Hey there, I just found this thread now.
I'd like to add my opinion on OHMSS, it is absolutely one of my favourite Bond flicks for many reasons. In high school my best friend was a huge Bond fan and he got me into them pretty heavily. OHMSS wasn't really one of his favs, in fact he liked it as little as he acknowledged NSNA(He disowned it, not being a United Artist release). However, when I saw OHMSS, something about it just clicked with me. It had a 'feeling' to me that the others before(except FRWL) and since, never really re-captured in my mind.
I totally understand all the praise/criticisms with OHMSS, but there seemed to be a new formula that was applied to the style of directing and the action sequences that seemed to me to be more 'high-stakes' and more 'intense'. It also seemed to cover quite a few aspects of the 'Bond persona' that I had wanted to see.
Through his vast knowledge of science, Lepitoptery(impressing M), to his impersonation of a genealogist and the writers adding in a brief history of the 'Bond' coat of arms 'The World is Not Enough' (nice precursor there), I even found the 'gold balls' innuendo totally clever.
The locations and sets were great(they usually are) I love Bond in Switzerland, Germany or Austria.
Telly Savalas is by far my favourite Blofeld. Also, the whole Blofeld lineage story arc was fantastically done. His cordial relationship with Bond as an 'imposter' was well acted.
Lazenby's acting was excellent(IMO) considering he hadn't done much acting at all prior to that(Wasn't he a model?).
The action scenes were handled differently, I think the fast cut editing and the sped up film technique for the fight sequences was fairly new at the time(1969).
I really enjoyed the Draco character(a criminal) being an instrumental character in Bond's success of the rescue of his daughter Tracy(he knew Bond had grown to love her) and the destruction of Blofeld's base and the brief interaction between Draco and M in the wedding scene was really, really cool.
One of my hands-down favourite Bond scenes of all time, is when Bond returns to Blofeld's chalet at the end, and there's that sequence where he's sliding down the curling court with the submachine gun, firing as he's sliding...damn! I think that's still unrivalled today!
Also, I thought the way they had Bond snapping pictures of Blofeld's 'attack centre' with the different girls who were being planted in various parts of the world was very, very cool.
The luge chase was really cool. Then the whole murdering of his wife, that was really, really dark and then the film just ends there.
I could definitely use another viewing of the Timothy Dalton bonds. I had the pleasure of actually visiting the Prater Amusement park when I was in Vienna a few years back.
I'm not a fan of Roger Moore as Bond, although, he definitely had 'the look' no doubt. It was just unfortunate that Moore was older than Connery was when Moore started out with Live and Let Die. That being said, I don't know why, but of the Roger Moore bonds, I like TMWTGG, it must be for 'Sunshine's' bikini and the other scenery.:lol
I hate to sound dismissive, but I don't care for the Pierce Brosnan bonds, he did a good job 'as Bond' it's just for some reason, they're not really memorable movies to me(IMO).
I acknowledge Connery, or 'Seannery' (as my buddy Nick jokingly calls him) as the 'classic' Bond.
I like Daniel Craig as Bond, he's an excellent actor, but there seems to be some missing charismatic traits that I can't quite put my finger on. He's definitely an excellent 'masculine' interpretation.
Anyway, that's my 2-cent introductory contribution to this thread.
In writing this, I think I'm going to start rewatching all the Bonds again(other than FRWL and OHMSS which I know too well)
-Andrew
