WHO SAW HER DIE? (1972) - George Lazenby???

[The Burgomaster]

George Lazenby, who just a few years earlier had starred as James Bond in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, went to Venice, Italy to star in this decent giallo film.  It's interesting to see Adolfo Celi from THUNDERBALL in this movie, too.

The widescreen Anchor Bay DVD has excellent video and audio quality.

First of all, the movie is pretty distracting for the following reasons:

* Lazenby looks like hell.  Sort of gaunt and tired, like he spent most of his time after ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE drinking and taking drugs.

* Lazenby's dialogue is dubbed by an American actor, which is distracting and annoying.

* Lazenby has a typical "early 1970s" haircut (with big sideburns) and a mustache.  He looks sort of like a cross between Sonny Bono and George Harrison.


The movie has some nice visuals and a haunting musical score (it sounds like a choir of children singing, but then the sound engineers sort of overlapped the vocals multiple times to create an eerie effect).  Unfortunately, the movie never reaches a level of drama or suspense that would raise it higher than "decent" status.  I never really felt emotionally drawn into Lazenby's grief over the loss of his daughter.  In fact, he spends more time running through the streets of Venice looking for her killer than he spends mourning her death.

INTERESTING SPECIAL FEATURE:  The DVD includes an interview with Aldo Lado, the director.  He says that ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman deducted all of Lazenby's expenses (hotel and stuff) from his paycheck and he ended up with no money from his one-and-only Bond movie.

[Shadowphile]

He should have paid for the privledge of being Bond.  He sucked.....

[The Burgomaster]

I'll take Lazenby over Roger Moore (the clown prince of spies) any day.

[trekgeezer]

I have to agree with you Burgo. I read a story one time that Cubby Broccoli met George Lazenby in a barber shop and instantly wanted him as Bond. He supposedly like him so much he gave Lazenby his watch.

Supposedly Moore was the producers first choice for Bond, but he was making The Saint on tv and was not available for Dr. No.  

I' ve always wondered what would have happened if Connery had not come back for Diamonds Are Forever.

[LH-C]

I haven't seen 'Who Saw Her Die?' since I bought the DVD (in the 4 movie set) a few years ago. I remember liking it quite a bit, and yeah Lazenby looks like hell.

[Shadowphile]

Discussing Bond is like discussing religion or politics.  It's bound to start fights.

 Moore rocked.

[The Burgomaster]

Morre was good in his first couple of Bond movies, but after that he acted more like a fussy hairdresser than a spy.

[Ozzymandias]

I LIKE ROGER MOORE! He was the best visual Saint (Vinnie Price wins the audio divsion.)

Find a George Lazenby film called DRAGONFLIES. Kind of Bruce Lee meets James Bond with a Wings-sound alike group called doing the theme song (which was a Top 10 hit) "Skyhigh."

[The Burgomaster]

I remember when "Sky High" was a popular song.  In fact, I have it on a best of the '70s compilation CD.  The name of the band was JIGSAW.

[Ozzymandias]

Sorry, I thought I mentioned that in my post, but I guess I left that out. Yeah, that song is on one of the Have a Nice Day CDs and several other 70s compilations. I remember it being a recurrent song on Top 40 radio in the 80s. It was one of those songs that was bigger that the movie.