George Lazenby – a non-actor who was once Europe’s highest-paid male model – steps into Sean Connery’s shoes as James Bond for the sixth film in the series. Posing as a Scottish genealogist, he infiltrates the Swiss Alpine lair of Blofeld (Telly Savalas) and uncovers his dastardly plot to wage a bacteriological war on the world. Diana Rigg plays Tracy, the countess who captures his heart. Despite first-rate action sequences, the best John Barry score and usual quota of sardonic quips, it would be the Aussie actor’s only performance as 007.
Review
Who would play James Bond as a gay Scottish genealogist immune to the charms of Purdy out of the Avengers and Jenny Hanley from Magpie.
Well, macho Scot Sean Connery wouldn’t wear it. Nor would Daniel Craig’s ruthless hardman. Tim Dalton’s darker soul would give it a swerve while even Roger Moore would raise an eyebrow.
No, the job fell to George Lazenby, former used car salesman, male model, Australian special forces sergeant and onetime European Marlboro Man.
Sean Connery had quit the role and new director Peter Hunt was looking for a new face for the world’s premier bird-bedding, villain-slugging superspy. George was set for a good time.
The second of the “Blofeld Trilogy”, this sees Bond taking on the identity of misogynist Scottish genealogist Sir Hilary Bray to penetrate the mountain lair of the SPECTRE boss (Savalas) and thwart his latest plan for world domination.
This time he plans to send ten brainwashed cuties – including Joanna Lumley, Hanley and Leslie Phillips’ wife Angela Scoular – out into the world carrying a bacteriological warfare agent.
Lazenby’s acting experience had been restricted to an Italian B-movie…and it showed. Yet his proficiency as a skier ensured the alpine action sequences – outsmarting gun-toting goons on the piste – were first-rate.
However, the decision to occasionally overdub Lazenby’s voice with that of George Baker – a ploy practically unheard of where the actor’s first language is English – was bound to sow the seeds of discontent.
Still, there was no shortage of quips: “He had a lot of guts,” commented Bond as a plume of scarlet snow spews out of a snow-plough which had just run over one of Blofeld’s henchmen.
It helped that John Barry’s partly-synthesized score was his finest while Savalas proved an adequate, heavier-built Blofeld than Donald Pleasance in You Only Live Twice.
Rigg – despite her reported aversion to the arrogant Lazenby – was one of the more memorable 007 babes and the scene where she is assassinated by Blofeld’s henchwoman – to the accompaniment of Louis Armstrong’s We Have All The Time in the World – remains one of the most poignant in a Bond movie.
So it was a film of beautifully executed action sequences, stunning locations, more girls than you could shake a, er, martini shaker at...but a Bond who looked the part but could not act it.
Lazenby ended up turning down a seven-film contract because he felt the character of Bond was an anachronism in the youth culture of the time. Daniel Craig may beg to differ.
