JAMES BOND
NEWS

From Portugal, the celebrity and tour guests flew to Switzerland to take part in the second weekend of events celebrating the 50th Anniversary of On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). Staying at the Hotel Schweizerhof in Bern afforded George Lazenby the opportunity to visit the very room he filmed in half a century ago. The hotel balcony was used as the exterior location of Gumbold's offices and the scene where where James Bond receives the safe-cracking device provided by Campbell (Bernard Horsfall), which enables him to track down Blofeld (Telly Savalas) and uncover his plans to become the Count De Bleauchamp. The Hotel Schweizerhof is clearly proud of its On Her Majesty's Secret Service connection and a plaque inside identifies the room used for the filming in 1969; the buildings opposite the hotel balcony can clearly be seen under construction in the film.

Joining George Lazenby and Terence Mountain in Switzerland were four of Blofeld's ‘Angels of Death’ - actresses Sylvana Henriques (The Jamaican Girl), Catherine Schell (Nancy), Jenny Hanley (The Irish Girl) and Helena Ronee (The Israeli Girl) [not pictured].

After a stay at the Hotel Alpenruh in Mürren on June 1st, celebrity and tour guests made their way high up into the alps to the celebrated Piz Gloria revolving restaurant, built by the production crew for the filming of On Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1968. After a brief stop off at Birg (the cable-car station seen in the film and where Campbell [Bernard Horsfall] is prevented from travelling any further by Blofeld's guard Yuri Borienko), the guests arrived at the top of the Schilthorn mountain which has traded on its 007 connection ever since the filming of the sixth James Bond adventure. Originally named ‘Piz Gloria’ by Ian Fleming in his 1963 novel, the restaurant adopted the name of Blofeld's mountain-top hideout after filming, and is still a popular tourist attraction. Celebrations continued at a press reception held inside the revolving restaurant where several more Bond alumni attended, including Helena Ronee (Israeli Girl), John Glen (2nd unit director, editor, director of five Bond films), Steven Saltzman (son of producer Harry Saltzman), Terry Ackland-Snow (draftsman/art department), Erich Glavitza (stock care race coordinator and driver), Stefan Zürcher (stuntman/ski double), Eddie Stacey (stuntman), and Vic Armstrong (stuntman & 2nd unit director).

Tour guests to OHMSS50 were also given spectacular helicopter rides around Piz Gloria as George Lazenby and the celebrities were interviewed by ‘distinguished representatives of the world press’.

The evening of Saturday June 1, 2019 at Piz Gloria concluded with a celebration dinner in the revolving restaurant. All credit to Martijn Mulder and his team (including Anders Frejdh and Markus Hartmann) for organising such a spectacular event which really lived up to the films' tag-line ‘Far Up! Far Out! Far More!’

OHMSS50 memorably brought together cast and crew for an exclusive fan celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Peter Hunt's majestic On Her Majesty's Secret Service, made even more special by the attendance of George Lazenby, who returned to the filming locations of his only James Bond film, and even managed to recreate some of the scenes with co-star Terence Mountain. From the gardens of the Hotel Palácio in Estoril, to Blofeld's mountaintop hideout at Piz Gloria, via a roadside in Lisbon, OHMSS50 really did have all the time in the world to make the event one to remember for all who attended.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service FACT FILE