My favourite Bond film is On Her Majesty's Secret Service. I saw the film first as a seven-year-old, one of the half dozen or so films my father took me to because he wanted to see them.
I recognized the Countessa (Diana Rigg) from television's The Avengers (1961-1969), and I think that was the moment I learned that people in movies are not their characters, only the jobs they take, like the job that took my father from our house at 5:30am weekday mornings because the New York and Toronto stock exchanges opened at 6am Pacific time.
Since that first screening (at the Dunbar Theatre, where I recently saw the latest Bond film, No Time to Die) I have seen OHMSS a half dozen times, and this time what struck me most was how badly it was dubbed, Bond's parts in particular. A leading reason why might relate to how badly one-time-only Bond George Lazenby was alleged to have behaved on set. Bond's post-production voice carries equal parts condescension, diffidence, frustration and disdain.
Bond franchise holder Albert R. Broccoli once said that Lazenby, at his best, was the ideal Bond, and I thought so too as a seven-year-old. But what did I know? I had never seen a Bond film before. Nor did I have any desire to see the next one (Diamonds Are Forever, 1971) after learning that Diana Rigg would not be in it. "Her character was killed," said my father, to which I replied, "Yes, but not the person who played her!"
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