On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

On Her Majesty's Secret Service arrives from 1969 carrying a reputation as the Bond film that tried to be about something, which in this instance means feelings. George Lazenby, a model with no prior acting credits, spends two hours proving that a suit and a barber can accomplish a great deal, while Diana Rigg supplies the competence the production otherwise lacks. The picture is a faithful adaptation of the Fleming novel, assembled with the solemnity of a man carrying an annotated copy, which the director reportedly did. The result is an espionage adventure with a wedding and a widow, and no interest in instructing anyone about anything.

The audit finds little to raise. Twelve women from a dozen nations populate Blofeld's alpine clinic as his angels of death: English, Australian, Hungarian, American, Israeli, German, Irish, Scandinavian, Chinese, Jamaican, Indian. This is not an inclusive casting statement. It is the older Bond habit of arranging foreign beauties as scenery, and the passport count matters only because Blofeld needs couriers. The film earns a modest nod for the roster and nothing more. On the question of gender, Tracy di Vicenzo rescues Bond more than once, drives the getaway car through a stock-car race, and proposes her own marriage terms. That is genuinely ahead of its decade. The film then hands her back to the plot as a prize and a corpse, having already sent Bond through the clinic's bedrooms. Progress, of a specific and limited kind.

Everything else reads as zero. No same-sex undertones. No racial consciousness beyond decorative geography. Blofeld threatens the world's food supply, but as extortion, not ecology. No critique of the syndicate money that funds the rescue, no body politics, no neurodivergent framing for Tracy's despair, no revisionist reframing of history, and no sermons. Even the famous final shot, a roadside murder and a cradled bride, asks for grief instead of instruction. The film is a well-tailored relic. Its progressive credentials amount to one capable woman and a crowded passport page.