The Bond blogs: 'Goldfinger' (1964)

Introduction 

A massive enterprise of books, comics, movies... even a one-off TV special. The Bond film franchise (consisting of 23 "official", and 3 unofficial, entries) celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and in commemoration there's been a big blu-ray box of all 22 theatrical films from MGM (the 23rd picture, Skyfall, is on its way to theaters in November). The big Bond craze has also inspired me to write retrospectives on all of the films.

I previously covered the franchise's inaugural outing, 'Dr. No', and the first sequel, 'From Russia with Love'. Now, lets take a look at the birth of the Bond phenonenon with 'Goldfinger'.

'Goldfinger' (1964; Guy Hamilton)

After the release of Dr. No and From Russia With Love, each successes in their own right, franchise producers Albert "Cubby" Broccoli and Harry Saltzman were immediately set to make a third adventure with super-spy James Bond.  The next film was set to be basedon author Ian Fleming's "Thunderball", the ninth Bond book first published in 1961. However, a then-on-going legal dispute between Fleming and screenwriter Kevin McClory--who sued the scribe for pilfering the plot of the "Thunderball" novel from an unproduced script McClory co-wrote with Fleming and Jack Whittingham in the late 1950s--prevented them from adapting the material.

Instead, the duo in charge of EON Productions turned to the seventh novel in Fleming's series, Goldfinger, for their third film. As the saying goes, "third times the charm", and many consider Goldfinger--and it's script, a prototype built upon the by-then-perfected Bond forumla, which all later entries at least partly attempt to emulate--to be the best of any Bond film.

I'll admit, I don't.

Behind the scenes, Goldfinger was both a departure from and return to form for the franchise. Terence Young--who directed the first two films, and would come back one final time with the fourth Bond picture, Thunderball, in 1965--declined taking his position behind the camera, after falling into fee disputes with the producers (he wanted a percentage of the gross).

In my opinion, this was a great loss, as I truly feel Young is the unsung hero of the early Bond movies; Connery, Cubby, Saltzman and Fleming all deserve credit in creating the iconic franchise too, but without Young's forming of Bond as a full-blown film hero in these earliest stages, there might not have been a franchise at all. (Outside of Bond, Young directed many films, including the excellent Audrey Hepburn thriller Wait Until Dark and for that he deserves accolades, too). Young's three Bond pictures rank amongst my favorites, in part because the director, also a writer, was smart in the choices he made. His direction, surprisingly modern even from the viewpoint of today, was founded on an apt balance between grounded believability and the fancy of Bond-ish fantasy. Young tended to mesh mild comedy with a sense of seriousness. And he had style; loads of style, moving his camera in some wildly inventive ways for the day. In my opinion, Young did all this better than almost any director ever has with 007.

Young's masterful From Russia With Love managed to be fun, but still maintained a serious edge, which is why I think it's the best Bond-Classic (many of the post-Roger Moore Bond pictures are better for similar reasons, too). Young's second (and third; but more on that one next time) outing was also slickly directed; framed and staged in innovative, often unexpectedly contemporary, ways.

The replacement director on Goldfinger, a close friend of Ian Fleming, was Guy Hamilton. And Hamilton's approach, although technically polished, brought Bond into the less serious light that shone on most of the films until the late 1980s. Many see this shift into increasingly outlandish comedy as a positive; once again, I must note I don't. I like my Bond less tonally bouffant: less... cheesy. Hamilton's Goldfinger is odd in tone, and has a lifelessness to its workman-like direction.

Now, that's not to diminish Goldfinger's more than decent-ness. It is a very solid movie, flaws and all, full of fun little bits, memorable characters, and home to easily a half-dozen of the franchise's most iconic images. It is, in several ways, the essential example of Bond on film. It has an excellent pre-credit action sequence, a truly terrific score by composer John Barry (not to mention one of the most memorable theme songs ever recorded for the franchise), what might the be Bond's ultimate gadget, the quintessential madman villain in Auric Goldfinger (second only in franchise lore to the far more frequently seen baddie, Ernst Stavro Blofeld), and one of the best bad Bond girls ever in Ms. Pussy Galore.

I just think the plot of Goldfinger is more than a little strange: 007 spends most of the movie inertly captive, and kind of helpless; things just sort of happen around him and to him, not because of him. And some elements balloon to unbelievable, ridiculously and frankly unintentionally hilarious, proportions under the less impressive directorship of Hamilton, who was obviously new to the franchise and brought with him a style and tone that (for better, or, in my opinion, often worse) was... different.  Different, less experienced, than previous helmer Terence Young, who had, I think, a firmer grasp of the medium and of the central character on which this franchise is based.

Fortunately, while Young failed to return, one crew member crucial to Goldfinger's clear creative successes did rejoin the franchise ranks, after not working on From Russia With Love. Production designer Ken Adam resumed his post on the third Bond picture, and did great work in the film, as he would continue to do in many a Bond movie in the following years. (Note: Adam couldn't work on the earlier From Russia With Love because he was busy designing Oscar-winning sets for Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.)

various foreign market posters for Goldfinger

Understand: I think Goldfinger is a good Bond movie; I just don't think it's the greatest one.

Of course, my opinion matters very little in the end. In every measurable way, Goldfinger is an undisputed win: it was the first blockbuster in the franchise, making back the $3 million budget in just two weeks, eventually earning $125 million at the global box office. The film was very truthfully a genuine phenomenon, successful not just in its native United Kingdom, but elsewhere around the world. The film spawned a line of toys, a resurgent interest in the books, and in a way was the picture that catapulted the series into the stratosphere. Although the earlier films had both done well in the Americas, Goldfinger was the first of the films to do a majority of its business in the US market, and get considerable praise within Hollywood (Goldfinger was the first Bond film to win an Academy Award, although it was a technical Oscar, for Sound Editing).

The so-called Bond Phenomenon occurred right around the release of Goldfinger, with book sales, merchandising deals, and foreign box office returns on the films (the previous two pictures went into re-release as a double feature, where they both made mega-bucks) exploding into record numbers.

The success in the United States makes some sense, though. Goldfinger is a uniquely, somewhat forcibly, American tale. The British agent spends most of his time in the States (in both Miami and Kentucky), saving the country's Federal Reserve from being irradiated by a formidable foe (equipped with a Chinese-manufactured dirty-bomb) hellbent on bankrupting the West.

The Mission

007 investigates Auric Goldfinger, a suspected smuggler, only to uncover Operation Gland Slam, the gold magnate's much bigger plot to rob Fort Knox.

The Pre-credit Sequence

For the third and final time, Maurice Binder's original black-and-white "gun barrel" iris opens the film. As it was in From Russia With Love, this short sequence was simply reused from Dr. No. It wouldn't be until Thunderball that the effect would be redone in color, with Connery actually in the role and pointing the gun at the screen for the first time.

What qualms I have with the plot, direction or general tone of the main feature, I'll freely state Goldfinger's pre-credit action sequence is one of the best in the series. It's just terrific. From the brisk, dialog-free, first 2 and a half minutes--in which John Barry blasts a brassy reinterpretation of Monty Norman's theme, mixed with new cues--to the sight of Bond slipping from the water and peeling off his wetsuit to reveal a clean white tuxedo, the sequence is solid adventure stuff. And the pun-tastic endcap, with Bond sexing up a near-nude woman, and bumping off a would-be-assassin with a few patented Bond-Punches and a swiftly-delivered heat-lamp to a bathtub, makes this pre-movie teaser, as Bond says, "Shocking. Positively shocking."It's also, quite unlike most of the film to follow, quite lively.

The pre-credit sequence in Goldfinger is only vaguely associated with the main plot to follow; the mini-mission to blow up a drug lord's compound is merely the means by which Bond is near enough Miami to set off the feature film. But, otherwise, it's unrelated, and starts the tradition--in opposition to what was seen in From Russia With Love--of the first sequence standing alone, largely separate from the rest of the film.

The Main Title

Goldfinger's opening titles by Robert Brownjohn echo the designers similarly sexy sequence in From Russia With Love, with the credits (and scenes from all three Bond pictures) projected onto semi-nude women.

The title theme song, composed by Barry, with lyrics by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, and sung by Shirley Bassey, is one of the franchise's best. The same could be said for the entire soundtrack and score for the film, in my opinion. Goldfinger marked the first time Barry (who chose to compose with predominately brass instrumentation, recalling the metallic themes of the source material) had complete creative control over music.

Goldfinger was also the first time the title song was synched with the credits--which would become a staple of the franchise--and solidified the tradition of having a pop-ish tone for the tune. The Goldfinger soundtrack was very popular at the time of release, topping the Billboard 200 chart; the title track single would go on to reach number eight on the Hot 100 chart, too.

Bassey would sing the themes to two other Bond films, Diamonds Are Forever and Moonraker.

The Villains 

Gert Frobe as Goldfinger

Goldfinger is a rare beast in the Connery canon in that the villain, the eponymous Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe), is in no way related to S.P.E.C.T.R.E, the evil organisation headed by Bond's bald nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld. This is stranger still, because, in the book from which this film takes its title, Goldfinger is a suspected spy for SMERSH (the real-life Soviet counter-intelligence agency on which S.P.E.C.T.R.E. was loosely based). Regardless of his afflictions, Goldfinger stands as one of the most recognized of Bond's film foes, perhaps because of his gigantic freakin' laser that'll curl your toes... Mr. Bond.

The producers originally approached Orson Welles to play the part of Goldfinger, but he demanded too great a fee. So, instead, EON eventually settled on Gert Fröbe after witnessing his quiet menace in It Happened In Broad Daylight, a German film in which the actor played a creepy child molester.

At the time of production, Fröbe didn't speak English--at least, he didn't speak it very well--and is said to have read his lines phonetically. His delicately deliberate delivery was too slow for the filmmakers' liking, and they decided to dub him, which necessitated the actor actually double the speed of his performance; Michael Collins provided Goldfinger's voice in all but one scene.

Olympic weightlifter/actor Harold Sakata was cast as Oddjob, Goldfinger's quiet Korean manservant with a particularly sharp hat-trick, after director Guy Hamilton saw him on a sports program on television. Although the character says not a single word in the entire runtime, Sakata's physicality makes Oddjob another memorable feature of an already incredibly memorable film. His final fight with Bond is, some might say... electrifying.

Tried being punny...
Crushed it.

Oddjob, the short, mute, man with a hat he uses to chop people's heads off, would start the odd-henchman-with-a-peculiar-trait trend and serve as the prototype for many of the outlandish baddies in most of the following films.

The Allies 

The standard MI6 support system--M (Bernard Lee), Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell) and Q (Desmond Llewelyn)--all expectedly return to help Bond with his mission in Goldfinger. The character of Q was fleshed out considerably, with 007 making first of many visits to the Q-branch offices. Hamilton told Llewelyn to put some humor in his part; in response, the actor played up a friendly-yet-antagonistic edge the character seems to have with Bond, a hallmark that continued into the 1990s.

In the franchise's first ever "briefing" scene, Q equips Bond with the first of his killer apps--a weaponized Aston Martin, with all sorts of extra bells and whistles. The Q-explains-how-it-works-scene would also became a recurring element.

Cec Linder as Felix Lieter

Goldfinger also features the reintroduction of Bond's close CIA-agent ally, Felix Lieter. Lieter made his first showing in Dr. No, played by Jack Lord. Reportedly, Lord wanted salary and billing equal to Connery in any sequel, so the producers scrapped his proposed part in From Russia With Love. To remain faithful to the novel, and to use the most logical ally Bond has in the American region, EON decided to recast the character for Goldfinger.

Cec Linder was cast, playing Lieter as an older, more experienced, agent than how Lord portrayed him. He stepped into the role at the last minute (he was originally set to play Goldfinger's opponent in a poolside card game). Honestly, Linder's Lieter has never sat right with me. The way he brushes off Bond's captivity makes him seem like a bit of a buffoon. Perhaps that's the point?

Felix Lieter, like Bond's other allies, would return many times over. But Linder would not. He was the character just once; the part of Lieter was once again recast in Thunderball.

The Girls

Like most Bond films, almost every single woman in Goldfinger is out to get 007 in some way. Unlike most Bond films, every single woman is literally out to get him: As in, they want him dead. Even from the get go, in the pre-title sequence, the random woman Bond attempts to sleep with wants 007 dead. Although the Bond-girl-is-actually-an-aide-of-the-bad-guy-theme would return in nearly every franchise entry, and had already been done in fact in the very first film, it's of special interest here because two of these women, both employees of the eponymous villain, are so memorable. 

Shirley Eaton as gilded girl Jill Masterson

Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton), Goldfinger's secretary--and the bikini babe on the balcony overlooking the pool and feeding cards to the cheater via wireless radio--is one of the many women Bond beds throughout the series' long history, but her particular scene in a bed is, without a doubt, close to the most iconic image in the entire franchise canon. Masterson's murder--death by skin-suffocation, a result of being covered from head to toe in gold paint--isn't sound science (The Mythbusters proved it not exactly accurate). And yet, the sight of the naked blonde woman covered in gold is incredibly striking. Although only in the film for a few short scenes, Eaton became an icon, and her naked body was a dominant feature of the advertising.

Tilly Masterson (Tania Mallet), Jill's sister out for revenge, plotting to kill Goldfinger (and maybe Bond, too?), appears as well. She's less memorable than her sister, although, oddly, probably on screen longer.

But it's Honor Blackman who has the most presence in the film. As the obscenely-named Pussy Galore, the bad Bond girl with the second most ridiculous moniker in the entire franchise (top prize goes to the girl with the most blunt-headed double entendre for a handle, Plenty O'Toole, in Diamonds Are Forever), she remains one of the fiercest females to ever appear in a Bond film.

(An aside on the name Pussy Galore: At the time of release, the American censor wanted the character to be called Kitty Galore. It is said Guy Hamilton convinced the MPAA to overlook the name by taking the ratings man and his wife to dinner, and heaping praise upon the Republican Party. In later years he would claim to have rationalized the use of the name with the following wise words: "if you were a ten-year old boy and knew what the name meant, you weren't a ten-year old boy; you were a dirty little bitch.")

At once both friend and foe, Pussy's allegiances lie neither here nor there; which is what makes her so great. As Goldfinger's personal pilot, it would seem she's on his side, yet at nearly every turn she seems open to James' advances--even if she, sometimes, rebuffs him first.

What also makes Pussy so perfect is in part due to the casting of Blackman, the franchise's first real (as in actually talented) actress. Originally a TV star, playing opposite Patrick Macnee's John Steed as Cathy Gale in the 60s British Spy series The Avengers, Blackman's participation in the film was calculated, praying on her current popularity and sex appeal... and professionalism. Producer Cubby Broccoli once said in an interview, "The Brits would love her because they knew her as Mrs. Gale, the Yanks would like her because she was so good, it was a perfect combination."

At 38, Blackman is, to date, the oldest actress to play a Bond girl, and one of just two to be older than her screen partner filling the shoes of 007 (Connery was 34 at the time of Goldfinger).

The Gadgets

In the books, Bond drives a number of big-engined Bentley models. His prized British Racing Green open-top would only appear in one of the films, seen briefly in the picnic scene in the opening of From Russia With Love, before being replaced by a series of new, more marketable, vehicles. The first of such cars, and certainly the most iconic, is 007's silver Aston Martin DB5. The DB5 might just be Bond's best gadget in the entire franchise. Certainly, it's one of the best anyway. And it was the first in a long line of really awesome rides; I've always enjoyed Bond's cars.

If you're looking for the agent's "killer app", the DB5 is it. The car has: revolving licence plates, spinner hubcaps that double as tire slashers (scythed Roman chariot style), a passenger ejector seat, rear bulletproof shield and bulletproof glass, forward machine guns concealed behind the headlights, and rearward defenses including smoke and oil slick sprayers. Bond's Aston also comes equipped with an rudimentary GPS system, tied to a pair of magnetic homing beacons (one of which fits in Bond's shoe).

The Corgi Toys DB5

The DB5 would prove to be incredibly popular. Sales of the Aston Martin model increased considerably after Goldfinger's release date. Aston is easily the most recognizable of Bond's rides, and has made many appearances in the franchise outside of Goldfinger. The car has cameos in Thunderball, Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, Casino Royale, and is scheduled to appear in the 23rd entry, Skyfall later this year.

A replica, produced by Corgi Toys as a tie-in with the film, is among one of the most notable Bond collectables. Corgi began their long, lucrative, relationship with the Bond franchise following the runaway success of the DB5 toy.

The Awesome 

Goldfinger works only because the sum of its parts somehow add up in spite of the whole. The characters are some of the most memorable: Goldfinger is a formidable foe, Pussy a perfect Bond girl, and Bond himself a badass wiseass. Barry's score is terrific. The sets by Ken Adam are elaborate masterpieces of 1960s cinema design. And that's why, even at the most ridiculous, a scene like the one above--with Goldfinger's freakin' laser--has gone down as an iconic facet in the famed franchise.

It's the littler things that save the big pieces in Goldfinger. The car, the girls, the bad guy, Connery at his coolest, the music--all these elements work in spite of Hamilton's clunky direction, and the overall tonal shift, of this entry.

The Not So Awesome

The action scenes are really the undoing of Goldfinger for me. Everything else, glorious flaws and all, works fine. But Hamilton's lethargic lensing of moments that ought not be sleep inducingly bland, and lazily staged, are, well, exactly that. Because of Hamilton's blocking, camerawork, and loose editing, many moments in the film betray their age, something that cannot be said for most of what Terence Young put in his films.

So... Bond's final fight scene with Oddjob is awful, yes? Not because of the choreography... well, not only (certainly not the fault of stunt coordinator Bob Simmons, who thought up some incredible action choreography in Thunderball). It seems like Hamilton just set up a camera and let the whole thing play out in long takes, with almost no sound, because it was easier that way.

Problem is, it's lifeless. Compare this:

...with the positively brutal fight between Bond and Red Grant in From Russia With Love. The Young-directed sequence in From Russia looks like a contemporary of the action-blocking of a Jason Bourne flick. The stuff in Goldfinger... not so much.

Also, this:

...is one of the biggest action sequences in the film. Again; weird, inappropriate, lifelessness that's sort of sadly laughable.

And can we all agree that Goldfinger's Learjet looks like a lame cast-off from the Thunderbirds?