this whole thing is going to work.
• 1:00:49
  It's very convoluted.
• 1:00:51
  And it never comes to fruition.
• 1:00:53
  So we— all we know is there's some mind control involved, which, if you know what, if they would have skipped Like, hey, I'm— these ladies are gonna spread some kind of like chemical warfare type thing around with like a perfume bottle or whatever it looked like.
• 1:01:06
  Yeah.
• 1:01:07
  If it was just like he was figuring out how to do mind control on people, that would've been fine. Like that he was setting that up to, for that to make sense. They're like, oh, when I get to the UN, I'm gonna be able to, you know, put the weird lights go on and my voice will hypnotize them into doing something. And that would've been perfectly fine. He didn't need to have the other thing there, I guess. Yeah. But then, yeah, Bond, Bond goes back up, um, to, you know, kind of rescue or start to blow the thing up. And Tracy's up there as well, so he has to go rescue her.
• 1:01:39
  Yeah, she got kidnapped, right?
• 1:01:41
  Or something. Yeah. Uh, well, so in the first time that he escapes down, uh, he's coming down the mountain on the skis and he's got everyone chasing after him.
• 1:01:52
  Oh God, that took forever too.
• 1:01:54
  God, that was the longest chase scene in the face of the earth.
• 1:01:57
  And between not—
• 1:01:58
  and the fact that there's— and the fact that there's multiple of these skiing scenes, there's— it's like the Swiss— the Swiss people just wanted to see what everything looked like.
• 1:02:06
  We don't need a lot of skiing. And I don't— I'm sorry, but skiing is not that exciting to me. Yep.
• 1:02:12
  You know what else isn't exciting? Just watching a guy fall off the cliff at a very slow pace.
• 1:02:17
  That took forever.
• 1:02:18
  That was my favorite part of the whole movie.
• 1:02:20
  That was kind of funny.
• 1:02:20
  Oh, I thought— I thought your favorite part, Derek, might be when the guy, uh, Slips and falls in front of the like snowplow thing.
• 1:02:27
  That was awesome. That you cannot believe.
• 1:02:30
  It just shows the the blood everywhere.
• 1:02:33
  And then James Bond goes, "That he had a lot of guts." I'm like, "What the heck?" Yes. That is like such a like dark, just like violent moment. And then he's yeah. I'm like, "Whoa, really? That's how you react to that?" Like Tracy should be like, "Dear God," you know.
• 1:02:48
  All of them should be like, "Ooh." Yeah, so that scene is, is unhinged because it goes from the snowplow, it's white snow, to red snow, and a lot of red snow.
• 1:03:03
  And it keeps going. That's another lingering thing.
• 1:03:05
  And they're just like jumping through it.
• 1:03:07
  They're like, yeah, yeah, the people that are chasing them have to like fly through the red bloody snow. Yeah, that is disgusting. If I was one of those henchmen, I would just stop. No, you know what? I'm good.
• 1:03:17
  I love that. But that dude falling, that is a— he fell. He didn't just fall off a mountain. He fell off a fucking Swiss mountain, man. He must have fell 5,000 feet. It was a lot.
• 1:03:31
  We saw every second of it.
• 1:03:33
  Oh shit. It was, it was Wile E. Coyote times 1,000 because—
• 1:03:42
  Yeah, I'm pretty sure I saw him like hold up a little sign before he fell.
• 1:03:45
  Like, yikes.
• 1:03:46
  Yikes. And then he fell. Yeah.
• 1:03:48
  He just dropped and he didn't fall because he made a miscalculation. He was thrown off the side of the mountain by James Bond.
• 1:03:57
  James Bond threw him off. He smacked him with his ski and then he threw him off the mountain.
• 1:04:04
  Yeah. And Bond's gotta live with that. He had to watch that guy fall to his death. He reached terminal velocity.
• 1:04:12
  He fell for so long.
• 1:04:13
  I wish what would happen is we see that guy fall and it cuts back to James Bond. He like looks concerned and he's like, oh, what have I done? Like get enough time to like this realization to sink in. They cut back to the guy still falling. They cut back to James Bond. He's kind of like biting his nails like, oh, it's just like cringing.
• 1:04:27
  Oh God, still falling, still falling.
• 1:04:32
  I think maybe, maybe that's why they go back and they do another ski, uh, why?
• 1:04:37
  Ski chase because it's so awesome.
• 1:04:39
  It's because, it's because he was like, man, I I don't like— maybe he felt bad, he wanted to do a better ski, uh, uh, chase.
• 1:04:45
  Oh God, no.
• 1:04:47
  But so, so the guy falls down and then Bond even like— I think knocks one more guy over the thing.
• 1:04:53
  Yeah, he hits another guy with a ski repeating his same move he did the first time. First time he knocks the guy over, then he checks him off the cliff. Second time he knocks him over the same way, but this time he like steals his outfit or something.
• 1:05:03
  He gets all the way down into the Uh, he gets all the way down there into the, the village.
• 1:05:11
  Yeah.
• 1:05:12
  And he's trying to escape, uh, from the, the lady and her henchmen. Yes.
• 1:05:19
  Fraulein, whatever.
• 1:05:20
  And he runs into Tracy being there because her dad— well, her dad told her.
• 1:05:26
  Told her. Yeah.
• 1:05:28
  Oh, and so she's out there, she finds him. They had that— there's a quick car chase scene. The quick—
• 1:05:34
  she's, she's quick.
• 1:05:36
  She is dynamite. She's dynamite behind the wheel.
• 1:05:38
  She's a great driver.
• 1:05:40
  Yeah.
• 1:05:40
  And she's got some good acting in her face, but that's not quick. That chase goes forever. They're just driving in circles. How do I get out of here, Mr. Bond? I don't know. Let's go around for 5 more minutes. How do I get out of here? Okay, there we go. Like, it's like, why did we do that 3 times?
• 1:05:54
  And it was just a— it was a race. It wasn't a demolition derby.
• 1:05:57
  Yeah, she's killing all the other drivers.
• 1:05:59
  Yes.
• 1:06:00
  Uh, the other people are on there shooting.
• 1:06:01
  Keith, Keith using the word quick. Compared to the ski chase, there's nothing quick in this.
• 1:06:09
  Compared to the ski chase, it was— oh man. Um, also though, so when they get the, you know, the henchmen, the, the lady, they flip their car over.
• 1:06:21
  Uh-huh.
• 1:06:22
  And it seemed like the guys got out, but the whole rest of the thing explodes.
• 1:06:27
  It exploded. Yes.
• 1:06:28
  But she, but that Bunt or whatever, Fräulein Bunt, she managed to escape somehow because she's there then at the end of the movie with Blofeld. So they get all the way down, then they go, he finds the— he gets the other guy to take him back up there. Oh no. Oh, before. No, they stop at that house.
• 1:06:54
  This is all after they No, I don't remember his house.
• 1:06:57
  No, no, they're at the house. They take off, they're getting chased again. Uh, Blofeld says— he tells, he tells 3 guys, hey, continue on after him, and then it causes— immediately causes the avalanche. He basically sent 3 guys to die.
• 1:07:13
  Um, yeah, he knew. He was like, you guys go.
• 1:07:16
  So he kind of— I think he kind of— he thought that would kill Bond, so then he just takes Tracy back, and then he's trying to like Woo her and seduce her, and like, you can be the Countess.
• 1:07:26
  Yeah, this guy's a mad genius. You really think he's gonna fall for this? Like, her like going on to his side all of a sudden out of nowhere? Like, come on.
• 1:07:34
  Yeah, there's a lot about this movie that was very difficult to— the dinner scene that didn't— yeah, like all, all of it. But we were just talking about the, the chase, the car chase. Yeah, because this is my least favorite part of the movie. They, they car chase and they're, they're in a blizzard. The snow is so intense that they can't even use the windshield wipers to clean off the windshield, right? So snow is falling at just an enormous rate. They drive into this barn. Whose barn it is, I don't know, but it's got a bed in it.
• 1:08:11
  So yeah, thank you, them. Yeah, that's nice.
• 1:08:13
  So they, they go in this barn. In the middle of this blizzard. Now, I don't, I don't know if people are familiar with the way snow works, but—
• 1:08:21
  How does snow work?
• 1:08:24
  When you step and leave tracks and it's still snowing, those tracks get filled in.
• 1:08:32
  Yep.
• 1:08:32
  And you lose those tracks very easily.
• 1:08:35
  How did those people find them the next morning?
• 1:08:37
  Yes.
• 1:08:39
  How did they know where to go? They went right to the barn.
• 1:08:44
  How?
• 1:08:45
  Why? And just as they just happened to be leaving to ski down the mountain away from stuff, I guess they're like, okay, we drove here, let's ditch the car, we'll ski down the rest of the mountain, and then we'll do something after that, I guess was the thought. Yeah. God bless it, man. There's a ski chase, a ski chase, and a bobsled chase.
• 1:09:09
  That's a toboggan chase.
• 1:09:10
  The bobsled chase is also lame.
• 1:09:13
  Yeah, it was very lame. It was—
• 1:09:15
  except that— except the fight, the smash-cut fight stuff on the bobsled was so stupid.
• 1:09:22
  I hated every minute.
• 1:09:24
  Look, I respect the Winter Olympics and I think these are great sports. This is not—
• 1:09:29
  there was even curling in this.
• 1:09:30
  Yes, but this is not cinematic gold. I don't want to watch people skiing each other and chasing each other down on skis. I don't want to watch people going on the bobsleds and chasing each other on the bobsleds. It's just lame. Yes, it's just lame. Like, it's cool that people can do that in real life and compete and be really cool, but in a movie, that's not what I want to watch. I don't want a whole movie based around the Winter Olympics, and that's what this is basically. Yeah, the curling was like, uh, the best scene because it was comical. It was funny. Yeah, it was him pretending to be Willie or whatever he called himself, and then yeah, he's like— all the women are like, ooh, fawning over this Can we talk about Hilly really fast? Yes.
• 1:10:09
  Did he actually say those words with his own voice, or like other movies we watched, did he move his mouth and they have somebody else dub over? Like, it didn't really sync up properly.
• 1:10:29
  I don't know. I didn't notice anything.
• 1:10:30
  I don't think he did the voice for Hilly. And as I'm watching, I'm like, God, he had— he's an actor, he can do voices, right?
• 1:10:38
  Well, he's— this is his first acting role, so I don't know.
• 1:10:41
  I don't know if he did that. I don't know if he did the voice of Hilly.
• 1:10:44
  I don't know. I don't know. Hilly, that was— that whole thing of him pretending to be Hilly was kind of funny, where he like—
• 1:10:52
  It was comical.
• 1:10:53
  All the women are all over him for some reason.
• 1:10:56
  Yes.
• 1:10:56
  Even when he's going on and on about the, the arms or whatever, the royal arms, and he's like We'd love to hear about it. And then it's like smash cut to like 2 hours later, he's still going about it. Like, that was pretty funny. Yeah, that part was funny. And like when he's using the same lines on the women, like, yes, the first one he seduces and then he comes back to his room and there's another woman there and he starts using the same lines again. I thought that was—
• 1:11:22
  And then the next, and then when they're curling, he tells the one girl 8 and then the next girl tells her 9 and then another girl walks by and looks at him and goes, 10.
• 1:11:30
  Yeah, like, but was this movie a comedy? Because it felt like it could have been a comedy.
• 1:11:35
  I think it's trying to be kind of funny, but I don't know.
• 1:11:39
  I don't think it is. I don't think any of the Bonds are ever trying to be funny. I just think that the, like, their concept that they came up with here, and I don't know if, you know, if Sean Connery does this, there's a different vibe to it.
• 1:11:50
  I'm getting a little stiff. Oh, in the shoulders.
• 1:11:54
  Yeah, that's okay.
• 1:11:55
  It's a— that's a comedy. He breaks the fourth wall, deadpools at the beginning.
• 1:12:01
  This wouldn't have happened to the other guy. Yes, this is— it's supposed to be kind of a quirky, like a quippy thing, I think. I don't think it's supposed to be like strictly comedy, but I think it's supposed to be, you know, like the Marvel movies. They're funny, but they're like—
• 1:12:12
  it's like borderline comedy.
• 1:12:14
  It's supposed to be funny when it's, you know, he's making jokes like that. Oh, he must have branched off there. Yeah, by the branch. Yeah, like I think it's supposed to be be funny, but is it? Not really.
• 1:12:25
  No. Um, and then, you know, the, the movie wraps up with—
• 1:12:32
  oh, the ending.
• 1:12:34
  Bond decides that he is really— he— the guy warned him, you're gonna fall in love with my daughter, so just beware, it's gonna happen. He's like, it's not gonna happen, I'll do what you want me to, but just tell me where Blofeld is. The guy warned him. Bond turns around, hey, I'm in love with you, Tracy. Who I've, you know, haven't seen for weeks.
• 1:12:55
  And you just saved me.
• 1:12:56
  Let's not talk about what I did up on the mountain.
• 1:12:58
  Yeah, let's not talk about what I did the night before up on the mountain. And then so he, uh, he decides to hang it up. He decides to retire. He's gonna get married.
• 1:13:08
  Yep. Uh-huh.
• 1:13:09
  Moneypenny is crying because she thought she was gonna get Bond.
• 1:13:12
  Oh, that was a weird scene. Yeah. And then, oh, she really was— thought they were gonna get together.
• 1:13:17
  Oh, there's always like the will they, won't they thing, I think, in all the Bond movies, the earlier ones. And then they, uh, and then they go through and like 5 minutes after the wedding, like Blofeld and Bond show back up again and, you know, fire off a, fire off a bunch of shots at the car and nail her right in the head.
• 1:13:40
  Yes.
• 1:13:41
  A super dark moment of the movie.
• 1:13:43
  Yes.
• 1:13:43
  That does not match what happened in the rest of the film.
• 1:13:45
  But it was the most interesting part of the whole movie.
• 1:13:46
  Yes.
• 1:13:46
  It was. It should have happened at the beginning.
• 1:13:50
  This should happen at the beginning so that Bond, yes, could have a motivation. Yeah, to hate Blofeld so much. Because I know that's a trope where like the woman character dies, so the man—
• 1:13:59
  But I think, I think he already has— see, that's the other thing I said before, like, I, I don't know what the official like timeline— because Blofeld is in a prior movie to this, so he already has a reason for wanting to stop Blofeld. This just adds on to it now.
• 1:14:14
  Yeah, I need it now.
• 1:14:15
  Now there's a personal thing. It's not just, hey, I need to stop this guy from Destroying the world.
• 1:14:19
  Yeah, it would have been a much better motivation than him just dilly-dallying as what's his face up there. Yeah, yeah, I forgot about that. And that ending is crazy, but I could not believe that's how they ended the movie.
• 1:14:31
  Yeah, but incredibly interesting.
• 1:14:34
  Yeah, like the best part.
• 1:14:35
  You're right.
• 1:14:36
  I'm like, wow, finally some dramatic stakes. Yeah, finally like emotion from this guy, like instead of just being weird. Yeah, this is It was nice.
• 1:14:44
  This is my last thing I want to talk about this movie, but when they're at the Swiss thing and it's going to blow up and Tracy's like, I need to go find Bond, her dad decks her.
• 1:14:59
  Yes.
• 1:14:59
  Yes.
• 1:15:00
  Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
• 1:15:02
  Yeah, just gives him a— gives her a right cross to the chin. Spare the rod, spoil the child. What?
• 1:15:09
  Dear God. Well, Bond slaps her at one point too, doesn't he?
• 1:15:12
  Yes. She just gets the crap kicked out of her for no reason.
• 1:15:17
  Yeah, that that was a bit much. It was. Let's say.
• 1:15:20
  Yeah. Did we get through it?
• 1:15:22
  Yeah, I think we did. Yeah.
• 1:15:23
  We did, boys.
• 1:15:25
  Yeah.
• 1:15:25
  We got through On Her Majesty's Secret Service from 1969.
• 1:15:31
  Also, it's a horrible title.
• 1:15:34
  It is. It's only because he's not on Her Majesty's Secret. He's Officially off of Her Majesty.
• 1:15:40
  That should have been off. Yes, off Her Majesty's Secret Service.
• 1:15:43
  Look, what'd you guys think?
• 1:15:45
  Ian Fleming named the book.
• 1:15:46
  I mean, well, um, you know, uh, Fleming, please.
• 1:15:52
  Obviously this is gonna lead me to watch other Bond movies, not just the two that you guys pick out. Yeah, I really didn't get this. I like—
• 1:15:59
  I—
• 1:15:59
  it gets a little better, I guess, but then like you guys do what we always do here. I start to think something's kind of cool and then we start talking about like, yeah, that was dumb. Um, I didn't mind like the action stuff towards the end. I thought it was pretty good, but in reality it's not. Um, Blofeld's plot is not very well set up and all. I, I, I'm very surprised by the high Rotten Tomatoes score for this movie. I just, I just didn't get it. I don't know if it's mainly 'cause Lazenby and he's just kind of not the right guy for the role. I don't know. But God, I know. I mean, I've seen, I've seen Dr. No, I've seen From Russia with Love, but it's been a while. But like, I, Bond, like, it's like a very natural role for him and, and did stuff very easily in this. And this all felt a lot forced.
• 1:16:48
  Yeah, I, I didn't really enjoy this that much. There are some good stuff— there is some good stuff in it, um, but it's not paced very well. It's way too long. I feel like there's like no real stakes. I don't really under— we don't ever understand what bad is gonna happen because they treat And maybe this is just because it's in the series, but they treat like everybody should know who Blofeld is already. And I don't know who Blofeld is. And they're like, I gotta get Blofeld. I'll quit my job so I can get Blofeld. I'm like, why? What did he do? You need to give me something just as like a fresh viewer. But they don't really do that. And then I get to his little mountain and I'm like, I still don't really get what he's doing. It takes way too long to figure out what's going on. And the action scenes, I thought they were okay, but it's just the set pieces they decided to go with are lame. Like skiing, bobsledding, those are both not great exciting things. So yeah, I don't know, there's a lot of like misses on here. And then there's like no— I don't— I do not like this guy as Bond. I don't think he does a very good job.
• 1:17:47
  Yeah, it's— this is a tough one. I didn't— I didn't hate this movie, but I didn't really like it. Um, the Blofeld stuff was unnecessary. Like it's— it's either Make it Blofeld from the beginning, or don't do Blofeld because his plot doesn't come to fruition. It doesn't even threaten to come to fruition.
• 1:18:07
  We're like an hour in before we even see him.
• 1:18:09
  Yeah, like, get rid of the skiing, get rid of the skiing, get rid of the bobsledding, get rid of the curling. I don't need any winter sports.
• 1:18:21
  Keep the guy falling for 5 minutes though.
• 1:18:23
  I just don't— the guy falling for 5 minutes Keep that. Like, the whole—
• 1:18:28
  In fact, send another guy over. Send another guy over. Slow-mo.
• 1:18:32
  Just make people fall for the hour or the 2 hours, whatever I'm sitting here for this.
• 1:18:37
  That would be entertaining.
• 1:18:39
  And the action was weak. Like, there's a point where I'm watching, I'm like, what's better, just like raw fight scenes or choreographed fight scenes? Because it felt like the fights was like All right guys, just go fight. Like, there was no— there was no rhyme or reason to anything. It's like 2 guys fighting and then like a weird smash cut, and then the guy gets his head through the banister of a staircase. Like, there's just stuff like that. Everything took too long to happen. It's 2 hours and 20 minutes. It could have been an hour and 20 minutes and still been too long.
• 1:19:13
  Yeah.
• 1:19:14
  It's just whatever. The, the safe cracking, to me, the safe cracking Makes it a two and a half star movie.
• 1:19:21
  I mean, that was kind of cool.
• 1:19:23
  It was good. That was the coolest part of the whole movie, in my opinion.
• 1:19:26
  To watch as he just sat there and read while he waited.
• 1:19:30
  He had tech. I like technology to crack a safe that looked like a vacuum cleaner hooked up to a safe. I liked it. Yeah.
• 1:19:39
  I mean, that's pretty neat. I wish I had that thing.
• 1:19:42
  There were that's the only gadget in the whole movie.
• 1:19:44
  Yeah, there was a lot of gadgets.
• 1:19:45
  Terry, you gotta go to the lock picking convention again and then just be like, yes, I'll see.
• 1:19:50
  On Your Majesty.
• 1:19:51
  You guys gotta watch it.
• 1:19:52
  Have you guys ever seen one of these things? I saw it in a Bond movie once. You know, it's like a—
• 1:19:56
  here, let me pull it up for you. I got the DVD.
• 1:19:58
  It also works— it works as a copy machine too.
• 1:20:01
  It does a lot of cool things.
• 1:20:04
  That's the only gadget in the whole movie though. And they talked about that radioactive lint at the beginning. Oh yeah, never came back.
• 1:20:10
  Yeah, they're like, it's the shrinking ray or something. They're talking about like it miniaturizes stuff or something. I'm like, oh, is Bond gonna get tiny? No, nothing.
• 1:20:18
  That's something.
• 1:20:19
  That's the guy who played— that's the guy who I think plays Q through pretty much the majority of these, like, movies, especially early run. Yeah, there was, there was no real, uh, Bond gadgets or anything in this one either.
• 1:20:32
  Yeah, I don't mind, like, a more grounded Bond, but this is not trying to be grounded at all.
• 1:20:36
  So no, it's pretty disappointing. Well, we know what we thought. But what did the internet have to say? Well, on May 15th, 2019, r/Harvey-74630 had this to say. Criminally overlooked classic.
• 1:20:57
  Wow.
• 1:20:58
  Thankfully, this film has gotten a positive reevaluation in later years, and it is a true classic Bond film. It's sandwiched between Connery's 2 weakest films. The weak link, of course, is George Lazenby, the first non-Connery Bond. Lazenby had no acting experience and is wooden in many scenes, but he's very good in some of the more emotional scenes, including the greatest ending of a Bond film.
• 1:21:27
  Wow.
• 1:21:28
  The film is filled with great fights, a, a great car chase, And the first and still best skiing sequence.
• 1:21:40
  No, it's got 2 scenes. Wait, the first skiing sequence?
• 1:21:44
  It's got 2 of them.
• 1:21:45
  Does that mean in Bond or in cinema?
• 1:21:48
  Bond's got some other skiing sequences as well.
• 1:21:50
  Oh God.
• 1:21:51
  Telly Savalas is surprisingly the best version of Blofeld we've seen to date. Diana Rigg's Tracy is the all-time best Bond girl. For the first time, there's romance in a Bond film. The film was ahead of its— the film was ahead of its—
• 1:22:11
  the—
• 1:22:11
  in that it provides a deeper portrait of Bond. Uh, this is words there, I think. Lazenby foolishly walked away from the role. I'll agree with that. Still, with the direction the film took after this one, Or the films took after this one, he may not have succeeded. I recommend this one to everyone. 17 found it helpful, 5 not so much.
• 1:22:40
  10 out of 10. 10 out of 10 despite the weak performance by George Lazenby.
• 1:22:45
  Yes, people are like the main guy, uh, Bond being weak.
• 1:22:51
  Wooden even.
• 1:22:52
  Yeah.
• 1:22:54
  Weird. All right, at least it had— at least it had great skiing sequences.
• 1:22:57
  The best Blofeld and the best skiing. Not to be outdone, on April 2nd, 2007, D. Serminaro— D. Serminaro had this to say: not watchable.
• 1:23:15
  Okay, okay, tell us how you really feel.
• 1:23:17
  There is a reason Lazenby was Bond in only one film. He walked away. That's the reason. The plot, the acting, the lack of Q— there are so many reasons to this, to dislike this film. This is definitely the worst of a very good series of films. The one redeeming quality of this film would be Telly Savalas. He does a decent job as Blofeld.
• 1:23:42
  He's okay.
• 1:23:43
  This movie seemed to run way too long. I'll agree with that. To the point where falling asleep an hour into it is a definite possibility.
• 1:23:52
  I want to do—
• 1:23:54
  The only other Bond film I can compare this to would be Sean Connery's awful comeback as Bond in Never Say Never Again. I know Sean Connery made other Bond films after this one. He had the good sense to not be placed in this dog.
• 1:24:16
  What?
• 1:24:16
  22 found it helpful, 24 not so much.
• 1:24:20
  1 out of 10. If Sean Connery had been in this, I bet it would be better.
• 1:24:25
  I, I agree.
• 1:24:27
  Yeah, even if the plot was exactly the same, at least he'd have—
• 1:24:29
  it would be better via Connery.
• 1:24:31
  Yes, yes.
• 1:24:32
  Oh my gosh, we did it! We got through week 1 of DTFY2. Month 2.
• 1:24:40
  Bond month. Bond month.
• 1:24:43
  George Lazenby, the Aussie. I can't believe he's Australian.
• 1:24:47
  I thought something was weird about his accent. I, I thought there wasn't, and that makes sense, I feel like.
• 1:24:52
  And he did not do the Hilly voice. I swear to God, he didn't do it.
• 1:24:56
  I did not even notice a change in the voice from Hilly to him.
• 1:25:00
  There was a change to the voice, but the words in the mouth didn't sync up.
• 1:25:04
  All the time.
• 1:25:06
  It really bothered me.
• 1:25:07
  I was looking at that, that kilt. That's why I wasn't looking at his mouth.
• 1:25:10
  She— no one notices that she reaches her hand into his groin to write the number 8 on his inner thigh with lipstick?
• 1:25:23
  I really wasn't sure what she was up to for a while there. I was like, wow. You know what though? The, the kilt now has a plot purpose. I didn't even think about that. You couldn't do the drawing on the thigh.
• 1:25:35
  Without a kilt. Yeah, he had pants on. Rude.
• 1:25:39
  The whole scene would not be— unless he had like really short shorts.
• 1:25:42
  Yeah, he gets up and it's like lederhosen.
• 1:25:45
  Yeah, I just— it's like, um, has SNL ever done like a, like a spoof of like James Bond? Like, uh, paternity tests?
• 1:25:57
  Oh, paternity test. I, I was thinking that too, Keith, because he's having sex with like All of these women.
• 1:26:03
  I'm like, he has to have like a vasectomy or something, right?
• 1:26:06
  You would think.
• 1:26:07
  Well, no, because— no, because he's gonna have— he was gonna have 3 boys and 3 girls with Tracy.
• 1:26:11
  That's true. And Bon Jr., we know that exists.
• 1:26:14
  Oh, that's— yeah, that's true. Bon Jr., the cartoon.
• 1:26:18
  Yep. Oh, but that—
• 1:26:20
  what, what is his—
• 1:26:21
  who's his mom? That's the mystery.
• 1:26:23
  Oh, you know, it's not Tracy.
• 1:26:28
  I mean, he did have sex with her too.
• 1:26:30
  Well, she's dead.
• 1:26:33
  Yeah.
• 1:26:34
  Well, we did it. We got through the first week of the first— the second month of, uh, this show. That means next week is a Terry week.
• 1:26:50
  Yes.
• 1:26:51
  Terry, what is your Pick.
• 1:26:55
  Oh, it's been tough because there's a lot of options, but there are a lot of options. One, 25 of them. The one is, uh, that's drawn me in, and I'm gonna pick Tomorrow Never Dies.
• 1:27:06
  Tomorrow Never Dies. Who's in that? Who's Bond in that one?
• 1:27:10
  Pierce Brosnan is Bond. Oh, okay, okay.
• 1:27:13
  I think I've seen this one. What happens in it? No clue.
• 1:27:17
  I have no idea. I think it's about Bond.
• 1:27:19
  I heard that.
• 1:27:21
  But I, I don't know.
• 1:27:23
  It's about a British special agent.
• 1:27:26
  I had the PlayStation 1 video game of this movie.
• 1:27:29
  Wow.
• 1:27:30
  That's all I know about it. And let me tell you, I don't think I ever made it past the first level. So I'm excited to see what it's actually supposed to be about.
• 1:27:39
  Yeah, sounds good. I'm excited. Tomorrow Never Dies from 1997.
• 1:27:48
  Yep.
• 1:27:48
  Oh, should be good.
• 1:27:49
  Should be.
• 1:27:50
  We did it. We got, got through. We got Tomorrow Never Dies for next week, I guess. I mean, that really leaves us with nothing to do but to end this the way we end everything. Bond. James Bond Jr. No one can stop him, but scum always tries. Young Bond cuts through each web of spies.
• 1:28:18
  He learned the game from his Uncle James.
• 1:28:21
  Now he's heir to the name James Bond.
• 1:28:26
  Uncle James.
• 1:28:27
  James Bond's son. Okay.
• 1:28:31
  No, because Tracy died, so she can't have a kid.
• 1:28:33
  He's got a job to do while he rescues the girl.
• 1:28:37
  James Bond.
• 1:28:37
  Come on, Junior Chase, let's go!
• 1:28:39
  Come on, Junior Chase, let's go!
• 1:28:43
  Around the world!
• 1:28:44
  Excuse me.
• 1:28:44
  Excuse me.
• 1:28:45
  Boo!
• 1:28:45
  Thanks for listening to Fumbling Through Film. New episodes drop every Thursday. Got feedback or questions? Email us at fumblingthroughfilm@gmail.com. You can see our films to fumble before you tumble into the grave and other musings on Letterboxd at Fumble Through Film. The through is T-H-R-U. You can also follow Keith on Instagram @kg3030lives and on Letterboxd @kg3030. Terry is on Letterboxd @terry2099. Derek is on Letterboxd @derek9ix9. All original music is done by the Dr. Dre of Kansas, Terry, so hit him up for them bangers. Our new podcast logo is done by the delightful and talented Sanjay Vicky Nayak. You can find her on Instagram @einkstein. That's Einstein with a K in there. We'll see you next week as we keep on fumbling.