The Snowbound Set-Pieces Of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

The most Christmassy James Bond film to date, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), directed by Peter Hunt, spends most of its running time in stunning Alpine locations. 

Introducing George Lazenby as 007, the plot sees Bond travel to Switzerland to foil Blofeld’s (Telly Savalas) plan to blackmail world powers by using brainwashed women to act as his covert agents of biological warfare. The story became a spectacular showcase for alpine action, a series of sequences that stretched the cast and crew to the limit.

“I was supposed to be up there for three weeks and I stayed for three months,” remembered ski cameraman Willy Bogner, “so it was a great adventure.”

In 1968, Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman began an intensive location search to find Piz Gloria, Blofeld’s mountaintop stronghold in the Alps. After recces around Europe, including France, production manager Hubert Fröhlich discovered a half-completed restaurant only reachable by cable car being constructed on top of the Schilthorn mountain above the village of Mürren in Switzerland. Yet, before the production could move forward, the team had to overcome mountains of bureaucratic red tape. 

“The Swiss government turned it down initially because it would spoil the look,” said production designer Syd Cain. “I said, ‘If I build a helipad there you can use it afterwards for mountain rescue.’ So, we were allowed to go ahead and build it.”

Constructing the set in such a remote location proved a logistical challenge. Only accessible by a limited number of cable cars, the production had to wait until the daytime skiers had finished before transporting crushed rock and timber up the mountainside at night. Concrete was flown in by helicopter and poured with anti-freeze in the mixture to stop it from freezing. To power heavy-duty lights, a 20,000 amp generator was dismantled, taken up in pieces and then reassembled at the mountain top.

Director Peter Hunt and screenwriter Richard Maibaum arrived in Mürren to incorporate possibilities suggested by the location into the story. The screenplay had originally ended with a showdown on a cable car, but the idea was jettisoned after a similar sequence appeared in Where Eagles Dare. Retooling the script, Maibaum added a sequence of Bond escaping from a cable car wheelhouse on an icy cable, Bond and Countess Tracy di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg) getting caught up in a stock car race and Bond chasing Blofeld down a bob run.

As the first unit started filming at Piz Gloria, a second unit shot the two ski chase sequences as Bond, then Bond and Tracy are pursued down the mountain by Blofeld’s henchman.

“The job was to make a really exciting ski chase,” recalled Bogner. “I had made Skifascination, where we experimented with different techniques like skiing with the camera in your hands at around 60 to 70 miles per hour. I wanted to get the feeling over to the public how it is to be on the racecourse.”

While the reset time between takes meant sometimes only two runs were possible during the day. The shoot was hit by bad conditions — a helicopter broke down — and injurious setbacks: stuntman Joe Powell and Eddie Stacey fell performing a jump, tore ligaments and were taken by sled and helicopter to the hospital. Yet the obstacles didn’t dampen the team’s creativity. Bogner’s skill on skis meant he could handhold the camera, pan, film through his legs and even ski backwards. 

Other portions of the ski chase were captured by aerial cameraman Johnny Jordan, who was hanging from a parachute harness suspended under a helicopter.

“He had a virtually unobstructed 360-degree view,” recalled 2nd unit cinematographer Robin Browne. “He could be really close on skiers, then pull away and just leave them as small specks going off into the distance. It was remarkable; they were shots I don’t think had ever been achieved before.”

“I asked him, ‘What did it feel like to be hanging from there?’” recalled Peter Hunt. “He said, ‘I feel like God.’”

Following the mountainside mayhem, Bond meets Tracy in the village of Lauterbrunnen, where the couple come under attack from Blofeld’s operatives led by Irma Bunt (Ilse Steppat) in a furious car chase. To evade their assailants, Bond and Tracy swerve into a stock car race on ice. 

The sequence was inspired by Hunt and his team witnessing drivers racing on ice during a location recce. Mild weather would thaw out the race track, causing delays while the crew waited for it to re-freeze. Art Director Bob Laing needed 12 stitches after he slipped and fell, while another crew member broke a hip. But things got even more dangerous during the race itself. Stunt driver Eddie Stacey broke some ribs while overturning Irma Bunt’s Mercedes. Steel studs were attached to the car tyres, but later removed to allow the cars to slip and skid. 

“The whole idea sounds pretty terrifying but once you get in that car it doesn’t matter how much you damage the car,” said Peter Hunt. “You’re going to skid and fly all over the place. You enjoy it. Diana Rigg said it felt so good not having to worry that you’re skidding into someone or banging anyone. It’s a bit like the dodgems at a fair.”

Bond escapes Blofeld’s clutches — Tracy is captured — and leads a helicopter assault on Piz Gloria. The mountain HQ is destroyed, but Blofeld escapes in a bobsleigh with Bond on his tail. Scouting in Mürren, the team came across an abandoned bobsleigh run, discontinued for being too dangerous. The sequence was sketchily described in the script and built up by the second unit led by director John Glen. 

“We did have accidents on the bob run,” admitted Glen about putting the sequence together. “One is where Bond comes out of the bob and instead of crashing he just slid down the wall. I spoke to Peter Hunt that evening and rewrote the action script to incorporate accidents like that. I wasn’t looking for accidents, but when they happened, they were so spectacular that they had to be incorporated in the story.”

One unforeseen accident involved former bobsleigh world champion Franz Kapus hurtling toward another bob, carrying cameraman Johnny Jordan, capturing footage for front projection. As the bobs tried to avoid each other, Kapus was caught with a glancing blow, left badly bruised and taken to hospital. Later, Jordan created a flicker book out of his footage of the accident and presented it to the convalescing Kapus. “Franz would sit in the bar showing people his flicker book — which illustrated just how lucky he was,” recalled Robin Browne.

As someone once quipped, this never happened to the other fella.