The 1960s ‘Bond girl’ who got thrown under the bus: “It’s the one film they consider a failure”
Ask most James Bond fans which movie they consider the franchise’s red-headed stepchild, and there’s usually only going to be one answer, and it’s one that Eon Productions would fully agree with.
After all, there are 25 official instalments in the long-running film series based on Ian Fleming’s literary creation, and over in the far corner of the room, sitting on the naughty step is 1983’s Never Say Never Again, which endures as the one and only unofficial adventure for the legendary secret agent.
Rubbing salt into the wounds, Sean Connery agreed to return as an even older and less convincing 007, and to add further insult to injury, it was released just months apart from Roger Moore’s Octopussy. It isn’t acknowledged or considered canon, so it shouldn’t really be up for debate as to which film would be most likely to be swept under the rug by Bond’s powers-that-be.
And yet, Diana Rigg has a different take. In what was a thankless task that rapidly evolved into a doomed errand, George Lazenby was given the unenviable task of stepping into Sean Connery’s sizeable shoes for 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, with the Scot’s five-film tenure turning 007 into an icon.
You could have parachuted any actor into the tux, and there’d have been a high chance of failure, but Lazenby hardly did himself any favours with his behaviour and attitude, which included, but was in no way limited to, being called a “prize shit” by his predecessor and becoming cinema’s only one-and-done Bond.
Narratively, it was a massive moment for the character, with Rigg’s Teresa di Vicenzo getting hitched in the coda, making Bond a married man onscreen for the first and only time, before she’s mercilessly gunned down and killed shortly after. Normally, that would cast a shadow that would linger for years, if not decades, of 007 adventures, but Bond’s spouse has hardly ever been mentioned since.
Rigg has a theory as to why, though, with the actor recalling in 2015 that she, Lazenby, and the entirety of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service were thrown under the bus. “I think it is quite influential now, but that’s many years later,” she mused. “It’s quite interesting, because the Bond organisation actually turned their back on that film.”
With the Lazenby experiment over, Cubby Broccoli and the rest of the brain trust scrambled back toward the drawing board, re-enlisting Connery at a princely sum for Diamonds Are Forever to help steady a ship that had started swaying for the first time, which is why Rigg believes her ‘Bond girl’ contributions were hung out to dry.
“They never mention it,” she added. “Because it’s the one film that they consider a failure, because of George.” On the plus side, Rigg was right in conceding that “as far as the public’s concerned, it’s not a failure, it’s up there as one of the favourites,” because it has indeed been reappraised as one of the best Bonds, and if you ask Christopher Nolan, it’s the best, bar none.
