“OHMSS50”: Pictures from Mürren, Lauterbrunnen and Bern (2019)
2019 marks the 50-year anniversary of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (EON 1969).
The following photo report concludes our coverage of the unofficial fan event "OHMSS50". Bond•O•Rama was invited to participate in the second half of the celebration that took place at and around Piz Gloria in Switzerland from May 31 to June 2, 2019.
Much of the location shooting of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was centered around the Schilthorn Peak in the Bernese Alps. From October 1968 to June 1969, EON Productions set up base in the nearby Alpine village of Mürren, 1638 metres above sea level.
Mürren was then, and still is, a car-free zone. The OHMSS50 arrangers did however manage to transport a 1970 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow up into the village via cable car. A private chauffeur drove the VIP guests back and forth between Hotel Eiger and the Schilthorn cable car station (which amounts to a ten minute-walk). In this photo, George Lazenby is being guarded by SPECTRE henchmen in orange jackets.
A nice touch: Blofeld's white cat lies in the back of the Rolls Royce.
Michael Häckl from the website 007collector.com is pointing out the location where EON Productions built their own church tower in 1968 because they found the actual church in Mürren to be rather unspectacular. The establishing shots featuring the tower were never used in the final film but for a while the structure remained a popular playground for the village kids who enjoyed jumping from the tower and into the snow. Today the square lies next to Café Liv.
At the base of the Allmendhubel mountain, the Bond fans managed to find the remains of the bobsled run where Bond and Blofeld fight it out in the film's climactic action sequence. The run was closed down after a lethal accident in 1930 and has only been re-opened for filming purposes in 1969.
A hitherto unknown Danish connection can be found on the walls of Hotel Eiger's Tächi Bar where the stuntmen enjoyed many a fun-filled evening back in 1968-69. Famed Danish journalist and travelogue author Hakon Mielche happened to visit Mürren while EON Productions were preparing for the shoot in the summer of 1968. His experience inspired this humorous depiction of the Mönch (meaning Monk in German), Jungfrau (Virgin) and Schilthorn peaks.
At 10am on Sunday June 2, the VIP guests gathered for an autograph session at the Hotel Eiger. George Lazenby's signature was of course the most sought after and thus more expensive than the others at €30 a piece (everyone else charged €15-20).
A Japanese Bond fan residing in Paris got George Lazenby to sign the sleeve for the Japanese soundtrack LP as well as the February 1969 issue of Playboy which Bond/Lazenby enjoys reading while cracking the safe in Gumbold's office.
Steven Saltzman, son of OHMSS co-producer Harry Saltzman, was greatly amused when a fan brought a pin-up centrefold (from Ciné-Télé-Revue Magazine #45, 1970) to be signed by Helena Ronee who played the Israeli girl in "OHMSS".
Lauterbrunnen
Disguised as Sir Hilary Bray, James Bond 007 arrives by train in the village of Lauterbrunnen, 802 metres above sea level. Even today, travelling to Piz Gloria with the Swiss railways will only take you as far as Lauterbrunnen. You will need to take the cable car to Grütschalp and the funicular railway to Mürren to get further up the mountain.
The kiosk at the Lauterbrunnen central station doesn't look the same as when Agent Campbell (Bernard Horsfall) kept an eye on 007 (George Lazenby) in 1968. But it's still there, and the platform is also recognizable from the film.
In "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" Bond is picked up by Irma Bunt when he arrives in Lauterbrunnen. They leave the train station by horse carriage followed by Campbell in his VW Beetle. The exit ramp from the station is narrower today than when the scene was shot in 1968.
Tracy (Diana Rigg) is driving the red Mercury Cougar as she and Bond shake off their pursuers in this U-turn which is just up the road from Lauterbrunnen's railway station.
On this elevated parking lot across the road from Hotel Jungfrau, EON Productions installed two temporary phone booths for the scene in which Bond makes a desperate phone call. He escapes down the stairs when he is shot at by Irma Bunt and Blofeld's goons. By the way, the horse driver passing by in the background is the same one who drove George Lazenby and Ilse Steppat (Irma Bunt) in the film.
A surprise was waiting on the grounds of local helicopter company Air Glaciers. Four European Bond fans had driven their lovingly restored replicas of Bond cars to the valley of Lauterbrunnen for this event. From the left: Lotus Esprit S1 ("The Spy Who Loved Me"), Aston Martin DB5 ("Goldfinger" and others) and Lotus Turbo Esprit ("For Your Eyes Only"). Incidentally, the helicopter landing site is located right next to the meadow which EON transformed into a temporary race track for the "OHMSS" stock-car scenes.
Two Danish James Bond fans pose next to an original 1965 Aston Martin DB5. The car is owned by Steffen Appel who was Barbara Broccoli's Austrian driver during the shooting of "SPECTRE".
German Bond car enthusiast Hansi Zweigle spent three years rebuilding this Lotus Turbo Esprit into an exact copy of Roger Moore's car from "For Your Eyes Only". He even had the skis specially made for his car which is painted in a colour called "Fire Copper Metallic".
The fourth car on show was Tracy's 1969 Mercury Cougar XR-7 from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".
Bond•O•Rama's Brian Iskov behind the wheel of Tracy's 1969 Mercury Cougar XR-7.
Lotus Esprit S1 as seen in "The Spy Who Loved Me" (EON 1977). This particular item has been signed by several Bond stars including Roger Moore whose signature is said to have raised the car's value immensely. Caroline Munro (Naomi in "TSWLM") and Swiss actor Anatole Taubman (Elvis in "Quantum of Solace") also put their name on the hood which the car's owner Gernot Wolf assures us has been heavily lacquered to keep the writing from coming off in a car wash.
A lot of fans enjoyed posing with a rubber gun in the Lotus Esprit S1. But how did the fish get in there?
Bern
The nearest larger city to Mürren is the federal capital of Bern which plays a small but important role in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". For the sequence in which Bond breaks into Gumbold's office, exteriors were shot around the central square now called Bahnhofplatz.
The entrance to Gumbold's (fictional) law firm is located between a pharmacy and a café at Bollwerk 15.
A few yards away Bond steps out onto this balcony to receive a suitcase from Campbell containing a combined Xerox machine and safe cracker. The balcony is located on the fourth floor of the Hotel Schweizerhof.
Bond and Campbell both glance nervously at the clock tower of the Heiliggeistkirche at the end of the square. The building site seen in the film is now the central railway station.
A closer look at the Heiliggeistkirche clock tower as seen in "OHMSS".
Thanks to Jan Mouritzen and Joy Eastwood Mouritzen.
