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On Her Majesty's Secret Service - The LS Cut by Last Survivor

LastSurvivor

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Original title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Fanedit title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service - The LS Cut

Studio: MGM, Eon Productions, United Artists
Faneditor: Last Survivor
Originally released: 1969
Fanedit release: August 2015
Original running time: 142 minutes approx
Fanedit running time: 127 minutes approx
Cut time: 15 minutes cut
Started edit: May 2015
Finished edit: August 2015

Synopsis and Purpose of Edit:
Ian Fleming’s 007 gets a new lease of life in the form of newcomer George Lazenby, as Bond finds himself on a
mission to Switzerland which could lead to the final capture of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of Spectre. Obtaining the information on Blofeld’s whereabouts however, comes at a cost, particularly when it derives from the head of a European Crime Syndicate, the daughter of whom, becomes part of a deal which will have unforeseen personal consequences for Bond.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service is a bonafide classic within the 007 franchise. However, it doesn't mean the film is without its flaws, with the middle section of the film in-particular suffering from pacing problems which keeps Tracy, arguably the best Bond girl of them all (certainly the most important), away from the screen for far too long. The "LS" Cut attempts to fix these pacing problems, tightening the film's narrative in the process and also removing the blatant nods to the Connery era where possible.

Cutlist:

- After Bond has stopped Tracy committing suicide, removed the shot of him gently slapping her face to bring her around. Seems more natural that she gradually comes around, especially as she's not unconscious anyway.

- Cut Bond breaking the fourth wall with his line "This never happened to the other fella"

- Inserted Louis Armstrong's "We have all the time in the world" over the start credits (*alternate audio track only - Barry's instrumental theme remains in the primary audio track)

- Trimmed the aftermath of Bond's fight with one of Draco's henchmen, removing the shot where his eyes roll upwards and he passes out. Also removed Bond talking to himself as he exits the room, commenting on the quality of the caviar.

- As Bond is taken to meet Draco, removed the janitor whistling the theme tune to Goldfinger.

- Removed Draco's dialogue "To dominate her... to make love to her enough to make her love him". It always seemed too over the top, even for a Bond film from the 60's.

- Trimmed scene of Bond packing up his desk as he contemplates retirement from the secret service. This is to remove too many blatant attempts at paying tribute to previous Bond movies. Music also replaced with Barry's score from OHMSS.

- Tracy and Bond fall in love montage, replaced Louis Armstrong's vocal "We Have all the time in the world" with Barry's instrumental version, sound effects added (*alternate audio track only - Armstrong's vocal version remains in the primary audio track)

- Streamlined scenes of Campbell following Bond as he arrives in Switzerland

- Bond's helicopter journey to and subsequent arrival at Blofeld's research laboratory trimmed

- Replaced the "playful" instrumental version of "We Have all the time in the world" as Bond is searching his room for any surveillance devices, with a more fitting and slightly tense piece by John Barry

- Substantially shortened the scene between Bond and the Angels of Death in the Alpine Room

- Cut Nancy waiting for Bond in his room. His seducing of Ruby is enough for this movie, particularly as he should really have Tracy on his mind ;)

- Cut Bond and the girls curling, and the scene between Blofeld and Bond. All we have now is Campbell trying to climb to the top of Piz Gloria, only to get caught by Blofeld's guards, albeit unseen (added music during Campbell's ascent)

- Slightly trimmed the sequence where Bond is trying to get back inside (having been caught and locked inside a room which houses the inner-workings of the cable car system), whilst the Angels of Death receive their ever so special Christmas presents

- As Bond escapes back to town, have cut down the sequences leading up to his rendezvous with Tracy at the ice rink, including the excising of his fight amongst all those bells with one of Blofeld's men (a good fight scene no doubt, but at this point you're just wanting him to meet up with Tracy again, so let's move things on)

- Stock car rally sequence, very slightly trimmed

- Various cuts made during the attack on Piz Gloria, including the rearranging of a scene where Bond skids across the ice on his belly, fixing a continuity error

- Rearranged the countdown of the planted explosives to make it seem more natural and believable

- Made some cuts to the bobsled chase between Bond and Blofeld, mainly to address the worse uses of front/rear screen projection work

- Cut the use of the James Bond theme during the credits. Coming after such a heartfelt and sad ending to the film, it just doesn't work at all. Replaced with an extended version of the instrumental "We have all the time in the world"


Special Features:


Audio Commentary

Alternate Main Feature audio track (which switches Louis Armstrong's "We Have All the Time in the World" to the main title sequence, and uses an instrumental version of the theme during the Bond/Tracy love montage)

Trailer

Technical Details:

16:9 Anamorphic. NTSC Single Layer DVD. MP4 HD.

Original Mono audio.

Software used: Adobe Premier Pro CS6, DVD Architect Pro 5.0, MYMP4 Box, HC Encoder, Audacity, PgC Dmux, VirtualDub, Adobe Photoshop CS6, Adobe Audition.

Special Thanks:

Sophie Welch, TMTYC, Neglify, and anyone who followed the "In the Works" thread on this site.
 

bionicbob

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Congrats on finishing! I know what I will be watching this weekend. :)
 

LastSurvivor

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bionicbob said:
Congrats on finishing! I know what I will be watching this weekend. :)

Thanks Bob... Now, which version will you watch? Keeping it old school with the DVD, or the MP4? Plus, which audio track? I'm intrigued to see what people will choose. Hope you have fun with it anyways.
 

TM2YC

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Congrats on finishing. That cutlist sounds fantastic. I'm going for the HD version when this is ready.
 

LastSurvivor

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TM2YC said:
Congrats on finishing. That cutlist sounds fantastic. I'm going for the HD version when this is ready.

Cheers TMTYC... a big thank you to you especially, as you definitely helped and influenced in the direction this edit ended up taking. The HD crowd huh? As Neg once said, the MP4 is kind of a fake HD really, of course it's not on the scale of a Blu-Ray file, but hey, hopefully it will still look good to everyone. Seemed nice to me :)
 

ssj

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bond girls on mp4, huzzah! no disc for me.
and the commentary means i'll be watching it twice.
 

LastSurvivor

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ssj said:
bond girls on mp4, huzzah! no disc for me.
and the commentary means i'll be watching it twice.

Indeed, Bond girls in HD... and to think I trimmed the Angels of Death scene too... what was I thinking? ;) Hope you enjoy the commentary. I felt I slacked a little bit towards the end, plus I was trying to not get too emotionally involved during those last scenes!
 

TM2YC

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Posted a review, great edit :).

While watching your cut I noticed for the first time that in all the process shots of Bond skiing, he's wearing the wrong goggles. I always thought they looked naff (More like a 60s girl's sunglasses)...

OhmssPost13.jpg


59.jpg


...but only now noticed he (and the stunt man) has more sensible ones on the location shots...

movies-20-best-snow-movies-gallery-3.jpg


I guess it's like the airgun on the poster for 'From Russia With Love', it came time to shoot and they realised they didn't have the correct prop.
 

LastSurvivor

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TM2YC said:
Posted a review, great edit :).

While watching your cut I noticed for the first time that in all the process shots of Bond skiing, he's wearing the wrong goggles. I always thought they looked naff (More like a 60s girl's sunglasses)...

OhmssPost13.jpg


59.jpg


...but only now noticed he (and the stunt man) has more sensible ones on the location shots...

movies-20-best-snow-movies-gallery-3.jpg


I guess it's like the airgun on the poster for 'From Russia With Love', it came time to shoot and they realised they didn't have the correct prop.

Hey TMTYC! Thanks so much for the in-depth review. Really appreciate all reviews, but particularly ones which go into detail such as yours. Glad you enjoyed it so much :)

And wow, you certainly spotted something I never saw! Nice find.
 

bionicbob

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Watched and loved! :love:

Vast improvement over the original :thumb:
 

LastSurvivor

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bionicbob said:
Watched and loved! :love:

Vast improvement over the original :thumb:

Bob, what can I say? Your review is too kind, really is! Glad you had a great time with it. Certainly makes all the hard work more than worthwhile ;)
 

LastSurvivor

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A huge thank you to fanzy24 for his very kind review for this edit. Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for taking the time for contributing a review :)
 

NewSpock

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Wow, this was a nice edit, thanks LastSurvivor! I always liked the movie in the original, and felt it was a bit underrated, but found the references to the other Bond disturbing, I'm glad you took out all of those. Mind you, it's years ago, that I watched the original, so my memory is not perfect regarding every scene...

I loved that you brought Tracy into the focus of the movie, by reducing Bond's excessive promiscuity and by removing some of the plot regarding Blofeld (in that regard his character and role took a bit the backseat, but I didn't mind, as I just wanted to see how it went with Tracy, as she is such a magnetic Bondgirl).

So, in a sense, this is a very different Bond movie, it's not about saving the world or defeating the villain, that is only the sidestory, instead it's about saving Bond's love-life, he starts to get doubts and searching for something else besides his secret mission work, beside killing and having a jetlife. All that because he met a woman that is finally his match, his soulmate. And she, who has contempt for life and does everything to end it, finally finds something to live for after gotten to know Bond, she develops a hope for a future.

Very romantic and beautiful, and Louis Armstrong's song "We have all the time in the world" (this reminds me to buy a collection of his work, Armstrong has such a haunting voice) perfectly accompanies this throughout the movie to the sad and heartbreaking end (thanks for exchanging the credits-music with Armstrong's song, fits much better (though strangely it's in both audio-tracks for the credits, I thought one of them was the original one).

I love how Lazenby plays Bond in that heartbreaking end-scene and what he says, it's not possible to do it better, an ending worth to be part of cinematic history.

But I had wished so strongly for Bond and Tracy to have their happy ending. So for my private enjoyment, I edited this fanedit to have an alternative ending, a happy ending (where Blofeld is dead), which ends with Bond saying "We have all the time in the world", and then a car from behind with young folk honks, and Tracy laughs and then a slow fade to black, with the only audio a part of the intrumental version of the Armstrong-song.

With that happy ending, it means it's the last Bond-movie (as he leaves his job behind).

But back to the edit at hand: Very well edited, love it. The only things I wished were better:
1. The dining-scene with the girls should have been longer, as it wasn't established that Bond played that he were gay.
2. The credits in the beginning show scenes from older Bond-movies, which detracts a little bit.

9/10.
 

LastSurvivor

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My thanks to anarchemist and dominiccobb for the most recent reviews.... too kind guys. Glad you had so much fun.

Oh, and I can't believe I never thanked Newspock for his review either! Really sorry.
 

YOMAMAGOKABOOM

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From what I can see, this looks like a good Bond spy film without the goofiness that the filmmakers wanted to introduce in the series. I appreciate that there is a cut like this out there since I enjoy OHMSS a lot, but only the good serious parts which bring it closer to the book!
 

LastSurvivor

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YOMAMAGOKABOOM said:
From what I can see, this looks like a good Bond spy film without the goofiness that the filmmakers wanted to introduce in the series. I appreciate that there is a cut like this out there since I enjoy OHMSS a lot, but only the good serious parts which bring it closer to the book!

Thanks :) As everyone knows, I'm a huge fan of the Fleming books, so hopefully you'll like this cut even more than the theatrical one. Having said that, there's still some goofiness in there ;)
 

YOMAMAGOKABOOM

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Before seeing SPECTRE, I watched Quantum of Solace: Bond's Revenge and I have to say that the whole movie is SO much better now and ties in a heck of a lot better with the new movie with the edit you made. Finally, an actual Quantum of Solace that is watchable in my James Bond collection. Thanks so much for doing the fan edits!

Also, have you seen SPECTRE and are you thinking of doing a Blu Ray version of the Bond edits?
 

LastSurvivor

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YOMAMAGOKABOOM said:
Before seeing SPECTRE, I watched Quantum of Solace: Bond's Revenge and I have to say that the whole movie is SO much better now and ties in a heck of a lot better with the new movie with the edit you made. Finally, an actual Quantum of Solace that is watchable in my James Bond collection. Thanks so much for doing the fan edits!

Also, have you seen SPECTRE and are you thinking of doing a Blu Ray version of the Bond edits?

Sorry for taking so long to notice and reply to this post! Glad you enjoyed QOS... As for an edit on Spectre? Maybe yes. Time will tell ;)

Bit thanks too to thecuddlyninja, BillyBumbags and Vultural for the most recent reviews. Much appreciated as always.
 

Vultural

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It was highly enjoyable, LS, and I listened to the entire commentary.
Much appreciated.
 

A Sled in Flames

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Relatively new here but I must say what a wonderful edit! I love OHMSS, as it is to death, but you really trimmed the fat off it (and there is quite a bit). Coming off of seeing the absolutely atrocious SPECTRE, this is what Bond should be.

I know you also did Quantum of Solace a few years back, an equally wonderful edit. Are you considering doing any more Bond? I'd be intrigued in a Diamonds Are Forever sequel to this... but I'm not sure there's not enough material to be salvaged.
 
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