On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969): Cast, Plot and Ending Explained

On Her Majesty's Secret Service follows James Bond as he hunts Ernst Stavro Blofeld and ends up tangled with the daughter of a crime boss, with George Lazenby stepping in for Sean Connery as 007.

The story opens with Bond rescuing a troubled woman, Tracy Di Vicenzo, from a suicide attempt. He soon learns that she is the daughter of Marc Ange Draco, a powerful crime boss, and Draco has a proposal: he will pay Bond a large reward if Bond courts his daughter. Bond agrees, though not for the money. Draco can help him find Blofeld, and that is the only lead Bond cares about.

Then, when M pulls Bond off the Blofeld hunt, Bond keeps going on his own trail. That trail leads to a remote clinic on a mountaintop in the Swiss Alps. If you are new to the series, the setup is easy to follow without having seen the earlier films, although the Bond movies in order guide shows where this one sits.

The full plot of On Her Majesty's Secret Service runs from a beach rescue in Portugal to a mountaintop raid in Switzerland and ends with a wedding and a shooting.

Bond saves Tracy Di Vicenzo from drowning herself, and her father, the crime boss Marc Ange Draco, asks him to keep seeing her. Bond agrees to date her because Draco can lead him to Ernst Stavro Blofeld. M takes Bond off the case, so he uses his leave to follow the lead on his own.

The trail takes him to Blofeld's clinic on Piz Gloria in the Swiss Alps. Bond poses as the genealogist Sir Hilary Bray, and he discovers a group of young women who are being conditioned to spread a plague that would wreck the world's food supply. His cover is blown and he escapes on skis, and Tracy turns up and helps him get away.

After a night in a barn, Bond asks Tracy to marry him and she says yes. Blofeld's men chase them, and an avalanche separates the pair, leaving Tracy in Blofeld's hands. Draco and his men join Bond in a raid that wrecks the mountain base. Blofeld flees on a bobsled and is caught in a tree branch after a crash.

Bond and Tracy marry in Portugal. As they drive away, Blofeld and Irma Bunt pull alongside and fire on the car, and Tracy is killed. Bond is left holding her body.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service is reported to have been released on December 18, 1969 in the US, the UK and Australia, and it grossed about $82 million worldwide on an $8 million budget.

US release: December 18, 1969 (reported); UK release: December 18, 1969 (reported); no separate UK premiere date is recorded. Both dates are reported by The Numbers and TMDB, not confirmed. No premiere city or venue is recorded either.

The $82 million splits into roughly $22.8 million at the domestic box office and $59.2 million internationally, according to The Numbers. In other words, a little under three quarters of the money came from outside the United States, which is a useful reminder of how much of the Bond audience has always been international. For the full series picture, see the james bond box office page.

The film is rated PG in the US, the UK and Australia.

The ending of On Her Majesty's Secret Service is that Bond marries Tracy in Portugal, and Blofeld and Irma Bunt shoot at their car as they drive away, killing Tracy while Blofeld stays free.

First, an avalanche splits Bond and Tracy and leaves her in Blofeld's hands. Second, Draco and his men join Bond for the raid that wrecks the mountain base. Third, Blofeld escapes on a bobsled and is caught in a tree branch after a crash. Fourth, the story jumps to Portugal for the wedding. Fifth, Blofeld and Irma Bunt fire on the couple's car as they drive away from the ceremony.

So, why does it matter? The raid and the bobsled give the audience the satisfying action finish, and then the film takes it away. Bond has stopped the plague plot and wrecked the base, yet he ends the film holding Tracy's body and refusing to accept that she is gone. In my opinion, that choice is the strongest in the film, because it makes the villain's escape feel personal rather than procedural.

The setup matters as much as the shooting. Bond first meets Tracy when he stops her drowning herself, he proposes in a barn after she helps him escape Piz Gloria on skis, and the wedding follows within the same story. The film spends its running time of 142 minutes on that relationship, which is why the final road scene in Arrábida National Park lands as a loss and not as a twist. Tracy is also the only woman Bond marries on screen in the official series, so the death cannot be quietly forgotten by the next film.

Compared with the five films before it in release order, from Dr. No to You Only Live Twice, this is the first Bond story to end on a defeat for Bond after the villain's base has been destroyed. Blofeld loses his clinic and his plot, yet he walks away with the last move. That is an opinion about structure, not a claim about every earlier ending, but the contrast is clear: the raid on the mountain is the conventional climax, and the Portuguese road is the real one.

Because Blofeld is still free, the feud stays open for later films, and the next film in release order is Diamonds Are Forever. Paradoxically, a film about a wedding is the one that leaves Bond with the most unfinished business. For how the later films use Blofeld, the james bond villains page is the next stop, and the james bond movies ranked page shows where we place this one.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service was filmed in Switzerland, England and Portugal, with principal photography running from October 1968 to May 1969.

Switzerland carries the biggest set pieces. Piz Gloria, on the Schilthorn near Mürren, stands in for Blofeld's mountaintop clinic. The ski chases were shot around Wengen, the Christmas festival scene in Grindelwald, and the law office scene in Bern.

In England, interiors were shot at Pinewood Studios, and M's house is in Marlow.

Portugal supplies the opening and the end. The opening scenes were shot at Estoril and Cascais, the reunion scenes in Lisbon, and the closing road scene in Arrábida National Park.

The best known piece of On Her Majesty's Secret Service trivia is that George Lazenby, a model with no acting credits, replaced Sean Connery as Bond after appearing in a chocolate advertisement.

The other documented facts from the production are these:

• The Swiss shoot ran 56 days over schedule after weak snowfall.
• Piz Gloria on the Schilthorn was still under construction when filming began there.
• Gabriele Ferzetti's lines were dubbed by David de Keyser because of his Italian accent.

The film has no post credit scene.