On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Essential, and the most thoroughly rehabilitated film in the series. For twenty years it was the one with the model in it; it is now routinely ranked in the top three, and the case for that is strong.

It is the closest adaptation of a Fleming novel Eon ever made, and the only pre-Craig film in which Bond wants something other than to complete a mission. He resigns, falls for a woman who is his equal and is written as one, and marries her. Diana Rigg's Tracy is the best character in the series by a distance, introduced trying to walk into the sea and never once reduced to a prize.

Peter Hunt had edited the previous films and directs this one with the cutting of an action editor, which is why the ski chases and the bobsleigh sequence still read as fast when the surrounding era does not. The Piz Gloria location work is the best the series has.

George Lazenby was an Australian model with no acting experience who was given the part and then declined to continue, on advice that the character was finished. He is not good in the dialogue scenes and he is entirely convincing in the physical ones. The last ninety seconds are the only time this series has ever hurt, and the next film pretends they did not happen.