Just how influential is On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, anyway? Sharp-eyed viewers may have noticed that the resurrection of the James Bond film series as viable entertainment with the casting of Daniel Craig may have technically been an adaptation of Casino Royale, but its ending has far more in common with this novel. And, indeed, Craig’s follow-up, Quantum of Solace, has more than a little in common with You Only Live Twice. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service ends with the most shocking moment in the entire Bond canon which sets up a subplot in the sequel. The same game is played in the first two movies with Craig as Bond.
Two lessons here. If you’re going to steal, steal from what works. And two: it’s not really stealing if you’re stealing from yourself.
Over the ensuing decades as the Bond film series devolved into the riches of embarrassment that mark the latter half of the Roger Moore era, the film version of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service has slowly risen from one of universal disappointment to being one of the most satisfying Bond movies ever. For many, in fact, it remains the apex of achievement. While this turnaround may be surprising, it really shouldn’t be. The truth is that the disregard for the film version was based almost entirely on the casting of George Lazenby and that was only because he wasn’t Sean Connery. As Connery gracelessly aged into a misogynistic figure as equally out of step with the changing times as his version of Bond, that aspect of disappointment faded and when there is no more reason to find fault with Lazenby, there is no reason to find fault with the most faithful Bond adaptation of them all.
If you are going to commit to making a (relatively) faithful adaptation of a Bond novel, the one you want to make is On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It is, after all, the best; an opinion perhaps not universally shared, but definitely in the majority. And by the best Bond novel Fleming ever wrote do that mistake that for what often comes into consideration when ranking novels by a single author. Was Faulkner’s mastery of language more brilliantly utilized in some of his novels than others? Sure? Do some Stephen King stories just grab you more forcefully than others? Of course. Neither is the case when it comes to choosing which Bond novel exceeds all others.
The truth is that Fleming’s mastery of technique is not noticeably different here than any other. Nor is the plot itself particularly revolutionary. What makes On Her Majesty’s Secret Service stand out as the Fleming’s ultimate Bond book is that he made a concerted effort to do something different with his handling of the genre. Few people remember the all the spy stuff about Blofeld and allergies and biological warfare and brainwashing and ear enhancement surgery because, well, all of it is just the MacGuffin. For the first and only time, Fleming creates all that ridiculous world domination nonsense as background and goes way out on a limb by actually trusting the reader to care more about what’s happening in the foreground: James Bond is actually going to settle down and live happily ever after.
What makes the novel the best Bond there is can be easily identified. The ending should by any stretch of the imagination be nothing more than a gimmick; a Titanic-style empty exercise in manipulating phony emotions that were never really there. And yet it is isn’t. It is devastating. It is, in fact, (arguably, perhaps) the only true moment of genuine emotional attachment to James Bond in either book or cinematic form.
