On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Deliberate mistake: Blofeld doesn't recognize James Bond in this film, even though they met face-to-face in the previous movie, "You Only Live Twice." There is a production-related reason for this. Ian Fleming wrote "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" in 1963 (in which Bond and Blofeld met for the first time), and he wrote "You Only Live Twice" in 1964. However, "You Only Live Twice" was adapted for film first (in 1967), and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was adapted afterward (in 1969). Because the 1969 film was so faithful to its source material, Blofeld and Bond are basically meeting for the first time... again. The producers were aware of this continuity problem and intended to have James Bond undergo plastic surgery for "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (which would conveniently explain Blofeld not recognizing him, as well as the fact that Sean Connery had been replaced by George Lazenby in the lead role). But the plastic surgery idea was discarded in faithfulness to the novel, resulting in a glaring continuity problem between the 1967 and 1969 films.

Charles Austin Miller

Audio problem: In the opening scene, Bond sees Tracy in the ocean and drives his Aston Martin onto the beach to rescue her. When he stops, we hear screeching tyres, but he is driving on sand.

Revealing mistake: When Bond throws a Blofeld henchman off a cliff near Piz Gloria in the Alps, you can see that it is a dummy, as its arm swings round and wraps around the whole dummy.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Blofeld gets thrown from the bobsleigh and gets his neck caught between the branches of a tree, he is caught under his arms in the long-distance shot.

Paul Bessant

Audio problem: In the scene where Bond and Tracy are in the car race on ice, Tracy is heard to say, "James, how do we get out?" but her lips don't move at all in the accompanying close-up.

Audio problem: In the scene where Irma Bunt has seen the girls off in the village and starts chasing Bond and Tracy, tire screeching can be heard from her black Mercedes. As it is driving on snow, such a sound is not possible.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After Bond saved Tracy from drowning (at the start of the movie), he is fighting with the two men of Blofeld. In the first shot they're standing about 5 feet from the waterline (on the beach), in the next shot they're waist deep in the ocean.

Audio problem: In the sequence of a party in Portugal, when Bond runs to Tracy to apologise after saying something unpleasant about her, he grabs her and starts talking with his back to the camera. His facial muscles don't move – the scene was later dubbed.

Continuity mistake: At the start of the scene where Bond is helping with the assault on Piz Gloria, look at Tracy's hand just after the bald guard presses it down on the object to disarm her. You can see blood, but a couple of minutes later, when she kills him, there is no blood to be seen. (02:01:25 - 02:02:40)

Mr A Mclelland

On Her Majesty's Secret Service mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When Bond is being chased on skis, he flies over a ridge and through some trees, landing very close to the edge of a cliff. A cable is clearly visible tied to his right ankle to keep him from going over the edge.

Continuity mistake: When Tracy is battling the balding guard during the climax, she throws him into a tall, ringed guard rail in a way that ends up with one of the circular sections stuck on his head like a crown. When he finishes falling down the stairs, this circular section disappears. (02:02:00)

On Her Majesty's Secret Service mistake picture

Other mistake: In the scene when the helicopters arrive over the research center, look at the heli in the bottom right - it just fades out, while one on the left materialises, and the one in the middle changes position. Notice that after all the helicopters have changed place, you can see the helicopter that faded out appear on the helipad. (02:25:25)

Continuity mistake: In the stock car race scene, when Bond and Tracy first drive onto the track the number 11 red car spins out to avoid a collision and ends up facing against the wrong way. Two seconds later we see the number 11 car backing up so as to face the correct direction. Two seconds after that, in a long shot, we see the number 11 car going forward again. A few seconds later we see the number 11 car facing the wrong direction as it begins backing up again. Several seconds latter, the Mercedes containing Blofeld's henchmen enters the track and once again the number 11 car is stopped facing the wrong direction. Later in the scene the Mercedes collides with the number 11 car causing it to spin out and end up facing the wrong direction, yet a few seconds later we see the number 11 car racing along in the correct direction as Bond and Tracy pass it.

Factual error: Of all the characters, major and minor, who ever speak German in Switzerland, not one speaks Swiss German. The accents are very different (Swiss German can be almost incomprehensible to speakers of High German), and there's also different vocabulary. While some of the characters might just be non-Swiss speakers of German, at least the underlings at Piz Gloria should be speaking Schwyzerdeutsch.

Audio problem: When Bond is talking to Draco at his house, Draco is telling Bond about his daughter Tracy. As he sits down on the sofa next to Bond, brushing cigarette ash off his suit jacket, he is clearly and rather badly dubbed. (00:24:40)

Continuity mistake: In the car chase in Switzerland Bond and Tracy are being chased by Blofelds men, and at one point the Mercedes with the bad guys swerves off the road. But in the inside shots of Bond and Tracy's Cougar you still see the Mercedes' headlights, still on the road, in the rear window.

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Bond rescues Tracy during her suicide attempt in the sea, a ship can be seen in the sea slightly to the left as Bond goes after Tracy. In the next shot, where he carries her back to he beach, the ship has disappeared.

Continuity mistake: In the beach scene where Bond rescues Tracy and fights the goons, cloud cover changes continuously between shots.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service mistake picture

Continuity mistake: During Draco and Bond's attack on the clinic, a scientist throws a container of acid at Bond and it hits a glass door and eats a hole in it. In the very next shot after Bond has gone through the door, the hole is no longer there.

Sir Hilary Bray: Our methods are very exacting. We never like to speak until we're absolutely certain that there can be no possibility of error on our side or... forgery on anyone else's.
James Bond: I hope I can live up to your high standards.

More quotes from On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Trivia: While Bond is meeting with Sir Hillary, the Bond family motto is briefly mentioned: "The World Is Not Enough".

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Question: When Bond saves Tracey in the beginning and she drives off he comments "This never happened to the other fellow". I know this is a joking reference to Sean Connery, but what is Bond supposed to mean within the context of the film? Connery references aside, why would he be saying this?

Answer: It's an entirely intentional aside to the audience, the one occasion in the entire Bond series where the so-called 'fourth wall' (i.e. the cinema screen itself) is broken. As such, within the context of the film itself, it doesn't really have much of a meaning.

Tailkinker

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