Goldfinger

Pre-existing prejudices: It’s Goldfinger. Also, for reasons best kept to myself, I’m aware that Fleming named the bad guy in the book after the Brutalist/modernist architect Erno Goldfinger because Fleming so despised his concrete buildings. And obviously, this contains a string of clichés even someone who has never seen a Bond movie would know – Pussy Galore, Odd-Job, “No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die!” and so forth. Whatever else you can say about this film, its place as part of the cultural lexicon is unshakeable, and that must mean something. Let’s find out what!

The Actual Movie:

As with From Russia With Love, we immediately start with the gun barrel opening still where it should be, and with the appropriate theme.

And as with the last film, we get a pre-credits sequence, though unlike the last film this one has absolutely no relevance to the movie whatsoever. Bond swims into a harbour with a duck on his head – not the perfect disguise, and more than a little dignity-stripping. Still, there’s no obfuscation here as there was with From Russia With Love, and the Bond theme has piped up before the two-minute mark (and again to delineate action, which is now its sole use). But we’re all action here as Bond breaks into the wherever-he-is and plans to blow it up. His bomb clock timer is rather sweet, an alarm clock with a big square battery, attached to Big Red Barrels of Nitro.

Then he legs it and, in the first of many unavoidable classic moments, slips out of his wetsuit to reveal a white tux. Bond lighting his cigarette as the explosion goes off and everyone else panics is suitably cool, and one of Connery’s better moments in this movie. We get to our first topless girl three and a half minutes in – not that we get to see everything of course but it’s not exactly subtle. Then, back in the bedroom while getting in a standard bit of romancing, Bond sees the reflection of an attacking man about to cosh him in the girl’s eye, then flips around so she gets hit in the head instead – what a gentleman! From thence we have Goldfinger’s first of many quips – “shocking” says Bond after electrocuting the bad guy in the tub, “quite shocking”. Mmm. After which, the pre-titles sequence is over and, other than filling up a few minutes of screen time, accomplices very little.

Next – the titles, and Shirley Bassey’s finest moment.

So the film proper kicks off in Miami, and we know this because of one of those handy exposition info-planes that flies over locations with a big banner trailing behind it declaring “Welcome To Miami!”, should you need to know where this portion of your film is set. This is followed by (too) long, lingering helicopter shots of a resort, and it all looks very 60’s (which of course it is). “I thought I’d find you in good hands,” drawls Felix as he finds Bond getting a massage. Then the (female, naturally) masseuse is dismissed with a simple “men’s talk” and a slap on the arse from Bond, which is… not great. But yes, Felix is back and no longer played by Jack Lord, but instead by the noticeably older Cec Linder – though they make the effort of referring to him having been in Jamaica, which is something at least.

Bond, it’s worth pointing out, is wearing a cyan/sky blue terylene dressing gown affair that makes him look like he’s roleplaying as an adult baby – it’s hideous and about as far from “suave” as it’s possible to get. We’re then treated to lots of generally very bad rear projection that makes it clear Connery never made it to the location shoot – the direction rather lets things down here. Anyway, Bond’s finally on the job. Jo Masterson, the first of (count em) three “Bond girls”, is introduced helping Goldfinger cheat at cards. Connery’s edgy in his first scenes with her works quite well and again plays to his strengths as an actor, though it doesn’t last long. It’s all a bit cheesy – “I know the best place in town” as he goes for the snog while a big pile of food is ignored, fairly typical Bond fare (ho-ho) that feels relatively undistinguished.

This is also where we get the famously misjudged “The Beatles without earmuffs” comment, which feels strange. As you might gather, it’s not a point of view I entirely agree with. Odd-job is then seen only in shadow as Bond is knocked out. Aaaaand… that’s the end of Jo Masterson. The image of her on the bed covered in gold is incredibly resonant, and genuinely shocking even when you know it’s coming. What’s more, Bond looks properly upset and sounds it on the phone when he calls in Felix for assistance, some decent work from Connery as Bond realizes how much his cavalier attitude has backfired and resulted in the death of someone innocent (well, fairly innocent). Now it’s personal.

A quick establishing shot of Westminster and we’re back in London with the return of M, and it’s nice that Bond is threatened to be taken off the case and be replaced by 008 – it gives a sense of this being an actual department and not just Bond-plus-the-other-semi-regulars. He does kind of accept responsibility for Jo Masterson’s death, and seems properly contrite, which is also a good piece of characterization.

We then cut to dinner and a lecture on economics and how gold works. It’s very old-fashioned and very “British” (that’s “British”, not British). But even if it is somewhat clumsy, it is the worry of the day – economic instability because of the price of gold (plus the suspicion that Goldfinger is smuggling gold as well as being a legitimate dealer – thanks for letting us know). Oh, and we get some plot-convenient Nazi gold as a lure for Goldfinger. Alongside M, Q is back as well, and this time out we get to see a bit behind the scenes. Desmon Llewellin is noticeably better than he was in From Russia With Love and actually seems to have a character here (“now pay attention”, which will go on to be his catchphrase). “Where’s my Bentley?” Bond asks, which again is such a minor detail but again gives the sense that these are an ongoing series of missions, not just a one-and-done. But we get the big Aston Marten DB5 reveal, and fair enough, it is beautiful. It’s a far cry from an attaché case with a knife in the handle, though the rather over-delivered explanation of every single gadget is just a touch too literal (and long) – the question it mostly leaves in the mind is, “how long till we get to see all these fancy things in action then?” Watch this space…

Speaking of over-delivered and long, now we’re off to the golf course! Imagine the excitement… Actually you’ll have to imagine it, because it’s entirely absence here. Now Bond and Goldfinger are playing for Nazi gold… trying to stay awake… even the bar of Nazi gold isn’t making things interesting… Different balls, Slazenger 1 and 7… oh gods this is dull… Bond wins by replacing the ball – who gives a fuck? This is by far the dullest sequence from the three Bond movies thus far. I get they’re sounding each other out, and it’s meant to be a cat-and-mouse game as they try to one-up each other, but this is just tedious.

Bond places his already-explained tracker on Goldfinger’s car, and it’s the size of a fag packet. Stevie Wonder could have found it… We also get to see Odd-Job’s lethal hat. It’s silly, in a typically Bond way, but not distractingly so. Bond gets his cash all the same, and we see the 60’s Google Maps built into the Aston Martin (it looks pretty good for the time, to be fair). Goldfinger’s car is loaded onto to plane, the number plate for which is AU01, which is rather clever (AU being the chemical symbol for Gold, and the first two letters of Auric Goldfinger’s name. That’s some smart writing).

From one location to another, and thankfully not a golf course in site – we instead shift to Geneva and some lovely scenery as Bond’s far-from-discreet Aston races a Mustang. Like you do. Bond feels up for the chase, but actively stops himself from being reckless, a nice touch, given his previous recklessness got Jo Masterson killed. We get to see Bond observing Goldfinger from the road, then pull back to see the same but with a shooter (apparently) pointing at Bond, a decent bit of direction at last. OK, now the chase is on. Bond drives the mysterious woman in the Mustang off the road, and her dismissive attitude towards him, as he attempts the usual charm routine, is quite a nice contrast to his earlier sexism.

At last, Bond gets to do some actual sleuthing, spying on Auric Industries. We get to see some time passing as he waits until nightfall to approach, so we see him actively putting in the hours rather than just turning up at a convenient moment, which is appreciated… So Bond overhears Goldfinger both explaining how he smuggles gold (it’s in his Rolls-Royce, which is fairly neatly handled, and something called Operation Grand Slam. The overhearing is a bit convenient to be honest, though it’s not the worst example in this film (we’ll get to that). Bond finds another spy, and we get to meet Jo Masterson’s sister, the not-exactly-intimidating-sounding Tilly, who’s out for revenge for her sister’s death (Bond doesn’t find it necessary to point out that it was basically his fault).

Tilly is played by Tania Mallet – and she’s a terrible actor. Still, before she can stink things up too badly, we’re off to the car chase you all knew was coming as soon as Q laid out all the gadgets the Aston Martin was fitted out with. Bits of it are very well done, but bits of it are clearly only there to show off what the car (by which I mean the special effects team) can do. Nice big car crash when one of the bad guys’ cars plummets off a cliff though. If you watched this sequence with your eyes closed you’d swear this was a Western – all the gunshots sound like they should be fired by John Wayne with the standard “peeewwww-wwww” ricochet sound.

Eventually, the car is forced to stop and Tilly is taken down by Odd-Job’s hat – no great loss to the film frankly, but it’s good to see another example of Bond miscalculating and losing. He’s definitely not infallible and it makes him seem more real. All the henchpeople at Auric Industries are Asian – why? We’re in Switzerland and we get no explanation for this on screen at all. To take Bond back to Auric Industries the henchpeople make the mistake of putting Bond back in the Aston Martin, which they’ve already seen have multiple “special features” – no wonder so many of them get killed off. Idiots. Then at last we get to the inevitable ejector seat sequence and laughs ahoy as a dummy is fired out the top of the car. There’s a bit of a car chase with some ill-advised speeded-up footage, and eventually Bond miscalculates and crashes into a wall. Because he drove at a mirror. D’oh!

Which leads us to one of the most famous scenes in all the Bond movies – Bond strapped to a table while a laser works its way up to his crotch. This is interesting at least in part because lasers hadn’t been invented in the real world then – they were purely theoretical. “No Mr Bond, I expect you to die!” guffaws Goldfinger in classic villain mode, yet there’s some real tension as we wait to discover whether Goldfinger will fall for Bond’s bluff regarding Operation Grand Slam (some good incidental music here really helps too). It’s the best written and directed sequence in the movie so far, and there’s a reason that it’s rightly remembered – it’s very well done indeed (points too, to Connery, who’s putting in the effort).

So Bond is knocked out and taken captive, as one would expect. As with the last two films, it takes a surprisingly long time to get to what we regard as a staple of the genre – we get the first appearance of Pussy Galore, the film’s “proper” Bond girl (after Jo and Tilly), at the 55-minute mark, way into the film’s run-time and just shy of the halfway mark. “You can turn off the charm” she tells him, “I’m immune”, and Honour Blackman is an immediately worthwhile foil for Connery. About time. The model “private jet” she flies is hilariously poor. Bond asks for his attaché case, which isn’t available but is a nice nod to the last film I assume. The spying equipment on the plane is all very low-tech – holes in walls, which is rather charming, and there’s a decent game of cat and mouse going on here.

Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus! If that doesn’t make you fall off your sofa laughing then there’s something wrong with you. There’s just a tiny hint of feminism here – Pussy’s trained her pilots in contrast to expectations (the assumption is a man would do it), and all the pilots are female. It’s a start, but it’s very far down in the mix and rather undermined by the “sexy” sax of the Carry On variety as the pilots emerge from their planes. The action shifts to a stud farm because apparently the only thing Goldfinger likes as much as gold is horse cock. Funny that didn’t make it into the Shirley Bassey song. It’s also the first time Bond is “a welcome guest” of someone as a euphemism for being in prison (as opposed to Dr No, when he was in a gilt-lined cage).

Now we get a whole conference room full of baddies getting exploited as Goldfinger uses their greed against them – “a million today or ten million tomorrow”. A typically-Bond big sliding control panel and map of the vastly impractical type dominates the room, alongside rotating and sliding floors and bars and… well it’s all a bit over the top, but fun. Goldfinger announces he wants the crime equivalent of a moon shot. It’s… fine, they are sort-of explaining his motivation, but it’s all a bit plodding, and the fact that he wants to be seen as the master of crime, rather than just having a passion for gold and acquiring it any way he sees fit, is both introduced from nowhere then never spoken of again. The henchperson guarding Bond is incredibly dumb to open the door when he just can’t see Bond inside the cell. Not terrific. Still, at least Bond is out now, so maybe we can move things forward? Bond hiding inside the Fort Knox model while Goldfinger Explains His Evil Plan is a bit daft, but it does let him overhear Goldfinger’s blowhard routine and it’s back to the good-fun daft at least. After which Pussy discovers and gets the best of Bond, with alleged judo (she just pulls his ankles, but OK, whatever).

The bad guys are then all gassed, weirdly, which leads to a series of bad extras falling over (also something we’ll be returning to). The banker who pulled out of the meeting is unceremoniously killed off by Odd-Job to the strains of the Goldfinger theme, Bassey-free this time but with lots of shrieking brass. Bond did manage to plant a tracker (this one lighter-sized – do people in Q branch just build things the size of cigarette accoutrements?) on his body, so obviously knew he was being taken out to be killed. Which, fine, and he gets a note to Felix so that’s something. Then the car Odd-Job drove to dispose of the banker is crushed. It’s a striking image, but a bit on the pointless side. And the sequence goes on way too long. Doesn’t work.

We then get a scene between Pussy and Goldfinger, which bothers to take the time to establish a relationship between them, at last. Pussy’s motivation is to buy a little island in the Bahamas and go back to nature. Could it be any more 60’s? Interestingly, Goldfinger treats her as basically an equal and doesn’t leer after her, which is hugely appreciated, and at least she’s given some motivation. Felix has found his way to the stud farm now, so he can basically stand about watching the last twenty minutes of a Bond film. Then we get the explanation about Goldfinger’s true plan – irradiating the gold with a big Gold Irratiator atomic device to destabilise Western economies and increase the value of his own gold. It’s… a plan. Not the worst a Bond villain has ever come up with, not the best either.

The air raid assault pilots use the call sign “champagne” for some reason. The actual attack on Fort Knox is fairly well realized, though there’s not a huge amount of tension, but we get the second instance of huge hordes of extras all falling over after being “gassed” in a wildly unconvincing fashion. Cut to – inside Fort Knox, and The World’s Biggest Steel Door. They break in using the crotch-laser (there’s something I didn’t think I’d be typing today), earlier used to threaten Mr Connery’s genitals, in what is actually quite an understated manner, then we’re straight into a pitched battle, with lots of machine guns and solders doing stunt falls off high things. It’s well put together, to be fair, as is the idea that Goldfinger can whip off a coat to reveal an American general’s uniform as a ruse to escape.

Down in the vaults, trying to stop the atomic device, Bond defeating Odd-Job when Odd-Job clearly has him bested is some strong writing. This is because Bond visibly works out how to defeat him and then puts his plan into action, so (a bit of a rarity in this film) we see Bond being able to use his intelligence rather than just strength or luck to defeat the bad guy, and Odd-Job’s death is a satisfactory end to his character, and a good moment for Bond as well.

Bond stops the counter on “007” which is funny, stupid, cheesy and appropriate all at the same time, but it’s not nearly as funny as Bond looking at a collection of wires and circuits in the atomic device blankly with clearly no idea how to disarm the device, only for Felix to simply reach in and switch it off. So the day has been saved, hurrah! Or… has it? The final “Goldfinger gets sucked out of the plane” to be honest feels like a cop-out and not a great end to the character. The intent seems reasonable – one final shock after the bad guy’s apparently been defeated! – but in practice, it looks like a loose end to get Goldfinger out the way and then finish with the now-usual Bond-beds-the-girl sequence. It’s not a terrific conclusion. And why is Pussy, who has lest we forget mostly been working for the bad guy thus far and only swapped out the nerve gas to kill everyone at the last moment, flying Bond to the White House lunch? Well, obviously, so that she and Bond can escape together and have a final canoodle, but it mostly looks like the Americans have run out of pilots.

Oh wait, that’s the end of the film.

In Conclusion: The ur-text for James Bond, for better or worse. There’s lots of things that can be said about Goldfinger, but the most obvious is just how clear a template it is for what comes after this film, rather than it being a movie that’s built out of what’s come before. That’s a shame in a way because up until now the build from Dr No to From Russia With Love has proven effective and propulsive. But rather than doubling down on the Cold War thriller aspects of From Russia With Love, Goldfinger lurches in the opposite direction, and we get a bright, clear, action-adventure movie of a noticeably more straightforward variety. Here there’s none of the murky motives and shifting alliances that defined the last movie. And in a way, it’s fair enough because, after all, this movie as much as any secures the future of the franchise.

Is it an improvement thought? Well, it’s certainly different, but watching the films in order it’s a shame to see the careful work already laid down being discarded for a move in a new direction that seems entirely unconnected to what’s come before. The pre-titles sequence lays this out right from the very beginning – the sequence has nothing to do with the movie, and its only real reason to exist is to give us a bit of action before Shirley Bassey lurches into life. The direction of the movie is, in other words, a lot more simplistic, but at the same time, it’s obviously successful, since this ends up being how Things Are Going To Be from now on.

But the subtle hints of Bond as an anti-hero who’s just playing the role of someone of culture? They’re almost entirely absent, and the sanding off of those rougher edges does neither the character nor the film any favours. Since Connery is better at playing the thug-just-in-control than light comedy, they don’t do his performance much good either, and he’s just too relaxed here. A couple of the lighter moments land, like his “I must be dreaming” reaction to hearing Pussy’s name. And there’s one or two rare scenes where he’s given a bit more depth – his contriteness about getting Jo Masterson killed – but they’re too few to really carry any weight, and signs of self-indulgence are already starting to creep in (the vast excess of puns and quips, for example).

So why did this become such a defining text when it comes to Bond? Well, all the above criticisms do hold, but if you come to the film as a stand-alone item, then the simple fact is that it’s just great fun. The Aston Martin is kind of the synecdoche of this in regards to the movie – there’s some really great work done with it, some of it’s silly, and there’s a couple of moments which are outright bad, but mostly it’s hard not watch with a big smile of your face. A lot of the plot is fairly linear of the go-here-then-here variety, but it’s mostly carried off with such aplomb that it’s tough not to just get swept along by it. Though the direction is a step down after From Russia With Love’s superlative work (Guy Hamilton stepping into Terence Young’s shoes), it’s still competent and on occasion, like the attack on Fort Knox, genuinely impressive. This helps paper over a few cracks where things do go wrong, liketoo much rear-projection and the should-always-be-avoided speeded up footage earlier in the movie. But there’s just such a sense of momentum it’s very near impossible not to get swept along with the whole thing.

The (non-regular) cast too deserves some praise, but especially Honour Blackman as Pussy Galore. Whatever faults the film has in terms of its approach to women, of which there are many, Blackman is never less than a striking presence on screen, and she clearly makes Connery up his game when they’re appearing in scenes together. Indeed, it’s a shame the film takes so long to introduce her and get the two of them together because they make a terrific team and her no-nonsense approach coupled with his similar-but-different way of working lights up the movie whenever we get them together. Similarly, Gert Frobe (in fact, mostly voiced by Michael Collins) is clearly relishing every second of his time playing Goldfinger, and though it’s a hugely fruity performance it’s exactly the sort of screen-filling presence the film needs to make any of the nonsense whirling around him work. Yet work it does, and it’s precisely because he’s such a magnetic anchor at the centre of the film that Goldfinger can get away with quite so much. Again, it’s definitely different from what we’ve had in the last couple of movies but it absolutely works in this one.

Because there is a sense, watching it, that “getting away with it” is kind of Goldfinger’s modus operandi. In terms of the plot, what we get on screen mostly works, it’s fairly logical (by Big Bond Villain standards, anyway) and there are no gaping holes in the story. But it’s also completely preposterous and mostly succeeds on sheer momentum – stopping to think about it for even a second will derail everything. But the film mostly gets away with it, because, stupidly tedious golf sequence aside, it is a largely compelling, forward-moving piece with a big old ham of a villain dead centre. In terms of the action, the movie more or less gets away with it as well, because the big centrepiece car chase is (mostly) good, and the set pieces are all competently delivered. The characters – Tilly aside – are all worth spending time with. And even though Connery’s performance as Bond just isn’t as good as the last two outings, he’s still a compelling presence on screen. And so it goes. Every time it comes to praise something in the movie, there’s a qualifier required, and that’s because Goldfinger is mostly skating by on luck, charm and hope. But it really does get by on it.

So that’s why it becomes such a defining text – in the end, despite and maybe even because of its fairly obvious flaws, this is simpler and easier to watch than its two predecessors, and coupled with its success at the box office (which was vast – the fastest grossing film ever at that point) the deal was sealed – this is what works for Bond, so this is what’s going to happen from now on. And to be fair, the experience of watching this film isn’t, race and gender issues aside, in any way a bad one. But it’s still impossible not to feel a loss for the more interesting, murky world that Dr No and From Russia With Love inhabited, and for the more morally ambiguous anti-hero that Bond seemed to be developing into. Goldfinger is, in the end, a great action-adventure movie, though rarely more, but it also marks the end of one particular on-screen version of Bond, and that is something to be mourned.

What Percentage Of This Film Could Be Cut? About ten per cent. The golf course material is both incredibly dull and strung out far too long, and Goldfinger spends way too long explaining His Nefarious Plan to a bunch of people who are then promptly gassed a few seconds later anyway. This also, sadly, means Bond almost never has to work out what’s happening, he just overhears it – first at Auric Industries, then again at the stud farm – a sad diminishing of his genuine powers of investigation in From Russia With Love. There are little snippets here and there that could go as well, but 10% seems fair.

Quip Level: Oh without question massive. Really. Massive. We kick off with the “shocking” quip – which certainly lives up to its name – in the pre-credits sequence and it just never lets up. That’s a bit of a shame because it rather makes Goldfinger difficult to take seriously. Of course, it’s clear this movie isn’t going for the same tone as the “semi-realistic” feel of its predecessor, but it’s still pushed too far and it does rather undermine things. The excess of quips also doesn’t really play to Connery’s strengths as an actor. Some of the corniness is fun but too much and it just becomes a little tedious.

2025 Cringe Level: Pretty much along the lines of, “what were they thinking?” and lets hope things don’t deteriorate. In truth, there are just far too many decisions that would have seemed bafflingly poor in the 1960’s never mind today. It’s one thing to have “sexy saxophone” music as all Pussy’s pilots get out of their planes – kind of stupid, but perhaps forgivable given the context of the times and it’s also not being played entirely straight (no pun intended), so the tongue in cheek aspects at least helps to mitigate things slightly.

But the fact that every single one of Goldfinger’s henchpeople – all juniors – are Asian, not a single one of them gets a line, each and every one is nothing but cannon fodder, without a single word of explanation? It’s just straight-up racist. If you’re going to go for an all-Asian cast of henchpeople you need to explain why, even if it was something as crass as a line from Goldfinger about, “I do a lot of business there,” or, “they were provided by the Reds because I’m doing this for their benefit.” It’s not great, but it would be something. Of course, you could argue that Odd-Job is also of Asian extraction and he’s a major character… which he is, but he’s also entirely mute and takes orders from a white man, even to the death.

So… are only white men allowed to speak in this film, or act with any agency? Because even setting aside the race problem (which we absolutely shouldn’t do), the gender issues are substantially more difficult to deal with than they were in From Russia With Love. Remember that moment when Romanova finds herself on the end of a Bond slap because he needs to get information? It worked because Bond was being characterized as a bastard anti-hero who treated everyone the same, regardless of gender. Here? The way he forces himself on Pussy during their literal roll in the hay is just ghastly, not in a this-isn’t-politically-correct way but the fact that he just forces himself on her for pleasure. This isn’t some cunning ruse to get information by any means necessary, or a cat-and-mouse ploy, or just a way to get information, it’s just someone who’s horny forcing himself on someone else. While it is going too far to say he raped Pussy, he also obviously, clearly pushes himself on her against her will until she – eventually – capitulates. The treatment of race and gender in Goldfinger is absolutely appalling, and it’s not good enough to try and forgive this simply because this is “a bit of a romp” or “because it was the 60s” (as many have tried to do in the past). It’s dreadful, and the movie deserves to be called out for it.