MIGROS – BRAVE AS JAMES BOND

Migros Weekly Members Newspaper Clipping (4 Pages) December 5, 2011 On A Ski Tour From The Valais And The Bernese Oberland, You Pass One Of The Sets Of The James Bond Film “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” From 1969. But Bond Actor Lazenby Himself Was Not There – He Was Represented By A Double. “Ratatatatata”… Meters High, The Snow Flies Up – Whipped Up By The Bullets That Missed The Man In Blue Overalls On The Skis. Then Followed The Skier Jumps Daringly Over A Serac – A Tower Of Glacial Ice. The Man With The Funny Suit, Laced Boots And Stocking Cap Is Bond, James Bond. So,No, Actually It’s Leitner Luggi – German Combined World Champion Of 1964

For Tschingelfirn, The Location Of This Scene, Our Group Of Four Starts With A Mountain Guide At Nine O’Clock In The Morning Ski Lauchernalp Lötschental. We Have Taken The First Gondola And Our 29 Year Old Mountain Guide Stef Urfer, From The Bernese Oberland, Makes From The Beginning Pace

The Sun Beats Down From The Sky, It’s Warm. After About An Hour To Climb With The Skins On The Skis, We Reach A 35 Degree Steep Slope Where It Goes In Zickack Up. Here One Should Master The Hairpin – Not So Easy With The Running Bond. If Done Incorrectly, The Tip Remains Stuck In The Snow, Then It Means Choking And Keep The Balance Standing On One Ski. Anyone Who Falls Into This Steep Slope Begins Again From The Very Best, At The Bottom

Once At The Top, The Sweat Running In Streams. But For A Real Break, We Have No Time. We Put One Foot Before The Other And Thus Only Traverse The Tennbach, Then The Telli Glacier. There Is A Short Descent, We Must Work Off Our Feet, The Height On The Opposite Slope Again. After Two Hours, The One Run On Us, So To Speak On The Gums – Is A Constant Of The Pulse At The 160th – We have Only Done About Half Of The Climb. The Beats On The Psyche. What Does Not Help, Are A Crack and Later A Distant “Wumm” Sounds – Evidence That Doing Something Bad In The Snow Cover.

A Good Four Hours We Are On The Road, As We Past The Seemingly Endless Climb To The Highest Point Of Our Tour, The 3202 Meter High Petersgrat To Finally Put Behind Us. Here We Must Rest For At Least 20 minutes And Look Around. It’s Worth It. The Panorama Is Simply Breathtaking – Not That It Would Be With Us Much As To Rob. We Marvel At Rest, And Enjoy: The Imposing Bietschhorn Dominates The Other Side Of The Valley, South And West We Look Across The Lake To The Valais Alps Mont Blanc Massif And The North Looms The Blüemlisalp.

What Follows Is The Appropriate Compensation For A Large Part Of Our Effort: The Descent Down The Glacier Towards Stechelberg And Lauterbrunnen. The Snow Is Deep And Wonderful Powdery. At Every Turn We Have A Sink And Come Through Our Ski Lift Back Up. So We Like Curves On White Waves Over The Wonderfully Inclined Slopes.

The Scene With The Jumps Over The Crevasses Had Been Shot Near The Matterhorn Hut, I Told The Retired Ski Instructor Albert Feuz From Mürren In Researching A Film Shoot.

The Then 26-Year-Old Was 1968 Extra On The Set And Cooked At The Hotel Jungfrau In Mürren, The Film Crew. All Skiers Scenes Of James Bond Had Been Doubled By Ski Champions Luggi Leitner, Feuz Told. The Former Bond Actor George Lazenby Was Never Even On The Glacier, Was Rumored To Be, During The Filming Never Even On Skis. Had Noticed Him Unpleasant Lazenby, Feuz Told Further: “The Was Pretty Blase.” Were At All The Many Parties In Mürren For The Villagers Were Getting Used To. “Once The Film Crew Wanted A Kilo Of Caviar,” Recalled Feuz. “That We Had To Get A Helicopter In Zürich.”

More Than 40 Years Have Passed Since The Shooting, Which Is Apparent To Us By The Fact That At The Former Location, There Are Now No More Crevasses. The Glacier Retreat Is A Reality. We Drive On. What Follows Are Some Fairly Long Traverses Through Exposed Slopes. Again And Again We Have To Walk Short Distances Or Even In The Stair Step Climb To The Top. The Feet Hurt In Hard Shoes, But The Further We Go Down, The Scarcer It Is With The Snow. In Places, We Have To Carry The Skis. From The Binding, The Binding of The Binding – The Exhausting

After A Good Eight Hours And Only A Few Breaks Our Energy Reserves Are Equal To Zero, As We Arrive In The Hamlet Trachsellauenen. From Here We Would Have To March For Lack Of Snow Nearly 45 Minutes To Stechelberg. Luckily, A Taxi Is Waiting, The Mountain Guide Who Organized Stef. To Us, The Taxi Drivers Like The Savior. The Processing Of This Tour Will Occupy Us For Some Days – And Always Remain Less Than Drudgery In Memory, But As Hellishly Beautiful Adventure – No Caviar And No Doubles

MIGROS MAG, SWITZERLAND 2011

Various Clippings Overview

Categories: 007 - 4 George Lazenby, 1969 On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Actors, Bondfilmlocations, Clippings/Flyer/Tickets, Films, Memorabilia, Specials