20 Movies So Good You Ignore Huge Plot Holes
9. On Her Majesty's Secret Service - Bond & Blofeld Don't Recognize Each Other
On Her Majesty's Secret Service is one of the greatest James Bond films to date. It's such an exciting and, ultimately, affecting movie that not even George Lazenby's terrible performance as Bond derails it... or, for that matter, a particularly huge plot hole. Fine, such issues aren't exactly unusual in James Bond movies, but this one is particularly distracting.
Specifically, when James Bond goes to Blofeld's clinic disguised as baron Sir Hilary Bray, Blofeld (Telly Savalas) doesn't recognize him. OHMSS is perhaps the most faithful adaptation of any of Ian Fleming's books, but it did create a bit of a problem here. In the book, Bond and Blofeld hadn't yet met, for they have no contact in the novel or the film of Thunderball.
However, the movies adapted You Only Live Twice next after Thunderball (in the equivalent novel, Bond is on a revenge mission against Blofeld for killing his wife), and this creates an awkward logic gap when Blofeld and Bond meet again in this instalment. Even if Blofeld did secretly recognize Bond and was just playing for time, it was out-of-character for Blofeld to allow Bond to investigate and uncover so much of his plan before capturing him.
The two had been played by different actors in You Only Live Twice (Sean Connery played Bond, Donald Pleasence played Blofeld), so maybe Eon hoped this would distract audiences?