20 Things You Didn’t Know About On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

20. “I’m Relieving You From Operation Bedlam, Double-0 Seven.”

Ian Fleming’s tenth Bond novel was originally intended to be filmed after Goldfinger (1964) before an agreement was reached with Irish filmmaker, Kevin McClory to adapt the 1961 novel, Thunderball. Regular Double-0 Seven screenwriter, Richard Maibaum drafted a script in which Ernst Stavro Blofeld faked his burial at the monumental Staglieno Cemetery in Genoa, Italy, but otherwise remained faithful to Fleming’s tale.

After Thunderball (1965), Maibaum’s script became more outrageous and featured a submersible Aston Martin. He also wanted Goldfinger star Gert Fröbe to portray Blofeld, whom he envisioned as being Auric Goldfinger’s brother! Due to a lack of snow in Switzerland and the Bond craze in Japan, You Only Live Twice (1967) was filmed instead from an original story by Roald Dahl, whilst Richard Maibaum refined his script for OHMSS.

Although Sean Connery declined an offer of $1 million for a sixth performance as James Bond, he later revealed that he would much rather have made the Lazenby version of OHMSS than You Only Live Twice. Ironically, Maibaum confided in set decorator, Peter Lamont on OHMSS that “If Sean had been in this, it would have been great”.