Original No Time To Die brought that number to twenty-five.
No Time To Die will also spell the end of Layer Cake star Daniel Craig’s lengthy tenure in the role of 007, with the actor having played Bond since his debut in 2006’s Casino Royale. The role was hard-won for Craig, who became the seventh actor to play the famous spy. The first to take on the role, Sean Connery, lasted six official James Bond movies and one unofficial outing as the character in 1983’s appropriately titled Never Say Never Again.
Some fans of the series claim that Connery’s Bond should have returned for the sixth film in the franchise, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, in 1969. However, despite many fans of the franchise and critics alike considering Connery’s incarnation of the character to be the definitive screen portrayal of Bond, both the actor’s official and unofficial exits from the series, 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever and 1983's Never Say Never Again respectively, are relatively weak James Bond outings. Both movies were financially successful, but so was Pierce Brosnan’s goofy final Die Another Day, and it was still a major misfire. Regardless, the reason Connery originally left the series following the fifth movie You Only Live Twice was both disputes over pay and fatigue with the franchise and its effect on his career, meaning he would never have brought the sweetness and comparative naivety needed for On Her Majesty's Secret Service to work.
Why On Her Majesty's Secret Service Works
The first movie in the James Bond franchise not to feature Connery as the lead, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, introduced one-film-wonder George Lazenby's version of Bond. While the movie was considered a disappointment at the time, it is now regarded as one of the franchise's best. This comes down to the surprisingly moving romance between Bond and The Avengers star Diana Rigg's Teresa, which ends tragically. Before the Bond backstory was a common franchise element, the character was depicted as an almost impossibly cool, unflappable figure whose love interests often betrayed him, died shortly after they met, or both, and Connery’s version of Bond had consistently shrugged off their fate as a fact of international espionage.
As such, audiences were appropriately shocked when On Her Majesty's Secret Service ended with the rakish Bond finally settling down and marrying Teresa—only for Blofeld and his henchman to kill her in a drive-by shooting. Unexpected, brutal, and still among the franchise’s darkest movies, On Her Majesty's Secret Service closes on the sight of 007 cradling the corpse of his wife and weeping. The movie also features some great action and a pacy plot. Still, it’s the jaw-dropping romance story that viewers are left with as the most memorable element of this underrated outing. While some consider Lazenby ill-fitting and wish Connery had played Bond, the influential original 007 would have been ill-suited to making this his franchise swansong.
Why Connery’s Bond Couldn’t Have Done On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Connery wouldn't have been right for On Her Majesty's Secret Service at that time, both because of where the actor was at personally and because of his shifting screen persona affecting the audience’s view of Bond. By his ission, Connery was very jaded with both the franchise and the fame that it had brought, feeling typecast and pigeonholed by success. This lack of enthusiasm is reflected onscreen in his coasting, disengaged turn in his final official Bond franchise outing, 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever. In stark contrast, Lazenby brought a younger, more naive energy to his 007, which is what that version of the character needed to make the story work. Seeing James Bond fall in love after all of his many adventures and develop real feelings for a love interest despite having seen so many former Bond girls come and go made sense because the character literally had a new face, and with it came a new outlook on life.
While Lazenby has a few stilted moments, he's much better in the part than his critics give him credit for. Comparing his charming courtship of Teresa and the pair’s playful flirting with Connery’s goofy, over-the-top double entendres in Diamonds Are Forever illustrates two markedly different takes on the character, only one of which could fit the sad story of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The contrast recurred later in the series when The World Is Not Enough’s original, dark ending tried to touch on the reality of Bond girls but couldn’t pull it off alongside Pierce Brosnan’s campy, winking Bond, while the later, more grounded Casino Royale revisited the idea with more sincerity and success.
How Connery’s On Her Majesty's Secret Service Could Have Worked
If Connery shot On Her Majesty's Secret Service as his fourth James Bond movie, before franchise fatigue set in earnest and the actor had truly tired of his time as 007, then the story could have worked. It remains unlikely that Connery would have brought the necessary youthful exuberance to make his devastating heartbreak an effective shock since, by this stage, the veteran Bond was seen as a debonair ladykiller.
However, if On Her Majesty's Secret Service had been Connery’s fourth outing as the character, before his James Bond grew older (which was the original plan, before Thunderball was shot instead), then the story could have been retooled to make Bond a reformed cad who was now so deeply and unexpectedly in love that he had given up his promiscuity. It is a twist that would have made Teresa’s death equally affecting, just now, in a slightly different way. However, the fact that the producers went with a new James Bond for On Her Majesty's Secret Service is not only understandable but was the better decision when Connery was already tired of the role before filming even began.
