1964 | Dir. Guy Hamilton | 110 Minutes
"Man has climbed Mount Everest, gone to the bottom of the ocean. He's fired rockets at the Moon, split the atom, and achieved miracles in every field of human endeavor... except crime!"
Under orders from M, James Bond investigates and repeatedly foils the schemes of wealthy businessman Auric Goldfinger. As Goldfinger conducts an elaborate daylight heist at Fort Knox, Bond must stop the villain's plot while he holds the MI6 agent in captivity.
Replacing Terrence Young, director Guy Hamilton's Goldfinger firmly establishes the whimsical elements of the Eon Productions' James Bond pictures. It is a fantastical adventure film that tilts decidedly away from the espionage trappings of From Russia with Love and into full-blown action. Many aspects of the picture are nonsensical but highly entertaining, from Goldfinger's unfortunate assistant Jill Masterson implausibly suffocating from having her entire body coated with gold paint to Korean strongman Oddjob wielding a derby hat with a metal rim as a deadly weapon. Even John Barry's fun if overblown score matches the bombast of the picture.
The set pieces featured in Goldfinger are as iconic as they get for the franchise. Particularly memorable sequences include Goldfinger's interrogation of Bond while the spy is strapped onto a slab of solid gold as a deadly industrial laser beam inches towards his crotch and the epic Operation Grand Slam sequence that culminates with Bond's literally electrifying showdown with Oddjob. The film also features Chinese mercenaries in inauthentic cheap-looking uniforms, stunning blonde female stunt pilots, and stereotypical American mob bosses who don't serve much of a purpose beyond expanding the scale and elaborate plot of the villain's Operation Grand Slam.
In his third appearance as James Bond, Sean Connery is as suave and confident as ever though it's a shame that his take on Bond is characterized with less depth as well. Despite having his dialogue dubbed over by an English stage actor, Gert Fröbe is magnificent as the greedy and dishonest titular adversary. Honor Blackman plays Pussy Galore, the first of the women-of-action James Bond love interest archetypes, with style and grace. Professional American wrestler Harold Sakata makes Oddjob one of the very best henchmen of the franchise by bringing his excellent physicality and an abundance of personality to the role. Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell once again appear briefly as M and Moneypenny, and Desmond Llewelyn makes his second appearance as Q, amusingly cementing the character as MI6's humorless the quartermaster. The cast also features lovely English models Shirley Eaton and Tania Mallet appearing as the doomed Masterson sisters, and Canadian actor Cec Linder replacing Jack Lord as Felix Leiter.
Eon's third James Bond production sets the standard tonal baseline and story structure for the films that follow it, more fantastical and significantly less grounded than From Russia with Love. Despite its dated style and some questionable thematic sensibilities, Goldfinger is nonetheless an exemplary paradigm of the franchise that is immensely entertaining.
THE COLD OPEN
It's pure genius that Goldfinger begins with an explosive James Bond adventure that plays like the climax of another film altogether. It's pretty much the perfect cold open for a Bond film serving up a jolt of quick satisfying action before the main event.
THE THEME SONG AND OPENING TITLES
Shirley Bassey's "Goldfinger", the first in a long line of theme songs to play over a James Bond opening title sequence, is fantastic and still one of the best songs of the series. The sequence itself designed by Robert Brownjohn featuring models painted gold with film scenes reflecting off their skin is stylish, provocative, and absolutely iconic.
THE BOND GIRL
Pussy Galore is the strongest and most capable of Bond's love interests yet but it's implausibly for a woman like her to fall for the secret agent and turn against her employer after a literal and proverbial roll in the hay. Also, her name is unfortunate and completely at odds with the no-nonsense nature of her character
THE BOND VILLAIN
It's refreshing that Auric Goldfinger is simply a madman with abundant resources and an ambitious plan, motivated not by any political belief or misguided principal but just to make a name for himself in the annals of criminal achievement. Conversely, it's also quite satisfying to see Bond stop a cheater like Goldfinger over and over again.
FEATURED HENCHMAN
With his deadly hat and menacing smile, Oddjob is one of the most iconic and memorable henchmen of the series. Unfortunately, Oddjob also reinforces the general stereotype of the evil foreign "other."
FEATURED GADGET
Bond's tricked out Aston Martin is a riot, equipped with tire slashes, armored plates, machine guns, and, most memorably, an ejector seat. After introducing this imaginative vehicle, the series would never be the same.
FLEMING FIDELITY
This adaptation of the seventh installment in Ian Fleming's series is faithful to the major plot points of its source material while making several key changes. In the 1959 novel, Bond first encounters Auric Goldfinger while off-duty and spies on him at the request of Junius Du Pont who Bond befriended in 1953's Casino Royale. Goldfinger tortures Bond with a circular saw, changed to an industrial laser in the film. Pussy Galore is the leader of a gang of lesbian burglars known as the Cement Mixers, while she is the leader of squadron of female stunt pilots in the film. Despite identifying as a lesbian, Galore falls for Bond in the novel, impossibly won over by his masculinity. Operation Grand Slam is a genuine heist, while in the film Goldfinger's true intention is to irradiate the gold with a nuclear bomb. The bomb itself, supplied by a Chinese scientist is the film's way of addressing fear against Communist China's nuclear capabilities. Oddjob is sucked out of a depressurized airplane cabin and Bond strangles Goldfinger, while in the film Bond electrocutes Oddjob in Fort Knox and Goldfinger is sucked out of the airplane.
FRAGMENTS
- The producers' first choice for Auric Goldfinger was Orson Welles
- Series regular voice over artist Nikki Van der Zyl dubbed the dialogue for Jill Masterson, and she was Gert Fröbe's on-set English-language vocal coach
- At the top of the end credits, the film advertises that "James Bond will be back in 'Thunderball'"
