The poetry that Tracy quotes to Blofeld ('Thy dawn, O Master of the World, thy dawn ... ') is derived from a speech in James Elroy Flecker's play, 'The Story of Hassan of Bagdad and How He Came to Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand'.
The producers originally intended to explain the change of lead actors in the film by saying that Bond had undergone plastic surgery because his "old" face was now too well known by foreign spies and terrorists for him to go undercover, but they then decided not to refer at all to the change, and thus hopefully minimize the public attention being paid to George Lazenby replacing Sean Connery. However, after the opening action sequence, right before the titles, Bond states "This never happened to the other fellow," an intentionally comedic reference to the change in actors.
The revolving restaurant shown in the movie (on the mountain called Schilthorn above Muerren, Switzerland) has monitors which play continuous loops of the ski scenes featuring the location.
The Royal World Premiere of On Her Majesty's Secret Service was held on Thursday 18 December 1969 at the Odeon Theatre, Leicester Square, London in the presence of the 'Duke of Kent' and the Duchess of Kent. George Lazenby attended the event sporting a beard.
The stock car rink had to be specially constructed by flooding a flat field with water and then freezing it.
The theme "We Have All the Time in the World" was the last thing that Louis Armstrong ever recorded - he died two years later.
The title lent itself to a role-playing board game "James Bond 007: Role-Playing In Her Majesty's Secret Service" in 1983 and was produced up until 1987. It was released by Avalon Books' Victory Games and was designed by Gerard Christopher Klug. The cover art picture of James Bond was not based on George Lazenby but was an amalgam of the likeness of both Sean Connery and Roger Moore and most closely resembled the poster for The Spy Who Loved Me. The last three digits of its game book rules' ISBN were 007.
There are many reasons why George Lazenby only made one appearance as James Bond. According to the DVD Documentary, here are some of the main reasons: 1. Lazenby's youthful cockiness rankled Albert R. Broccoli's nerves. One incident mentioned is Lazenby skiing down the slopes on his own (resulting in the broken arm) and a moment of arrogance on Lazenby's part that spoiled a cast and crew party. 2. The notoriously harsh British tabloids writing up unfavorable stories about Lazenby and how he fails to measure up to Sean Connery, thereby swaying public opinion against the movie before it was released. One incident cited by Lazenby was during an interview with a reporter in the commissary in which Diana Rigg jokingly yelled from across the room "I'm having garlic for lunch, darling! I hope you are too!" This lead to an article in which Rigg supposedly hated Lazenby so much that "She eats garlic before love scenes". 3. Lazenby, believed that the Bond series was over in the wake of more sophisticated films like The Graduate and Easy Rider, and the tuxedo-clad secret agent was out of touch with the newly liberated 1970s
This is one of the most faithful adaptations of an Ian Fleming novel; virtually everything in the book occurs in the film. Staying so close to the source actually caused some continuity problems due to the different order of the films. For example, in this film Bond and Blofeld seem to be meeting for the first time, despite having met face-to-face in the film version of You Only Live Twice. Some details are different: Count Bleauville is changed to Count Bleauchamp, and Ruby Windsor becomes Ruby Barrett. The situations of Bond's taking a leave of absence, and his discovery by Blofeld, are different. Tracy is not kidnapped. Blofeld is completely different is appearance to Telly Savalas, being described as having long silvery-white hair, an aquiline nose, a wrinkled forehead, a slender body, a nostril that has been eaten away by tertiary syphilis, and no earlobes. Savalas's Blofeld has none of these features - he doesn't even have a European accent. However, his earlobes were clipped back to serve a plot element.
This was the longest Bond film, at 140 minutes, until the appearance of Casino Royale in 2006 which runs 4 minutes longer.
Vehicles included James Bond's dark green 1969 Aston Martin DBS (not to be confused with a DB5); Tracy's red 1969 Ford Mercury Cougar convertible; Draco's Rolls-Royce Corniche Mulliner Park Ward Drophead Coupé; 007 ascends to Piz Gloria in a Bell 206 JetRanger helicopter; a Mercedes sedan and Irma Bunt's pursuing black Mercedes-Benz 600; three Bell 204 HUEY helicopters with dummy Red Cross markings for the attack on Piz Gloria; a cable car to Piz Gloria; two bobsleds; and various stock cars in the stock car rally.
Whereas ads for You Only Live Twice loudly touted "Sean Connery IS James Bond", the marketing for On Her Majesty's Secret Service downplayed the name of the replacement actor completely. This is the first and only time that the name of the actor playing Bond appears below the title, and in several of the ads for the film, there is an image of a faceless Bond. Since George Lazenby was a virtual unknown when he was cast as Bond, initial teaser advertising for the film emphasized the Bond character rather than the actor playing him. United Artists would later say that this marketing strategy was a mistake which hurt the film's performance at the box office.
Whilst cracking open a safe in a Swiss lawyer's office, Bond reads a copy of "Playboy". This is a nod to the fact that "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" first appeared in "Playboy". "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was the first Ian Fleming's James Bond novels to be serialized in the magazine, appearing in the May 1963 issue of "Playboy". It was followed by a serialized, shortened version of the novel You Only Live Twice (not the film version) in the April 1964 issue. The issue in the film is February 1969 featuring centerfold Lorrie Menconi (the cover of the magazine and the top part of her centerfold can be seen).
Winter sports seen in the movie included downhill skiing, bobsled toboggan, ice-skating, stock car racing on ice and curling, the last item being played on the top deck of Piz Gloria.
George Leech:
The stuntman as a strangled SPECTRE skier.
Peter R. Hunt:
is seen, although obscurely, directly following the opening credits. In the bottom left hand corner of the Universal Exports brass plaque, he is seen reflected whilst walking past the building.
Richard Graydon:
The stuntman as Draco's driver