OHMSS is largely considered to be one of the best and most essential films of the James Bond series. It is also my personal favorite and it has been since the first time I saw it. However there seems to be a time where this film wasn’t as highly regarded as it eventually became. And before people were able to watch films at home on VHS there seems to be a period where OHMSS became sort of the forgotten Bond, with Lazenby’s short tenure squeezed between Connery’s and Moore’s long tenures. It wasn’t well remembered by fans and even ignored for a time by the filmmakers.
But I’m often wondering, how true is this exactly?
Let’s first look at the audience. It is much harder to get a clear picture here, as this was a time before the internet where you can read people’s thoughts and opinions on movies everywhere. Yes box office wise, it clearly wasn’t as succesful. Not that it was really unsuccesful of course. I have done some research recently into the numbers and even the lowest grossing Bond films were still all-time box office hits. But then again, this was to be expected. Lazenby was the first actor to replace another as Bond, only 2 years after YOLT. And let’s not forget that it was already known that Lazenby would not continue when OHMSS was released. And of course the critics were very mixed on it, but that’s pretty much a guarantee with Bond films, and beside my point. I’m curious about what people who actually did go see it in the theatres thought, especially fans of Fleming’s books seeing as the film is very faithful to the novel.
Then the filmmakers. A common narrative seems to be that the events of OHMSS were ignored in the early 70’s Bond films, before it being mentioned and inspiring some elements in TSWLM and subsequent other films. But was that really the case?
Take this teaser trailer for DAF for example. It uses the OHMSS version of the James Bond theme which played at the end of that film and it is specifically about Bond’s hunt for Blofeld. Looking at this, it looks as if they’re marketing the film as a revenge themed adventure.
Of course the final film has little to do with OHMSS, and could be seen as a sequel to YOLT depening on how you interpret it (which I think is what they were going for with DAF, it being up to the audience’s imagination). But this trailer always fascinates me in that regard.
Then there are the LALD trailers and every trailer uses the OHMSS rendition of the Bond theme, such as this one:
Now here it doesn’t really seem to mean much. It could be seen as a nod to OHMSS, or it could just be seen as them reusing one of the better renditions of the Bond theme.
But perhaps the most fascinating is this TMWTGG poster. Which shows villains from previous Bond films, including of course Blofeld. But interestingly enough, from all the versions of Blofeld they could’ve chosen they went with Savalas’ version from OHMSS. They could’ve gone neutral with the faceless man with a cat, or Pleasence’s arguably most recognized version, or Gray’s being the most recent version. But they went with the OHMSS Blofeld.
Of course after this OHMSS would clearly ‘‘return’’ as this important part of Bond’s past in subsequent Bond films: TSWLM, FYEO, LTK, TWINE and it was even orginally planned to be mentoined by Alec Trevelyan in GE. It would also inspire a lot of future Bond films in different ways, such as Bond becoming a bit more ‘‘human’’ during the 80’s, snow action, or focusing more on the emotional side of the character during the Brosnan and especially the Craig era.
But I do wonder if OHMSS being the forgotten not highly regarded Bond film for years is actually fully true, or just simply a perspective of a time where the media and critics decided the general narrative rather than the fans. It’s interesting that they would market some films that followed it with these nods and that they would use it as Bond’s ‘‘backstory’’ after that.
But perhaps, it’s better to ask this to people who actually were around during those times before the films would be released for home entertainment. 
