Goldfinger Review
In many ways, this is "the" Bond film. This is the film where the various archetypal elements that had been on and off in the previous two films, all come together in a lightning in a bottle moment, that all subsequent films have tried to replace or subvert in order to match it. This is the film that was so popular that it broke box offices records around the world, at one point was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest grossing film of all time, and even required a cinema in a New York to remain open 24 hours a day.
The plot hews particularly close to that of the novel: through an act of happenstance, Bond becomes involved in a minor bit of card cheating by the gold magnate Auric Goldfinger, which then puts him on the road to a more significant criminal enterprise headed by the villain, which will see him travel to Switzerland, Kentucky USA and Fort Knox.
For the first time in the series, we have the true, traditional pre-credit sequence, being an isolated action sequence with no connection to the main plot of the film. And even in his first appearance in the film, you can see the tightrope balance of action and humour, with Bond infiltrating a drug production facility by sea, with a model seagull affixed to his submerged head. We get Bond peeling off a wet-suit to reveal immaculate white tuxedo, Bond casually lighting a cigarette in a bar as his bomb explodes and he remains unflappable around screaming patrons, Bond returning to woo a woman (and using her body as a shield against an assailants attack when he realises she isn't to be trusted), and a classic post-death Bond quip when he throws an electric desk fan into a bath with a goon in - "Shocking, positively shocking."
It is then on to the theme song, sung by arguably the voice of Bond, Shirley Bassey. Much like the film itself, her vocal stylings for the title music here have been continually imitated through the series, and rarely bettered (even by Bassey herself, returning for two more songs). The song itself also sets out a lyrical template for future songs to use, namely that it should really be about the villain, almost pumping up the despicableness prior to the villain even being shown to the audience.
Bond's plot starts in an odd fashion, the is often repeated in several other films. Rather than simply being assigned to the mission by M, he instead happens upon a thread of the plot by pure luck, which he then decides to unravel. Here, he is holidaying in Miami, where Felix Leiter (previously seen in Dr No) asks him to investigate Auric Goldfinger (Auric, Au as in the element for gold - get it?) who is at the same resort. Leiter suspects that Goldfinger is cheating at cards at the resort, and simply wants Bond to figure out if this is the case.
Bond investigates, and because he is Bond he also involves himself directly with Goldfinger's "girl," Jill Masterson. Goldfinger doesn't take too kindly to this, and after having his Korean henchman Oddjob knock out Bond, proceeds to murder Masterson by having her painted entirely in gold, the conceit being that she would suffocate from this happening (one of many medical fallacies that Fleming peppered throughout his books including that homosexuals cannot whistle and that sumo wrestlers retract their testicles). This death creates one of cinemas most famous images, that of Masterson, face down on a hotel bed, painted head to toe in gold. This death is so iconic in the series that it is given an inky black remix in Quantum of Solace where a character's naked, dead body is found in the same pose on a hotel bed, this time dripping in black oil. Masterson's vengeful sister briefly becomes involved in the plot, but falls dead after a throw of Oddjob's bowler hat.
From there, Bond is propelled into he plot proper, with M tasking him with investigating Goldfinger on suspicions that he is smuggling gold across borders, in order to capitalise on the varying prices of the precious metal in each country. To aid in his mission, we get our first true gadget briefing by Q, taking place in Q-branch. As would become tradition, the scene starts with a leisurely walk through the facility, where we get glimpses of wild gadgets being tested out, whilst Q explains the gadgets that Bond will be kitted out with for his own mission. The highlight here is the first of many tooled out cars that Bond will get his hands on, this one being the iconic Aston Martin DB5, complete with ejector seat ("Ejector seat, you're joking?" "I never joke about my work 007.")
The film then moves into what would also become another Bond staple, that of Bond and the villain sparring over a "friendly" game of some description. Here it is a round of golf, where Goldfinger again can't help but cheat. These scenes are always fun and again border on parody, as it seems Bond has no real interest in investigating the bad guy, and instead just wants to humiliate and piss him off. Here Bond's coup results in Goldfinger dropping his facade, all but admitting that he knows it was him who ruined his card cheating in Miami, and getting Oddjob to demonstrate his iconic method of killing, on a statute - a razor rimmed bowler hat decapitates that statute.
Goldinger himself is rightly considered one of the best, if not best villains of the series. This status is helped immeasurably by ensuring that he and Bond share numerous scenes with each other to allow the animosity to build, and in particular giving the audience scenes that are from his perspective. This latter technique is one that has not been capitalised in the recent Craig films, which often results in their antagonists lacking significant screen time to truly make them memorable.
Goldfinger and Bond also probably have the most iconic "Bond in deathtrap set by monologing villain" scene. Here, Bond is captured by Goldfinger whilst infiltrating his factory in Switzerland, and awakes to find himself strapped to a table, with a laser beam slowly advancing between his legs. Goldfinger gloats over Bond, but crucially he declines to reveal anything about his plans. Interestingly, whilst the expected trope is to have the Bond villain reveal all plans when they have James totally at their mercy, Goldfinger somehow subverts this before it is even a trope. This is typified by the famous exchange "Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die!" And how does Bond escape from this trap? Fancy gadget? Nope - he actually uses his wits, and drops overheard snipped of information "Operation Grand Slam." This cause Goldfinger pause for thought, worried that if Bond has relayed this back to his allies, then eliminating him will only result in the cavalry coming for him. And so, the film also has a plausible reason for Goldfinger to then not only keep Bond alive, but to wine and dine him, after flying to America, in order to keep the pretence up for any other onlookers that Bond is more than happy and safe with him.
On the flight to America, we are also introduced to perhaps the most iconic Bond girl, being the late, great Honor Blackman's preposterously named Pussy Galore (sadly, she died 3 days prior to starting this series of reviews at the grand old age of 94). Galore is Goldfinger's personal pilot, and head of the all-female "Pussy Galore's Flying Circus" (which only on most recent viewing did I think must have been some of the inspiration behind the name of "Monty Python's Flying Circus). Galore sets the template going forward of tough, professional females, who have seemingly fallen to the side of evil. Over the course of the series, these characters have one of two conclusions: fall for Bond's charms and defect and live, or continue with evil and die. Here, Galore is swayed (read: raped) by Bond, after a fight and defects to the light. My history tutor in university memorably said that the success of Bond's plot entirely hinges on the fact that Bond rapes Galore, who's defection then foils Goldfinger's plot. More disturbingly still, is when you combine Galore's line to Bond that she is "immune" to his charm and the fact that her novel counterpart is a lesbian
And Goldfinger's plot is certainly an audacious one. We first appear to learn of his plot when he reveals it to a "mobster convention" of gangster dons, all of whom had provided him with some asset to assist in the plot. He tells the gang that he will disperse a gas over Fort Knox, using Galore's school of pilots, that will knock out the battalion stationed there. He will then raid the gold depository there, and split the bounty with the mobsters. However, Goldinger proceeds to release this gas in the room housing the gangsters, who all drop dead. Having overheard this plot, Bond then spars with Goldfinger saying that there is no way that he has enough manpower to steal all the gold in Fort Knox quickly enough, to which Goldfinger slyly replies "Who said anything about stealing?" Here, the plot of the novel and film significantly diverge. In the novel, Fleming had Goldfinger steal, but in the film, Bond rightly calls this out as impossible considering the sheer amount of gold. Instead, Goldfinger has procured a nuclear bomb from Communist China, which he will detonate at Fort Knox, irradiating the gold for decades. This will please Communist China, and will cause Goldfinger's own gold to rise in value. Crucially, Galore does not know that this is the true plan, instead believing that the knock out gas will be used and gold simply stolen.
And so, with Galore's defection, she and her school, switch out the lethal gas, the CIA and army stationed at Fort Knox are made aware and play dead when the "gas" is dispersed, and Goldfinger thinks he is on the way to victory. He arms the nuke, handcuffs Bond to it, and leaves it at the bottom of the vault. But then, the army assaults Goldfinger's forces, but ever the evil genius he reveals himself to be wearing a USA military uniform under his clothes, and evades capture. Meanwhile, Bond and Oddjob brawl to the death, with Oddjob easily overpowering Bond. This again requires Bond to rely more on his wits than gadgets, killing the henchman when he goes to recover his metal rimmed hat from metal bars by passing an electric current between them. The set design here is cavernous and epic in scale, and the fight between Bond and Oddjob whilst somewhat dated in terms of choreography still works on the merits of how out
matched Bond appears to be. This will again go on to be a trope of the series, having Bond being physically outmatched by the primary henchmen, and having him need to rely on his wits to defeat them.
The film also manages to invent a further trope, by having Bond wrap up the primary conflict but having an adversary escape and ambush him, whilst he is vulnerable on some mode of transport (The Man with the Golden Gun, and Live and Let Die spring to mind immediately). Here, Bond believes he is on a flight to be congratulated by the US President, whereas in reality, Goldfinger has hijacked it, and now aware of Galore's defection has forced her to fly the plane. Bond and Goldfinger briefly fight, before a wayward shot from Goldfinger's golden revolver causes the plane to decompress, and sucks the villain out of the plane to his death (a death foreshadowed earlier in the film, when Bond warns Galore about this very danger when she threatens him with a gun on a plane herself).
It isn't too hard to see why this Bond managed to be such a critical and commercial smash, solidifying the Bond formula whilst also keeping its tongue firmly in its cheek without falling into parody, something that several of the later films failed to do. Connery is probably never better in the role, confident and intimidating when called to action, but never shying away from the inherent absurdity of the plot. A gold plated classic.
The plot hews particularly close to that of the novel: through an act of happenstance, Bond becomes involved in a minor bit of card cheating by the gold magnate Auric Goldfinger, which then puts him on the road to a more significant criminal enterprise headed by the villain, which will see him travel to Switzerland, Kentucky USA and Fort Knox.
For the first time in the series, we have the true, traditional pre-credit sequence, being an isolated action sequence with no connection to the main plot of the film. And even in his first appearance in the film, you can see the tightrope balance of action and humour, with Bond infiltrating a drug production facility by sea, with a model seagull affixed to his submerged head. We get Bond peeling off a wet-suit to reveal immaculate white tuxedo, Bond casually lighting a cigarette in a bar as his bomb explodes and he remains unflappable around screaming patrons, Bond returning to woo a woman (and using her body as a shield against an assailants attack when he realises she isn't to be trusted), and a classic post-death Bond quip when he throws an electric desk fan into a bath with a goon in - "Shocking, positively shocking."It is then on to the theme song, sung by arguably the voice of Bond, Shirley Bassey. Much like the film itself, her vocal stylings for the title music here have been continually imitated through the series, and rarely bettered (even by Bassey herself, returning for two more songs). The song itself also sets out a lyrical template for future songs to use, namely that it should really be about the villain, almost pumping up the despicableness prior to the villain even being shown to the audience.
Bond's plot starts in an odd fashion, the is often repeated in several other films. Rather than simply being assigned to the mission by M, he instead happens upon a thread of the plot by pure luck, which he then decides to unravel. Here, he is holidaying in Miami, where Felix Leiter (previously seen in Dr No) asks him to investigate Auric Goldfinger (Auric, Au as in the element for gold - get it?) who is at the same resort. Leiter suspects that Goldfinger is cheating at cards at the resort, and simply wants Bond to figure out if this is the case.
Bond investigates, and because he is Bond he also involves himself directly with Goldfinger's "girl," Jill Masterson. Goldfinger doesn't take too kindly to this, and after having his Korean henchman Oddjob knock out Bond, proceeds to murder Masterson by having her painted entirely in gold, the conceit being that she would suffocate from this happening (one of many medical fallacies that Fleming peppered throughout his books including that homosexuals cannot whistle and that sumo wrestlers retract their testicles). This death creates one of cinemas most famous images, that of Masterson, face down on a hotel bed, painted head to toe in gold. This death is so iconic in the series that it is given an inky black remix in Quantum of Solace where a character's naked, dead body is found in the same pose on a hotel bed, this time dripping in black oil. Masterson's vengeful sister briefly becomes involved in the plot, but falls dead after a throw of Oddjob's bowler hat.From there, Bond is propelled into he plot proper, with M tasking him with investigating Goldfinger on suspicions that he is smuggling gold across borders, in order to capitalise on the varying prices of the precious metal in each country. To aid in his mission, we get our first true gadget briefing by Q, taking place in Q-branch. As would become tradition, the scene starts with a leisurely walk through the facility, where we get glimpses of wild gadgets being tested out, whilst Q explains the gadgets that Bond will be kitted out with for his own mission. The highlight here is the first of many tooled out cars that Bond will get his hands on, this one being the iconic Aston Martin DB5, complete with ejector seat ("Ejector seat, you're joking?" "I never joke about my work 007.")
Goldinger himself is rightly considered one of the best, if not best villains of the series. This status is helped immeasurably by ensuring that he and Bond share numerous scenes with each other to allow the animosity to build, and in particular giving the audience scenes that are from his perspective. This latter technique is one that has not been capitalised in the recent Craig films, which often results in their antagonists lacking significant screen time to truly make them memorable.
And Goldfinger's plot is certainly an audacious one. We first appear to learn of his plot when he reveals it to a "mobster convention" of gangster dons, all of whom had provided him with some asset to assist in the plot. He tells the gang that he will disperse a gas over Fort Knox, using Galore's school of pilots, that will knock out the battalion stationed there. He will then raid the gold depository there, and split the bounty with the mobsters. However, Goldinger proceeds to release this gas in the room housing the gangsters, who all drop dead. Having overheard this plot, Bond then spars with Goldfinger saying that there is no way that he has enough manpower to steal all the gold in Fort Knox quickly enough, to which Goldfinger slyly replies "Who said anything about stealing?" Here, the plot of the novel and film significantly diverge. In the novel, Fleming had Goldfinger steal, but in the film, Bond rightly calls this out as impossible considering the sheer amount of gold. Instead, Goldfinger has procured a nuclear bomb from Communist China, which he will detonate at Fort Knox, irradiating the gold for decades. This will please Communist China, and will cause Goldfinger's own gold to rise in value. Crucially, Galore does not know that this is the true plan, instead believing that the knock out gas will be used and gold simply stolen.
And so, with Galore's defection, she and her school, switch out the lethal gas, the CIA and army stationed at Fort Knox are made aware and play dead when the "gas" is dispersed, and Goldfinger thinks he is on the way to victory. He arms the nuke, handcuffs Bond to it, and leaves it at the bottom of the vault. But then, the army assaults Goldfinger's forces, but ever the evil genius he reveals himself to be wearing a USA military uniform under his clothes, and evades capture. Meanwhile, Bond and Oddjob brawl to the death, with Oddjob easily overpowering Bond. This again requires Bond to rely more on his wits than gadgets, killing the henchman when he goes to recover his metal rimmed hat from metal bars by passing an electric current between them. The set design here is cavernous and epic in scale, and the fight between Bond and Oddjob whilst somewhat dated in terms of choreography still works on the merits of how out
matched Bond appears to be. This will again go on to be a trope of the series, having Bond being physically outmatched by the primary henchmen, and having him need to rely on his wits to defeat them.
The film also manages to invent a further trope, by having Bond wrap up the primary conflict but having an adversary escape and ambush him, whilst he is vulnerable on some mode of transport (The Man with the Golden Gun, and Live and Let Die spring to mind immediately). Here, Bond believes he is on a flight to be congratulated by the US President, whereas in reality, Goldfinger has hijacked it, and now aware of Galore's defection has forced her to fly the plane. Bond and Goldfinger briefly fight, before a wayward shot from Goldfinger's golden revolver causes the plane to decompress, and sucks the villain out of the plane to his death (a death foreshadowed earlier in the film, when Bond warns Galore about this very danger when she threatens him with a gun on a plane herself).
It isn't too hard to see why this Bond managed to be such a critical and commercial smash, solidifying the Bond formula whilst also keeping its tongue firmly in its cheek without falling into parody, something that several of the later films failed to do. Connery is probably never better in the role, confident and intimidating when called to action, but never shying away from the inherent absurdity of the plot. A gold plated classic.
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