It could be that both women came at the right time in his life, and were an excuse to leave behind a cursed life. In CR he’s doing so while there’s still a soul left to salvage. And in OHMSS, he’s already neck deep into a career and subconsciously has probably had enough. Their deaths confirm he only has ‘the job’ and try as he might, he can’t escape it.
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I like the scene in LTK where he gets funny about catching the garter ,and Felix mentions he was married once,but a long time ago…
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OHMSS has always been a fascinating entry in the series and one of the aspects I find interesting is the regard is held in nowadays by many ‘serious’ Bond fans versus how it’s viewed by more casual Bond fans.
I saw OHMSS a few years ago in a cinema with an audience and the reactions were interesting. I’d say the majority were casual Bond fans (after all you have to be something of a fan to go see an entry from 1969), but this was their first, or perhaps first in many years, viewing of it.
It was all quite well received until we arrived at Piz Gloria. From there the audience seemed to turn. The Angels of Death and that plot line were treated with laughter and smirks. The aforementioned womanising lost any audience investment in Bond and Tracy’s relationship, and the saxophone(?) musical cue brought about fits of laughs. The dinner scene, in particular the food that ‘The Jamaican Girl’ was given, brought about audible disgust, as did Draco knocking out Tracy. It seemed that from Piz Gloria the audience was lost and turned on the film in a mixture of amusement at its ridiculousness and disgust at its ‘sensibilities’. Tracy’s death seemed to hit the audience for a moment, but the general consensus was poor her, but Bond didn’t deserve her anyway.
After the film someone commented that it “was very Austin Powers” with the Angels of Death plot and the rampant womanising whilst being in love.
This reaction is why I never choose to show it to people I’m introducing to the Bond films. As an introduction to the series I think it could turn a lot of people off, or just confuse them. Indeed it even took many of the Bond fandom a while to warm to and appreciate it.
Personally, I love the film and it’s magnificent in a cinema, but it was interesting hearing the opinions and general bewilderment from more casual fans. Many were quite shocked to hear I rated it as one of my favourites.
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As you say, very interesting.
Lots of those reactions are perfectly understandable, lots of them would happen with every movie that is decades old, due to changing perspectives and narrative conventions.
But the guy giving the Austin Powers remark was clearly going in planning to say that in order to get a laugh and feel superior to this Bond nonsense.
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It’s like the guy on Twitter who keeps popping up to say how Bruce Wayne could fix Gotham with his money rather than dressing as a Bat.
He thinks he’s being clever, it’s just followed by awkward silence.
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